Talk:The Deep End (2010 TV series)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Viriditas (talk) 07:36, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
Lead can and should be expanded. For one example, prior to the last lead sentence, it is appropriate to summarize the criticism and viewership stats referred to as the reason for the cancellation. It may also be acceptable to refer to its noted resemblance to other shows in the lead (per the sources), and to describe any notable aspects of writing and production. I'm also concerned about the size and layout of the cast section in relation to the rest of the article. Prose can be tightened in several places, including the lead and the episodes section. The lead should mention who wrote it, the main stars, and the plot should be expanded a bit.

Prose: "It was initially reported that the show was being produced for the Fox network." This statement comes out of nowhere.
Removed, because it hasn't been fixed. Replaced with "20th Century Fox Television produced the show for ABC." The fact that it was initially reported as being produced by Fox appears to be unimportant per the source. It also appears to be an error in reporting.

Done Bejinhan talks 06:53, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good job with the lead. The prose still needs work in the cast and characters section. I'll have more to say later, or I'll give it a try.
Will get to this in the next 24 hours.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
References: Checklinks shows 11 redirected/dead links to abc.go.com. (now reduced to 10 as of 21:00, 18 November 2010 (UTC))[1] I realize that many of these links may have been removed when the show was cancelled, but we need to be able to support some of the content with verifiable sources. That doesn't mean that they all need to be online or linked, but they need to be verifiable. The question is, are the 11 abc.go.com links verifiable, or have they been completely deleted by ABC? We need to fix this in one way or another, either by replacing them with better sources or finding archival content. I notice Hulu has a website setup for the show[2] and I wonder if the episodes/interviews/bios will end up there.
List of dead ABC links:
"Get To Know". ABC. Retrieved August 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

"Actor Bio, Dylan Hewitt". ABC. Retrieved August 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

"Actor Bio, Rowdy Kaiser". ABC. Retrieved August 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

"Actor Bio, Liam Priory". ABC. Retrieved August 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

"Actor Bio, Addy Fisher". ABC. Retrieved August 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

"Actor Bio, Hart Sterling". ABC. Retrieved August 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

"Cliff Huddle". ABC. Retrieved August 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

"Actor Bio, Malcolm Bennet". ABC. Retrieved August 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

"Actor Bio, Beth Branford". ABC. Retrieved August 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

"Actor Bio, Susan Oppenheim". ABC. Retrieved August 28, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
Reliable sources: In addition to the above concern with the ABC links, there is also the question as to the reliability of the sources. For example, theTVaddict.com, TV Series Finale, The Futon Critic, and Your Entertainment Now all appear to be SPS. I know that reliable sources such as Variety have posted similar ratings stats, so we may be able to replace some or all depending on their use. These sites appear to be reprinting public information that may be found elsewhere. On the other hand, some of them may be considered legitimate press sources. This will require further investigation.
theTVaddict.com blog is being used to cite data from MediaWeek. Ideally, the MediaWeek source should be used instead.
Replacing with RS equivalent... Viriditas (talk) 10:04, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The TV Series Finale blog does not appear to be a reliable source.

The Futon Critic does not really meet our guideline for a reliable source, however, I see it is widely used as a source on Wikipedia. I'll bring this to the attention of the television project and see what they say.

