Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/CM Punk

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[edit] CM Punk

Self-nomination. Since May, 2006 I have been working on this article about a somewhat unknown professional wrestler (after I started the article he debuted on television and is now much better known in the mainstream), in the process having it listed for two seperate (admittedly very low participation) peer reviews, had it pass the good article criteria and I think it has reached a point where it can no longer be improved upon. It is, near as I can tell, well written, well referenced, and comprehensive to the farthest point this particular wrestler could achieve currently.

If this passes it will be the first professional wrestling article on wikipedia to reach FA status, and it would be affirmation for the large amount of effort I had to put in to get it to this point along with the aid of many other users, most notably Calaschysm (talk • contribs) who recently helped with a lot of references. If you object or have comments please respond and I will try my best to address the concerns or reply with an explanation as to why something is the way it is. –– Lid^(Talk) 13:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Strong Support Very, very good. Great use of pictures, good lead, plenty of references. SergeantBolt (t,c) 13:55, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Quick Comment: "Tattoos" section seems trivial, is it really needed? - Tutmosis 14:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• Reply. I've thought about that section being considered trivia but a large part of his gimmick are his tattoos and how they represent his beliefs, as well as their symbolism and iconography that goes with their impact on the gimmick and his real life persona. The pepsi tattoo lead to the naming of two different signature moves as well as being the image he is most closely identified with to the point where for a long time in the indies he wore the symbol on his pants (although the angle is bad for it in Image:Punkcabana.jpg on Punk's left hand side pants you can see the sides of three pepsi logos) as well as being the image featured most prominently in his WWE titantron (available here). Other examples of the importance and prominence of the tattoos was that the first WWE magazine article feature on him was a focus on his tattoos, and the first selection of T-shirts for Punk that were made by WWE merchandise featured the tagline "Luck is for losers" which Punk had never actually spoken in WWE yet but was a part of his tattoo piece. The straight edge and drug free tattoos are also both instantly recognised as Punk symbols, to the point where he referred to his stomach tattoo as his identity and having it removed would lose a part of himself. If I had to remove some of it, i'd have to remove all of it, and it's really such a core part of himself in real life and in the character I felt I couldn't remove it with good faith without actually harming the information included. –– Lid^(Talk) 14:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• What a long response for a short comment. Well thanks for taking the time and I guess I see your point. But I would like to see that section be converted into prose(paragraph form) since a section composed enterily of bullet points isn't good. - Tutmosis 15:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
• Agree, could you add more about how the tattoos are used in the wrestling persona? That would make the relevance of the section clearer. The "Pepsi plunge" doesn't seem to be mentioned in signature moves. Also, I've fixed the footnotes to follow punctuation per the guidance at WP:FN. Gimmetrow 15:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Pepsi plunge is under finishing moves, and I'll try to add prose of the tattoo section however I can not think of a way I can convert the entire section into prose. 15:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
• Reply. I added a paragraph at the opening of the paragraph as well as expanded some of the segments underneathe, but could not combine the whole thing into a line of prose without it losing a lot of information nd reading terribly. –– Lid^(Talk) 16:09, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Support since it meets the criteria. It was a very good read about a subject (wresling) that doesn't have a wide wikipedian base to improve. The "tattoos" section still doesn't feel right to me but due to your explanation and it not interfering with any FA criteria I'm going to let it go. Good luck with your next article venture. - Tutmosis 17:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, somehow I didn't see the "plunge" listed. Anyway, the new intro text to the tattoo section needs work: "An integral part of Punk's gimmick is that of the numerous tattoos that adorn his body that have come to represent different aspects of his personality, trademark symbols and mantras that have been integrated into his wrestling gimmick." I'm not sure what this is intending to say, beyond: his tattoos are part of his wrestling persona. Gimmetrow 01:21, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Support. This is probably one of the best wrestling-related Wikis I've ever read, and it should be categorized as such. PunkCabana 21:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support, or perhaps SUPERport. Holy crap, that's easily the best wrestling article I've ever seen on WP. In fact, it's easily one of the best articles- in general- that I've ever read. I've definitely never heard of this guy (I just watched WWE at 3 in the morning today for the first time in at least a couple of years), but now I feel like I've been at every stage of his life, or at least of his wrestling career. Bravo, Lid! -- Kicking222 22:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Object. Lots of problems here:

