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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hell Is Other Robots

[edit]

This article was recently passed as a good article and I would like to see what it takes to get it to Featured Article status. Any suggestions along those lines would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Stardust8212 16:25, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you to Stardust8212 (talk · contribs) for starting this Peer Review! (We worked together to get the article to WP:GA status.) I think the article is close to featured status actually, it covers a wide range of topics and is well-sourced. I am just curious if there is anything more that can be added from the DVD commentary that is not already in the article? I have not listened to the DVD commentary myself so I don't know what's discussed on there. Cirt 16:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]
  • I took notes on the commentary for interesting things they mentioned, most of them are already represented in the article but I'll post them on the talk page if you'd like to see them. They're my personal confusing shorthand style though so they may not be useful. Stardust8212 16:50, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sounds good, just so that we can draw as much information/background as possible out of the DVD commentary. Thanks again for starting this peer review and suggesting the move to FA status, there is a good amount of analysis presented, and I think it can be a good FA candidate soon. Cirt 16:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]

We discussed this in other places, but I decided to get it to the peer review,and amplify a bit. So my references make sense, I am discussing this version.

The article, and its sourcing, are weak. References 1, 3, 4, and 8 are from DVD commentary. This is a compensated source, so it doesn't meet WP:RS. Even if they did, the statements supported are that the audio was recorded late, the Beastie Boys didn't perform a song, and that the producers liked the writers. Not very important statements, and certainly not establishing any importance for the topic.

Reference 2 is essentially a plot summary. Nothing about impact, nothing about how the world changed in any way as a result of this episodes existence. The closest it comes to having anything from the outside is Billy West refusing to name who the episode satirizes.

Reference 5 is used to explain plot points. The headings may say "theme" and "cultural references", but they are really part of the plot summary.

Reference 6 and 7 actually references things that ties it into the larger world.

Reference 8 and 9 support statements about a Simpsons episode, and it's questionable whether it belongs in the article at all.

Reference 10 supports the concept that the producer liked the episode. Not a particularly important statement ... very rarely will a producer come out and say he disliked it. Again, the producer is not a reliable source ... the inclusion of this episode was undoubtedly a balancing act of any number of marketing pressures. Whatever his actual opinion of an episode is, if the DVD is labeled "Matt Groening's favorite episodes", he isn't going to contradict it publicly.

References 11, 12, 13 and 14 are used solely to support that fact that the episode came out on DVD.

References 15 and 16 are reviewers statements, and are legitimate.

So, in summary, the article has very little well-referenced material supporting its statements, the statements that are supported are trivia, and the article fails to even demonstrate that the subject is of sufficient importance to warrant an article.

Not only would I not promote this to FA, I wouldn't rate it a GA. If it came to AFD, I'd vote "delete."Kww (talk) 22:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Response
  • Thanks for moving this here, I think this is the appropriate place to discuss these issues and I knew Cirt would be interested in seeing this as well. I wanted to get my thoughts in order before responding but failing in that I'm going to try not to ramble.
  • DVD commentary as a source: While I agree that DVD commentary should not be used to verify anything contentious I don't see a problem with any of the claims that are cited to these sources. WP:EPISODE specifically notes that production information should be included in the article. A brief look through the current FAs of TV episodes shows that many such articles rely on either DVD commentaries or other DVD featurettes for this type of information. Is this good practice? It could be argued either way but that seems like an issue for a wiser venue. My personal view is to regard DVD footage in the same vein as self published sources which are acceptable if the person is established as an expert on the subject matter. I can see no greater expert on the subject of making a TV show than the people who actually made it.
  • I agree that reference 2 doesn't add much to the article but it does back up many pf the statements from the DVD commentary and demonstrates that the episode received more than the usual press coverage.
  • I disagree with your portrayal of the themes section as a restatement of the plot. I think there is an important line between a statement of the plot and an analysis of the plot. The themes section discusses the plot and how it portrays religion in modern culture. A section describing the themes of a work of fiction is also common practice on Wikipedia (See WP:NOVELS) so I don't see a problem with including it. If we're going to include it then it should be sourced, which it is and I don't see a problem with the reliability of the book itself.
  • The inclusion of a cultural references section is a contentious point among editors and I won't try to claim that it's strictly necessary from an encyclopedic point of view however once again it seems to be common practice to include such a section when the items in it can be sourced, as these are.
  • "Reference 6 and 7 actually references things that ties it into the larger world." - Honestly I'm not clear on what the complaint is here.
  • References 8 & 9 were added by Cirt I believe to verify some notes connecting this to the rest of Groenings body of work, showing that it's part of a larger topic. Do they belong in the article? I could go either way on that and perhaps Cirt will address it.
  • Reference 10 - I disagree with the general statement that the producer is not a reliable source, as addressed above, however I understand where you're coming from with this particular sentance. Perhaps it would be more appropriate wording to say the DVD was marketed as one of Groening's four favorite episodes.
  • References 11, 12, 13 - Yes, we could probably just use one of those rather than all three to source that statement. My theory when working on the article however was to include all relevant sources so that people working on it in the future would be able to find the same articles and see if there was anything else useful in them. There's probably not but that was my thought process.
  • Reference 14 does not back up that the DVD was released, it is a third party stating this is one of the best episodes and is thus relevant to the reception section. There's no weblink so I cant't view it myself at the moment but it shouldn't be lumped in with the other three.
  • 15 and 16 - At least we agree on something. :-)
I'm sorry you feel that the article is generally not encyclopedic but obviously I am prone to disagree. I think a lot of the items you take issue with are not things that only address this article and so I am not really sure how to address them but I have tried to answer them to the best of my ability. Stardust8212 15:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't complaining about 6 and 7 ... they are the only two references that I think were both appropriate and appropriately used. You are right in the larger sense ... any episode article I review will come back with a review like this at best, and frequently much worse. Please don't take personal offense at my review. As episode articles go, this is clearly one of the better ones. Most episode articles would fare much worse, but the comments I made do illustrate why I don't think episode articles should be in Wikipedia at all. If the same class of references were used in a science article, the author would be flamed for weeks. Kww (talk) 16:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't take offense, I've found this discussion and the one it sprang from to be one of the most overall civil discussions I've witnessed where episode articles are concerned. Perhaps someday the question of whether episode articles are ever notable will be discussed in full and we will be on opposite sides of the line but for now I'll just keep making what we have the best that it can be.. As for science articles..."Physicist A thinks this is the best theory he ever came up with"... that makes me giggle. Stardust8212 17:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Semi-automated Peer Review

I will begin to address some of the points from the Semi-automated Peer Review, here below. Cirt (talk) 14:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]

  1. Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Wikipedia:Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.[?] --  Done -- Though the Lead/Intro could maybe use an extra sentence or two, it's an episode article and doesn't really need that much more, and it adequately summarizes the current material. Cirt (talk) 22:48, 13 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]
  2. Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.[?] --  Done -- There was only one instance of this, in the infobox, which I fixed. Other full dates are in the citations, but these don't usually have to be wikilinked, though they could be. Cirt (talk) 22:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]
  3. Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.) “In the year [of] 3000” --  Done -- It looks like this has already been taken care of through copy-editing by other editors. Cirt (talk) 22:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]
  4. Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?] You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, APR t 19:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC) -- Of course we will continue to make touch-ups and copy-edits to the article, and may also seek out some fresh readers to take a look at the article as well. Cirt (talk) 22:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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