Your Entertainment Now is a ratings blog that reprints ratings from other news sources. Appears to be widely used on Wikipedia. I'll add this to my TV project request.
MediaWeek itself doesn't make available the daily ratings; they host the forum Programming Insider Feedback. People have been blocked (and maybe banned) for insisting upon using PIFeedback. It is really nasty. Sneaking in PIFeedback under the banner of MediaWeek won't help. Conversely PIFeedback is the most comprehensive collection of publicly accessible ratings data for the time period it covers. There is no non-self-published-source for ratings information in USA that is currently and consistently available with comprehensive data. The big-name sites such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter don't necessarily make their publications accessible long-term. Also they are typically overnight data and limited in their coverage to the exclusion of lower rated shows that get "cancelled due to low ratings". In almost all instances of shows cancelled due to poor ratings there is no way to include said poor ratings without using self-published-sources. Without including the ratings the articles then get tagged with "citation needed" or a like tag challenging the accuracy of the claim of poor ratings. It is a most vicious circle. I've seen The Hollywood Reporter's website show Desperate Housewives having more than 100 000 000 viewers for a single episodes and an episode of NCIS having 19 000 000 000 viewers (which is three times the population of this planet). Ratings reporting is "not their thing" and errors like that sometimes never get corrected.
I read something somewhere about TheFutonCritic being so non-notable that its article is now deleted. For anyone who is interested personally or/and works with TV articles on Wikipedia TFC is a "gold mine" of press releases as well as other reporting. NBC's use of flash for their press site means that TFC is the only way to cite a press release from NBC. Personally i prefer TFC to THR, Variety, etc.
As to the character biographies from ABC there is the option to use a google cache if that is acceptable. Matt Long as Dylan Hewitt. Either way the references say Actor Bio and then list the character's name instead of the actor's name.
What it pretty much can be summarised as is: The sources considered reliable by Wikipedia are not reliable sources for ratings information. In other things they are great but a "Top 10" list of shows doesn't help when there are 19 shows on broadcast tv that night and you need data on number 16. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 17:42, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not aware of how we can archive a Google cache link, in addition to the fact that it will expire. But, this does allow us to verify the information for the sake of the review. Unless you know of a way to archive a Google cache link, we should probably leave it out. This seems to be a big flaw in the web archiving system. Viriditas (talk) 10:45, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I removed all the ratings as they are all based on SPS that can't be verified. GA and FA articles should not be using these sources, and a quick glance at the TV articles by quality categories shows that they don't, for the most part. Viriditas (talk) 13:22, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's the rub. Ratings are such an integral part of the life and longevity of a show and yet there exists not a single non-self-published-source since ABC and CBS stopped releasing data. Nielsen doesn't want their info available. Its a long, confusing story. You can say The Deep End was cancelled due to poor ratings. That raises the question of what the ratings are. If current and future tv shows are to ever have ratings information and attain featured status then some policy will need to concede. Personally i would never consider an article on a tv show to be Good or Featured if it lacks ratings info. As to the one you left in, based on the time stamp in the article from EW it is overnight rather than final data. Overnight is not preferred use. It is a big flaw & conflict between Wikipedia policy and Nielsen's permitted re-publishers of the data.
I have never tried to archive a google cache. Someone did save the google cache of my lone CSD tagging and put it on their own website. But that is another story. Does webcitation.org not archive google caches? Bejinhan did a really nice job on this article. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 03:14, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
TTBOMK, WebCite does not allow one to archive Google cache links; I tried and it did not work. As for the ratings, take a look at our featured television articles as well as many of our best GA articles. I've found that many times, ratings can be found in RS, however, you seem to be arguing that this is no longer true since ABC and CBS stopped releasing data. All I can tell you, is as a reviewer, I can only review the article with the best interests of the project. That means using the best sources, and removing the ones that appear less than reliable. It also means including content that can only be sourced to RS. Now, with that said, if you would like to escalate these specific issues for a project-wide discussion, I would encourage you to do so. For example, you could take this to the RS noticeboard and the related projects to get some clarification, and perhaps modify the corresponding MOS with the outcome of those discussions. What do you think? Viriditas (talk) 03:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think the outcome would be the removal of damn near all ratings data because a lot of people who have almost no experience with ratings will chime in to declare the unacceptableness of the sources of ratings data. PIFeedback has been declared unacceptable for being a forum. The sites that are dedicated to ratings info are all SPSs. For a while people, myself included, thought the LA Times would be a more acceptable source. Then i went to get ratings info from the LA Times for Ghost Whisperer and guess what.... the data is sporadic and has gaps of months and years at times. Every featured and good tv show article / list of episodes i know of makes use of these SPSs because they are the only source that is not a forum. I do believe all of these attained featured status more than a year ago but