Jump to content

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Bowsette/1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · WatchWatch article reassessment pageMost recent review
Result: Delist for lacking stability. Other issues were corrected overthe course of the GAR. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:40, 10 October 2018 (UTC) [reply]

I will be conducting a more detailed review as part of this process but I have initial concerns about good article criteria 1b (specifically with the LEAD), 3b (specifically some of the sources not being RS), issues around criteria 6 (copyright status of images used), and possibly criteria 5 (this article might not yet be stable). More detailed comments will be left below. Pinging @Vami IV, Kung Fu Man, DannyMusicEditor, and Nova Crystallis: as others who might have review comments or otherwise be interested in this community GAR. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:52, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As original reviewer, I would like to admit fault for not conducting as thorough review as I should have. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 23:57, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Can I just express my confusion here as to why one article needs 4 reviewers for a GAN? Because essentially this is just a redo of a GAN. Probably would have been better to have been bold and just reopened the review instead? As for the sources, again, which are the problem?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 00:15, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Kung Fu Man: I get what you're saying. First a community GAR can have as many or as few contributors to the discussion -it all depends on who is interested. I choose to do a community GAR rather than an individual for a couple reasons. First, Nova and Danny are experienced reviewers and since each had expressed interest in this article it seemed silly not to tap into their expertise. I am also am "not confident in your ability to assess the article" which is therefore suggested to be a community rather than individual GAR. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:35, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49: I can understand that, guess for me it's a bit unorthodox after how many of these I've been through at this point, heh. Usually the GA process is the easier one.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 00:43, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have any other issues other than the issues down below, which seemed to have been solved. Nova Crystallis (Talk) 22:53, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
DannyMusicEditor Anything from you? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:54, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have been too busy to comment lately, I will do so tomorrow afternoon when I have time. dannymusiceditor oops 02:23, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No time for a full comment yet, but do you have anything to add that wasn't already presented in your AfD discussion, @Lojbanist:? dannymusiceditor oops 13:54, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@DannyMusicEditor: I'm going to be honest Danny given you were one of the initial reviewers unless you have any specific concerns I move that we close. I've been waiting to promote this for WP:DYK and this has been hampering that process, and the seven day period is nearly up. The main issue for most people seems to have been the lead, and I believe we've addressed that.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 14:17, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Kung Fu Man: I don't think we should close this GAR yet but I would definitely support your nominating it now for DYK given those time limits. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:01, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Specific Concerns

[edit]
  • I haven't come up with a better wording but I worry that the MOS:FIRST, specifically which appears as Nintendo's Mario franchise character Bowser transformed to resemble another character, Peach., does not make clear to a broad audience who Bowsette is - I wouldn't have understood it, despite being a video game player, without having read the rest of the article which is somewhat against the conventions of what is desired.
  • Journalists took notice of the trend and were surprised by its longevity - I'm not sure longevity is the right word considering Bowsette is like two weeks old.
I'll admit that sentence is a bit odd, it's hard to figure out how to word it without going too into detail. As for the second I would argue it's valid though: a lot of journalists expected it to only last a day or two such as the IGN panel and Alex Olney (who's statement was noted in the reception section more directly).--Kung Fu Man (talk) 00:42, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've tried my hand at the lead. How does it read now? –♠Vami_IV†♠ 01:19, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Issues
[edit]

I have a lot of issues with this article.

First, I don't believe that the article is stable. The most recent 50 edits took place within the past 4 days. In that time, there have been improvements, reverts, page protection, and an AFD nomination.

Beyond that, I have issues with the prose and the article structure. There's some pretty garbled grammar in places.

"Bowsette quickly rose in popularity internationally, with related hashtags trending in English and Japanese appearing on Twitter." -- This is all over the place. Should probably be along the lines of "...with related hashtags in English and Japanese trending on Twitter".

"Typically portrayed as a light-skinned blonde woman with horns, fangs, and a spiked collar with matching armbands, though there is some variation." -- This is a sentence fragment.

The article structure is probably my biggest problem, in that there really isn't enough structure. Far too much of this reads as just stating fact after unrelated fact. "This is what this person said. And this is what another person said." and so on. For example, the third paragraph of the "Reception" section starts off by talking about how the concept inspired gender-swapped fan art of other Nintendo characters, and ends up talking about copyright law, which is a jarring transition that makes the article hard to follow. Or there's the "Background" section, which goes well outside the scope of just discussing background and ends up mentioning a fan convention. As someone who wasn't previously familiar with the subject of the article, I had to read it multiple times to be able to take everything in.

