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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 8 October 2020 [1].

Kentucky Kingdom

[edit]
Nominator(s): BlueShirtz (talk) 06:00, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the Kentucky Kingdom amusement park, located in Louisville, Kentucky. Plans for the amusement park were created in 1977 by the Kentucky State Fair Board, as a proposal to expand the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center grounds. Kentucky Kingdom opened in 1987 as a park focused on the commonwealth of Kentucky's history and culture, but filed for bankruptcy after one season. Businessman Ed Hart purchased the park's operating rights in 1989, and reopened the park one year later. Under Ed Hart's leadership, attendance increased by 1.1 million people in seven years, making Kentucky Kingdom the fastest growing amusement park in North America. Kentucky Kingdom's success led to Six Flags, a national amusement park operator, purchasing the park in 1998. The park, now known as Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, began to experience a decline in attendance, as the company brought smaller additions to Kentucky Kingdom. After Six Flags filed for bankruptcy, the company announced in 2010 that they would no longer operate Kentucky Kingdom, and for five years the park was closed as the local government searched for a new operator. In 2013, Ed Hart announced that he would return to operating Kentucky Kingdom, and the park reopened one year later. Since Hart's return in 2014, Kentucky Kingdom has added new attractions and seen a growth attendance every season.

I began working on this article in April, and it was promoted to Good Article status in May. Throughout the past five months I've added 131 sources, new images, new sections of the article, as well as expanding older sections of the article. Many of the sources that I added were from local newspapers and magazines that featured information about Kentucky Kingdom that had not been documented on the internet. Because of the recent of expansion of this article, I believe that this article meets the qualifications to be classified as a Featured Article.

Comments on images
Comments by Spicy

Thanks for putting this up for FA. I can tell you have put a lot of work into this article - the history section in particular is quite detailed. I think that the article will need some more work to meet the FA criteria, though. Here are some things I noticed while skimming; this is not meant to be comprehensive.

  • The park originally opened on May 23, 1987, after years of planning by the Kentucky State Fair Board and Kentucky Entertainment Limited, the parks original operators, at a cost of $12 million. - "the parks" should be "the park's". This is a rather long and unwieldy sentence. Is "years of planning" necessary? Presumably most amusement parks take a significant amount of time to plan. "at a cost of $12 million" is too far away from its referent, making the sentence awkward to read. This could be rephrased to something like:
"In 1977, the Kentucky State Fair Board announced plans to build a theme park on the grounds of the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center. The park's construction, overseen by Kentucky Entertainment Limited, began in 1986 and cost $12 million in total. Kentucky Kingdom opened to the public on May 23, 1987..." (the specific phrasing could be improved but this is just an example of how to restructure the sentence)
  • $12 million in 1987 dollars, or 2020 dollars? Also, the $12 million figure does not appear in the article body. The lead is supposed to summarize the article; it generally shouldn't contain information that isn't in the main article text.
  • The park went bankrupt after one season, and was reopened in 1990 by businessman Ed Hart, who would reopen the park again on May 24, 2014, after it was closed by the park's third operator, Six Flags, in 2009 -> there is a lot going on in this sentence and it's out of chronological order which makes it a confusing read. Should probably be split into two, and mention the acquisition by Six Flags and the 2009 closing before the re-opening
  • There are 4 social media links in the infobox; should only be one per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL
  • Kentucky Kingdom's normal operating season runs from late April to early August. The park then reopens only on weekends until the end of October, the same month that the park hosts their Halloween-themed event, known as HalloScream. - Do we need this much detail about their schedule in the lead? Remember that this is supposed to be a high-level summary. This information doesn't seem to be in the body of the article, either.
  • The lead should be expanded. From WP:LEAD: The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. Think of the lead as a mini-version of the article, and keep in mind that many people only read the lead, so it should be a reasonably detailed summary of the article's content. The article's history section, for example, is very detailed but all the lead tells us is when it was opened, closed, and bought.
  • signed a contract with a group called "Kentucky Entertainment Ltd." - why the quotes?
  • Kentucky governor Martha Layne Collins and Louisville mayor Jerry Abramson - WP:SEAOFBLUE and WP:OVERLINK issues; the governor and mayoral positions are not particularly relevant to this article so no need to link them
  • many people who visited Kentucky Kingdom complained about the park's small size and how it had very little attractions, one person who visited the park said, - comma splice
  • kiddie area - slang/jargon; would change to "children's area"
  • the 10-acre park closed - the "10-acre" part kind of shows up out of nowhere. Wouldn't this fit better in the previous paragraph which talks about visitors complaining about the size of the park? The previous paragraph says it was planned to be 13 acres, did it end up being smaller or did the source round the figure down?
  • park closed and filed for bankruptcy after only one season, due to few attractions - perhaps nitpicky, but I imagine it didn't close because of having few attractions, but because it didn't attract enough guests due to having few attractions...
  • What makes hellotravel.com themeparktourist.com, davealthoff.com parkvault.net, this Youtube channel, thrillhunter.com ultimaterollercoaster.com, moxietalk.com, etc. FA quality sources? Many sources seem to be fan pages, commercial sites, or blogs. These would not satisfy the basic WP:RS criteria, let alone the FAC requirements for high-quality reliable sources.
  • Kentucky Kingdom reopened for the 1990 season on June 13, an estimated 2,000 people visited the park on the first day of the season - comma splice. There are a few others throughout the article.
  • Despite the Starchaser being sold it had remained on-site at the amusement park allowing Hart to purchase it back. - what is "the Starchaser"? It is not mentioned previously and the reader has no indication of what it is or why it is important
  • On August 24, 1990, Kentucky Kingdom announced plans to build a water park ... On July 11, 1991, the park announced plans for Ocean Avenue, a 6-acre water park - repetitive
  • The NFCC rationale for File:Bluegrass Boardwalk logo.png is incorrect, it is not placed in the infobox at the top of the article. I think this logo would fail NFCC in any case because there is no discussion of the logo itself in the article.
  • Images should have alt text.
  • Storm Chaser is a Rocky Mountain Construction roller coaster which will use part of Twisted Twins' existing structure - article says it opened in 2016 so why future tense?
  • Many entries in the list of rides are lacking inline citations
  • In light of WP:NPF and WP:BLPPRIVACY, I would avoid giving the names of non-notable children in the "Incidents" section. It is unnecessary and adds nothing to the reader's understanding of the topic.
  • When Ed Hart talked about the new additions to Kingdom Gardens, he said "We’re very proud of Kentucky Kingdom Gardens. Sure, the Kentucky Kingdom experience centers on the rides and water park attractions, but we think the Gardens program provides an extra dimension for many of our guests, riders and non-riders alike" - of course the park owner has good things to say about the park. This is promotionalism, not encyclopedic content.

