Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Characters of Carnivàle

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 16:33, 24 May 2008.

[edit] Characters of Carnivàle

Self-nom I believe the article meets all FA criteria, except possibly one inactionable one: Some sources are to a yahoo group that requires registration, but these are forum posts by the producer of the show (Daniel Knauf) and are thus reliable in their essence. As far as I could determine in the last 6 months, the information that he gave there is unavailable anywhere else except for fan forums that copy-pasted his messages, so I ref'ed his original messages. – sgeureka ^t•c 14:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments (forgive my typing, I'm on the road with an unfamiliar laptop keyboard)

• What makes the following reliable sources?
  • http://chud.com/articles/
    • Interview with Daniel Knauf, creator of the show who for some reason never discussed any indepth backstory- and mythology-related questions with mainstream sources like TV Guide (maybe because the show was not popular enough for mainstream attention, or maybe because they considered the show too inaccessible and gave up on trying to decipher it early on, who knows)
      • What makes them a reliable source for interviews though? Do they have a reputation for fact checking, etc? Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
        • The interview (for that matter, all interviews here) is a 1:1 transcript of the interview, so there is no fact-checking on their part. I only used Knauf's answers. Of course Knauf may be lying, but unless someone exposes him as such (which hasn't happened so far), his word stands. We can't fact-check his memory. If there are concerns that chud.com themselves messed with the transcript, I can contact Knauf and ask him to re-read the interview and confirm that they didn't mess with it. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.carnycon.com/
    • They organized CarnyCon Live 2006, see Carnivàle#Fandom
      • Addendum: The used cases were interviews with Daniel Knauf, Clancy Brown, Robert Knepper, Debra Christofferson, Brian Turk, all interviewed by Beth Blighton at CarnyCon Live. Beth Blighton is a fan who started the CarnivàleYahoo Group (Knauf's preferred message board where he made 135 posts so far), and she was also one of the main organizers of CarnyCon Live. Daniel Knauf basically vouched for her in this Yahoo Group post (registration required) and also gave his agent's contact info for proof that he is himself. You can read the relevant parts of the post in the Update of Talk:Mythology_of_Carnivàle/Archive_1#Non-deletion_rationale.
        • • Are we only referring to information about the convention itself, in which case they would be a reliable source for the information about the con, or is it used for more information than just about the convention? Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
            • The interviews were used in the article, and the interviews were held at CarnyCon, and then hosted at that website. If the information is not factual, then the interviewed producers and cast were lying. But there is hint of such. If there are concerns that Beth Blighton (who has the best reputation in Carnivàle fancircles since she was involved with almost everything) messed with the transcript, I can contact Knauf to vouch for her actions. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.dvdtalk.com/
    • A non-fannish DVD reviewer, used for nothing but reception. DVD Talk (still) has a wiki article, so I considered their site notable enough when I started the characters article.
      • If it's used merely as a "review" site, it can probably pass muster. Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.dvdverdict.com
    • A non-fannish DVD reviewer, used for nothing but reception
      • Assuming it's used merely for a review, it can probably pass muster. Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • http://carnivaleinterviews.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_archive.html
    • Holds the dozens of interviews between Beth Blighton and the producers and the cast, in this case Daniel Knauf.
      • What makes them a reliable source for interviews though? Do they have a reputation for fact checking, etc? Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
        • See above for "Beth Blighton". – sgeureka ^t•c 08:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.centimes.demon.co.uk/Fragments/carnivaletcatranscript.html
    • This is the only available transcript of the Television Critics Association Press Tour in 2003, no video available anywhere anymore. Answers by Daniel Knauf, Ronald D. Moore, Carolin Strauss (former president of HBO), Nick Stahl, Clancy Brown, and some more actors. Doesn't make the site reliable per se, but their answers correlate with what they've said in DVD commentaries, interviews etc., so I have no doubts about the authenticity of the transcript.
      • Do they have a reputation for fact checking, etc? Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
        • All that I could do is ask the website owner if he still has the video or audio tape of that session, or ask Knauf to confirm that this was more or less what was said there, according to his memory. I can also replace the one instance where this source was used in the article, with a Yahoo Group post by Knauf, I think. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.mooncross.net/carnivale/transcripts/chat_knauf.html