Smallville, House, MD, LOST, the oc (which i just noticed uses PI Feedback under the disguise of being hosted by MediaWeek), HEROES, Dexter, 24, Carnivàle, and so many others of all status make use of these sources at least in part. One of the rare exceptions is veronica MARS which happens to have had its entire run during the time ABC published ratings data. But ABC got their info from the same place as all of the handful of SPSs that took over for ABC; the SPSs are one reason ABC got out of releasing the data, other people were doing it too. The moment anyone questions them because of their publishing status all hell breaks loose in the tv section of WP. If tvbythenumbers.com and yourentertainmentnow.com are no longer allowed then ABC Medianet and CBS Pressespress would have to go along with them, as would Entertainment Weekly, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and everything else because they all come from the extremely secretive Nielsen. End result: no ratings data allowed. Isn't that just so helpful to comprehensive (incl. good & featured) articles? It is most detrimental. The only solace to this would be Canadian (if Top 30) and British shows which have info publicly available from the respective ratings companies without being fed through middlemen-sites. But then you get the people complaining about using a primary source.
Bejinhan had asked me if i wanted in on this article because i mostly work with older or/and abandoned tv show articles. I mostly do stub → C class; she wanted to do good or featured. I had never even heard of this show. I told her i could help if she got stuck anywhere but that i thought she should try this herself. To quote her from irc a little while ago, "and all my hard work in getting the sources for the ratings went down the drain". She further said that having looked through other articles (some of which i might have mentioned above) she feels that if this practice goes forward all of these shows would need to be delisted. I don't like this standard but if it is applied then she is right, all tv shows not like Gunsomke, which avoids any ratings data, would be down to start class. It would decimate the entire project. Just to give you an idea of how far-reaching this shift to reject TVBTN would go, right now the 4th season of 30 Rock and the 8th season of Family Guy are up for featured status; both articles make use of TVBTN for most of their respective ratings info. Noöne is complaining about the use of TVBTN regarding either article that i can find. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 07:55, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply. I think we are having a bit of a misunderstanding or talking past each other: There are many television-related GA and FA articles that do not use these SPS sources. And, I'm not at all clear where this data is coming from, so perhaps you can help educate me on the matter. You've said that the data comes from the PIFeedback forum, which according to you, is the only source for this ratings data. Can you talk about who publishes the data there and where it comes from? I want to compliment you on your enthusiasm and interest, and for supporting not just your fellow editors, but for also trying to preserve the content. I understand and respect where you are coming from here. However, our approach is quite different, and I hope you also respect me in this regard. From where I sit, and from my POV, it is very important to challenge and attempt to disprove our own position, so that we can test and subject our beliefs to checks and balances, in effect improving our opinion and encouraging the adoption of evidence-based decision making. By rejecting my request to take this to a noticeboard, to the project pages, or to even try drafting an essay (something like Wikipedia:Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic might work) you are saying you don't have the courage of your convictions and you don't trust the community to make the right decision. By the former, I mean that you aren't willing to subject your assertions to questioning based on policies and guidelines; by the latter, I'm talking about the importance of process and resolving disputes. In the above, you've appealed to my emotions, and to the majority, and I'm afraid I have to set those types of arguments aside. But, because I am a person who is trying to find new and novel ways to resolve conflict and resolve disputes, I am willing to compromise with you as a show of good faith. If you want to restore the version you prefer, simply do the following three things: 1) Open a discussion thread about this subject on the noticeboard/project talk page/or forum of your choice, with the goal of resolving the problem and/or modifying an essay, guideline, or policy that will make this easier for future reviewers; 2) Start a new thread in this review, explaining that you are restoring content against the judgment of the reviewer for reasons x, y, and z; 3) In your edit summary when you restore the content, link to the new thread justifying your modification and the noticeboard/forum thread as a pointer for interested editors. Happy editing! Viriditas (talk) 10:23, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FYI...two previous archival WP:RS/N discussions about Pifeedback.com found here: 21 May 2010; 30 June 2010. Viriditas (talk) 11:45, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FYI...ChaosMaster16 (talk · contribs) got blocked a few times for insisting upon using PI Feedback. There are hundreds of posts on various noticeboards about his adamant use of PI Feedback. Everyone said "no, its a forum". He ignored everyone.
I just pretty much don't do notice boards. Mostly thanks to being involved in the stuff at Ghost Whisperer that ended up with Chaos being indefinitely blocked a couple of months later. Exercises in futility. Look at anything where people are asked to comment. Throw in a trigger phrase like "self-published source" and people will go demand it be removed. Some people will look no further than that phrase. To some people the policy states that no self published sources can ever be acceptable. One need only look at the troubles that flamed over use of "rock band from Dublin, Ireland" versus "Irish rock band" in the last couple of days regarding U2. Such logical arguments were made that reliable sources call it an Irish band and thus all use of "from Ireland" constitutes original research. And that is just a polite argument; the hostile arguments are not worth more mention. Ratings editing is generally low-stress. ANI and like are not.
