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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 promoted by SandyGeorgia 22:58, 8 April 2010 [1].

Parks and Recreation (season 1)

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Parks and Recreation (season 1) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominator(s): — Hunter Kahn 17:20, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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This is my second FA nom for this article. It has already long been listed as a GA and gone through a peer review, but the first FAC failed largely because the prose needed work. It's since gone through a second peer review and some further copy editing by myself. I believe it's now ready for FA, and if there are any other prose issues that have been missed, I'm confident they can be addressed here at the FAC review level. Thank you! (Please note, this is a WP:WikiCup nomination) — Hunter Kahn 17:20, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Image Check: Passed - 2 images. 1 Fair use, 1 free. File:Parks and recreation season 1 dvd cover.jpg could probably be replaced with a version that's not a picture of the actual physical box, but... whatever. Free picture is on Commons with everything attached. --PresN 17:36, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support from Ruhrfisch. I peer reviewed this recently and thought it was in pretty good shape then. As requested, I have read it again now and find it meets the FAC criteria. I have a few nitpicks which do not distract from my support.
    • It is unclear who is meant by "she" here. When she resists the idea, Leslie's mother suggests blackmailing the official with information about her husband's drinking problem. From the peer review I am pretty sure she is the official (the sentence has been tweaked since then). Perhaps something like Leslie's mother suggests blackmailing the official, who is resisting the the idea, with information about her [the official's?] husband's drinking problem.
    • Would it make sense to add in the lead that the last episode, while the lowest in the ratings, also was the best reviewed?

Nicely done, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 01:06, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quick-fail.