    • A chat log of one of the many web chats with Knauf, also with actor Brian Turk, organized by Beth Blighton
      • As a general rule, chat logs aren't considered the most reliable sources, they can sorta squeak by when held by an otherwise reliable source. Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Best I can do is ask Knauf to confirm his answers weren't messed with in the chat log. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • http://clancybrownfanclubblog.blogspot.com/2003/12/clancy-brown-interview-part-2.html
    • Another weblog of Beth Blighton, holds many of her interviews with actor Clancy Brown
      • See above Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.savecarnivale.org/html/carniecast_clancy.htm
    • The official fan website with to coordinate efforts to resurrect the show after its cancellation, partly managed by Beth Blighton. Holds a chat log with Clancy Brown, with the chat organized by Beth Blighton.
      • For information about the effort to save the show through the organization, probably might squeak by, but probably not reliable enogh for other information. Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
        • The same chat log is also available at various places online, e.g. the Yahoo Group. The best I can do is ask Beth Blighton to confirm that the chat log hasn't been messed with (I don't have the contact info for Clancy Brown). – sgeureka ^t•c 08:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.dvdtown.com/
    • A non-fannish DVD reviewer, used for nothing but reception
      • Assuming it's used merely for a review, it can probably pass muster. Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • http://carnivaleinterviews.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_archive.html#108450441517912015
    • Interview with actress Adrienne Barbeau by Beth Blighton – sgeureka ^t•c 13:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
      • See above about chat logs. Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
• You already mentioned the problems with the mailing group posts. I'm assuming you mean current ref 3 "Pitch Document and Character biographies?" Also the Current ref 23 "Re: Stray thoughts on HBO's meddling"? And current ref 39 "Chat with Daniel Knauf"? And current ref 63 "Re: Prophet, Prince Usher"? And current ref 96 "Re: S2 Finale"? And current ref 97 "Re: in response to dan's letter"? and current ref 99 "Re: even more Carnivale questions"? That's a pretty large chunk of referencing sourced to a newsgroup.
  • I know that that's a lot, but there's the choice to leave the reader (the viewer) in the dark or not. Imagine Lost got cancelled after the second season, but the producers only chose to reveal their story intentions some time later in fan circles in a documentable fashion when the mainstream sources have already moved on to the next shows. "Pitch Document and Character biographies" is a ~40-page Microsoft Word document in two parts that Knauf had given to Beth Blighton years after the cancellation, and which explains all the hidden layers of the characters' past that the show never really got to reveal. Beth Blighton chose to host the document(s) in the Yahoo Group after Knauf gave his okay. – sgeureka ^t•c 13:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
• You use hbo.com along with HBO as the publisher on a lot of refs. Pick one for consistency? Personally, I prefer HBO. Same sort of deal with ew.com, variety.com, usatoday.com, nytimes.com, etc.
  • The show aired on HBO, so it's HBO. The interviews etc. were (only) published online, so it's hbo.com. Some things were only said on DVDs, so it's HBO Home Video. Some online editions of newspapers can be very different from their print counterpart, so where I know the articles to have been published in regular newspapers (but were sometimes published by others later online), I used the normal name; where I only found online articles and am unsure about print publication, I used the ".com" version. (I.e. there is consistency.) Should I still change hbo.com to HBO etc. anyway? (No problem.) – sgeureka ^t•c 16:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
    • • The way I understand these things, and please someone else correct me, the publisher would be HBO since it's their site. The work would be HBO.com, but the actual company publishing it would be HBO. Ealdgyth - Talk 04:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
        • I'll go over the article. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
          • Done. – sgeureka ^t•c 21:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I like the original way of sourcing these better. Just as book publishers have different divisions that publish different things a modern media company like HBO has several different, large, divisions and it makes sense to distinguish between them where possible. Ditto for distinguishing between articles found online and in printed versions of news providers. In short I think removing detail in the sourcing of the article is a bad thing.--Opark 77 (talk) 09:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
• Current ref 87 "Fleck romances Carnivale" is lacking a publisher.

