Wikipedia:Peer review/I Not Stupid/archive3

I Not Stupid

On 26 December 2006, the article's GA nomination was failed by ExplorerCDT (who has not edited since 8 February 2007). He cited the following two reasons for failing the article:

The prose is choppy and the article contains too many two-sentence paragraphs and short sections.
The images are poorly placed.

Please offer advice and suggestions on addressing these concerns, so I Not Stupid can become a GA. Note that due to external systemic bias, finding referenced information on Singaporean movies is difficult. This has hindered my ability to add information to and improve the prose in the Production section. For more information, you may wish to read the mini-argument between ExplorerCDT, myself and several of my Wikifriends shortly after the GA nomination was failed.

The lack of referenced information means that I Not Stupid will never become an FA, so I do not need advice on meeting criteria that apply to FA status but not GA status.

This article has previously undergone two peer reviews:

The first peer review, filed to prepare the GA nomination.
The second peer review, filed after the GA nomination failed, received very little response.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 01:34, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron32's response

As a frequent GA reviewer, and also frequent FA reviewer, I must note that the differences between GA and FA status are not as great as usually assumed. The 3 main differences between the two types of reviews are:

GA's require only "broad" coverage while FA's require "comprehensive" coverage; thus GA status may be accorded to articles that are often far too short to be considered Featurable.
GA's require correct grammar, spelling, and no overt violations of the Manual of Style with regard to article organization. FA's require brilliant, compelling prose, with a strict adherance to ALL aspects of the MOS. Thus, GA's may be passed with less stringent requirements on the quality of writing.
GA's require a single reviewer to apply the criteria to the article. FA's require a consensus of several reviewers to pass.

It should be noted specifically, that in other areas, such as verifiability(referencing), neutrality, and stability, the criteria for GA's and FA's are nearly IDENTICAL. As applies to this article, the referencing requirments for a GA are NOT less stringent than for an FA. If you read the two standards: WP:WIAGA and WP:WIAFA you find that:

A Good Article requires: a) references to sources used b) cites reliable sources for quotations and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, preferably using inline citations for longer articles c) contains no original research.
A Featured Article requires: claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately represent the related body of published knowledge. Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out, complemented by inline citations for quotations and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged.

The only real difference is that the guidelines were written by different editors and so use a few different words; in spirit GA's and FA's have the same referencing standards. If, as you say, the references needed to bring this up to standard simply don't exist, than (and I feel bad about saying this) the article will probably never be even a GA. It should not stop you from TRYING to improve the article until it meets as much of the requirments as possible; but the non-existance of source material does not simply eliminate the requirement that the article be properly referenced. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron32, thanks for providing information on the differences between the FA criteria and GA criteria.

References are few, but they do exist (as the 28 citations prove). Are the few references that are available sufficient for GA status? Probably, if we use them well (a reference can be used multiple times) and are not overly stringent on reliability.

With the few references available, writing most sections (except the Plot section, where the movie is the assumed reference point) is a matter of perusing each reference for information, and adding any useful information I can find to the article, mentioning the reference it came from. This leads to poorly-organised information and low-quality prose. The Production section is the most glaring example of this.

As my command of English is of a near-native level, not a native level, I don't think I can produce "brilliant, compelling prose" (although I aspire to be a professional writer). However, I believe I am perfectly capable of writing prose that meets GA criterion 1a. Perhaps you could evaluate the prose in each section, fixing any spelling or grammatical errors you spot (note that the article is written in British English) and offering advice on improving the prose to ensure it meets criterion 1a.

You mentioned that the FA criteria demands "comprehensiveness" while the GA criteria only requires "broad coverage". After you read the article, do you think the following comment by ExplorerCDT would only apply if I was aiming for "comprehensiveness", but does not apply since only "broad coverage" is needed for GA?

"[The article offers] only a cursory or perfunctory examination of subject and its reception or effects on possible reforms [sic] Singapore's education system. Does not delve into depth concerning the extent of the satire and satirical devices, omits a few important themes of the movie."

Lastly, what advice do you have to offer regarding images? (NOTE: In my entire reply, by "you", I am referring not only to Jayron32, but to anyone who reviews this article.)

