Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Smallville (season 1)

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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 17:14, 1 March 2008.

[edit] Smallville (season 1)

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I'm nominating this article for featured article because I believe that it is a rather comprehensive article on the first season of Smallville. It pretty much looks like a much larger version of our featured television episode articles. I am also the primary contributor to the article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Weak oppose—1a. Examples:
    • "The first season centers around Martha and Jonathan Kent (O'Toole and Schneider) trying to help their adopted son, Clark (Welling), cope with his alien origins and control his developing abilities." "Centers around" should be "centers on".
    • "Clark has to deal with the meteor infected individuals that begin popping up all over Smallville, his love for Lana Lang (Kreuk), and not being able to tell his two best friends, Pete Ross (Jones III) and Chloe Sullivan (Mack), the truth about who he really is." "Meteor infected" should be hyphenated, "popping up all over" is somewhat informal, and "the truth about who he really is" should be tightened. Might want to use parallelism for flow.
    • "Al Gough and Miles Millar, co-creators of the show, devised several concepts to help establish stories from week to week." It's already mentioned that they are the co-creators. You might want to reword "help establish stories from week to week".
    • "Physical effects, make-up effects, and computer generated imagery became an important component of the first season." Should be pluralized to "became important components".
    • "Quick shooting schedules" sounds a bit odd - I can think of a few alternatives.
    • Just a side note - the tenses seem mixed in the second lead paragraph.
    • "The episode budgets had to be kept on a strict guideline, as the show frequently ran over budget in the first half of the season." First clause could be tightened a bit. Perhaps "The episode budgets had to be regulated strictly,"
    • "When the season first aired, the pilot broke The WB viewership record for a debut series,[5] and was nominated for various awards." "The" should be lowercased and unitalicized.
  • This shows that the entire article needs a quick pass; please find a copy-editor unfamiliar with the text. — Deckiller 04:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
    • I've adjusted the lead per your criticisms, if you could take a look again to see if it reads better. I'm not sure what you are referring to about the "mixed tense" issues in the second paragraph. "The" is supposed to be capitalized in "The WB", because that is the name of the network (it's linked in the first paragraph).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Dec, I understand you meant "the whole article", that is why I asked Jim Dunning to help copyedit (which he is in the process of doing). My question was merely if I had addressed your lead concerns...which is irrelevant now because Jim has reworded and tightened up the lead himself.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
        • The lead is definitely better, and the rest of the article is starting to shape up as well. — Deckiller 22:32, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
          • There is still some excessive wikilinking ("effects" and "barns"); I think someone familiar with the text should go through and remove excessive wikilinks. A lot of it will be judgement calls. — Deckiller 05:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
          • The hidden comment you left, it's "promising start" to the series. I've corrected this. I've removed some wikilinks, for the most part I think the rest of fine.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
            • It's getting close; please tweak up the episode summary section, and then I'll support. — Deckiller 17:00, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Something like this? Just making sure before I do the entire list (which I won't finish until tomorrow, regardless because I'm going to bed) and find out that it isn't what you wanted.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Yeah, looks good. — Deckiller 04:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
      • The rest of the episodes.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:47, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
      • There's definitely still touch-ups to be had, but since I won't be around most of the weekend, I'll go ahead and strike my oppose—you are one of the most reliable editors in the FAC circuit, after all :) — Deckiller 19:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - I think Bignole has done an excellent job. The only concern I have is the table. Does it have to be at the start? It seems like the rest of the information is being neglected, and looks too big [being at the start]. A couple of extra pictures would be nice too, and not just put on the right side of the page. * ₩іκіRocкs/Love$ounds ♥ talκ 06:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
    • I can't find a fair use for any other image for the article. As for the table, it's just the same format as any film article or an episode article (i.e. Plot than Production than Reception). I did switch the placement of the Swanguard stadium to the left side.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:19, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Very nice work; I've only a few little things to raise:
    • The lead uses both "villain of the week storylines" and "villain-of-the-week storylines". Section 'Writing' uses former while 'Reception' uses both.