I'm on the road again, and the link checker tool doesn't like this hotel's ISP, I am getting a LOT of timeout errors, which I suspect are related to the hotel ISP. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:30, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

• I'll address the other two issues in an hour. Thank you for your input. – sgeureka ^t•c 13:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

• Done. – sgeureka ^t•c 16:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Responses on questions about reliable sources need to reference WP:V policy. Answers like "they organized so-and-so" or "I think they're reliable" don't resolve the query. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

True. I've added some more details above. Please let me know if and what sources still don't pass the reliability hurdle, since I believe all do. – sgeureka ^t•c 16:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

We're back into the territory covered by some of the most obscure recent FAC topics here. In general, interviews need to be published/hosted by reliable sources just to assure that they are reporting the words of the interview properly. While I agree, there isn't much sense for them not to, we are dealing with someone who is living and thus greater concern needs to be put out to make sure that we are reporting their words correctly. On the other hand, this topic doesn't seem to have generated a lot of mainstream press coverage. I think the best we can do, and the best I can do, is leave this information out there for other reviewers to judge for themselves. As a personal opinion, I"m a bit leary of chat logs and the like. I'm not trying to imply that the hosts of these sources aren't perfectly honest individuals, it's more that I'm leery of setting a precedent for other subjects. WP:RS purposely sets the bar high on allowing the use of these sorts of sources, and like it or not WP:RS is policy. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:48, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I fully understand and mostly agree, but the precedent has already been set with the FAC, FAR and AfD of Spoo. (Not that this would help me with this FAC, or that I endorse that article.) If I got confirmation from Knauf (I haven't approached him yet), would that help with keeping the chat logs as sources? Because if I can't keep them for a successful FA, I'd rather withdraw this FAC than removing the info from the chat logs and/or message board posts. Best, – sgeureka ^t•c 21:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll point out that the Spoo FAR was in Sept of 2007, about eight-nine months ago. I'm just really leery of using interviews on fan sites or chat logs on websites. I won't oppose, but I don't like the feel of the concept at all. To me, they don't fit in with WP:V which says Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Maybe if he hosted the interviews himself, they might fall under the self-published rules, but as they stand they don't appear to me to satisfy the "reputation for fact checking" requirement. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support - Meets FA criteria. Regarding reliable sourcing, The writers are a reliable source as it's their show, so no matter where they give that interview, be it on video, in a DVD commentary, in a book, or to their fans in a forum, its still reliable. It's the person giving the information that needs to be reliable, no matter what format its in. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 19:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comments Wow, looks like a really nice article. Most of my comments are fairly pedantic/nitpicky.
  • The main supporters of Brother Justin's storyline - "supporters" makes them sound like cheerleaders. How about "cohort" or something, in need of a better word? Think of anything better?
    • I chose "supporting characters".
  • the original character backgrounds only appeared as fractions of the character summaries on the official HBO website - the original bios were only a fraction of the length of the online bios? Likely it's the other way around.
    • Overcomplicated grammar. I changed it into "the original character backgrounds appeared in a summarized form on the official HBO website", although I am trying to think of a better sentence
  • part of the show's so-called Pitch Document - "Pitch Document" in quotation marks like so?
    • I added the quotation marks, but I think there is a risk that people might mistake the quotation marks as mock-quotes and will expect a real title later in the article. Maybe I'm just reading too much into this.
  • "dust bowl" used in lead; "Dustbowl" used in first subsection. Sweep through for consistency.
  • Daniel Knauf gave the latter as Ben' chain gang background - "Ben's chain gang background"?
  • Are we referring to Brother Justin as "Justin" or "Brother Justin"? Seems to be an on/off mixture of both.
    • Depends if the focus is his job or his family. But I switched to "Brother Justin" for constancy in all cases but two, which reference him as a kid
  • "[t]he only psychic Houdini was unable to debunk" - do we really need to square bracket-ise the caps-to-no-caps transition? We're quoting the same word.
  • In the "Characters affiliated with..." sections, make sure there's consistency when writing "(Seasons ...)" or "(seasons ...)" after the characters' actors.
  • Lila, who will become a major obstacle for the carnival's success - why future tense?
    • Because the character will only become an obstacle down the road. I switched to "Ruthie repeatedly approaches Lila, leading to Lila turning into a major obstacle for the carnival's success."
  • Why is Ruthie a "talker" but Jasper a "barker"? Both link to barker (occupation).
  • "Ferris wheel" or "Ferris-wheel"? Pick one and sweep through for consistency.
  • she killed her husband Hilton Scudder in the night of Henry's birth - "on the night"?
  • The producers generally preferred actors who were not strongly identified with other projects, but were willing to make exceptions such as for Adrienne Barbeau as Ruthie - maybe mention what projects Barbeau was known for.
    • Frankly, I don't know her from any of her other works even after reading her wiki article, but I have heard quite often how big a star she is. I wrote "make exceptions for established actors such as Adrienne Barbeau (Ruthie)."
  • Adrienne Barbeau (Ruthie) got cast after her first audition - "was cast"?
  • namely because "they don't play significant parts in the first few episodes." - maybe say "according to Phil Gallo of Variety".
  • Australian The Age stated that - "Australian newspaper", maybe, and maybe journalists name (Wendy Tuohy) because newspapers generally don't write their own articles ;)
  • Loving the use of exactly 100 refs. Don't add or remove any!! :D
• Very, very nice stuff. I'm desperate to go out and rent the DVDs now! —97198 talk 13:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • • Thank you for your thorough review; I tried to implement your notes. – sgeureka ^t•c 21:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Support Great article, and a good read too. I'm not personally concerned with the reliability of the refs; the refs with raised issues are interview transcripts and don't contain any controversial information that could be really contested. —97198 talk 07:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support Excellent article. Referencing uses the most reliable sources available and since a range of sources are included it is acceptable to me.--Opark 77 (talk) 09:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support Well -written, well-researched, well-sourced and strikes thhe right balance for an article about a fictional subject. An outstanding example of what a list of fictional characters can be and possibly the new metric by which to gauge future such nominations. Eusebeus (talk) 00:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

