Wikipedia:Peer review/Michael J. Fox/archive1

Michael J. Fox

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I was looking to get some general feedback on the article. I believe with some tidying up it can achieve GA status. A big problem is with the refs, but I was wondering if the structure, prose, awards lists and external links were acceptable. Thanks for any help

Thanks, Monkeymanman (talk) 16:35, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments from Ericleb01:

Hello, this is my first Peer Review, so I'll be giving general comments about prose, organization, and other things, but I'm not going to shoot you down with suggestions; I'll leave that to someone else.

Lead:

• "With a film and television career spanning from the 1970s to the present..." - I think this (bolded) is redundant, seeing that you did mention later that he has not fully retired yet. done
• De-link author and comedian per WP:OVERLINK; common words do not need linking. done
• Wiki-link the first use of advocate (in the first sentence) instead of the second (in the second paragraph)—if at all, because it is a common English word. done
• "In recent years, he has guest-starred on various television shows..." - This should be replaced ("Following his semi-retirement", or some sort of date) to help specify what time period in his career you are referring to. attempted to rework third para
• "Sweden's Karolinska Institutet gave him a honoris causa doctorate." - Why? I assume for his foundation, but try to specify. expanded
• The first paragraph isn't well sourced, yet gives a lot of awards and nominations. You can just re-use sources from the article to do so.
• The lead overall seems to be of good length, but see if you can try to include other information from the article to beef it up a little bit.

Early life:

• As far as I know, "Michael Andrew Fox" should not be bolded. In addition, consider rephrasing "Fox was born Michael Andrew Fox" to just "Michael Andrew Fox". done
• Final sentence of first paragraph is unsourced. source added
• "Fox co-starred in the Canadian television series Leo and Me (at age fifteen)...", etc. - I was bold and edited the age parts. done, good work
• "He was "discovered" by producer Ronald Shedlo..." - "discovered" shouldn't need quotation marks; I think it's pretty straightforward.
• The bits about Fox trying to find a good middle initial feels a little like it's dragging on; consider cutting a tiny bit of the information. cut a small section

Acting career:

Family ties

• "After which he played 'Young Republican'..." "After which" -> "After this," or something of the like. done
• "the positive reaction by the audience to Fox's character Alex P. Keaton meant that during filming of the fourth episode he became the focus of the show." -> Try "the positive reaction to Fox's performance led to his character becoming the focus of the show following the fourth episode." The sentence after that should be clarified, as I don't understand it. done, re-arranged paragraph to try to include sentence better.
• "drew one third of Americas households..." -> "one-third of American households" done
• Added a few commas to the final paragraph of "Family Ties"; in spite of this, it should be reworked, as it does not have much coherence. Final sentence is unsourced.

Back to the Future

• "he did not want to lose Michael to film stardom." - Needs clarification, if possible, as I do not understand the meaning of "film stardom" and why it is dangerous for Goldberg. Might be just me as well re-worked

Mid-career

• "Michael was reunited with his one-time, on-screen girlfriend Tracy Pollan from 'Family Ties'." - remove "one-time"; quotation marks should be consistent throughout the article. done
• "with Fox playing a famous actor who goes undercover to learn from a real police officer James Woods." - Incoherent sentence. attempt to clarify
• "He saw what good things were going on in television and wanted to return." - The entire paragraph is unsourced, therefore making this sentence biased. removed section, unlikely to find source
• "His twin daughters had just been born and he was halfway across the world, so television meant a more regular schedule and it would allow much more time to spend with his family." - Added a tag. removed likewise

Spin city

• "Spin City aired to critical acclaim and high ratings." - Unsourced. removed , unlikely to find source
• "(see list of episodes)" should be removed from the prose. The entire sentence is unrelated to Fox. done
• "(it was revealed that his character died in 'Trick or Treat')" - "Trick or Treat" should be wiki-linked to the episode article, assuming there is one. had a look at episode list but did not seem to be there (Odd?) anyway reads better without
• "Also in 2006, E! True Hollywood Story profiled Fox..." - "Also in 2006" -> "In the same year" or something, to avoid repeating yourself. done
• "(airing past midnight in some time zones)" - Irrelevant information. removed
• "He recently released a book titled [book name]. The book was released in April 2010." - "Recently" and that last sentence is redundant. reworded, removed redundant sentence
• "He guest starred on The Colbert Report on May 4, 2010 to promote it." - Unsourced claim. removed
• Added a few commas. In addition, the entire paragraph is sourced with only three footnotes, so I'm assuming a lot of it is unverified information.

