Talk:Rocko's Modern Life/GA1

GA Review

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After some discussion with WhisperToMe (talk · contribs), I have decided to nominate Rocko's Modern Life as a good article because it is comprehensive, gives essential details, and has lots of appropriate sources. A good article is an article with all of these, and although the article is not yet ready to be featured, it is ready for GAC. Congratulations for WhisperToMe and every other main contributor of the article. --Dylan620 (talk) 22:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it's taking way too long for someone to realize this nomination exists. I'll go ask someone to review it for me. Dylan620 (talk) 21:24, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will review your article, as discussed on my talk page. As I mentioned, For GA though, the Good article criteria set the standards. You said you were thinking of FAC eventually and these two TV series articles have achieve that status: The Simpsons and Animaniacs.

I will list some issues I see immediately.

Wording - for example in "One of Nickelodeon's Nicktoons, it was the fourth series released in the Nicktoons group, and the first to be introduced since the original three were introduced in August 1991."

The word "introduced" and "Nicktoons" are both repeated in the sentence and the sentence is clumsy.

Also, you may want to introduce immediately in the lead sentence that this is a Nicktoons. - e.g.Rocko's Modern Life is an American animated series, one of Nickelodeon's Nicktoons, created by Joe Murray and aired for four seasons from 1993 to 1996.

Another example of wording issues is the repetition of "Murray" as the beginning of so many sentences. It is important to vary the wording to make it interesting. The wording needs to flow and have variation

There are too many short paragraphs. Some of these need to be combined to reduce the choppiness of the article flow.
Per Overlinking and underlinking, common words like American should not be wikilinked.
Per MoS:Quotations the decorative quote marks should not be used for blockquotes. Use <blockquote>...</blockquote> , or {{quotation}} or {{quote}} instead.
I am not sure what the structure of a TV series should be, but you have too many short sections. Perhaps some can be combined. Look at other TV series articles to get ideas for yours. Perhaps several sections can be under Production, for example, as in Animaniacs. Also, notice in The Simpsons that the Characters section has a general description as well as a list.
You need to remove the ALLCAPS from the footnote titles. Avoid writing in all caps.
Some of the sections will need to be beefed up. Usually the Reception section is important, or Reception and achievements as it is called in The Simpsons. The Animaniacs article calls this section Response.
Suggest that you reduce the size of the table in the section DVD collection as it makes that section take up larger page space than the subject warrants. Perhaps reducing the pic size, eg 100x100px, or even 50x50px

These are some comments to get you started. The article is very well done and you have the basics there. You just need to do some clean up and fill out and combine some of the section. I will add more comments as I go through the article more. —Mattisse (Talk) 18:43, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a brand-new member of WP:NICK, improving this article to correct the mistakes you pointed out will be my first major undertaking as a member of the project, and only my second in the entire mainspace of Wikipedia (following my creation of the Tropical Storm Odile (2008) article). --Dylan620 (talk) 20:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that once an issue has been fixed, that it be crossed out from the list. For instance, I have just removed the ALLCAPS from the footnotes. --Dylan620 (talk) 22:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for putting the nomination on hold. It gives me a little extra time (after a short unplanned break) to improve the article. --Dylan620 (talk) 20:52, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question - What do the numbers mean in the DVD table, e.g. 01x09? Also, I guess it is the table that makes the format so large. Is there another way of formatting it? I will see if I can find some examples in other articles. --—Mattisse (Talk) 17:54, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Answer to question: I just figured out your question. I believe that in the 01x09, the "01" is the season number, while the "09" is the number of the episode in the season. In other terms, the episode carrying that number is the ninth episode in the first season. --Dylan620 (talk) 21:42, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments -
All direct quotes need citations so that it is clear what the source is.
The lead needs to be longer to reflect the major content of the article, per WP:LEAD.
Could the huge table in the DVD section be reduced to a table like those used in Nicktoons? Takes up too much of article space relative to its importance.
There are problems with the prose. Examples:

" According to Murray, as Rocko's Modern Life was his first television series, he did not know about the atmosphere of typical animation studios." - this is a run on sentence.

