Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Principal and the Pauper/archive1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 not promoted 22:29, 14 May 2008.

[edit] The Principal and the Pauper

This is my first FA nomination in a while. It is modelled after every other Simpsons FA. I will address concerns as they are brought up. -- Scorpion0422 15:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment -- I added a few sources/info to the Reception section, so I won't comment "Support" - but I think this article is very well-done. One suggestion: might look better to replace the {{Cquote}} formatting in the Concept section with {{Quotebox}} instead, and align that to the right. Cirt (talk) 15:30, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. I couldn't find anything wrong with the article (and, apparently, neither could you). It seems just as good - better, even - as another Simpsons FA I have read (The Joy of Sect). Teh Rote (talk) 18:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - this is very good, I did a copy-edit mainly removing overlinking, unnecessary cites and qualifying people once again in the body. However I still have a few little niggles:
  • "It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on 28 September 1997." - stuff in the lead needs to be mentioned again in the body.
  • It's mentioned and sourced in the infobox.
  • "Although it was produced by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein as part of the season eight production code, it aired during the ninth season as a holdover."--ditto. "Holdover" is kinda technical; could you rephrase?
  • I actually don't think the "as a holdover" part is entirely necessay, so I removed it.
  • "At the time of production, there was little opposition, although Harry Shearer"--Who's Harry Shearer? You might want to delink, remove first name and unqualify him in the "Reaction from staff" section.
  • Fixed.
  • "being an envelope pusher." reword.
  • Fixed
  • "Keeler himself said,"
  • Fixed
  • "Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, have defended the episode"--Are you sure they defended the episode rather than just praise it? In other words, did they acknowledge that most people hate it, and then say, "no, we think its awesome"? Then they defended it. If they just said that its awesome, then its praise.
  • Fixed
More later, indopug (talk) 07:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the review. -- Scorpion0422 17:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Issues resolved, Ealdgyth - Talk 14:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
All other links worked fine. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Some comments
  • Is it clear from the episode that the assembly occurs on the eve of Skinner's anniversary (as in the night before), and not on the anniversary itself?
  • In the plot section, we sometimes call the "fake Skinner" Armin and sometimes call him Tamzarian. I think we should be consistent.
  • The production section doesn't flow very well. It's mostly a list of unconnected topics. I'll try to work on that later.
More to follow, maybe. Zagalejo^^^ 18:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: Why are both Image:The Simpsons 4F23.png and Image:PrincipalandthePauper.JPG necessary? Both depict "key scenes", both depict "key characters" and both serve to provide identification of the episode and illustration of synopsis. WP:NFCC#3A requires minimal use, specifically "Multiple items are not used if one will suffice". Additionally, the latter is not low resolution (NFCC#3B) and the purpose appears to have been largely copy and pasted (e.g. it references a nonexistent "cover"). NFCC#10C requires language to be clear and relevant to each use. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 15:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Response: Removed image Image:PrincipalandthePauper.JPG from the article, per above comment. Cirt (talk) 15:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  • A general question Which is correct: twentieth, or 20th? The MOS currently says to spell out numbers greater than ten, but that particular section has a disputed tag. Unless this dispute is resolved, I'd feel better just sticking with Turabian style, which recommends, "The general rule followed by many writers and by the University of Chicago Press is to spell out all numbers through one hundred . . . The general rule applies to ordinal as well as cardinal numbers" (2.29-2.30, in my book). The MLA Handbook recommends the same thing (2.5.2 in my book). Any thoughts? Zagalejo^^^ 16:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't appear to spelling out numbers, which is in dispute on the talk page. --Maitch (talk) 17:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I haven't looked through the 99+ archives, so I'm not sure exactly what is in dispute, or how that guideline was arrived at in the first place. Are there any "real world" style guides that recommend something similar? Writing twentieth as 20th just looks wrong to me. Maybe Tony or SandyGeorgia can chime in.Zagalejo^^^ 17:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
From WP:MOSNUM: "In the body of an article, single-digit whole numbers (from zero to nine) are given as words; numbers of more than one digit are generally rendered as figures, and alternatively as words if they are expressed in one or two words (sixteen, eighty-four, two hundred, but 3.75, 544, 21 million)." so you CAN write 20th as twentieth. indopug (talk) 07:21, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't read that too carefully. I changed it back to twentieth. Zagalejo^^^ 07:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Further