• Reliable sources concerns raised above have not been resolved. Please ask Black Kite (talk · contribs) or Elcobbola (talk · contribs) to check the images, and I'm spotting MoS issue: perhaps you can interenst Epbr123 (talk · contribs) in running through the article (I noticed MOS:CAPS#All caps in the citations and WP:PUNC issues on logical punctuation, Epbr may want to have a closer look). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • RS - see below. Black Kite was only concerned about one image, which I have removed now. ALLCAPS in the refs is for a doc file, which is case sensitive, so I won't change it. I have fixed the punctuation per MOS, and I don't think it is necessary to contact Epbr for another MOS check. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strong oppose for several reasons:
  • 1a: No substantive peer review or other process to check the prose for FA readiness. And it's far from the professional standard required by FA. The very second sentence, "Created by Daniel Knauf, the show aired on HBO between 2003 and 2005 and traces the disparate storylines of an ensemble of fictional characters revolving around two main characters: young Ben Hawkins working in a traveling carnival, and a California preacher named Brother Justin Crowe." is wordy, redundant, and contains mixed tenses. The very next sentence, "Carnivàle, a serial drama with a complex mythology, had a large cast, amounting to eighteen main cast actors over its two-season run." Confusion is already setting in.. the first sentence reads "Carnivàle is...", suggesting the show is currently running. But.. it "had" a large cast. A thorough copyedit by an uninvolved editor is needed before closer scrutiny is possible here.
  • 1c: Many absolutely unacceptable sources. No Yahoo! Groups, please. No authentication, no fact-checking, no anything. I won't rehash the outstanding items Ealdgyth posted, but I concur that they are not reliable sources.
  • 3: The rationales for the fair use images in use here are completely inadequate. The images are not the subject of critical commentary. --Laser brain (talk) 05:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Is the source Daniel Knauf (100% reliable as he is the show creator), or is the medium he chose to present the information? Anyway, I emailed Daniel Knauf, and he replied. I have copy-pasted the content of the email below (I'll leave out my real name, my email address and his email address, but I can forward the email to anyone who is interested (please don't publish the private information then anywhere), or I can ask Knauf to do the OTSR ticket thing if there is still doubt about the reliability of the sources. Although I admit that I haven't read every little blurb about Carnivàle in magazine (who has?), but being quite a Carnivàle expert now, I stand by my opinion that I have used the best sources available, and I'll rather let this FAC fail than remove them (except for maybe the mooncross transcript, which wouldn't be a big loss). Edit: Knauf has already suggested on Sep 16, 2007 to have skeptics contact his agent Pete Stone in this yahoo message (registration required) if they doubt it is him at yahoo, so I didn't ask him a second time to confirm he is himself.