    • Why are some actors in parantheses beside their characters (eg. Kelly Brook) in the episode synopses while others are not?
    • John Glover links to a dab page.
    • "Doug Higgens, and his crew, built a fully functioning, three-story barn for the Kent farm." (a) Who is Doug Higgens and (b) should there be a comma after his name? And (c) why is he later referred to as "Higgins"?
    • "When filming got behind schedule..." "Got" is an ugly word - what about "when filming fell behind schedule"?
    • "By the time filming for "Jitters" was completed, three different directors worked on the project..." "Had worked", maybe?
    • "When digital effects were not an option, Mike Walls, the physical effects supervisor who began his Smallville career with "Leech", still tries to provide big effects." Seems to switch tense at the end.
    • Should there be one of those elongated-type-hyphen-thingies (sorry, haven't got a clue what they're called, but they're used to represent duration between pairs of dates - there's one in the infobox) in "1 January - 31 December 2001" in 'Awards'?
  • Hope the comments were useful. •97198 talk 12:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
    • I've made changes per your concerns, except for the actors in the plot section. I will get to that (I'll add whoever is missing), but I have to go to work right now. I hope the other changes work well for you. Thanks for the support. :)  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
    • I've added the names of the guest stars in the plot. Hope that looks better.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Isn't this more of a list than an article? Buc (talk) 18:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
    • The only part I see that even remotely resembles a list is the Episodes subsection. — Deckiller 18:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Like Deckiller said, the only "list" is with the table itself. That's only because it is rather extrenuous to list every single director, writer, airdate, etc etc in the infobox, and then have one giant plot section. It's more organized to just have the table. I think you are drawing comparisons to Lost (season 2) (and the like) which are featured lists. That's because the majority of the information on those pages is what is on the list. Even the prose sections are nothing but prosed-out lists of the cast and crew members. They could easily be placed in a table as well.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
      • But should it really be an article? As you say other tv series season article are FL. Why should this be any diffrent. The individual episode articles would cover the prose sections in the article in far more detail. Buc (talk) 10:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
        • No they wouldn't. The entire purpose for my making this an article was because they can't support themselves individually. First, several of the episodes are not even mentioned because there was nothing to say about them period, while others only have a brief mentioning in maybe a certain section of the production. There isn't a single review on any individual episode outside of the pilot episode. Just because other season pages cannot be as comprehensive as this article, you want me to disband it into individual pages that would fail the notability guideline? Sorry, but that isn't a problem with this article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
          • Why would they fail the notability guideline? Buc (talk) 21:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Just read WP:NN, or WP:FICT. You need significant coverage from reliable sources independent of the subject. Well, those companion books are not "independent of the subject", so, though they are great for real world information they don't show notability. If you can find some professional reviews for those episodes, then we can talk. I haven't been able to find a single review, let alone enough reviews to constitute "significant coverage". The fact remains, the page works just fine as an article that comprehensively ties all the episodes together from a real world perspective. I'm not going to debate this any further, this page isn't new to anyone (it was the basis for all those FL season articles; it's been shown around as an example of how you can tie all the episodes together in a single page without it being confusing). If you choose not to critique the article per the FA criteria, that's fine, but the debate about "why isn't this just a list, and why aren't all these episode articles on their own page" is a moot point in my opinion.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Question - Shouldn't this be at featured lists? There are a bunch of Degrassi: The Next Generation articles up at FLC right now which have a very similar format to this article. indopug (talk) 05:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Buc posed the same question, and as Dec and I answered, the only "list" on this page is the table that contains the titles/airdates/director/writer/plot of the episodes. That's because there are far too many to list in the infobox. The difference between this article and the Degrassi list is that the majority of the Degrassi pages, like the Lost pages, contain information in prose that can easily be turned into list form (i.e. the list of cast and crew members). This article has production information. It looks identical to an individual episode article, with the exception being the table that holds the 22 episodes of the entire season. If those pages had production information (which isn't just listing all the people that worked on the show) then I'd say they need to be re-evaluated for article status, but, other than a reception section everything else on those pages is pure list information (which is not a problem, because you can have prose paragraphs on a "List of" page. The difference here is that the majority of this page is prose information, not list information).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 05:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support I found only a few hyphen issues, but I am not even sure whether this is a MOS issue or personal preference. This TV season article is surely the best one on wikipedia, and it sets the bar pretty high for future season articles. – sgeureka t•c 16:06, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - This is a great example of how television episodes can be condensed into a single manageable but comprehensive article, instead of having countless stubby little episode articles out of principle. It's well-sourced and attractive visually (like the colour scheme). Excellent work.  Paul  730 20:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose Disclaimer: I dislike 'wedding cake' lists, where multiple articles are crammed into one sugary behemoth. The reception section caught my eye as having problems:
    • The record for highest-rated debut for The WB was broken... Passive voice, and I question the importance of this record on a channel that was only six years old.