  • Why does "Guest star(s): Martin Sheen" in the infobox need citing? (I removed it myself but it was added back) Isn't it listed at the end of the episode, in the credits? Its like how you don't need to ref that Nancy Cartwright was in episode.
  • The references need formatting; make sure newspapers are italicised and wikilinked only on the first instance of their occurrence. Also article names need to be in "quotes". Not sure if The Simpsons The Complete Ninth Season DVD commentary for the episode "The Principal and the Pauper" is the right way to write that down; I think some of that should that should go outside italics.
  • I've never really been satisfied with the references for the DVD commentaries. There was a brief discussion about them on the Simpsons project page, but that didn't lead to any changes. Zagalejo^^^ 07:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm going to vouch for the re-addition of that pic of Skinner being shipped (er, trained) out--at low-res and with proper rationale added. I think it does significantly illustrate the plot; the idea of them "banish[ing] the real Skinner from town by tying him to a chair on a freight train car." is a crucial part of the overall absurdity of the episode. The pic illustrates how literally the reader must take that plot description. indopug (talk) 07:21, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Of course it does; the point is that you had two images . The "shipping out" image is indeed superior to the current one, but, if it's restored, the image of the two standing together needs to go per NFCC#3A. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 11:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The pic with the two Skinners is excellent for the infobox because at a quick glance helps the reader get a sense of the main concept of this episode--that the Skinner we have known for all these years is a fake. Another point in its favour is that by showing the real Skinner in military garb; it also helps in the characterization of the two--that the Real one has more serious/army-like personality than the Fake, which is important to the understanding of the article. On the other hand, the railroad pic illustrates a specific--and vital-- plot point (which I've explained above, and you've allowed as acceptable reasoning). Hence both images are necessary--one for quick illustration of entire concept of the story and the other to illo an important plot point and theme (absurdity)--as they are not "fulfilling the same function". indopug (talk) 20:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oh, come come, it's not such a big deal. Let's just please everybody and leave it the way it is at present, with the one image of the 2 Skinners in the infobox. Cirt (talk) 21:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

What about my first two comments? indopug (talk) 17:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

  • New comments
  • I was getting ready to do some work on the production section, but I realized that there is a lot of potential overlap between that section and the "Concept" subsection under "Controversy". Would it be possible to move some of the "Concept" stuff to "Production," and devote "Controversy" to the negative reaction?
  • I'll see what I can do.
Hmm... I think I'll fiddle with it a little more. It's kind of hard to draw the line between "Production" and "Controversy"- the long Keeler quote, for example, could fit in either section. I'm still not sure what's the best way to organize this information. Zagalejo^^^ 05:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • "The writers thought it would be a challenging episode to write, and Keeler often received difficult assignments."
I'm a bit confused by this sentence, and how it is derived from the source. Was Keeler assigned by someone else to write this episode, or did he volunteer to write it?
I just removed it.
  • "At the time of production, there was little opposition, although Harry Shearer, the voice of Principal Skinner, was 'a little peeved'."
It's wrong to state for a fact that "there was little opposition". That's only the way Oakley remembered it nine years later. He might have forgotten some things over the years, or might have been unaware of certain backroom grumblings.
Fixed.
  • Could we mention that the name "Armin Tamzarian" was basically used without the real Tamzarian's permission? I think the story behind that is kind of interesting. Zagalejo^^^ 21:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • That part originally did go more into depth about it but someone removed it. I'll expand it a little. --

