Talk:Eric McCormack/GA1

GA Review

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GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
check for WP:OVERLINKing on terms such as Ontario, Canada, and for cities, such as Scarborough, Ontario, I would pipe it so it is Scarborough, Ontario; Stratford, Ontario becomes Stratford, Ontario.

I think I got it. -- ThinkBlue (Hit BLUE) 19:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the quote that begins, "And I remember after the first performance of that ...", is the And a necessary part of the quote?

That's how he starts the answer, but I removed "And".

Later instances of Scarborough, Ontario do not need the state name
McCormack enrolled at Ryerson University School of Theatre in Toronto to study theatre, to further improve his acting. There's a bit of redundancy here. The sentence works just as well, if not better by removing to study theatre, as it should be fairly obvious what he is studying if he attended the School of Theatre
Los Angeles and California are common terms, so they shouldn't be Wikilinked per the first link I gave you.
in a 1991 episode of the CBS' crime series Top Cops. There's an extra apostrophe after CBS
Are The Lost World and Return to The Lost World television films or theatrical films? I think stating whichever they are provides additional context to how his career was developing at that time
The following year, he played the role of Colonel Francis Clay Mosby on the Western television miniseries Lonesome Dove: The Series (1994), and Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years (1995). A couple of things with this sentence. First there is the linking of several words next to each other which makes them appear to be a single link. Television doesn't need to be linked at all, in actual fact, as it is a common term, but if that were not the case, it has been used in the article previously, so should have been linked there. Another thing is that it calls Lonesome Dove a miniseries, but it wasn't. There was a Lonesome Dove miniseries, but that was in 1989 and entirely different to this (Ref 8 confirms this, where he says he was in it for 42 episodes). Also, it begins "the following year", but clearly includes the second season of the series (which was renamed to The Outlaw Years for that season) in 1995, so a little rewording there is in order.

I believe I got this. If not, then I'm so lost. -- ThinkBlue (Hit BLUE) 23:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He was cast in the 1997 made-for-television movies, Borrowed Hearts, where he portrayed a selfish businessman who learns to love, and in the HBO film Exception to the Rule, in which he played a cheating husband. "movies" is plural, but you only mention one movie (I'm not counting Exception to the Rule, because you give that its own description of being a HBO film).
Originally, McCormack was scheduled to appear as a series regular in the NBC sitcom Jenny, but was replaced after the pilot was shot.[11] McCormack says he was fired after the pilot because the network had cut his character. sounds contradicting, because the first sentence says he got replaced, which sounds like another actor took over the role, but McCormack says the character was cut. If it was cut, how was he replaced?
Will & Grace, a series centered on a gay man (McCormack) and his Jewish best friend (Debra Messing) I think it makes more sense to put the characters here, rather than just the actors. It makes it sound like McCormack is the gay man, rather than his character, and that Messing is his Jewish best friend, not her character Grace.
as they struggled to find love while maintaining their own friendship, who live in New York City. The final part of the sentence isn't fluid. If it's important to you to state they live in NYC, the sentence should be recast.

them ... the could you add non-breaking spaces ( ) to prevent improper line breaks

There is ( ).

OK, then. I must have missed them. Matthewedwards : Chat 19:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The show debuted on September 21, 1998 and watched by almost 8.6 million American viewers. Add a "was" between "and" and "watched"
Seattle Times is actually The Seattle Times, ie. it includes the "The" in its title
If you could re-write the beginning of the paragraph that starts Also in 1998, that would be great. Otherwise, join it up with the previous paragraph. It's just gramatically incorrect to lead a paragraph with terms that link it structurally to the previous.

~~The Neil Simon Theater should be spelled Neil Simon Theatre, even though it's an American theater, it's actually spelled the Commonwealth way.~~

The paragraph that begins, Will & Grace's eighth and final season is rather stubby. Can it not be merged with the first paragraph of that section which already discusses that series?

The info. would be out of place to have in the first paragraph, when you're talking about 1998 and then end the paragraph with 2006. Then when reading the next paragraph, it starts off with 1998. I would rather let it be.

OK, it's not really a big deal, but if you intend on getting it to FA, someone there may have issue with it being so short. Matthewedwards : Chat 19:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

McCormack starred on the New York stage, opposite Fran Drescher, the comma after "stage" is unnecessary
Again, the paragraph that begins Also in 2006 -- could that be recast so it doesn't appear to be a continuation of the previous paragraph?
Also in 2009 same issue for starting a paragraph
playing an owner of a dating website, who is uncooperative with police, following the murder of one of his clients. too many commas here make the fluidity of the sentence seem wrong.
I read in the two Guardian references that he met his wife Janet on the set of Lonesome Dove, where she was an assistant director. You may want to include that, with the refs, in the "Personal life" section.
He maintains residences in Los Angeles and Vancouver. After dicussing his son, who was born in LA in the previous sentence, the "he" makes it unclear whether you're talking about McCormack senior or junior. You could say "the family", or something. Also, Los Angeles and Vancouver are Common Terms, so should not be linked
McCormack became a US citizen in 1999 and now holds dual Canadian and US citizenship. I'm not convinced the link to dual citizenship is necessary in this article, but if you are to leave it in, can it be made full some how? Readers aren't going to click "dual", but they may be more interested in the article if they see it is "dual citizenship"

