Talk:The Car Man (Bourne)

The Car Man (Bourne) was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 21, 2007	Good article nominee	Not listed

Dance: Ballet

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Quick-failed "good article" nomination

Per the quick-fail criteria of the GA process, any article with cleanup banners or {{fact}} tags should be failed forthwith. These need to be remedied before an in-depth review can take place. I will point out however, that the article does not seem to be comprehensively sourced at present. There are large paragraphs and even direct quotations without inline citations. Feel free to renominate the article when you feel any problems have been remedied, and thank you for your work so far. VanTucky ^Talk 23:26, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to review this article. Will see what I can do about improving the article. Cheers, Jacklee 23:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've had another look at the article.

The quick-fail criteria state that "large numbers of {{fact}}, {{clarifyme}}, {{huh}}, or similar tags" are a ground for failing a Good Article nomination. In this case, there was only one {{fact}} tag.
Are the "large paragraphs" lacking inline citations that you referred to in the "Synopsis" section? If so, there are few citations because the synopsis of the ballet is based on my recollection of the story. Aren't most synopses of films, plays, etc., of the same nature? See, for instance, "Memento (film)", which is of Good Article status and yet has no inline citations in the "Synopsis" section.
I don't see any other direct quotations without inline citations.

Can I persuade you to reconsider your decision? Cheers, Jacklee 23:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're absolutely right about the technical definition on the quick-fail criteria. But that plus the other issues is what lead me to quick fail. As to your comparison to Memento: other stuff exists is not an excuse for violations of the GA criteria to exist here. I'll look at the article again however, and give you more details. VanTucky ^Talk 23:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct on the quotations (the billboards) being in the Synopsis section alone. That section is a big problem. A plot summary should give an overview of the major plot points, not recount every detail of the entire production. It's far, far too long. The list of characters looks wonky and is off in alignment. It would also be better served as a prose description of the major characters, and a list of the minors. The third paragraph of Music and story has no references at all. The image of Bizet has an obsolete license. An entire Awards section is unnecessary. There are only two bulleted entries, and they should probably be moved to the introduction. There is quite a bit of useable reference material in the Further reading section, and very few in the actual references. Secondary news sources would be much better to use than primary sources such as the programme. Astoundingly, there is no section on the critical reception of the work, and no significant treatment of the piece in the context of ballet in general and the choreographer's other work. Fact tags, lots of referencing, the deletion or cleanup of almost every section, and the need to create whole new sections all add up to an article than does not meet the hold requirement. Holds are for articles that basically already meet the GA criteria and need minor work. VanTucky ^Talk 00:00, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again, thanks for reviewing the article and for commenting on it. A few responses and questions from me:

The third paragraph from the "Music and story" section was taken from Wikipedia articles about the film and book versions of The Postman Always Rings Twice. Is it all right for one Wikipedia article to cite another?
I wasn't the editor who uploaded the Bizet image.
In previous GA nominations, I was advised that the introductory paragraph is supposed to summarize the article. In other words, there shouldn't be material in there that doesn't appear in the article. If that is the case, the "Awards" section should be merged into another section of the article or, preferably remain where it is (perhaps the ballet may win more awards in the future?).
I read all the articles available on-line that are listed in references and in the "Further reading" section. In my view, only the ones I used are worth quoting. The others do not cover any new ground.
I agree that secondary sources are better than primary sources where there is a risk of bias, but I don't think there is a problem here when the information obtained from the primary source (the performance programme) is largely factual.
I'm afraid I haven't come across any sources (apart from those already mentioned in the article) critiquing work or placing it in the context of ballet generally and the choreographer's other work. Anything I write about this would be original research and/or my own opinion.

Well, it looks like there are a few things that need to be fixed by me or another editor before the article can achieve GA status. Thanks again. Cheers, Jacklee 16:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response. No, one article cannot cite another, for what seems to me to be obvious reasons (it's equivalent to arguing for something with "because I said so"). It doesn't matter who uploaded the Bizet image or made certain edits, if it's present in an article it needs to be properly accounted for. They're right, but for small things that are there to state the notability of a subject in a generalized way, it's perfectly fine. The awards could also be included in a Critical reception section. As to the lack of source material issue, I see several items in Further reading that are reviews. You could also try directly searching the archives of newspapers and such that would be likely to have reviewed the ballet. Without a critical reception section of some sort, the article will never be GA-class. Every ballet notable enough for an article should have had some kind of press coverage to report on. VanTucky ^Talk 21:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mid vs. low importance

Matthew Bourne himself is well worth mid importance, but not his individual ballets.