I would recommend seeking a copyedit and a peer review from Wikipedia:WikiProject Amusement Parks members to ensure this article is ready for FAC. Spicy (talk) 17:24, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from CR4ZE

Thank you first of all for your commendable effort to improve this page over the past few months. The article has developed along sound lines and I can see there's potential for a true FA, however I think that is still quite far down the line from here. I have read through and echo the concerns voiced above, and have outlined a few of my own below:

  • The prose does not meet 1a, b & c:
  • "The park closed and filed for bankruptcy after only one season, due to low attendance numbers, which were contributed to the small amount of attractions and poor weather conditions throughout the 1987 season", "There was also more tables, chairs and benches and smoother, quicker season pass process processing and in-person purchases through technology improvements"—among other examples.
  • Much of the article reads like proseline and lacks connection:
  • "On May 29, Kentucky Kingdom announced...", "On June 9, Kentucky Kingdom announced...", "However on June 25, the park announced..." is one of many notable examples.
  • Note that when running through multiple dates with a single a year, you shouldn't refer back to the year each single time. The prose in 1.4 - Attempts to revive the park (2010–12) really suffers here.
  • "the park made its biggest investment yet with the addition of Chang" is puffery.
  • Many sentences could be recast in active voice and this would improve the prose's cadence and flow.
  • Numerous instances of choppy paragraphs. Three paragraphs less than three lines in "1.5 - Ed Hart's latest return" alone.
  • Attendance figures are visited a handful of times, there's some commentary on the park's growth, initial public criticism of its small footprint is mentioned, and there's a "top 10 amusement parks" listicle from MSN Travel (notability?). Beyond that, I just don't see the level of comprehensive analysis on earnings/industry performance/awards/attendance/etc that is expected of an FA. Perhaps you have indeed exhausted the available literature, but the article leaves the impression there is much more that could be said.
  • The tables don't meet 2b & c:
  • The table format for the attractions list isn't kind on the eyes. Perhaps this is personal preference, but I wonder how this would look converted to prose. A glaring concern is that almost none of these table entries cite reliable sources. If individual attractions can't be cited in any way, it raises the question of whether a protracted list is encyclopedic content.
  • Perhaps former attractions could be forked into a child article to improve page readability.
  • Inconsistent height formatting: The Giant Wheel is listed as a "150 ft (46 m) tall Ferris wheel" but FearFall is a "A 129-foot tall drop tower ride".
  • References look solid. Note several journals are missing publisher fields (ie The Courier-Journal is published by Gannett). It would be nice (not required) to see archiving.
  • The article is well-illustrated with plenty of free media. However, I really don't see the non-free File:Bluegrass Boardwalk logo.png as additive to the article. The rationale for why this can't be conveyed through text alone remains unclear.
  • Images in the roller coaster table lack alt text.
  • One {{Citation needed}} tag noted.

I feel that the level of clean-up required extends beyond the scope of this review. As such, unfortunately in its current state I would oppose this candidacy. I am happy to revisit this if you can address my concerns, or I can give input at a future peer review. Please do let me know if you would like follow-up. — CR4ZE (T • C) 15:56, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@BlueShirtz: It has now been over two weeks since commentary was left at this review. While you have made some improvements to the article since, there are still several concerns raised by Spicy and I that remain unresolved. Where are we going from here? — CR4ZE (T • C) 22:04, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@CR4ZE: Sorry for not replying, I have been really busy lately and I haven't had enough time to properly respond. Thank you for taking a look at this FA nomination and providing ways for the article can be improved so that it can be more likely to reach FA status. I have tried to do some of the minor improvements that were mentioned by you and Spicy, and I will do more of those improvements sometime within the next couple of days. I removed a section of the article about information from the late 1990s that sourced a blog article, as I was unable to find a reliable source, and I will continue to replace unreliable sources in the article as soon as possible. I will keep this YouTube documentary as a source, as it includes interviews from park management and employees, was promoted by the park and was even shown at one of the park's gift shops, which leads me to believe that the video would be considered a reliable source.
The proposed File:Bluegrass Boardwalk logo was removed, and I replaced it with File:Holiday World Entrance Gates - Jeremy Thompson.jpg. There are also other minor fixes that I have done since I posted this for FA status, and I will try to get to the other improvements as soon as I can. Once again, sorry for the extreme delay. BlueShirtz (talk) 22:22, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment - It looks like substantial work is needed to bring this up to FA standards and this work is best done before nomination. Therefore, I will be archiving it shortly and it may be re-nominated after the customary two-week waiting period. In the mean time, please action feedback as appropriate. --Laser brain (talk) 12:51, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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