Talk:Do Communists Have Better Sex?/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: HumanxAnthro (talk · contribs) 20:29, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

So first off... there's seriously a film like this in existence? Man, anything and everything exists in this world, I tell ya. Anyway, some comments I formed while skimming through this. All sources look high-quality, and the prose looks decent; however, it has some issues:

• "released on DVD in the United States and Japan in 2007 and 2008." Added "respectively" to the end of this sentence
• "easier divorce processes[9][11] and easier access to contraception and abortion.[11][12]" Repetitive prose. Easier is used twice.
• " art historian with background as editor of art" A bit unclear and awkward. Has he edited works of art? Did he edit for publications discussing art?
• "It was produced by the film company Ma.ja.de in association with television and radio broadcasters from different countries: MDR (Germany), Arte (France), Télévision Suisse Romande (Switzerland), and SBS (Australia).[18][19][20]" Since you talked about the director's other works in the previous section, is the "It" referring to the documentary or the works discussed in the previous sentence? I think you're referring to Do Communists Have Better Sex?, but please bring back the name for this sentence if so.
• "While films such as The Lives of Others and Good Bye, Lenin! were criticized for depicting a distorted picture of everyday life in East Germany, the documentary was noted for providing a positive image of the Eastern part." The last three words makes this a bit redundant; I think the first mention of the name of East Germany will be enough.
• "and praised how the editing ensured a good pace and flow to the mix of archive footage, animation and interviews." A little awkward as well as a little lengthly. I think all this says is that they said the editing was well-paced; if so, it's redundant to state "to the mix of archive footage, animation and interviews" since the Content section already establishes the film consists of that.
• "comparative nature" Clarify. Comparative in what? East vs. West Germany, or something else?
• "Charles Mudede of The Stranger liked it, saying "The only thing bad" was the animation usage.[31] Both Benita Blessing on H-Net and Anikó Szûcs, writing for Women & Performance, criticized the animation bits;" More redundancy. What does a critic "liking it" establish, since the previous two paragraphs have shown big praise for this film? Additionally, the animation is criticized by other critics in the next sentence, so I would list The Stringer critic in the same sentence as Blessing and Szucs for critics of the animation.
• "Blessing considered it to be "a welcome addition" to discussions on the topic and said it "belongs in any university library" but she noted it focused too much on women and did not approach men's relation to sex, while criticizing the usage of images without context to clarify whether they were Eastern or Western, without dates and source" Holy crap, this sentence is long

Anyway, those are my comments for now. HumanxAnthro (talk) 20:29, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for taking your time, HumanxAnthro. I've done edits to all your suggestions except for the "comparative nature" thing. My reasoning is the same you gave for redudancy in "the mix of archive footage, animation and interviews" part: the content section already explains it. Since it's a film about the sex both in West and East, I think the reader will understand that the "comparative natura" refers to the West vs. East thing; second thoughts? Cheers, Gabriel Yuji (talk) 04:07, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

After a source spot-check, this is getting a pass. Great work! I've been keeping off politics for the past couple of months at editing Wikipedia more often to improve by mental state (cause holy shit online political discourse is one de-sensitizing experience) but I'm gotta be honest: after reading the article, as a pro-capitalism and pro-liberty kind of dude, conservatives really are snowflakes when it comes to nudity and other people's sexual practices.

A couple of other comments:

For the "comparative nature" thing, I was making that comment just because I didn't get it at first. I figured out a few reads later what it meant, so I know what you mean.

I know the GA criteria doesn't review source formatting (apart from bare links), but I wanted to comment anyway... are we sure "Der Spiegel" is the author of the fourth source cited? Pretty confident that's the name of the work. A few other cites are like this is as well. If an author isn't credited, just don't put in the author field of the citation template. Just some advice if you're going to move this to FA status.

I'll actually admit for most sections, the prose is FA quality in terms of being able to summarize simply essential points cited by multiple sources, but I will say for the future to make the reception a little less quote farm (or opinion farm)-ish. Not that's it too bad in that regard, but could be a little better. HumanxAnthro (talk) 12:05, 27 February 2021 (UTC)