So you're saying the sentence should read "McCormack became a US citizen in 1999 and now holds dual citizenship in Canada and the US"?
Well, I was thinking overnight that it's not a high-priority link for this article, and probably shouldn't be linked at all. It's not an article about citizenship or green cards, or whatever, but I'll leave it up to you to decide. You don't have to change the structure of the sentence; whatever you feel is better for the article. Matthewedwards : Chat 19:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Overlinking on breast cancer in consecutive sentences
Minnesota is a Common Term and doesn't need linking
California Supreme Court --> Supreme Court of California, it's correct title, please
Since there are no notes in the filmography boxes, why are these columns here? Let's remove them, otherwise the boxes look incomplete, which isn't good for a GA

In case he gets nominated for an award of some kind, we need to make note of it. See Brad Pitt#Filmography as an example.
Well if he does, the columns can be added back in. Right now they're not needed at all because nothing has been noted. What you could do is merge the two tables so it looks like the Brad Pitt article, and have the awards in the Notes column. Matthewedwards : Chat 19:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the Awards table, can you make the "Category" column width shorter, and increase the width for "Series", so that "Will & Grace" is on one line

I'm not familiar with table settings.
OK, I'll do that now, but see above regarding my suggestion about merging. Matthewedwards : Chat 19:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

~~The article needs Template:Persondata~~
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
Ref 7 says the source is The Guardian; however, the page's "About this article" says it appeared in The Observer, on page 10 of the Features section. Can the details for the ref be updated to reflect this?
Originally, McCormack was scheduled to appear as a series regular in the NBC sitcom Jenny, but was replaced after the pilot was shot.[11] McCormack says he was fired after the pilot because the network had cut his character.[11] I've already mentioned this sentence above, but I just wanted to point out that it's reference 6, TCM, not ref 11 that said he was replaced.
Doris McCormack, age 73 as of 2006, can her age be updated to 2009 if she's alive, and find a reference for it, else remove it.
Some of the references I'm not too sure of their reliability. They seem too similar to IMDB for me, which isn't allowed as a RS:
~~http://www.filmreference.com/film/52/Eric-McCormack.html~~
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant.jsp?spid=521395&apid=0

I removed Film Reference, but TCM is a reliable source. Just recently, I nominated Ethan Hawke to FAC, the article uses TCM, and wasn't a problem.
Okay, that's fine. I was less sure about TCM than the other, but if it's passed at a FAC nomination it's good enough for me. Matthewedwards : Chat 19:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 9, "Stated in an interview on Inside the Actors Studio" -- this needs to be a complete reference, giving airdates and such, as seen at {{cite episode}}
Ref 20, you don't need to state "Web" or "Official site"
Ref 25 is attributed to The Sun, as in the big thing in the sky, not the newspaper. That, though, is besides the point, because it's a tabloid newspaper, and therefore not a RS. Can the info it's being used to cite be verified by any other source?
Ref 62, again, there's no need to say "Official website"
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
Were there any negative reviews regarding McCormack's portrayal of Will? Right now all reviews seem to be in the positive light.
I tried looking for some reviews, when the show premiered, but I wasn't successful in finding one negative one about him. There were some that wrote about the show, or of actor Sean Hayes, one of the actors of the show.
That's what I suspected, but I wanted to make sure you'd at least tried to find something
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
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 need alt text
Bear with me with whatever I came up with. I'm not good in that area.
Added alt text, though, I'm pretty sure it's not that great.
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
I'll place the nomination on hold for seven days to give editors time to address points made. This article can pass, but it needs a bit of polishing before that happens. Good luck. :)
Thanks for the review. I'll get your concern about the Lonesome Dove info. later, if that's alright. -- ThinkBlue (Hit BLUE) 19:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. Take your time :) Matthewedwards : Chat
I believe I got the Lonesome Dove part. -- ThinkBlue (Hit BLUE) 23:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think that looks okay now. Good work and thank you for making the changes that I outlined above. I believe this now meets the GA criteria so I will list it at WP:GA. FYI, I reordered a couple of sentences re Lonesome and added a ref for "42 episodes", otherwise that's it. As I suggested above, if in the future you decide to progress to WP:FA, you should consider merging the awards tables with the two filmography tables, and just noting whether he won or was nominated for any awards in those Notes columns, and also merging some of the stubby paragraphs. But for now they're good. Nice work :) Matthewedwards : Chat 21:19, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]