• • I am very uneasy about all this. It seems like almost the whole article is sourced to primary sources (HBO and other supposedly original documents) and many of them are based on circumstantial information. --Laser brain (talk) 22:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll go over the image FURs again, although I feel they that the article has enough critical commentary about the look of the things that the images identify.

• Image:Carnivale Season 1 Cast Promo.jpg - no problem I guess
• Image:Benhawkins.jpg - identification of main character, in article: Of the many actors auditioning, the producers found that Nick Stahl brought a "particular introspection" to the character, "project[ing] a great deal of sensitivity, of quiet intelligence, of pain."[12] They also felt that his seemingly little-trained physique worked well for the 1930s period. [...] In reviewing the first three episodes, The New York Times commented that "Ben is a taciturn hero, and Mr. Stahl does a remarkable job of wordlessly conveying his character's moods and yearnings, as well as his ungainly grace."[14] Boston.com regarded "Stahl, with his watchful eyes, [as] one of the show's strengths. He has a boyish face, but the grim expression of a worn-out elder,"[15] and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said Stahl "speaks volumes with his eyes and weary frown, so much so that his understated portrayal almost carries the series."[16] [...] Ben wore the same clothes in both seasons, and to make them look identical, around twenty multiples of his coveralls were made by hand. It took over six weeks to apply all stitches, patches and the roughly fifty holes, plus the aging process.
• Image:BJustin2.jpg - identification of main character, the section is so long that he could be spun out into his own GA article, in article: Referring to Brown's portrayal as "a man of God in Carnivale," the Los Angeles Times saw Brown's "eyes always betray[ing] him as someone who, all things considered, would probably be happier caving in your skull and smoking a cigarette afterward than talking to you for another minute."[35] [...] Brother Justin's clothes were made period-correct from the beginning, but the character's foreboding presence was enhanced by fitting his frock on the waist and making the shoulders look bigger than usual for that time period.
• Image:Carnivale Scudder Belyakov.jpg - important characters who don't appear in Image:Carnivale Season 1 Cast Promo.jpg, that's how a dream looks in Carnivàle
• Image:Carnivale Libby Costume.jpg - example for period look of clothes, 10 major costume and make-up award noms+wins, in article: "The stripper clothes of Rita Sue and Libby were influenced by Mae West, harlot movies and silent films of the 1920s and 1930s, with additional research put into Asian harlots, Latin dancers and Hawaiian dancers."

As for the other stuff, I have fixed a couple of MOS issues, and I have read and tweaked the article again for prose. I'll approach the suggested editors soon. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:36, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Support after the prose has been polished up. It's quite good now, so why not coax someone else to sift through it: should be a quick job. Don't just correct these samples, please.

• "before filming of the first season began"—missing word.
• "appeared in a summarized form"—reduce to two words.
• "the writers are benefited with more flexibility"—ouch.
• "Ben has displayed inexplicable healing powers since childhood, and with the beginning of the series, he has also begun to suffer dreams and visions of people unknown to him."—what does "also" add? And there's another idle one shortly after. Weed them out, please.
• "Season 2 concludes in Ben setting out to confront Brother Justin in California"—not "in", but "with". And another noun + -ing glitch. I'll borrow this for the exercises in this issue I'm writing. Try the existing one. TONY (talk) 04:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.