    • The Nielson ratings sentence is unclear; why are Star Trek, Futurama and Ellen mentioned as being 'along with' Smallville? Are they near to it, above or what?
    • The Futon Critic doesn't have an article; are they worth mentioning? Maybe they don't deserve first paragraph prominence.
    • What ratings did the series US run end on? The use of averages obscures this.
    • Who are Jeremy Conrad and Rob Hedeldt? You can find out from the references, but you shouldn't have to.
    • The season recieved favorable reviews. This is contradicted by the third paragraph; add a 'mostly' or remove the sentence.
    • The section needs to have its quotations trimmed.
    • The BBC, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Entertainment Weekly 'reviews' are quite flimsy, single paragraph affairs. Is there nothing better?
    • No ratings information for places outside the US or DVD sales figures?
    • Shouldn't the DVD reception be seperated from the TV reception? The DVD reviews take things like extras into account, whilst some of the TV reviews are for the 'season so far'.--Nydas(Talk) 21:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Some I can fix, others I can't. I can clarify what you want to be clarified. As for The Futon Critic, not having an article on Wikipedia doesn't make something less significant. We don't use Wikipedia as a reason to support anything, that goes for non-support as well, but I can move its placement. The WB record is important to the WB, just because it isn't NBC doesn't make it less sigificant to the WB. I can't find info on the show outside of northern america, I've looked. I don't believe I wrote about the "DVDs". Most critics don't watch every show when it hits television, they wait till the DVD so that they can watch the entire show in one sitting (at least, this is what I find for shows that don't have primetime channels like CBS and NBC as their hosting station). I don't believe I noted anything about the DVD extras in the reception section.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
      • I've reworded the opening sentence about the record. I didn't move the Futon Critic out of that first paragraph simply because the first paragraph is dealing with rankings, and not with specific comments about the show itself. It seems out of place with the critical reviews in the following paragraphs. I clarified the "Ellen, Star Trek" bit; the show was tied with those others. I can't find Nielsen ratings for "Tempest" (the season one finale). Well, I take that back...I did find a single source, but you had to pay to view the news article (see search result here). I've identified Jeremy Conrad and Rob. I added "mostly", and I've trimmed the quoted information some (I don't know how much you want trimmed). As for BBC and the rest, what you see listed on this page is about everything I could find (hence why it isn't extremely large). You're talking about a show that airs on a channel only viewed by an average of what, 6 or 7 million people; when you have shows on CBS getting twice that much. I've addressed the "US centric" ratings information. I don't know who keeps record of DVD sales, and I mean record of the actual numbers. I can find something like, "On September 9, 2003, Smallville was fourth on the sales charts", but that means nothing without a number to go with it. What if the number one DVD sold 5 million copies, but the number 2 only sold 400k copies?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support most of these TV articles go to FL instead, but I understand why this is at FA - you don't put individual articles on episodes, and all info is on the season article. Anyway, very detailed and referenced article, looks like an "expanded version" of the Pilot FA. igordebraga ≠ 17:23, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.