Personal life:

• "Fox's drinking, which had been a problem for many years, became even more marked" - I'm not understanding the meaning of this. Clarify? attempted to re-word
• "...was created to help advance every promising research path to a Parkinson's disease research through embryonic stem cell studies." - Likewise. reworded
• Final two paragraphs are unsourced. Additionally, single-lined paragraphs should be avoided. grouped like paras, added CN tag

Illness and advocacy

• The explanation for Parkinson's should be short; in general, it is irrelevant to the fact that Fox has it (but a small background is nice to have, in contrast). In particular, remove the symptom categorisation. reduced section
• "so Fox, like many PD sufferers, extends the life of its effectiveness by using it as little as possible." - Source says that extensive usage decreases the medication's effect, but no mention on whether Fox complies to this fact. removed, too much detail anyway
• Third- and second-to-last sentences do not belong in this section. relocated one, deleted irrelevant one

Filmography:

• The fact that Fox had been diagnosed with PD during Doc Hollywood has already been pointed out. No need to do so again, especially not in his filmography. agree removed
• Under "Television", you could try to link to articles for the episodes Fox starred in, if available. Why is "Segment" and one occurrence of the word "episode" bolded?
• Year ranges require an en-dash in-between. done

Awards and nominations:

• Some awards and nominations are unsourced.

Books:

• Try finding the link to the Google Books page for the books, and replace the red wiki-links with them. done

See also:

• Is Back to the Future trilogy necessary here, seeing that they are already linked to in the prose? removed

References:

• Refs 4, 6, 12, 13, 20, and 24 are dead.
• Refs 12, 13, 21, and 22 require information.
• Refs 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 23, 24, 25, and 26 require publisher info.
• Some refs are missing access dates.
• Dates are inconsistent, likewise for ref format (some use Cite template, some don't).

External links:

• Sixth link from the top seems to indicate a WP:COI, since it is an unofficial website displaying general info about Fox. removed
• All but the first, second, fourth, and fifth links should be removed. completely agree, removed

There you go. Hope you find this information useful, as I broke my original claim to limit my suggestions I'm watching this page, so feel free to query on my points. Please consider reviewing another article, since there currently is a backlog which needs help eliminating. Regards. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 00:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, exactly what this article needed was a fresh look. Monkeymanman (talk) 14:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Not a problem; I'm sure if the references alone are fixed, it would have a good shot at GA. Regards. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 15:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I had a look through the awards and have sourced the ones i can. The others i have either tagged or removed. It looks like someone has just copied the info from imdb (which is deemed unreliable for such matters). I have sourced the main awards and was wondering if you thought it would be better to remove the unsourced minor ones, for example American comedy awards, Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, TV Guide Awards, TV land awards and Viewers for Quality Television awards.Monkeymanman (talk) 20:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure you cannot find a proper source? Surely the sites of the award ceremonies in question would have a list of awards given. I found one for TV Land quickly. (I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment with an FAC prep, so I didn't check which year you needed.) Simply Google the name of the ceremony and you just have a reliable list waiting for you :) _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 02:05, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I did try that. Some awards history only go back so far and dont include Fox's awards or nominations. Some are only recent updates. They are only minor awards and like i said it has been copied straight from imdb. Its not desparate so it can be decided upon later if needs be. Monkeymanman (talk) 15:09, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I am also wondering about the sentence One of the few people to know that Fox had Parkinson's Disease before 1998 was Charles Croughwell, one of his best friends and Fox's stunt double on Doc Hollywood. In later years, Croughwell and Fox developed a system of hiding the symptoms, as explained on E! True Hollywood Story, which does not have a source per say. The episode is not available on their website and dont think that another source will be found for it. I think it can be removed without much problem. Monkeymanman (talk) 15:37, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

If you really can't find any, then go ahead and remove it. Same with the symptom hiding one (not very useful anyway). _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 17:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)