Wikipedia:Featured article review/The Quatermass Experiment/archive1

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

The article was kept 12:58, 5 February 2007.

[edit] The Quatermass Experiment

[edit] Review commentary

Author Angemering aware. Messages left at UK notice board, Television, and British TV shows. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm nominating this for FAR because the article;

1. Lacks sufficient inline citations.
2. Fails to discuss the Quatermass Experiment's impact on the horror genre, making the article not comprehensive.
3. Has a "Reaction" section which is a little short, also making the article not comprehensive. LuciferMorgan 21:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Tricky one this — it's from back in the day, of course when standards were lower and I'm not sure there are enough published sources around to be able to provide sufficient citations to keep it at the modern FA level. (Although just as a sidenote, I'd question whether it had *any* impact on the horror genre — its influence was more on British television science-fiction, I'd say. British television horror as a genre doesn't really exist).

I speak as the author of the majority of the article, by the way, lest anyone was curious. Angmering 00:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I welcome your comments - when I referred to horror I meant the genre as a whole really, encompassing cinema also. If it had an impact on UK sci-fi TV though, it'd be great if this was expanded upon. LuciferMorgan 02:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll try and beef it up a bit later on this week — I'm quite sure I can't get it to modern FA standards, but it's always good to make articles better for their own sake. :-) Angmering 20:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry so much about time constraints as editors are given extra time to work on things. Even if the article lost the FA badge, it could always be re-nominated if eventually brought back to standard. LuciferMorgan 20:47, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are insufficient citations (1c), and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 15:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove per my nomination concerns. LuciferMorgan 22:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: Not that I expect it to stay as an FA, but I thought you'd like to know that I have gone through and expanded, referenced and generally tinkered with the article. I've also stripped out all but one of the fair use screen grabs, properly cited and justified the one that remains and added two free images I took myself. It's not great, I know, but it's a hell of a lot better than it was and hopefully won't shame the Featured Article section too much for the week or however long it is it has left on there. Angmering 23:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Angmering, I haven't yet read it, but on quick glance it appears well cited - why are you giving up on it? Referencing is often the hardest part - if there are still other concerns, and you intend to work on them, time can be extended. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not giving up on it, no, and if people think it's still salvageable I'd be happy to try and bring it further up to standard. I just assumed it wouldn't be good enough for that. Angmering 16:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, again with the caveat that I haven't read it yet, the other concerns raised had to do with the horror genre and critical reaction - can you/have you worked on those? I'll be glad to read the article and pitch in on reviewing the refs if you're not going to give up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the influence on the horror genre had more to do with the film version, which has its own article at The Quatermass Xperiment. However, I have expanded the former "Reaction" section into a new "Reception and influence" section, which I think deals with critical reaction to the serial and its influence on later productions to a decent degree. I am more than willing to try and dig out more of this sort of stuff if it still seems lacking. Angmering 17:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The formatting of sources is well put together - no problem there. Sources are diverse and generally reliable - just a few questions:

• Normally I'd object to the geocities personal website, but it appears to be a reliable source, and is used to source statements appropriately. While checking the source, I came across this prose: Doctor Who, the most successful of all British science-fiction programmes, was a show that Kneale disliked, also claiming that it had stolen ideas of his. It might be changed to ... a show that Kneale disliked, saying it had stolen his ideas. (Avoid "claim" per WP:WTA).
• Concerned about the Doctor Who Restoration Team - who is BBC's Television Archivist, and how does http://www.purpleville.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/rtwebsite/quatermass-article.htm meet WP:RS (says it's a group of fans, but is only used to cite three relatively uncontroversial statements)?
• I can't determine authorship, reliability on http://www.the-mausoleum-club.org.uk/

Other than those - which aren't used extensively - the article appears very well cited - you might ask LuciferMorgan to have a fresh look, and ping Tony1 (talk · contribs) or Outriggr (talk · contribs) to have a look at the prose, explaining to them the article is at FAR and well-referenced. I think work towards preserving this article's status is warranted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments — very good of you to take the time to have a good look through it. :-) In reply...

