Talk:Don't Look Now/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Beloved Freak 17:03, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
Well written & meets GA criteria for MoS
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
1 link inaccessible ("access denied") but the citation in question is not vital for WP:V
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
Broad in coverage and focused. The omission of box offic stats is discussed on talkpage.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
Neutral and balanced.
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
Can see no problems with stability or content disputes.
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Images are licensed and sourced appropriately, non-free media used appropriately
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

This article easily meets the GA criteria. (Plus, it was very enjoyable to read.) I have a few suggestions/thoughts below, but nothing that should prevent the article from being listed. I have made a few minor edits, mostly related to the WP:MOS, so please check that you are happy with my changes.

1 link to a disambiguation page has been fixed.
1 external link shows "access denied" so should be addressed. (The BFI link currently at #55.) I have let it pass for the review as it is not, in my opinion, vital for WP:V since the sentence is backed up by the other sources in the paragraph. There are also a couple of links which are 301 redirects to new addresses and although are working now, should be updated.
No problems with plagiarism shown by Corenbot's tool or Earwig's tool, no problems in spot checks of sources.
Is there any reason why the film's nationality is not mentioned in the lead or infobox? I presume it's generally considered a British film, although the IMDb describes it as British/Italian.
I think there may be a bit of overlinking. I'm not sure that you need to link sexual intercourse or oral sex for example. Some other words that are probably reasonable to link, perhaps only need to be linked once (eg. psychic, séance etc.) I also got the sense that maybe some of the names of director & actors were being linked a few too many times, but it's subjective.
At the end of the plot section, I was curious as to whether or not we actually witness John's death. If so, I'd be more explicit about that, as it seems a bit mysterious. If not, then fine as it is...
There are a couple of sentences which seem quite long & unwieldy. I'm thinking in particular of sentences in the first & second paragraphs of the "analysis" section. This is probably down to taste, but I'm thinking of ease of reading.
The repetition of the filming dates & locations seems slightly odd
In the "reception" section, "Don't Look Now was nominated ... with Anthony B. Richmond winning ..." - this noun + ing construction is slightly awkward/ambiguous. (See User:Tony1/Noun plus -ing) it's almost implying that Richmond winning was simultaneous with the film being nominated.
With your citation formatting, I'm not really sure I agree with your use of "work" and "publisher". For example, you have " work = nytimes.com" and "publisher = The New York Times", where I would have "work=The New York Times" and "publisher=The New York Times Company". Not so long ago I would confidently ask you to change this, but I have seen so many variations lately, including at WP:FAC, that I'm just not sure any more. Obviously, if you intend to take this to WP:FAC, this may need sorting. Either way, there is enough information included for WP:V, so it's not a problem for the GA criteria.

As none of these issues are critical to the GA criteria, I'm happy to list the article as a good article.--Beloved Freak 19:01, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to do this, I greatly appreciate it. I will respond to your points:

Thanks for letting me know about the link rot, I will get on to this. I did a Webcite comb so many of them are archived but unfortunately not the BFI "access denied" link, so I'll track down another source for that. (I think the first reference is redundant anyway, courtesy of what follows in the paragraph. As for the other two links, I think one was the BFI top 100 list which I've corrected, but not sure the second one was. I'm guessing the Edgars because you are taken to a search page, but that's as far as a link can take you. You have to perform the search to access the film details, so I've tried to clarify that in the reference)
The nationality is slightly complicated, because while British cinema seems to have claimed it, in reality it is more international in production terms than the Brits would care to admit. The BFI classics book defines the film as a British/Italian production, rather than a film (it is co-produced by British and Italian companies); it was filmed in Italy, but the creative impetus is British; some of the funding may have come from Paramount I believe in the form of an advanced distribution fee. On the FilmProject, the infobox guidelines now recommend not stating the nationality if it is complicated, while the MOS states states that in ambiguous situations, the circumstances need to be clarified in the lead. Basically, I dodged the issue and you are right to call me up on it, so I will try to resolve this. Y
Obviously linking comes down to preference, but I will take a closer look at this. I generally prefer to link once within each top level section since readers probably go to the section they want to read about. Linking things like the sex terms outside of the sex scene section is probably overkill, but within the section they are probably topic relevant enough to retain the linking. I will have a look at this and try to reduce the linking where it is not topic relevant. Y (the most overt over-linking has been removed, there may still be some left but it's limited to context relevant sections)
I will clear up the ambiguous wording at the end of the plot section. Y
I will take a closer look at the prose. This has actually been a bugbear for me too and something I have been addressing periodically, so I more than accept it could be improved in some places. Obviously this goes to the very core of article construction, you add details bit by bit and the prose ends up slightly piecemeal. I think prose correction is a more gradual process though, you think you've written Shakespeare when you first add the content, and then you come back a month later and you see it needs to be improved. Doing...
As for the "repetition of filming locations", I will take a further look at this. I was aiming to make each section self-contained, but obviously I don't want the article to come across as repetitive. Y (merged the worst offender into one sentence in one section)
I will clarify the prose in the noms/awards paragraph. Y
In fact the work/publisher distinction seems slightly odd to me in a newspaper context. For instance with newspapers, academic referencing tends to regard the newspaper itself as the "publisher" rather than the company that puts out the newspaper, so you have the author, the title and the name of the newspaper (I would be surprised to see "The New York Times Company" for instance, listed in any academic journal). If it were online, you would tend to use the exact same format but also clarify it as an online source and explicitly provide the url. The "work" parameter tends to only be utilised in academic referencing for journals where it would carry the name of the journal, and the publisher would carry the name of the company/institution putting it out, but in most contexts and referencing styles it's an obsolete parameter. Most formal referencing styles do insist on explicitly including the url for online sources so the physical location of the information is clear. On Wikipedia the url is "hidden" beneath the title, so the name of the websites where you are getting your information isn't apparent by just looking down the references, so I just use the work parameter to provide the website's address. If someone pulled it out or wanted it removed it wouldn't bother me too much because it's basically redundant (if you click on "printable version" on the article page, Wikipedia standardises the reference and attaches the full url to it), it's just a case of trying to get the references as standardised as much as possible. If I put it in for FA at some point I will clarify the policy points though with the citation boys.
I got this checked out at the "Citing Sources" project page. They said there was no need to include the website names, but there was also no need to include the publishing company for newspapers (it is only advised for minor newspapers that are subsidiaries of other newspapers). In view of that I've just pulled the publication parameter in most cases. Y

Thanks for your copy-edit and review though. Thanks to your suggestions I can improve the article further, and hopefully it will have a shot at FA some time in the future. Betty Logan (talk) 21:18, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you'd have a good shot at FA at some point. I enjoyed reading it and am now intrigued to watch the film (although I'll have to leave it long enough so that I forget the plot a bit!) It's certainly nice to see film articles at GAN that already have a well-developed section on analysis and themes. That's interesting about academic referencing - it's been a while for me, and I'm used to different kinds of sources. To be honest, a while ago I thought I had reference formatting on WP cracked but it turns out, the more I know, the more I know I don't know! Anyway, good luck with further developing the article.--Beloved Freak 21:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]