Talk:Rick and Morty/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Owlsmcgee (talk · contribs) 22:39, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

This is my first Good Article review. I'm a fan of the show, but also a fan of Wikipedia, so I'd like to ensure that the article does justice to both. That means ensuring that the article's sources and statements are supported and that the article is actually of encyclopedic quality. I also hope to make my feedback clear to new editors, but as a first-time GA reviewer, I'd welcome feedback from experienced Wikipedians. My notes are below, in bullet points.

General notes

• Let's reduce some of the quotations from Harmon and Roiland and paraphrase them instead. Quotes from critics are fine, but there's too much first-person voice here.
• There's a lot of redundancy and overlong explanations in this article. I think many sections could be condensed with thoughtful rewrites and consolidation - removing the quotes will help a lot.
• The philosophy section is controversial, and while I love 8-bit philosophy, it's not really a reliable source per Wikipedia's rules. This is not because it's a youtube video, it's because it's not a youtube video from a reliable publisher known for fact-checking or verifying accuracy. A good way to handle this section would be to borrow from the "Themes" section of another Good Article on a similar program, South Park. That article has citations from the New York Times, CNN, The Independent, etc, discussing South Park's philosophy/themes/ideology, etc. This is largely owing to the fact that South Park has been around for a long time so has had time for these kind of thoughtful analyses to appear. In time, so will Rick and Morty (The humanist citation seems good to me, so that's a good start). Until then, I'd suggest steering away from unknown publishers such as Ranker and, regrettably, 8-bit philosophy. If those reliable sources can't be found now, I'd suggest holding off on including that section. This pains me to say, as the philosophy of Rick and Morty is one of the reasons I enjoy the show. Unfortunately, I just can't find enough good, reliable sources to justify its inclusion right now.

Specific notes

These are recommendations for improvement to Good Article status.

• In "plot," the bit about each episode ending with a post-credits scene isn't really a plot point. I'd recommend moving it elsewhere.
• In "characters," I don't understand the sentence, "The series is often retroscripted for Rick's lines." This also seems like a production point, not a character point; this and the post-credits line I mention above could be moved to the production section.
• The character line "He is identified as being the Rick of Dimension C-137" and the mention of Dimension C-137 for Morty seem like a bit of plot trivia requiring knowledge of the show, and doesn't need to be in an introductory article for people looking up information about it. That's appropriate to the list of Rick and Morty characters article, which can be more in-depth.
• Can we paraphrase the direct quote from Harmon in the section about Beth? It's quite long, and Wikipedia should defer to paraphrase when possible, especially since this article is intended as an overview of the show.
• Furthermore, I'd appreciate some more neutral wording or citations for the description of Summer.
• In Development, "Nevertheless, Harmon took a liking to his humor and the two began collaborating" feels a little redundant; let's keep it strictly factual: "The two began collaborating..." reads more like WP:NPOV.
• The line "In 2006, Roiland was fired from working on a television series he regarded as intensely creatively stifling, and funneled his creative energies into creating a webisode for Channel 101" is badly phrased, vague, and uncited; can you rework it or eliminate it?
• The entire second paragraph of "Development" is drawn from primary sources and doesn't seem like it adds much by way of factual, verifiable content. In other words, it talks a lot about Harmon and Roiland's "feelings"; let's focus on facts.
• In "Writing," we don't need the comparisons between Rick and Morty's writing staff and the Community writing staff. It's interesting but not appropriate for this article.
• The bit about Dota 2 reads like promotional copy. I don't think we need: "The announcer pack can be purchased by players and replaces the Default announcer and Mega-Kills announcer with the interdimensional mischief of Adult Swim's Rick and Morty, voiced by Justin Roiland."
• "set in the Rick and Morty Rickstaverse" is a bit jargony, I'd cut it; also, why is this cited to a protected Facebook page?
• "According to one of the technical directors..." who? This is uncited so maybe should be cut, though I think the info could be found elsewhere.
• The lede is a bit too long and doesn't stick to the essentials; I'd trim it after writing about the primary cast. The rest of that info is background.

Comment from passerby Protonk

Hi, Owlsmcgee. I made a few edits to the page and I'll try to add some sources here and there. There are a fair number of reviewers/recappers writing about the theories (in bits and pieces) that 8bit philosophy had put together. So someone could re-write that section a bit but keep it in by looking at some of the reviews out there.

Thanks for tackling the review. No notes. I think you're tough on the right things. Protonk (talk) 14:43, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Seems like nobody is up for taking on these suggested revisions, so I'm going to close the GA nomination soon. Let me know if someone is going to take this on in a day or two and I'll hold off. ---Owlsmcgee (talk) 08:16, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Owlsmcgee, I suggest you close the nomination at your first opportunity. The nominator, Philmonte101, made a series of drive-by nominations in the second week of January. So far, two others have been reviewed and there was no move by the nominator to address any issues that came up; both have since failed. Thanks for your efforts in reviewing this one; I'm just sorry that the Philmonte101 hasn't addressed issues on any of them. There's one more that was nominated from around that time; I think I'm going to revert the nomination to prevent a fourth failure. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:01, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, BlueMoonset. I've closed the nom. ---Owlsmcgee (talk) 02:45, 4 February 2016 (UTC)