Wikipedia:Peer review/Tintin in the Congo/archive1

Tintin in the Congo

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I've listed this article for peer review because it's recently had a lot of work put into it using references, raising it up to B-class status. Thanks, Midnightblueowl (talk) 23:05, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This looks really well-done to me. I will do a close reading and make comments over the next day or two, but I wanted to say the one thing I noticed is that it has many non-free, fair use images. I can see this being a FA, but this would be a problem there - the article has to meet WP:NFCC. The lead iamge is pretty standard as fair use, and I would also support one image each from the black and white 1931 edition, and one from the 1946 color edition. I am not convinced beyond that that the other images meet NFCC, though they may. The one image that seems least justified is File:TintinCongo.jpg (cover of the English black and white version) - the image is not even discussed in the article and it seems decorative.
The other thing I noticed off the top of my head was that the lead says in French it is Tintin au Congo, but the infobox uses a much longer French title: Les aventures de Tintin, reporter du Petit Vingtième, au Congo. Which is it?

It is Tintin au Congo, or has been since the 1940s colourised edition. Sorted. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 15:46, 27 February 2011 (UTC))[reply]

More to come, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: To get rated above B class, this will have to pass WP:GAN or WP:FAC (or an A class review). I think with some tweaks it would do well at GAN, but would need those and a copyedit to pass FAC. Here are some suggestions for improvement.

I will try to point out several places where the languiage could be polished (but this is not a complete list). In the Lead, this sentence could be tightened and an unneeded word removed (either "subsequently" or "first") Originally serialised in the Belgian children's newspaper supplement, Le Petit Vingtième between June 1930 and July 1931, it was ~~subsequently~~ first published in book form later that year.
"further edition" sounds odd (and wasn't it just a new translation into a Scandanavian language?) Hergé would later redraw and colour the work for a new edition in 1946, and then made alterations for a further edition in 1975.
I am not sure originally is needed here (can't something only be commissioned once?) Originally commissioned by Hergé's boss, the Abbé Norbert Wallez, ... Also would "editor" be better than "boss" here (it is more specific)
Problem sentence In the latter decades of the twentieth century however, the book came under criticism for its racist portrayal of the Congolese people, something due to the colonialist prejudices that existed in Belgium in the 1930s. First off, all the examples cited are early in the 2000s, so it should make clear that criticism began in the latter decades of the 20th century and continues. Second, the MOS says to use numbers for things larger than 10, so 20th century (unless it is a quote or standard name like the newspaper "Twentieth Century") - see WP:CENTURY. Third, and most importantly, I worry about the POV of "something due to the colonialist prejudices that existed in Belgium in the 1930s". I would feel better if it were even "something that reflected the colonialist prejudices found in Belgium in the 1930s" or "something that Herge said was due to the colonialist prejudices in Belgium in the 1930s" since the only statement to this effect I could find in the article is Herge's own statement.
The MOS says to introduce someone with their full name, then only use last name in subsequent references (unless there are two or more people with the same last name). So one "Tintinologist Michael Farr" is used, only "Farr" is needed for later uses
One last sentence - run on that needs to be split into at least two sentences The story would prove, like Land of the Soviets before it, to be popular amongst its Belgian readership, and as such Wallez decided to repeat the publicity stunt he had used when Soviets had come to the end of its serialisation: in July, 1931 he employed an actor (a different one to Henri de Donckers, who had been used the year before), to dress up as Tintin in colonial gear, and to appear in public in Brussels and then Liège, accompanied by ten African bearers and an assortment of exotic animals hired from a zoo. Also, "(a different one to Henri de Donckers, who had been used the year before)" is not grammatical and I am not sure why the name of the actor not employed it needed here. Perhaps it could be just something like "(a different actor than he had hired the year before)".
At FAC the number of fair use images would be a problem, as would the need for a copyedit (see WP:WIAFA - criterion 1a, the need for a professional level of English, is one of the more difficult criteria to achieve.
Another criteria for FAs that this may run into is comprehensiveness, which might also be a WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT issue. Looking at tjust the first paragraph of "Colonialism and racism", there is one sentence summarizing the criticism, followed by six sentences (most of which are direct quotations) from two "Tintinologists". I am a bit worried that a) someone difetified as a Tintinologist might not be the most neutral source, and b) reading just the TIME magazine article, there was a 2004 incident not mentioned in this article that I can find: "During a diplomatic spat in 2004, Congolese Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi charged the Belgian government with "racism and nostalgia for colonialism," adding, "It's Tintin in the Congo all over again."[1]
Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)
The disambiguation links finder tool in the toolbox on this page finds three dab links that will need to be fixed. It also finds one dead external link.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:49, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]