• Avoiding the "claim" is a good point — I shall re-phrase the sentence as you suggest.
• The Doctor Who Restoration Team are a group of Doctor Who fans who work within the technical side of the television industry, who since the early 1990s have provided extensive restoration to Doctor Who DVD releases for BBC Worldwide and latterly 2 entertain Ltd. They also performed restoration work on the Quatermass Collection DVD release in 2005, hence the link to the page on their website explaining their work on that set. The main page of their website explains a bit more about them (it's frame-based, and as I linked directly to the Quatermass page in the reference there was probably no way for you to navigate around, so apologies for that). Independent verification of the team's activities and status comes from the official BBC Doctor Who website, and a feature in The Guardian. I'm not sure how exactly I'd go about establishing all this on the Quatermass Experiment page, though?

• I don't think it's necessary to establish reliability in the article - if you make a case for a source on the article talk page, and it's not used extensively in the article or to source anything very controversial, there should be no problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• The Mausoleum Club is a well-regarded British archive television website, but I can see how there might be credibility problems with establishing that for someone from outside the archive television enthusiast community... There's a link to it on this official BBC page for the "TV on Trial" season, if that's any good. The Mausoleum Club article doesn't provide much information I can't source from elsewhere, but the main reason I used it was because I was concerned that — as you will no doubt have noticed — the "Production" section uses predominantly Andrew Pixley's 40,000-word Viewing Notes booklet from the Quatermass Collection DVD release for references. I was concerned that having so many citations to one publication might be frowned upon, so tried to cite the same information from other sources wherever I could.

• In that case, you could cite both. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks again — LuciferMorgan is on a wikibreak I believe, but I shall leave a message at his talk page asking him to take another look, and contact one of the other chaps you mentioned. Angmering 20:53, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Please keep us posted. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Will do! And I shall place that reliability information about the Restoration Team on the article's talk page. Angmering 21:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I think my nomination concerns have been addressed. Very good work, and it's nice to see FAs improved. Congratulations on that. I'd still like FAR regulars to cast their eyes over the article though, and to pay specific attention to prose (not one of my strengths). Currently my remove has been striked, but if other editors find sufficient cause I'll recast the vote based on other reasons. On a side note, I notice you have some other FAs which may find their way to FAR sooner or later. If you genuinely intend to brush these up, can we enter some kinda arrangement where I can point out what I feel is wrong with X article and you can address this, all without the FAR process? Then if the articles wounded up on FAR, they'd be much easier to give a final polish to then. LuciferMorgan 23:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Ditto Angmering - would love to see you bring BBC television drama and Quatermass and the Pit to standard, so we can count them as keeps without FAR - let us know if you need help. Unless another editor has a problem with the prose here, I think it's good to go. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd like a few more editors to give the prose a quick look first before closing this one. I'm willing to help as concerns Angmering's efforts to brush up his own FAs as he hopefully knows. Where us FAR people can notice such efforts from others to improve their own FAs, I hope we can do something similar with other editors / Wikiprojects - try to help / talk etc. so that other articles don't reach FAR. As I said, I'm hoping the Doctor Who Wikiproject would be up for this as an example. This'll help concerned Wikipedians / Projects with multiple FAs. LuciferMorgan 03:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to let you all know that User:Outriggr has very kindly been through and completed a copyedit of the article, making various improvements. Angmering 07:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I looked at one section only and found some redundancy, wordiness, and choppy prose - it could use another runthrough. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll try and have another run through it myself later on. Angmering 14:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Have you seen User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a? You can probably do a lot of the redundancy reducing (for example, those "very"s I removed sounded fancrufty). Printing out the article and seeing it on paper can be helpful for the final runthrough. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hold. This still has time in FARC, so no need to get too worried. Angmering has asked me for a copyedit; I'll do my best over the next 48. Marskell 19:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Marskell. I have had a go myself this evening at doing another sweep, but hopefully a fresh pair of eyes and more experienced copyeditor such as yourself will be able to do much better. Angmering 19:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I've gone through about half of this and I'm finding prose concerns to be minor. If others are happy with the referencing I think it is definitely in keep territory. Marskell 18:11, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Nice work, long haul ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I can't find any valid concerns for removal. I wouldn't object to this article retaining status. LuciferMorgan 21:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.