Talk:Temperatures Rising

Temperatures Rising is a sitcom that I liked a lot when it originally aired in the United States on the ABC network back in the early 1970s. Although it has yet to be made available commercially on DVD I have been able to obtain some episodes via a private source. I still think its a funny show and would like to see it brought back into circulation. My interest in the series inspired me to learn as much as I can about its history. Thus I have spent the last few years accumulating a large amount of information about the series (mainly vintage newspaper articles). Using this information I re-wrote and greatly expanded this article several months ago and attempted to elevate it to FA status. Although four reviews supported the article two others opposed it. The claim of these latter two was that the text was "not engaging" and needed reworking. I found this somewhat surprising because I had some friends who are published authors look it over. They told me that the article was fine. One of the opposers also stated that the article is incomplete because it lacks a production section (i.e. information about production schedules, writers, directors, and other "behind-the-scenes" personnel). This is true, unfortunately, because my sources do not cover this information and what is available on the internet is not reliable. Thus no consensus for promotion was reached and the article was not promoted.

The logical step now seems to try to achieve GA status. If anyone can make suggestions on how to improve this article please feel free to over up any that you have. (Also note that some of the episodes are available for viewing on YouTube). Thanks. Jimknut (talk) 20:41, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Temperatures Rising/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Squeamish Ossifrage (talk · contribs) 14:40, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

1. A Good Article is well-written.

• I think you should consider reworking the layout entirely. This show is sort of peculiar in that it essentially got rebooted twice, with very different reactions and reviews to each cycle of existence. But the current layout has equal-level headings, which implies that, for example, the Reviews section (or the Ratings section) apply to the entire article concept. Consider having sections for each of the three iterations (dividing into the two seasons would be more conventional, but the mid-second season cast and format swap is anything but conventional) with subsections for ratings, reviews, and so forth as appropriate.
  • Reworked so that the sections are retained but now with subsections.
    • There's probably room to quibble about the titling of some of these subsections (for example, the First season ratings title is arguably redundant, since it's under the First season section). None of that is an issue at the GA-level. In general, this is much better. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:35, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
• Similarly, I know an objection raised during one of this article's FACs was the lack of a Production section. It's entirely plausible that there's not too much information about set choices and filming schedules and the like (as might be expected in a film's Production section), and I won't hold that against you (working on silent films myself, I know that you go to the editor with the sources you have). But you actually have some content here that would serve as that section's core—the information about getting Bewitched out of the way, about the predecessor pilot This is a Hospital?, and the bit about casting a black actor that you've got buried in endnote #5, for example.
  • You're right, there isn't much information about set choices and filming schedules and the like. What I have is placed in the the first two subsections of season one. The information in endnote #5 has now been placed into the main text.
    • I'm not sure if the Concept and development subsection should be elevated to section status. Either way, things are much better. I'm glad to see that some of the really interesting information has been rescued from the endnotes.
• The way you've presented your cast lists is not really in line with established practice. FA has accepted television article both with (Firefly (TV series)) and without (The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.) bullet-point-formatted cast lists. But I don't see any precedent for discussing the actors' prior and subsequent careers in the cast list. I'm not sure whether this should count against criterion 1 or 3, but, at the risk of seeming blunt, it feels like it's padding the article for length. That information is available at the actors' articles for interested readers, but it's not necessarily relevant to the topic of this television show. Honestly, I'd use the Brisco cast section as a model; you've got sources that discuss that characters in each of the three versions. Presenting that in prose form would go a long way to making this look less like a list.
  • I've reworked the cast information so that it's placed into a paragraph form. The information about the actors' work before and after the series has been removed.
    • Much better.
• In general, you may want to re-evaluate what you've placed in endnotes. Some of your endnotes are entirely fine; they provide indirectly related information that is useful to the reader but that would be distracting or unduly weighty if presented in context. Some of your notes, though, bury information that deserves to be more visible: endnote #5 and #8 are absolutely this, and perhaps #14 as well. A few can probably be cut entirely. If a reader needs to learn about Nielsen's share, that's why "share of the ratings" is pipe-linked to the appropriate section of Nielsen ratings.
  • Some endnotes have retained, some have been absorbed into the main text and others have been dropped completely.
• Copyediting is explicitly not my strong point, but:

• "... was were X-rays..."
  • Fixed.
• "As a replacement for Whitmore Screen Gems head John Mitchell..." Pretty sure there's a comma missing here, likely after Whitmore.
  • Comma added.
• "The decision, then, was to replace Asher with two new producers..." There's a lot of prose like this, much of which can be culled. This one just struck me as a particularly clear example. Consider instead: "Asher was replaced with two new producers..."
  • Fixed.

• It's an FA issue rather than a GA issue, but you've got quite a few duplicate links, especially starting in the Second season section.

• I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you stating that different numbered citation go to the same source? Or that one source is used on more than one occassion?

• Means that you wikilink to the same target article more than once in the body (the lead and infoboxes count separately). Again, this is very much not a GA-level objection, but FA will rag on you for, as an example, the link to The Paul Lynde Show in Concept and development, and then the link to the same target in Original cast.

• The manual of style appears to permit HTML-formatted blockquotes. I'd prefer use of {{quote}} (as did a reviewer at the 2nd FAC), but this is apparently acceptable. Who knew?
  • I think the quotes are okay as they are.

2. A Good Article is verifiable.

• "Reputedly, Asher and Screen Gems made a deal..." This sort of thing needs more direct attribution. I know there's a very detailed book about Bewitched; perhaps it has more details?

• Fixed with a more directly-located reference.