Scorpion0422 00:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait, was he already a Fox lawyer when the episode was being produced? I'll have to listen to the commentar again. Zagalejo^^^ 05:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
That's a good idea, I haven't listened to the commentary in a while and that I no longer have that disk. And about the Keeler quote, I really think it should stay because it sums his thoughts behind the meaning of the episode very nicely. -- Scorpion0422 05:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Comments
  • Newspapers, magazines, and the like in refs need italics - noticed Boston Globe in ref 10.
  • First paragraph of lead has some short sentences that could merge...for instance "Principal Skinner admits that his name is actually Armin Tamzarian. He had thought that the real Skinner, a friend from the army, had died in the Vietnam War. Tamzarian decides to leave Springfield forever, only to return later in the episode." could be merged a bit...
  • Shouldn't the episodes in the infobox all have quotation marks around them?
  • Yes. We'll have to change all the episode list templates. Zagalejo^^^ 15:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • In the Plot section he is sometimes referred to as Armin and sometimes as Tamzarian. It's awkward to read things like "begin to distrust Armin. Tamzarian decides that" when it's talking about the same person.
  • I decided to change all the "Tamzarian's" to "Armin's". If people think Tamzarian is better, let me know. Zagalejo^^^ 15:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • "In the original draft, there were two sentences that Keeler felt illustrated this point even better and would have made all of the difference in the episode. However, they were cut for time." - what were they?
  • I believe that Keeler said he didn't remember them, or something like that. I'll have to listen to the audio commentary again to be sure. Zagalejo^^^ 15:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • "September 22–28, 1997" - date wlinking?

Non FAC note: This is actually one of my favourite Simpsons episodes. Interesting that it was reviewed negatively. Yeah...anyways. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 10:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Gary King (talk · contribs)
  • When using ellipsis in quotes, be consistent. In Reception, "reviled by many of the fans ... for its dispensing with series continuity" uses ..., and "but of his hectorish Mom as well. [...] Martin Sheen steals the show" uses [...]. I suggest using [...] just because it stands out more so it is more obvious that you have purposely removed some text.
  • Wikilink the full dates in references, such as reference #1. Also, link the publishers in the references, even for {{cite book}} and {{cite video}}.

That is all for now. Gary King (talk) 03:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Both fixed. I made sure the first usage of each publisher is linked (where articles exist, in one case there was no page for a publisher). Thanks for taking a look. -- Scorpion0422 03:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
    Minor issue, but ref. 7 has 20th Century Fox linked when ref. 4 is the first occurrence. Also, ref. 17, 19, and 20 have publishers in bold; I'm guessing there are a few apostrophes astray there. Gary King (talk) 04:15, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, and I'm very concerned that this nomination is appearing here. Proper steps were not taken to prepare it and get it to proper FA status before bringing it here. First, I don't see where the other major editors (Zagalejo, Cirt, Qst) were asked if this was ready. If they were consulted, please show me where, because if their comments here are any indication, they may not have been too enthusiastic about sending it here. Second, only a nominal peer edit was done and it shows. The prose varies from rough to "correct" but not brilliant as required by criterion 1a. Additionally, the sourcing is very poor and relies mostly on primary sources. The Controversy section sourced to the DVD? Please, you need to find neutral, secondary sources for all but basic facts. This needs a lot of work. --Laser brain (talk) 05:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
    • The reason the DVD commentary is used as a source in the controversy section is because a lot of it deals with their opinions (and a lot of the stuff that needs other sourcing has it, like Harry Shearer's opinions). As for notifying others, Cirt was the one that suggested the FAC, I informed Zagalejo of it several times, and Qst was told on IRC. I'll try and get some copyeditors to take a look. -- Scorpion0422 13:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Okay, I have made it so that only the writers' direct opinions in the controversy section are sourced by the DVD commentary. -- Scorpion0422 13:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
    • In response I wasn't really a major editor really, I just added a bit of stuff to the Reception section. But yes, I was aware that the article was going to FAC and honestly I think it is of FA quality and I would "Support" right here, were I not a major contributor to the article, as per my comment, above. Cirt (talk) 05:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
    • The DVD is a fair source (and really the only source) for the writers' own opinions about the episode. I agree with most of your comments, though. I hadn't taken a clear position until this point, but I'm gonna have to go with oppose. The problems in this article won't be solved without a lot of hard work and group discussion. It's a great topic - it's been on my to-do list for a while - but it's not FA material just yet. (For the record, I never really contributed much to the content of the article. I have the second-most edits, but most of those were just minor tweaks here and there, the bulk of which occurred during this FAC.) Zagalejo^^^ 05:44, 14 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.