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 06:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some notes on expanding the article:

Consider turing the cast section into prose, perhaps by expanding each main character into a paragraph long description of that character, and/or specific critical reviews of performance of the actors that played them.
Shorter paragraphs could be expanded by including specific examples and quotes, perhaps. For examples:

you could expand on the concept of streaming, in the "Political satire" section.
You could expand the paragraph beginning with "other issues" by including specific examples of each issue you raise from the film.
You could expand the paragraph "Following its success in Singapore..." by including specific critical reviews of the film from each country cited and perhaps commercial success or total viewership data for each nation, or for those where it can be found.
You could expand the paragraph "Critics gave generally positive reviews " by quoting and paraphrasing several SPECIFIC reviews.

Overall the article is fairly good. I only hope you can find the references to provide for expanding the paragraphs I noted above. I would recommend, if it can be expanded in these ways, to possibly run it by GAC again.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 00:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Simply following your suggestions for expanding the article won't cause a second GA nomination to succeed. The other concerns - choppy prose and images - also need to be addressed. Could you offer advice on addressing the issues with images, and evaluate the prose in each section, giving suggestions on how the prose in each section can be approved?

That being said, thanks for your suggestions for expanding the article. Following them would certainly cut down the number of two-sentence paragraphs outside the Plot section (those in the Plot section should be addressed seperately).

Although I don't wish to rely on it, IMDB provides some information on I Not Stupid's release in other countries and its performance at the Hong Kong box office. Quoting specific reviews would be trival, but expanding the "Political satire" section would be harder - in fact, I had to remove several sentences I wrote in that section, as they were original research. Nevertheless, I'll do my best.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 09:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I myself am not that great at copyediting. My best skills are in organization and flow of articles. I can read an article and tell if it is "good" or not WRT its prose, but I am not very good at fixing articles with poor prose. There is an active project, The League of Copyeditors, who ARE very good at that. Once the article is long enough and broad enough so that the ONLY thing left is the choppy prose, you can ask for a review there. They are backlogged, and a review can take a few weeks to complete, BUT they usually always get to every article, and are quite good and throrough. Articles I have requested that they copyedit have always come out better. Good luck! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 16:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the late response. My computer couldn't have chosen a worse time to break down - just after the mid-year exams. Thankfully everything's up and running again.

I filed a request with the League of Copyeditors after the article's GA nomination failed. Last week, I filed a request for the article on the movie's sequel - I Not Stupid Too - which is also on peer review. Once they complete that request, I'll file another request for I Not Stupid.

Since you are able to read an article and quickly assess the quality of its prose, could you do so for I Not Stupid, with a review of the prose in each section? --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As per your suggestions, I have expanded the Recetpion section by quoting specific reviews and adding information on I Not Stupid's screening in other countries (I also found some information on VCD sales). I will continue to look for referenced information to add to the atricle, especially in the Production section. Since you aren't good at copy-editing, perhaps you could give advice regarding the image issues? --J.L.W.S. The Special One 07:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR _t 23:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Did some space-trimming using script. A cursory look shows at least one instance of WP:MOSDATE non-compliance (time is to be written as 9 a.m., not 9 am). Will check prose later. Resurgent insurgent 04:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Boochans Response

I don't respond often to peer reviews or other internal evaluations but I have seen this article grow in the past year or thereabouts to when I first glanced at the article, admittedly while I was reading up on the Singaporean Education System. The way the article is written does certainly suit the way the story seems to go in this film, as each paragraph in the plot section does explain the movie sequentially, and if they were not separated the article would read differently to how it does now. How its paragraphed compared to how it was has worked out to an improved article. None of the sections are terribly short and each section does provide sufficient cited information, and as the maintainer has explained the systemic bias will restrict the article to an extent.

The Images simply cannot be changed, as they are relavant to the plot as the plot is explained. More images would probably break up the article too much and overload the article viewer, as checking other quality film articles you see a similar amount of images to do with the film as you see on this article. The images are irrelevant to other sections of the article, and at the same time other sections of the article in my belief do not require further images, or further images would not increase the quality of the article.

I cannot comment on prose or the way the article is written because it certainly isn't my strong point as well. From what I can tell after throughly reading the article, the previous peer reviews, nominations and the above suggestions I do believe that despite some flaws that have been glossed over before, and somewhat improved since the last peer review that this article does meet the criteria for a Good Article, after a final "polish over" (i.e getting someone to copyedit it). It would be nice to see more opinions or to see a good copyediter to evaluate the article and check for any problems in that regard. - Boochan 11:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your review, Boochan. Although you did not really suggest how I can improve the article, at least you told me what I did right. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]