" Murray said that he opted to operate his studio in a similar manner to the operation of his Saratoga, California studio, which he describes as "Very relaxed." - needs a ref citation for quote

The whole section Production has too many "Murray said", Murray described", "Murray stated" etc. There must be another way of describing this without repeating Murray's name so many times.

I will try to help with some of these, rather than listing all of them. —Mattisse (Talk) 19:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding "" Murray said that he opted to operate his studio in a similar manner to the operation of his Saratoga, California studio, which he describes as "Very relaxed." - That one is from one of several cited articles. I'll see which one (or ones) it comes from. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:43, 28 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to say it (very much so), but I am withdrawing the nomination. Mattisse, WhisperToMe, unless you can convince otherwise that this is indeed a Good Article, I believe that this does not yet meet WP:GAC.

However, since I hate to see a WP:GAN go up in flames, I would like this article to be reviewed for one last time, to see if I'm wrong in that the article really does meet the criteria. --Dylan620 (Home • yadda yadda yadda • Ooooohh!) 11:11, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If people are still editing this article, then let's let it run its course. --Dylan620 (Home • yadda yadda yadda • Ooooohh!) 15:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict - so I wrote this before seeing your statement above)

More comments from Mattisse

These are the things that need fixing, from my point of view. I think you can do it but it is up to you. I see that there is flexibility in the layout of comic/animation articles, so yours may be Ok.

- The lead is too short for the length of the article and does not sum up the article per WP:LEAD
- I believe the DVD section takes up too much space relative to the article and needs to be reduced to a smaller table.
- The "Characters" section needs some description of the characters besides a wikilink to a list. See Animaniacs, The Simpsons or the way it is done in Exosquad. Or by the name of each caste member, a short description of the character will do.
- The is no "Plot" section to give a general overview of the plot. It does not have to be long and detailed.
- There is white space under the last pic.

As mentioned above, there are many wiki projects listed on the talk page, such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Animation. You could look at their list of GA articles and get an idea how to format the article. e.g. Animaniacs, The Simpsons, Exosquad. Check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics. They have lots of good suggestions. They have a list of Comics editorial guidelines and Comics layout advice. The Comics layout advice is particularly good and describes how you should layout "Characters".

- Check out Comics - Outstanding content you can get some good ideas about what a good article on comics should contain.
- The problems with the article are basically the DVD format, more info in the lead, and character/plot descriptions (which should be short). The writing style is good, information provided is good, and the references apear good. It seems like you are "stuck" over a few issues. You just need to provide a little more information in some places.
- If you want to withdraw, that is O.K. with me. Wikipedia conventions can seem overwhelming at first.
- If you do withdraw I recommend you consider submitting your article to Wikipedia:Peer review. There are some that are listed there because the editor wants recommendations to get the article to GA status.

The article has a great deal of potential and I urge you not to give up on it. It would be good if you could get feedback from other editors who are familiar with the comic format. The right tweaks would fix the article, as you have all the information and references. I made some changes which you are free to revert. Basically, if you fix the above, it would pass. Also, I can ask the advice of another editor which might prove very helpful. I don't think it is all that far from a GA. But if you want to withdraw and catch your breath, that is OK. Please do not feel this article is in any way a failure! —Mattisse (Talk) 17:23, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have edited the article too much to be able to review it for GA. Therefore I will honor your request to withdraw the article. The article is withdrawn from GA review. —Mattisse (Talk) 18:20, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to your motivation, Mattisse, I am not giving up. I'll get someone else to review the article, that's all. --Dylan620 (Home • yadda yadda yadda • Ooooohh!) 23:07, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In order to close this review I must fail the article. This does not prevent you from nominating the article again when you are ready. I hope you will continue to improve it. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 20:17, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]