• In prose, you identify the Armored Sentinel as being from Fort Hood. In the actual reference, from Fort Worth. In reality, neither is strictly correct (and Fort Worth is entirely wrong); although its target audience is the personnel at Fort Hood, it was published in Temple, TX.
• Reference formatting is explicitly not a GA issue, as the GA standard evidently permits even badly malformed (but recognizable) reference. Regardless, everyone loves reference formatting objections, and there are some real problems here (and some nitpicking, naturally):

• First and foremost, use of {{cite news}}. The template itself is fine, but the assignment of fields here is not. For something like Adler's article in the Los Angeles Times, you should have the periodical name in the "newspaper" field (which you can also name "journal", "periodical", or "work"). You should not have it in the publisher field with markup to force italicization.

• This looks ... better. On the other hand, you're split somewhat evenly about which template you use for print newspaper articles that you've cited to online archived copies. Many are handled with {{cite news}}, some with {{cite web}}. For my part, if you're able to reference the original print page number and publication date, you might as well go with news. Lest this seem unbearably nitpicky, the difference is that the news template drops locations in parentheses, and the web template does not (you can see the difference between ref 8 and 38, for example). None of which matters at GA, but still. There are probably some more minor reference issues too; I didn't go at them with the zeal I reserve for format checking at FA.

• General practice is that publishers (e.g. The New York Times Company) are not necessary for periodical publications.
• The TV Guide links to specific episodes don't seem to be working (at least for me). I get only a generic, mostly-uninformative page for the series in general. Perhaps the website has been restructured since last June?
• I'm not going to try to audit these individually (and it's one of the last steps you'll want to do once the other issues are addressed), but links in the References section should be used only at first appearance. For example, you link TV Guide in reference 31 and again in 37.

• Didn't audit this comprehensively, but it looks better at a glance (and isn't a GA issue besides).

• Partial-title linking of references, like in reference 58, 59, 61, 62, is not standard practice.

• I went ahead and axed a couple lonely brackets that got missed when you did this.

• It's entirely an FA-style objection, but you should really provide ISBN-13s rather than ISBN-10s. Luckily, this converter should be on every Wikipedia editor's list of favorite webpages.

• "In its place the network began airing motion pictures which performed well enough in the ratings to reduce the popularity of Temperatures Rising." Does your source say that NBC's film showings were the cause of Temperatures Rising's weakening ratings (rather than, say, the show just not being well-liked)? If not, this needs to be reworded to avoid that implication.
• There are several sources which, for various reasons, I consider problematic, but which are used solely to reference material that I believe should ultimately be removed to satisfy other concerns.

• These are all gone.

3. A Good Article is broad in its coverage.

• I'm uncertain whether there's too much space dedicated to episode-plot discussion better placed at List of Temperatures Rising episodes. I'm not sure whether it would take up too much space for each season/iteration's section to have an episode listing (much as done at The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.), with a {{main}} hatnote to the appropriate section of the episode list article. In any case, there needs to be more visibility to that list; I didn't notice it in the infobox and very nearly asked whether episode titles were known for this series!
• To some extent, my criterion 1 concerns are also issues of due weight/summary style (especially regarding the cast lists, for example).
• You may want to consider citing Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle F. (2007). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946–Present (9th ed.). Ballantine. ISBN 978-0-345-49773-4.. That work's entry for this show (on p. 1365) gives a more complete cast list (as least for season 1), some discussion of recurring secondary characters, and is a citable source for character personality traits.
• Given the racial element to casting (and regional censorship), was there any particular reaction to this show in African American media? All I could find in Jet were passing mentions, so the answer may simply be no.

4. A Good Article is neutral.

• No objections; while I think there are balance concerns, they aren't of this nature.

5. A Good Article is stable.

• No objections.

6. A Good Article is illustrated, if possible.

• File:Temperatures Rising.jpg: Although the copyright owner is not specifically known, you really should say something about it; consider: "Unknown, but likely held by the original photographer or the production company (Screen Gems Television)". This sort of wording has been acceptable in other situations with unclear copyright ownership. However, the claim that distribution of publicity photos may have placed this image in the public domain is not accurate and should be removed (publicity distribution does not waive copyright). However, the {{Non-free promotional}} licensing template is correctly applied here.
• File:Temperatures Rising Second Season.jpg: The same issues with ownership and the statement about the public domain phrasing applies here. Also, the licensing template is incorrect. Assuming that this is a promotional image (such as from a press kit), it should be {{Non-free promotional}}. In any case, {{Non-free historic image}} is intended for images that are themselves the topic of historical discussion.

To some extent, I've listed concerns that exceed the GA criteria, as I know that your ultimate interest is a push to FA (given that this has seen FAC twice). Nevertheless, I feel there are actionable issues against GA criteria 1b (layout, list incorporation), 3a (coverage) and 3b (focus). I've placed the review on hold to permit revision. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 18:32, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

• I think there's still a lot of work to do with this article ... if you're aiming for FA with it. It needs a strong copyedit by someone who is much better at copyediting than I am, and I think there's still some discussion about structure and section titling to be had. Reference formatting isn't quite to FA-level consistency. And, as noted, you'll need to do something about the remaining TV Guide episode links that are no longer extant (and apparently, not archived by the Internet Archive either; thanks a lot, TV Guide!). But precedent at GA seems to be that dead links are not critical (except in edge cases where they were the bulk of the article's sources), and there's no reason to hold this to a higher standard than policy and practice suggest. Accordingly, I'm happy to promote at this time. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:35, 20 February 2015 (UTC)