Wikipedia:Peer review/Douglas Adams/archive1
Douglas Adams[edit]
A number of editors have worked on this article since it was first posted in November 2001. I've been working heavily on revisions to the article since May of this year. I think it has come quite a long way. One snag that his published biographies point out is how difficult it is to keep Adams's life in any sort of chronology, since he was working on several different projects at once, especially during the late 1970s and early 1980s. A few suggestions have been made on the talk page, and many of these have been carried out. I'd like to open discussion up to a wider audience, however, and get some further feedback. --JohnDBuell | Talk 23:47, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
- The way the information about his various works has been provided seems okay, sounding very much like other biographies of the author I have come across. I do feel that the article could use a few more pictures, maybe the covers of books or stills from the movie? Saksham 11:14, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
- The real trick, of course, is to strike a balance between too few pictures, and too many. Only recently did the screenshot of Adams from 1985 get pasted over from the Hitchhiker's article. I'll see what else I can come up with. If anyone has a copy of the first printing UK paperback cover of Hitchhiker's (the multi-coloured one), could you scan and add it under {{bookcover}}? --JohnDBuell | Talk 16:22, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
- I don't think there's any danger of this article having too many images in the foreseeable future; it has very few for its size currently. In my view, an article like History of Poland (1945–1989) gives a good idea of the maximum number of images a article can have before it becomes oversaturated, in terms of text-to-image ratio. An article like Douglas Adams could probably take a maximum of about 10 more images, assuming they were spaced evenly all the way down the page and were suitably topical. I'd advise getting at least half that many to help break up long stretches of text, if possible. As a long-term goal, at least.
- I'd love to use original covers of the UK editions of The Hitchhiker's Guide and Dirk Gently but I don't own UK editions myself.
- I don't think there's any danger of this article having too many images in the foreseeable future; it has very few for its size currently. In my view, an article like History of Poland (1945–1989) gives a good idea of the maximum number of images a article can have before it becomes oversaturated, in terms of text-to-image ratio. An article like Douglas Adams could probably take a maximum of about 10 more images, assuming they were spaced evenly all the way down the page and were suitably topical. I'd advise getting at least half that many to help break up long stretches of text, if possible. As a long-term goal, at least.
- The article looks pretty good overall. Consider merging "environmentalism" and "religion" into a general "beliefs" section, so it can be expanded more and not have such small sections.
- Done.
- The article looks pretty good overall. Consider merging "environmentalism" and "religion" into a general "beliefs" section, so it can be expanded more and not have such small sections.
- Change "premature death" to "death" (it's an unnecessary POV, and implies that other deaths not so labelled aren't premature), and consider reworking the The Salmon of Doubt section—having it as a subsection of "Premature death" is extremely strange, and having an entire section that's basically a long, multi-paragraph quote is discouraged; you may want to consider moving that to the The Salmon of Doubt article.
- Done. Very good idea,a ctually.
- Change "premature death" to "death" (it's an unnecessary POV, and implies that other deaths not so labelled aren't premature), and consider reworking the The Salmon of Doubt section—having it as a subsection of "Premature death" is extremely strange, and having an entire section that's basically a long, multi-paragraph quote is discouraged; you may want to consider moving that to the The Salmon of Doubt article.
- Also, I don't think italicizing section names is standard, even when they're book or TV series titles.
- We did this on the Hitchhiker's page without any objections :)
- Also, I don't think italicizing section names is standard, even when they're book or TV series titles.
- "alt.fan.douglas-adams" is very strangely placed, appearing, as it does, after his death and biographies; consider moving it and possibly expanding it into a subsection of a general "community" section. It might also make a good article on its own; since the Douglas Adams article is fairly long, consider areas where information can be shortened or moved to other articles, wherever compactness improves (rather than worsens) the flow of the text and the information given.
- I had suggested, and have yet to carry out, a change of this section, as Adams replied to fans on BBSs, then usenet/e-mail, and eventually had his own forums (so that people would keep questioning if it was "THE" Douglas Adams or not) before his death in 2001. I further suggested that this could become part of a section touching on Adams's love of technology.
- "alt.fan.douglas-adams" is very strangely placed, appearing, as it does, after his death and biographies; consider moving it and possibly expanding it into a subsection of a general "community" section. It might also make a good article on its own; since the Douglas Adams article is fairly long, consider areas where information can be shortened or moved to other articles, wherever compactness improves (rather than worsens) the flow of the text and the information given.
- I'd also consider revising or expanding his intro paragraph, since it seems to spend far too much time on trivial information—e.g. an entire line is spent on his birth/death paranthetical statement because it goes to the trouble of including where he was born and died, which should probably be just left out of the opening since it's stated within the article text anyway, and is much less important than his nationality, etc.; another whole line is spent on cute, silly nicknames of his. This wouldn't be such a problem if a little more basic info was given on his overall career, accomplishments, and claims to fame in the opening paragraph, beyond just H2G2. -Silence 20:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
- I'm not very good at re-writes like this. Anyone want to try to tackle a new introductory paragraph or two or three? --JohnDBuell | Talk 00:04, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
- I'd also consider revising or expanding his intro paragraph, since it seems to spend far too much time on trivial information—e.g. an entire line is spent on his birth/death paranthetical statement because it goes to the trouble of including where he was born and died, which should probably be just left out of the opening since it's stated within the article text anyway, and is much less important than his nationality, etc.; another whole line is spent on cute, silly nicknames of his. This wouldn't be such a problem if a little more basic info was given on his overall career, accomplishments, and claims to fame in the opening paragraph, beyond just H2G2. -Silence 20:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
- If anyone still wants to attempt to re-write the article's lead paragraphs, please do! I'm still waiting on materials to become available to me in order to add cover images of the UK editions of The Hitchhiker's Guide AND Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Otherwise, as I said on the article's talk page, I really FINALLY consider this article to be complete. --JohnDBuell 21:37, 20 November 2005 (UTC)