• 1a) Well-written, compelling, brilliant. Here's a sentence in the lead, "The most widely-believed theory to what it original stood for is "Chick Magnet" due to that Punk was in a tag team early in his backyard wrestling years called the Chick Magnets in which he was CM Punk and his tag team partner was CM Venom.[7]" Going to the middle of the article for a sample of the prose, we find, "Punk joined Ring of Honor initially as a babyface but was soon turned heel. At the same time Punk joined the wrestling promotion NWA:Total Nonstop Action, where he was soon paired with Julio Dinero as sidekicks for Raven as part of The Gathering." Scanning down in the same section, we find, "Punk started climbing the ranks of ROH with notable achievements including coming second in a one night tournament at the Second Anniversary to crown the first ROH Pure Champion, losing to A.J. Styles in the finals,[19] and winning the ROH Tag Team Championship twice with Colt Cabana, both times defeating The Briscoe Brothers to win the championship.[20][21]" Here's a sentence towards the end: "Punk has two younger sisters[10] and a brother who is also a professional wrestler who uses the ring name Mike Broox,[6][7] however Punk and Mike had a falling out several years ago after Mike embezzled several thousand dollars from the Lunatic Wrestling Federation.[65]" These are not just a few things to fix: the entire article needs polishing. At the bottom of the WP:WIAFA page, you can find some exercises and guidelines for helping to polish your prose and reduce redundancies.
• 1b) Comprehensive. This is a biography: Personal life is three stubby paragraphs, which tell us almost nothing about him.

• Expanded and made into prose. –– Lid^(Talk) 02:43, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• 1c) Factually accurate: while the article appears absurdly cited (with too many citations given to source simple facts - why do we need 3 cites that he was hired as a trainer?), the quality of the sources used do not rise to the level required for an FA. Many of the sources are to websites which don't appear to rise to satisfy WP:RS.

• I was going to address this in the nomination but the nomination ended up becoming extremely long so I removed all but the first and last paragraphs: the problem with finding sources on professional wrestlers is that apart from a very very few number they don't really hit the mainstream. When I began the article, as stated above, he hadn't even appeared on television and even now he hasn't appeared in any outside of wrestling sources. The reason for the large number of website notes is because there are simply no other sources from that time in his career that weren't online, in fact they are none as far as I know of. With the indy wrestling scene most of the information is spread by websites and the main wrestling publications are by most other standards tiny, considering how large the business is. The reason I used website sources from OWW rather than the DVDs in question is because the website lists the detail of what happened while the DVDs do not. I was playing with the idea of converting all the OWW ROH links to the DVDs in which they occurred but wasn't sure if that would benefit or remove content from the wikipedia. This isn't even going to mention the rather secretive nature of professional wrestling to begin with and what you end up with is an article that really is the best sourced it could possibly be, and still can not find greater sources. –– Lid^(Talk) 01:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• 2a) Lead. The lead is not a compelling and concise summary of the article. It doesn't summarize the article, and includes detail that is not covered in the article (example, "Chick magnet").

Reply fixed. –– Lid^(Talk) 09:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• 3a) Fair Use doesn't appear to be in the clear; someone more knowledgeable should check. Sandy 23:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I've had a second look: I do not see compelling, brilliant, or even improved prose, I don't see the sources rising to the level required for verifiability, and I don't see a comprehensive bio in this article. Sandy 01:32, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose per 1a and 1c. Getting through the second paragraph was torture. It doesn't meet prose quality and it doesn't meet the MoS because the intro is it's own little diversion (about straight edge), rather than a description of the article.

Would it be better if the paragragh in question was moved to the "Personal Life" section? Shot and Botched 23:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Reply Combined with tattoo section to create gimmick section which should no longer be simple trivia. –– Lid^(Talk) 09:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The effort has been made to format and provide cites—but I cannot view them as reliable, even in a limited context. Ohio Valley Wrestling...OK, this is a part of his career, but their site can not be termed reliable when viewed by itself. Ditto "Obsessed with wrestling".