  • I know some people are keen on the extra comma, but it goes bump-bump here: "between April 9, 2009, and May 14, 2009."
  • Spot the redundant word: "Like that show, Parks and Recreation also strongly encouraged ...".
  • I'd put a comma after "households": do you agree?
  • "Despite the low rating, "Rock Show" received the best reviews of the season, with some commentators declaring the series had finally found the right tone." Instead of the "with plus noun plus -ing", which even the Chicago MoS deprecates as usually awkward, why not ", which convinced some commentators that the series had ..."?
  • Why are "Australia" and "United States" linked in the infobox. Do we have to have a flag-waving competition? Why not leave the main image to itself without pretty little icons below it?
    • The flag thing was because it was a {{United States}} template. I've dropped it, as well as the Australia wikilink.
  • Link to "improvisation": it's a common term and a pretty crappy article, I must say; there's a citation tag at the top, too.
  • Narrative descriptions: OMG, we're dealing with crap here too. It's hard to make a case that even a good article on this kind of subject is "among our best work", as required. I find some of the language informal and presumptuous: "love interest", "greenlight the park project", "after cashing in the favor". There's my favourite "In order to ..." (two redundant words, and it recurs, dear dear). "Leslie and the pit beautification committee go door-to-door"; run that past me again? "do a story", "staying on message", "gets jealous". Now the "pit beautification committee" is "the pit subcommittee" (are they the same?). I don't mean to offend: this has been a good exercise for the authors. But really, such a topic needs to be highly professional in its writing, tone and content to get a star from WP. Tony (talk) 07:59, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Mmmmmm, NO. Much love to my passionate antipodean brother, the undisputed Master of the MOS, but the narrative descriptions are far from "crap." A considered comparison of these descriptions to those in other TV-related Wikipedia Featured Articles and professional publications as varied as TV Guide and the encyclopedic Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows (8th edition, Random House, 2003) demonstrates that they satisfy our criteria. The phrases that Tony calls out are absolutely in line with the phrases that actual professional writers employ to summarize the plots of television shows. Tony's perturbation is understandable: never in the history of (wo)man has there been a general-interest encyclopedia that treated equally in-depth subjects as important as Earth () and unimportant as Parks and Recreation (season 1). But that's what we are responsible for here, and this article indeed does meet the standard we have set. If anyone doubts it, please read the real-life professional writing that is analogous. I believe you will find that what I have said is true.—DCGeist (talk) 03:57, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • (I've made changes based on the comments you made in the above paragraph as well.) Look, I don't mean to offend either, but this isn't the first time I've had people show up nearly a month into the FAC progress, point out a few grammatical nit-picks, slam a quick-fail vote and leave without follow-up comment. This article has had barely any feedback for weeks, and then suddenly a quick-fail vote at the 11th hour. It would be so much more helpful if you would get involved early in the FAC process and helped me improve the article, rather than swooping and leaving some general comments at the end when I likely won't have enough time to do anything. Are these issues really so insurmountable that they cannot be addressed through the FAC process itself? I've gone through FACs that involved very thorough copy edits that resulted in strong improvements to the prose. But both here and in the last FAC, I've had people claim the prose needs work, and leave it pretty much at that. So the FAC fails as a result and I'm left with very little constructive criticism to work with, other than that it needs a review by a thorough an independent editor. So I sought a second peer review, incorporated the changes, made another pass myself and brought it back here. Now, if it fails again, I'll have even less to work on except that the prose is still lacking. Should I bring it to peer review for yet a third time? (Additionally, when you say "It's hard to make a case that even a good article on this kind of subject is among our best work", are you saying you have a problem with the subject matter itself?) — Hunter Kahn 13:29, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry to vent, but I'm sure you can understand my frustration. If you can spare the time and effort, I'd really appreciate it if you could take another look and help me address these issues. Otherwise, the article's just going to keep going in circles, and who knows how many times it will come back to FAC like this... — Hunter Kahn 13:29, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Since the above author hasn't responded, and since I've responded to all actionable objections, and since all other comments have been supportive, I just ask that the closing nominator at least consider passing it in spite of his vote, or at least that other people reading this still consider weighing in themselves... — Hunter Kahn 14:53, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I support Master Kahn's plea, per my observation above. If we actually make the effort to compare his work—particularly after his recent revisions—to the verifiable professional analogues, it is clear that this article is on par with the sort of content for which people pay cash money.—DCGeist (talk) 03:57, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Clear improvements in prose since previous FAC, and outstanding coverage on a topic merely a year old! The Flash I am Jack's complete lack of surprise 00:56, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... portrayed the protagonist ... " twists my tongue-- could be just me. I see what looks like overciting in several places, sample: The idea was partially inspired by the portrayal of local politics on the HBO drama series The Wire, as well as a renewed interest and theme of optimism about politics stemming from the 2008 United States presidential election.[25][26][34][35] What does "the series was paneled" mean? Why is California linked-- is there anyone who doesn't know what that is? Look at the repetitive and confusing prose here: The character traits of Ron Swanson, a government official who believes in as little government as possible, was inspired by a real-life Libertarian elected official Schur encountered in Burbank who favored as little government interference as possible and admitted, "I don't really believe in the mission of my job." More work needed: these are only samples, please have others go through. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:37, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've tried to respond to your specific comments (except the California wikilink, because I can't find California wikilinked anywhere except in the Claremont, California link, which leads to the town, not the state). If the article fails, I'll indeed seek another review from an independent editor, although I should point out this has already been done twice for the article and apparently hasn't been sufficient... — Hunter Kahn 10:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I eliminated the California wikilink, as well as some other instances of overlinking per Sandy's observation.—DCGeist (talk) 10:38, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sandy also observed a general problem with overcitation. I went through the entire article, spending time with the actual sources, and reduced all the stacks of three or more note callouts to a maximum of two by focusing in each case on the most relevant citations.—DCGeist (talk) 21:21, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I see you've (both) tried to respond to Sandy's specific comments, but in that one example of repetitive prose, it still reads poorly. I don't know if you saw me suggest this at my talk page, but I'll repeat what I said over there. The original read:

          The character traits of Ron Swanson, a government official who believes in as little government as possible, was inspired by a real-life Libertarian elected official Schur encountered in Burbank who favored as little government interference as possible and admitted, "I don't really believe in the mission of my job."