The data comes from Nielsen. TV networks and stations buy the whole lot. A few people, such as the hard core ratings junkie who uses the pseudonym TravisYannin get the commonly desired data for the standard demographics. He in turn posts it on PI Feedback. He does broadcast and cable finals data. The guy who runs PI Feedback does fast overnight data to start each day's topic. Occasionally a few others will post data on the forum. One guy seems to do a lot of sports coverage. The various entertainment media (Variety, THR, etc) get what appears to be just the basics of total viewers and 18-49 demographic. There are many many more, right down to data on shows like Blues Clues and Dora if such is your interest and Nielsen grants you access. The guys who run tvbythenumbers.com get overnight data direct from Nielsen. Since WP requires finals they have been taking great care in the last few months and have even incorporated into the redesign of their site the easy access to the finals data, which they often just copy from Travis @ PI Feedback because it is easy to and everyone, and i mean everyone, lives by the postings of Travis. It is pretty much the same story for yourentertainmentnow.com, except that she does ratings and sci-fi shows/films news coverage too. ABC Medianet got their data from Nielsen too; they use final total viewers and the rating for viewers 2+ (ages 2 and older) which is not exactly the same as HH (households). CBS Pressexpress uses either final or overnight data, depending on when they release their press release and what is then available from Nielsen, typically ustilising total viewers and 18-49 demographic though for some shows they also include 25-54 demographic.
I appealed to your emotions? Well, you're welcome. I just "love" people who set aside their emotions. By demanding i restore a version you object to you are appealing to your logic, which i set aside. Perhaps you ought to read those RSN you link to and the ones on TVBTN.
As to the SPS policy, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." You might want to look into who recognises the guys who run TVBTN as experts in the field of US tv ratings. As to the next line of the policy, "Caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.", Nielsen dictates who gets data and what they are allowed to do with it. They get the data so by default Nielsen recognises them. Nielsen doesn't allow just anyone to publish it, so this time someone else is not likely to have done so.
The only thing Nielsen makes available to anyone with an internet connexion and the patience to navigate their website is the weekly top 10 shows, and that gets overwritten with the next week's data. It is Nielsen's way of controlling access to the information whilst doing their little bit of "public service".
As a side note, you can't leave blank lines here as it messes up the numbering sequence. delirious & lost ☯ ^~hugs~ 12:43, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. So, does this boil down to "trust TravisYannin because he has access to Nielsen and we don't"? I'm just asking. The exemption I would accept is if "TravisYannin" was a known professional in the industry. In that case, SPS can be sometimes used, as you are probably aware. Also, pay attention to what I wrote. I didn't say you had to use a noticeboard. You can also use a project talk page or policy or guideline talk page, it just has to be a centralized discussion somewhere. I'll even accept an essay like the kind I linked to above. You could just take all of your comments on the subject, condense and simplify them, and then argue as to why we should accept these sources as reliable. Heck, you've already done that. Put an essay together that helps people understand your position, and link to it in the edit summary when you restore the content. Viriditas (talk) 13:11, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
I have concerns about whether this is broad enough. A thorough search of the literature shows that there are a lot of sources missing that can be used to expand it. For only one of many examples, there's more that can be said about Hemingson's creation of the Addy character, as he gave an interview to Case Western Reserve Law School's paper, The Docket on Jan. 25, 2010, and this was also covered by Crain's Cleveland Business in Feb. Wikipedia has another link to this in the current Case Western Reserve University article (at the bottom). I can send you some of these sources by e-mail if you like. Also, there should be cast and crew interviews or commentary that can be used to expand writing, production, and other major aspects. At least one cast member has given an interview on Good Morning America. There should be more.

Done Bejinhan talks 04:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
Nominator has raised valid concerns about too much criticism, considering the low ratings and cancellation. This appears to be under control for the moment, but I will recommend some changes with the addition of new sources.
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
It may be possible to further illustrate the article with free images of location, cast, etc. Nominator has indicated that a search for photos is in progress. I may make some suggestions if they are needed.
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
After much trimming and copyediting, I've passed this article, but just barely. The lead has significantly improved since the review began, and the plot is acceptable. I've removed SPS (and claims) from the production section and the rest of the article, and I've had to delete all the ratings, except for the first episode, since I was able to find a RS for it. The episode and air date section is fine without inline references, since that content amounts to plot material that is easily sourced on IMDB and the appropriate official press releases found on The Futon Critic website, which I have not linked to directly. I would recommend tracking down the official press releases from ABC and linking to them in the future. You will also notice that I've removed a lot of statements that I could not verify in RS. If you would like to add this material back in, make sure it is sourced appropriately. Viriditas (talk) 14:02, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]