This just isn't our best quality. Marskell 23:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• OVW is the WWE's primary developmental territory and it's their official website. Is it possible to be more reliable than the source itself? Calaschysm 01:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Many of the citations are match results, but sometimes they don't seem to support the "key" claim of the sentence. For instance: "ROH ended up arranging a Clockwork Orange House of Fun match, which was the first steel cage match in the promotions history, to replace the hair versus hair match.[16]" The key claim seems to be this being first cage match in the franchise, but I couldn't find that on the page referenced by note16. (A few of the other matches cited seem possibly more like minor plot twists than significant events in his career, but some amount of such detail is OK.) Finally, enough editors object to two columns for references. Please, don't use three columns. Gimmetrow 15:15, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
    • In reply to Cala (and having been part of a long recent discussion on FAC talk re this) I feel the references have to be reliable in-themselves not just in this context. Would I trust the website "Obsessed with Wrestling" for any quote, any time? I would say no and Gimme's suspicions help confirm this. Marskell 15:59, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Support Very good article that meets criteria GShton 18:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Object I know this is a problem that a lot of pop culture articles face, but could you do something about the trivia? Quite a bit of the information there isn't really important, and this is obscuring the essential and interesting parts of the article. I'm looking at the tattoos section in particular- while they are an important part of his persona, there really isn't a need to list out and describe so many in so much detail. Borisblue 05:29, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Reply I removed the random band tattoos and other random tattoos on his body, but left in the ones that are integral to the character, personality, mantras etc. This is the best I can come up with to address the tattoos issue, which as I previously mentioned have tried really hard to think of ways to integrate. –– Lid^(Talk) 07:29, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I removed some more tattoos- I really don't see why the reference to the Simpsons' Binky the fish is relevant to his wrestling persona, for instance. Borisblue 18:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

You can remove tattoos if you want, but don't remove the "Straight Edge" tattoo. That's probably the most important tattoo of his.Shot and Botched 00:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I re-added the DRUG FREE knuckles as Punk frequently uses them as both a taunt and has been parodied by opponents with them. –– Lid^(Talk) 09:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose—1a and 2a. Simply not written to the required "professional" standard. The lead provides examples of why the whole article needs to be carefully copy-edited, preferably by someone who's unfamiliar with it, but interested in the topic. Do you know where to find such people?

"Phillip (Phil) Brooks[1] (born 26 October 1978), known professionally by his ring name CM Punk, is an American professional wrestler currently working for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in its Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) brand. Prior to debuting in ECW he was best known for his role on the independent circuit, especially as a member of the Ring of Honor (ROH) roster where he was a former ROH World Champion, head trainer of the wrestling school, and was considered to be one of the three icons of ROH (along with Samoa Joe and Homicide).[2] His professional wrestling gimmick is that of a follower of the straight edge subculture, a culture he follows in real life[3] which preaches abstinence from alcohol, tobacco and any recreational drug use, with different characteristics of his personality and the culture employed at different times depending on alignment."

• • The long, complicated sentences are a problem, making for an unnecessarily hard read. Why not split some of them?
  • "Currently working" slightly more comfortable as "who currently works" here.
  • "Prior to" is an ugly Latinism that's creeping into WP. Just "Before", please.
  • Commas are often a matter of personal choice, but you might consider using more for readability and clarity.
  • Even US editors, who are careful about hyphenating, would insist on "straight-edge". (Explained by nominator—Tony1) I wonder whether "straight-edge subculture" should be in quotes. Is there a link? Again, this sentence is very long, and would benefit from being split ("which" is the fulcrum).
  • "subculture, a culture"—Can it be reworded to avoid the close repetition?
  • Remove "any" as redundant.

Tony 03:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and edited the article according to your suggestions. But, since the Wikipedia article on straight edge is not hyphenated, we should go by that.Shot and Botched 03:03, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: The prose is good, in my opinion, if you copy it to VIM (or Notepad, or something like that, or anything that doesn't support formatting). But all of the references and links, though superb, provides quite an example of holism: the article not as good as the sum of its great parts. The references and links ultimately get distracting. However, wrestling is a specific topic, and if one is not involved in its culture, most of the references in the article would be too jargon-filled. So, to resolve this somewhat, I would suggest smaller paragraphs. However, the content is good. Gracenotes ^T § 22:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)