Talk:Encounter at Farpoint/GA1

GA Review[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Montanabw (talk · contribs) 21:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
Saw some comma splices and other punctuation concerns, places where wording is awkward, all minor, but I think another copyedit run-through by the editors working on this article would be wise. Also, though the series is from the USA, this article is written in UK English and uses dd/mm/yy date format also a UK format, which doesn't seem appropriate for this particular topic. (For Dr. Who, it would probably be perfect). I don't want to get into a US/UK English spat, but wiki guidelines do suggest an article such as this one probably is best done in US English. Montanabw^(talk) 22:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
Pretty well referenced in terms of quantity, but for quality, see comments on sources below. Concern with blogs and WP:ONESOURCE for about the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the article. Montanabw^(talk) 22:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Image in infobox has appropriate fair use rationale at image page, but lacks a hidden text note to this effect in the article, not a huge deal, but a useful courtesy. The Picard image has a wonky tag in commons, may want to check to see if that bit can be cleaned up. Montanabw^(talk) 22:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Initial comments: Am placing this article on hold to see if some of the references can be expanded or reviewed. While checklinks lists all web links as live, I am concerned about use and quality; several appear to be blogs, which do not pass WP:RS, notably www.avclub.com. I think the "reception" section also fails to distinguish the reviews at the time from those (again, I'm picking on the AV club in particular, but also Den of Geek) that were written over a decade after the series ended. Perhaps you could split this section into a paragraph on the initial reception of the episode as the pilot at the time it aired, and then a second paragraph discussing how it held up in retrospect once the entire series concluded. I'm also a bit concerned about the heavy reliance on a single source, Nemecek, for nearly everything else in the article but the reviews, it's 18 of the first 21 footnotes. While I do not question that Nemecek IS a good source, such intense reliance raises concerns with close paraphrasing and it would help to have a few more sources that can be directly verified online. I'll review other aspects later, but this really jumped out at me. Montanabw^(talk) 22:10, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, I'll work through and address your points. I've added a line at the start of the second paragraph in Reception to indicate that the remaining reviews are made a while after the episode and series aired. I've got access to the Reeves-Stevens book, so I'll see if I can replace some of the Nemecek sources with those in order to make it more of an equal split. As for the AV Club, well, it has a print magazine and Zack Handlen has been covered by other print sources here. Den of Geek is a entertainment website run by Dennis Publishing, as stated here. Miyagawa (talk) 19:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does Paramount or another mainstream site contain episode descriptions? May also be good to add a few links of that sort; I don't doubt that the hardcopy books are accurate, but it's good to toss in a few web sources too -- in a perfect world, everything would be on google books. As for the blogs such as AV club and den of geek, I think my biggest concern is that we aren't just talking about review at the end of the series, we are talking reviews over a DECADE after the end of the series, and those from rather "in-universe" sources that. Seriously, didn't a university professor desperate to publish or perish ever do a meta-analysis of ST:TNG? (smile). I'm saying that these sources might be OK for GA, but they won't be for FA. Montanabw^(talk) 23:22, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've added some more to the article after digging around this afternoon. I searched the subscription only sources I have access to and added a brief point from a book on the impacts of Star Trek, although most of those sources were very non-episode specific and so I didn't include them. However, I managed to add a home media section as I found decent sources for the VHS, DVD and Blu Ray releases. Then I stumbled across an absolute gem of an Entertainment Weekly article on the creation of TNG and the run up to the pilot episode, so I've doubled up on sources using that added information from the article which wasn't in the Nemecek source at all. I've left the single source banner in at the moment because I'd rather have your agreement to remove it first, but that section is now split across three significant sources. Just realised the memories of the future source is formatted differently to the other multi-page books and I'll fix that now and then run the dash fixer script. Miyagawa (talk) 15:38, 30 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good to see. Nice expansions. Overall an improvement in scope as well. I'd like you to give it one more overall copyedit, maybe after letting it rest a day or so; I see a few things that are a little clunky, nothing huge, just the copyedit for that elusive "sparkling prose" - a scan for anything redundant in different sections, a review of the lede to be sure it reflects the current content (now that you've added more) a check for undue weight or unnecessary trivia (the three breasts thing was amusing, but not sure the quote necessary; the John De Lancie bit with Roddenberry was amusing, the Wheaton quote maybe a bit long - ;-) ), etc. I might take a small whack at the prose after you've had a chance to catch anything you want to tweak. It's almost there. Montanabw^(talk) 23:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for leaving those notes, they've been a great deal of help. I've made the modifications as requested. As for the Patrick Stewart image, it does have the correct tags as far as I can tell. It was cropped down form a shot of him standing next to military personnel and was posted on the Army images site here. The site it was posted on has been archived here. Miyagawa (talk) 16:52, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I made a couple small tweaks and am pleased to say

pass! Montanabw^(talk) 23:41, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]