Wikipedia:Peer review/Sesame Street/archive3

Sesame Street

My primary change to the article is the addition of the "Research" section. Be ruthless.

OK, top to bottom (again, FA and possible objections therein generally only - POV/copyedit problems I'll leave to someone else for now):

Paragraphs in the intro could be lengthened/tweaked just a hair
Image Overkill in intro - try to see if there's an infobox if you can use too. In general the image layout is a problem - all images don't have to be on the right side! Play around with the layout a bit and see what you can come up with.
The intro to overview as bugging me and seemed a bit weasely - I tweaked it a bit. Feel free to change it however you want!
Image captions - all acceptable, but remember that many featured articles offer commentary or whatnot in them in addition to a caption. Consider this. It won't affect a FA run though
"Broadcast history" - Paragraphs too short - compress them
The text - "Also characters that are Exclusive to books or movies, Grouches, Monsters, celebrities, from international versions. Also Characters ordered by date of debut, Characters ordered by last known appearance," - probably too much - I'd leave this to a subpage
"Strong" is a bit ambigious and POV (yeah, I know I said I wouldn't focus on POV :)) - I replaced it with "ominous" (i.e. ever-present) since it's a bit more descriptive
"The Muppets" - again, short paragraphs - compress them, ditto for "the humans" section
"Regional variations of the show" - this may be better as a seperate article (and indeed theres a red link there which appears to be for something like it)
"Research" reads a bit like an ad for sesame street "Sesame Street has maintained a rigourous research standard since its foundation, to ensure that the programming is addressing the needs of its viewers.".... try to reword a bit
"Merchandising" - short paragraphs
"Movies, videos, and specials" - this seems a bit messy. Not sure what to do with it. It's probably OK as is.... but I'd tweak it a bit
"Controversy and rumors" - short paragraphs and there's really no need for the "rumors" part. Speculation is OK, just make sure you've got reliable sources and not Joe's blog

Anyway, hope that helps. Take care! Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 14:47, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Similar comments to what I made when it was FA candidate.
1. The show is generally considered to be educational for children. This needs to be discussed further and could do with quote/comments from experts in the field as to what it does well, and what it could do better. The lead paragraph contains "Because of its positive influence, Sesame Street has earned the distinction of being the foremost and most highly regarded educator of young people in the world." - As the lead paragraph is intended to be a summary of the article, I expected to see this theme discussed in more detail in the article, but there was no further discussion. All I could find was this brief, unreferenced, and somewhat weaselish paragraph "Some educators criticized the show when it debuted, feeling that it would only worsen children's attention spans. This concern still exists today, although there is no conclusive proof of this being the case, even after more than 35 seasons of televised shows." It's such a vaguely presented comment that its value to the article is minimal. Needs to be expanded upon greatly.

2. Overuse of images. It is not necessary or desirable to illustrate every point made in the article. Be selective and use only the best and most specific images. Retain only what adds significantly to the article. Remove anything that addresses only a minor point, or duplicates a message contained in another image. Then to make the visual presentation of the page less static, alternate the alignment of the images. ie the first image in the lead section should be aligned "right". After that alternate from align "left" to align "right" throughout the article. Expect discussion of copyright when you next nominate this to FA

3. Be very careful of language that could be construed as POV unless comment is referenced. Examples (problematic words in italics) :

"In terms of its international recognition and outstanding success, it is unsurpassed".
"has made monumental advances in its international versions
"The show lost test viewers' attention during the Street Scenes, meaning Muppets needed to be added, like sugar into medicine" (actually that strongly indicates POV, or original research. it's got to go.)
"A critical blow had been struck (non encylopedic/POV) to the venerable (POV) program",
"The producers vehemently deny this, however, insisting that the characters are "merely lifeless, hand-operated puppets." (why vehemently? why not just "deny"? - it says the same thing and is possibly more accurate. "Vehemently" conveys a POV - suggests a strong denial. why so strong? because the allegation was about the shocking subject of homosexuality? If that's how and why they reacted vehemently, fine, say so. Expand on it if necessary. But if "vehemently" was your interpretation of their denial, it's not appropriate.

4. Copyedit article and remove all colloquialisms and "conversational English". Examples:

"all-Canadian version of the series entitled Sesame Park, which never quite caught on and was cancelled"
"In the late 1990s, versions popped up in China and Russia"
"For two seasons, Googel, Narf, Mel and Phoebe hung out in the Monster's Clubhouse"
"and rating dropped as parents tuned out"
" yet completely failed to dethrone Elmo"

5. Don't use quotes in a manner that presents another person's POV as fact. Attribute them, cite the source and make it clear that it's "as described by X" etc. Examples:

Grover's regular segment follows the "cute, furry monster" around the world (who says he's cute?)
""A balance between content and humor" is always maintained." - make it clear where the quote comes from. May mean rewriting the entire paragraph and the one preceeding it, if the source for the two quotes is the same.

Despite the long list of criticisms I think it's a good article and one that deserves attention, which is why I went through it thoroughly. I think most of the article is very good indeed. Rossrs 00:55, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with Rossrs in 3... It IS unsurpassed, for the reasons given in the sentence that follows; it is not POV at all. RogerK 05:24, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It may need to be "according to some, it is unsurpassed in its international recognition and success [reference]". Oh, and "outstanding" IS POV. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 05:27, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is outstanding. Where will you find another children's program produced in 120 countries? That is outstanding 209.204.122.84 05:38, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Or anything close to 120 countries? RogerK 05:46, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

with the credentials that Sesame Street has? RogerK 05:46, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You don't understand - "outstanding" is POV and should generally only be used in paraphrasing and direct quotes. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 06:30, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with Rossrs in 4... "popped up" has been accepted in Featured Articles as an acceptable expression RogerK 05:56, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with Rossrs in 4... "never quite caught on" is very acceptable in journalism. But you would prefer "was not acceptable". Why don't you help rewrite this stuff, since you know so much? rather than just be a critique? ahh, you can't be bothered, can you? RogerK 06:27, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I do understand. "Outstanding" is an adjective which describes a noun. It is legitimate aside from POV. It's used frequently and properly in describing a person, place, or thing. In this context, it describes "success", specifically, the success of Sesame Street in the worldwide community, which is undisputed by anyone except you.

I've changed it to unprecedented, just for the sake on ending this, though I do agree Sesame Street is an exception. When everyone else in the industry, and outside of the industry, uses you as a benchmark... anyway. -- user:zanimum