Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Our Friends in the North

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[edit] Our Friends in the North

Self-nomination. Almost entirely a one-man effort I'm afraid, but it's an article I'm quite proud of, and I have done my best to try and get other editors involved in improving it. It sat on peer review for two weeks and got a grand total of one comment, which I have acted upon. I appreciate that some people don't like the presence of fair use images in featured article candidates, but in a piece like this I can't believe there's any viable alternative source of illustration, and the screen grabs are all clearly labelled and detailed with source info and fair use rationale. Angmering 11:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• Comment. Fair use is fine here, especially since you've been very thorough in providing information on it in the image description pages! Purists might want smaller versions of the images - no larger than are actually used in the article. Article looks good at first sight. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 23:57, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• Comment. Is there any particular reason the footnotes are separated out by type? I think it would be more conventional to have all three types of references in a single list (or possibly separate them in a "References" section but keep them together in a "Notes" section); the repeating note numbers in the text were somewhat startling when I first noticed them. Kirill Lokshin 18:15, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't very experienced with footnotes, and I suppose I wasn't entirely certain about how to structure them. I personally thought it seemed better to have the different sources separated out like that, but if others agree it doesn't look good I'm more than prepared to change it. Angmering 21:48, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I had a quick look; it isn't a good thing the way it is. Don't get me wrong, the separation is nice in the footnotes list, but it presents several problems. The most significant of which are that you have multiple footnotes named 1 (or 1 in square brackets), and you have some footnote indicators in the prose which go to a differently-numbered foonote. (12 goes to Webpages 1). A single list of notes would be much better. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:19, 30 October 2005 (UTC) (forgot to sign this earlier, actually)

I've now changed the footnotes so there's one consistent numbering system and they're all in one list. You're right, it does look better. Angmering 22:48, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Wow. Mark¹ 05:52, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Excellent, very well-written article. An even better claim for fair use would be to have one screenshot with all four main characters in the frame, but as it stands now, I think the fair use rationales are more than adequate, and I like the arrangement of the images on the page (one to each section). The black bars look rather odd, but that doesn't matter. Extraordinary Machine 13:23, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I did originally look for such an image as you describe. Unfortunately, in the whole ten hours or so of the thing there isn't really one really good shot of the four of them together, if at all. There are scenes, obviously, in which the four of them appear, but never in the same single camera frame. There *are* publicity photos of the four of them (such as this), but they're obviously dodgier for fair use claims. As for the black bars — my thinking behind leaving them there was that they show the 14:9 aspect ratio it was shot in. It's quite an odd ratio — the result of the Super 16 mm film format the programme was shot in — and I thought that cropping the bars away might make it look like actual image had been cropped from a full 4:3 aspect ratio picture. Anyone else have any thoughts on whether I should edit them out of the pictures? Angmering 14:11, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

• Support - comprehensive, very well written - an excellent article. With regards to the images, I don't think they would lose anything by being cropped, but if you prefer them as they are, I think that's valid also. Perhaps putting a note on the image description page explaining the significance of leaving the black bars, might help future editors understand your choices. Rossrs 13:49, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I changed my mind about the images — I had a look and I think you guys were right, so I've edited them to remove the black bars. They do look better, and it's more consistent with the rest of Wikipedia too. Angmering 16:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks good! Rossrs 21:23, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• Support. A nice job all-around. An overabundance of red-linked names is about my only qualm, and my personal feelings lean toward that being OK. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:38, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I could probably knock up stubs for the three directors and the producer, and possibly also the former BBC Managing Director of television who also gets a mention. I did consider doing this before, but wondered if it would be worth it, considering they'd almost certainly never expand very much. But if you feel it would reflect better on the main article I'd be more than willing to do so. Angmering 23:32, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

If it were me and I felt that way, I'd actually delink the names. Others would say to make the stubs, because you never know when an unexpected expansion will occur. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 00:28, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

What I'll probably do then is make articles where I can and de-link where I can't — somebody can always re-link them later if they get articles, which I think is unlikely in the cases of the television critics. But right now I'm off to bed. Goodnight. Angmering 00:54, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I've now created stub articles for Will Wyatt, Charles Pattinson, Stuart Urban, Pedr James and Simon Cellan-Jones, and de-linked the four journalists as they were unlikely to get even stubs. Angmering 13:02, 2 November 2005 (UTC)