Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/David Morrissey/archive1

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 by Ucucha 18:54, 23 August 2011 [1].

David Morrissey[edit]

Featured article candidates/David Morrissey/archive1

Nominator(s): Bradley0110 (talk) 19:01, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

David Morrissey is a prolific English actor who has had a long and varied career playing shady men with varying degrees of facial hair. Having worked on this article since November 2008, I believe it is now ready for featured status and hope others will agree. The toolbox brings up three dead links; two have been archived and the other, to the RADA graduate directory was used only to verify Morrissey's graduation date, and was active when I first accessed it in 2009. Please enjoy. Bradley0110 (talk) 19:01, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:09, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Page needed tags that need to be addressed (although some seem unnecessary)
Good practice to include retrieval dates for online newspaper articles, as these are sometimes updated or modified after posting
"eight hundred lives" is the work, not the publisher
This link returns a 410 error. See here for a list of potentially problematic links
Be consistent in whether you cite online news sources using newspaper name, publisher name or website name
What makes this a high-quality reliable source?
What is UNRWA? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:09, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying so quickly. In response:

Two different archives were unable to supply page numbers for all print sources, however, apart from the two Time Out citations, all have convenience links for verification.
Are you including convenience links?
The UGO link is archived.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. If a newspaper is being cited, it is labeled with the newspaper name, and if a website is cited, it is labeled with the website name.
Bloody-Disgusting describes itself states "We strive to maintain the best and most reliable source for all things horror on the internet[...]"[2] The cited page, an question-and-answer style interview done with Morrissey on a film set, is used only to support Morrissey's own opinions and experiences of working on The Reaping. A further discussion of this source was held at the Horror Wikiproject.
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Bradley0110 (talk) 22:28, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where page numbers aren't provided, the links act as the source - they're not considered convenience links unless they're in addition to a complete citation, and thus a retrieval date is needed. For the consistency issue, compare refs 43, 48 and 89 for an example of what I'm looking at. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:37, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those are simply different brandings; "bbc.co.uk" (now known as BBC Online) is the BBC's website, "BBC News Online" the pre-2008 branding of the BBC News subsite and "BBC News website" the 2008-now branding. Bradley0110 (talk) 22:39, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nikki, I've restored or added link retrieval dates for those citations without full info. Bradley0110 (talk) 17:45, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments I've only glanced at this so far, but, much as I hate to say it with all that's going on on various project talk pages at the minute, your prose isn't quite up to 1a standards. I don't see anything show-stopping—my main concern is that parts of it just don't flow very well. There are quite a few instances of several short sentences in quick succession, which move abruptly from point to point. Some of these could be combined to just make longer sentences broken up with commas or dashes, like this as a very simple example. Examples:

Seldon Street is now demolished.[10] He attended St Margaret Mary's School. Short sentences and a very abrupt change of topic
his father developed a terminal blood disorder.[6] He was ill for some time and eventually succumbed to a haemorrhage... Another abrupt change
Russell disagreed with the director Gordon Flemyng and producer Keith Richardson over the casting of 18-year-old Morrissey and Leigh; he believed that the sympathy of 16-year-olds running away was lost by casting older actors, though he did not have any problems personally with Morrissey and Leigh. Trying to cram too many facts into one sentence (I sympathise, this is something I have to work hard to avoid in my own writing)
His One Summer co-star James Hazeldine convinced him otherwise, and he went to London for a year. He became homesick while there and did not enjoy the way RADA was turning him into a "bland actor". Again quite abrupt, but easily improved by putting the "while there" at the start of the second sentence.
...told him that he had been through the same homesickness phase when he first went to RADA. McGann's reassurance got Morrissey through his studies... Not as abrupt as some of the above, but there is room for improvement.

Basically, the way you connect one sentence to the next needs a little work so it flows. From what I've read so far, though, it's otherwise an excellent article. I'll be happy to look in more detail once some progress has been made and once this bloody cold goes away!. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:01, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, HJ. I've made a couple of changes in the Early life section and will run through the rest of the article later today. Get well soon! Bradley0110 (talk) 06:51, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've been through the article and massaged out a few stubby sentences. If there is anything else, please say. Bradley0110 (talk) 07:53, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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