Finally, I have concerns over copyright for the included images, especially the second one. I am not especially familiar with copyright policy, so I say this with little confidence, but I am not sure that the fair use claims really stand up. The usage rationale for the second image states that the article as a whole is dedicated to the discussion of the work, which is clearly not true. Lowercaserho (talk) 00:29, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Lowercaserho for bringing the stability piece back into play. I personally don't think the snow keep AfD should be held against it. Nor should the causes that led it to be semi-protected be held against it - that would essentially be a heckler's veto. However, I do think there are legitimate questions about its stability even beyond that. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:52, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would argue the article is stable enough: outside of a few needs for copyediting the article's structure is not needing to be completely upheaved or heavily added to (or being heavily added to), which is a significant factor for stability. Similar articles have disputed facts that get squeezed in from time to time too (such as MissingNo. or Poison (Final Fight), a FA and GA respectively, that both have had disputed facts squeezed into the articles repeatedly by editors over time or brought up on the discussion page).
Lastly regarding the images GA class articles usually allow for at most two fair use images: one to illustrate the subject of the article, and the other to illustrate a significant aspect of the article. In this case, ayyk92's panel which was the catalyst for the whole event, and an example of Japanese professional artists contributing their own takes on the design, and a common design addition by said artists. Now the first panel cannot be put on Commons in any way: While there are copyright free Bowsette images on Commons (none of which can fill the purpose of the panel, which is in this case being used similar to a screenshot or promotional artwork to illustrate a character), Mario, Peach and Luigi present in the panel would flatly fail it on copyright grounds. It may be possible to get the second image on commons, but it would require someone with far better Japanese than I to get the permission.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:55, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I will add too I think regarding this GA there's a problem of "too many cooks" trying to copyedit the article at once in response to this GAR. For example the sentence fragment brought up by @Lowercaserho: was not there in a previous version, at the very least in the last version @Barkeep49: spoke on above. I don't think that's a stability issue but one where this should be a more regular re-GAN and instead it's becoming a crowded mass discussion where even the original editors haven't even weighed in.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 03:02, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Kung Fu Man: I get that the circumstances which has led to this GAR were not of your doing. I know you're nothing but a good faith, well intentioned editor attempting to make the encyclopedia better. I stand by my decision to make this a community rather than individual GAR - I saw an issue that I did not feel equipped to handle solely and furthermore saw other editors who were willing to participate at some level. It seemed like the opportunity for a functional GAR, rather than the mostly dead community GARs that happen where I am one of two editors that ends up closing them after minimal discussion and effort. There might be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen but I think it's a stretch to blame this community GAR. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:09, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49: I understand that, I just feel we're reaching a point of rapid critical mass: the more editors that come into the mix with their own ideas of how the article should be, and then editors on top of them trying to help and maintain the article in response to those issues. This is why GAN is usually one or two editors and the main nominator fixing any issues, and even FAs are usually a bit more focused. Honestly at this point I'm getting overwhelmed to the point I'm willing to say revoke it so I can watch sources, see if I can improve the article and its prose and try to renominate it in a month. I think really my biggest mistake was pushing to get it to GA so soon after it hit, especially given it's an article a lot of folks pretty clearly feel doesn't belong.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 03:19, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Given Danny's comment above and the conversation here Kung Fu Man I want to confirm one more time that you're OK closing with a delist (for now). If so I will go ahead and close this GAR with that outcome. I'm genuinely not trying to pressure you here, instead give you a chance to walk back the comment right above this as (understandable) frustration. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:30, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, Lowercaserho beat me to the stability concerns which is what I was going to bring up but did not see. Kung Fu Man, yes, I agree. The article is just way too hot. In fact, I don't even think it's your fault; if I had completed that review, I'd have asked my pass to be undone. The first mistake would have lied with an extremely early GA review. AS for the article, it looks great, but it's still being so heavily worked on, and the article was improperly reviewed, I just don't think it should have been passed in the first place. Please don't be discouraged, though. What I saw in your last edit summary was basically all I was going to say, though. dannymusiceditor oops 03:32, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I'm throwing in the towel here. Honestly I really do think it should've just been redone but at this point I think there are, as you say too hot right now. I will say for the purpose of further discussions though I don't think afds like that one should be used as a guide for article stability: anyone can nominate it, and in this case the nominator has an issue with articles he feels don't belong here rather than the content of the article (and that has actually happened with two other articles I've written and gotten to GA, in fact, so kinda used to it by now).--Kung Fu Man (talk) 03:37, 10 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]