          It's not just repetitive, but twisty and overlong. All you've done to remedy it is change one instance of "government" to "municipal", and paraphrased "as little government interference as possible" to read "minimal government". That's fine if you're just trying to chuck out repetitive words, but what about repetitive ideas? Think about what can be combined or eliminated, what ideas are redundant in the wider context of the article. I'm sure it could be phrased better still, but my suggestion from a few days ago:

          Inspiration for Ron Swanson came from an encounter Schur had in Burbank with an elected official, a Libertarian who favored minimal government interference and admitted, "I don't really believe in the mission of my job."

          To me, that doesn't lose any of the intended meaning (Swanson is already established in the article as a character, so how he acts are his traits; the mention of Schur establishes the "real-life" nature of his encounter; Swanson's beliefs and that of the inspiration are combined), but by eliminating the repetitive words and ideas we have something that the reader is less likely to become bored with; they're not re-reading things they're already familiar with, and can be moved swiftly on to the next piece of information. Steve T • C 23:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry Steve, I didn't see you had responded to me. I've incorporated your suggestion into the article. — Hunter Kahn 01:32, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Cool; no doubt Doc will be able to massage my merely-functional suggestion further. :-) I had planned to offer up a very regretful oppose, based on the prose, which isn't as tight as I've seen on some of your previous articles. But Doc's a pro, so I'm happy to wait until he's done before looking more closely. Something that I did notice was this statement in "Ratings":

      Several reviewers pointed out that The Office experienced similarly poor ratings during its first season but later became a success. However, commentators said Parks and Recreation would find an ever greater challenge in staying afloat if the early ratings were poor ...

      It's something I see a lot at film articles, so the sentence was an immediate red flag for me. The issue is with the weasel-y terms "reviewers pointed out" and "commentators said", when you're citing the opinion of just one writer. Essentially, it fails verification; the NYT writer isn't covering what reviewers or commentators have said, he's just offering his own—singular—opinion. Steve T • C 08:44, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for pointing this out Steve, and please take a look at my modification to see if its sufficient. I was pretty certain other commentators have made this observation, but couldn't find them among my source material right away, so for now I've simply made this change. If I do find other sources later and tweak it again, I'll bring it to your attention to see if it still works... — Hunter Kahn 13:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • That's much better, but looking at it, I'm thinking that Itzkoff may be authoritative enough that he doesn't even need to be named. Imagine how the sentence might read if it began with "The Office experienced ..." instead. Anyway, no need to act on this for my future support or otherwise, it was just an idle thought to do with what you will. :-) All the best, Steve T • C 13:45, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • I like your suggestion and I've made the change. If you think it was better the other way, feel free to let me know or revert. (The same goes to the good Dr. Kino when he gets to that particular section.) — Hunter Kahn 14:13, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It's close. Doing a top-to-bottom copyedit. Should finish tomorrow. DocKino (talk) 04:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • The description in the "Cast" section of Mark as "Leslie's unrequited one-time lover" is quite confusing. Could you please rephrase it more clearly? DocKino (talk) 20:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I just dropped the "one-time" bit altogether and changed to "unrequited love interest". It had been written that way because Leslie and Mark had sex on one occasion in the distant past and Leslie still harbored feelings for him, but Mark did not feel the same way. But it's not really necessary to convey that here... — Hunter Kahn 20:20, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think it may be. He's described as her "former lover" in the episode 1 summary above, which is accurate as far as it goes, but has a very different implication from "unrequited love interest." It's also not as clear as it could be who's interested and who's not requiting. I don't think it would hurt to have a sentence in the "Cast" section spelling out the relationship for those unfamiliar with the show. Something like this: "He was cast as Mark Brendanawicz, a city planner. Mark and Leslie had a long ago one-night stand, but her feelings for him were unrequited." Or similar, per the show's content. DocKino (talk) 20:34, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support I've finished a pretty rigorous copyedit. The article is well sourced and structured, and I believe it now meets the prose standard. DocKino (talk) 00:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Other than my randomly-scattered comments above (now resolved), everything seems fine. I checked some sources at random, all of which supported the text they were attached to, and they all scan reliable in my book (TV Squad I'd be less than thrilled with if it were citing anything more than a broadcast schedule and personnel change). The images are correctly licensed, and the prose is much improved through the recent work. Nice job, Steve T • C 10:43, 8 April 2010 (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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