Talk:Hush (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: GRAPPLE X 01:45, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

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Eurgh, Buffy. :(

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   Few minor changes needed.
   "Willow and Buffy realize they have no voices, in an episode of 27 minutes without dialogue" -> Should probably be "an episode including 27 minutes"
   "Startlement" seems needlessly sesquipedalian. Perhaps "fright" or "shock" would work better.
   "Whedon considers the scene, of the entire series" -> seems a bit awkward. Perhaps "Whedon considers the scene, more than any other in the series"
   Not a 1A issue per se, but I'll forget about it if I leave it for 3A - is all of the music deigetic or non-diegetic? I ask only because the article specifies that the characters have lost their voices, so I'm wondering if any of the music is played in-universe or if it's all incidental.
   If you're using the brackets in words like "(c)lever" to indicate you've changed the case, that's not necessary. You can take someone saying "Clever" and just parse it as "clever" without needing to denote the change, as it's entirely aesthetic.

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

   MOS is fine.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

   Citations are grand, not a problem with them or how they're used.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

   Scope's grand. Thought at first the in-universe side might be too long but the rest of the article is beefy enough that it all balances out nicely.

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   Article appears neutral and unbiased.

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

   History seems okay, nothing too controversial or hostile.

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   Images seem fine. Two non-free ones have good rationales and there's a commons image that doesn't need to be worried about. Thinking that the two stacked images might be better moved up a paragraph as they leave an unsightly orphan line in this browser, though that could simply be my screen resolution. Ah well.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Just going to hold this until the 1A fixes listed are dealt with, which shouldn't take too long. After that we should be ready to pass this one. GRAPPLE X 01:45, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I rewrote for prose improvement, something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but was afraid to due to the often combative responses of other Buffy editors. I hope that the GA editor considers the prose improved. I did not change anything of substance, only made the prose more elegant and easier to read. I also removed the controversial (and never resolved) nonsensical "12 seconds" quote which no one has ever understood nor been able to explain. It is either a misquote, or a quote about something different, or perhaps a sarcastic remark, but in a section discussing the difficulty of shooting a scene which required multiple takes, it made no sense to say it took "12 seconds" to accomplish, when the rest of the sentence is emphasizing the extra time the scene took. I removed a few redundancies, too, but mostly the changes are to the prose itself, not the content. I hope that what I've done will be well received and not start another edit war. It was a pleasure to work on such a good article.--TEHodson 09:57, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

The changes seem fine to me, but if you're worried about it causing an edit war I'll keep this on hold a little longer to be sure that the stability criterion is still met. GRAPPLE X 14:51, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you; I worked hard. Re edit wars, if you read above about what happened when I made a few small changes to the Plot Summary, you'll understand why I was worried. I made one grammatical correction on The Body and even that little bit of editing caused a crisis. One must tread very, very carefully on certain Buffy pages.--TEHodson 20:27, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's me TEHodson is writing about. I feel special all over.

However, in the last throes of the emotion English is insufficient to describe, the one where you have a single-digit percentage of belief that it might be worth your time to say something, then laugh when you know how useless it will be...the prose changes do not improve the article. For instance, the best guide to prose on this site was written by User:Tony1, and it can be found here. It offers useful tips like not over formalizing the writing by adding "in order to", constructing complex sentences to avoid repetition ("as the 'Scooby Gang'. The gang's"), clarity "chosen by mystical forces and endowed" → to be endowed as it's not clear what she's chosen for unless it is to be endowed with superhuman powers.

Wikipedia itself discourages the use of euphemisms (to sleep together) in place of the actual words (to have sex), which would constitute rewriting the sentence to avoid repetition. Also, this wording "The Gentlemen, led by Doug Jones, were actors with previous..." is inaccurate because the Gentlemen are not actors, they are characters. It was worded accurately before the prose changes. Similarly, this "wanted to replace Seth Green, who played Oz, Willow's lycanthropic boyfriend, who had" makes it seem as if Oz told Whedon he was leaving when it was clear before that Green told Whedon he was leaving. Why is 27 written out (see WP:MOSNUM)?; "to spontaneously kiss" is a split infinitive, the source makes a point that the Gentlemen's existence is in direct contrast to the fumbling of the Scoobies, not just The Gentlemen's grace, check "Opportunistic capitalist fervor results in by a man selling ...", "individulas" ("individuals" is also a vague term that should be replaced by a more descriptive one: people, characters, etc.), and I don't know why TEHodson prefers gerunds, but the tense in the article should be as simple as possible.

But, as you know, I suggested the article should be nominated for GA and I suppose this article is out of my hands. If it goes to FAC, I recommend changing back most of the prose issues, especially the ones listed. If not, get a very, very strong copy editor, such as Tony1 or User:Malleus Fatuorum to take a look at it. They don't favor me; I respect them because they don't. I furthermore strenuously recommend whoever nominates the article not only reads all the sources, but has those sources available while the article is nominated. If they merely suspect you have not read the sources, they will oppose the article on that alone. At the present, the article is at GA level. It was previously at FA quality, but now it fits right in at GA. --Moni3 (talk) 21:21, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I corrected the errors Moni pointed out. It was very late when I was finishing up and my eyes were crossing. Glad you picked up on those, Moni.--TEHodson 21:38, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

According to the above, it was Drovethrughosts who suggested the article be submitted for a GA review.--TEHodson 21:45, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

How would you characterize "go for it" if not a suggestion? Encouragement? I encouraged. --Moni3 (talk) 21:46, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Encouraged, seconded the motion. He said I'd like to do this, you said, Do it. Suggestion implies the idea was yours to begin with. No big deal, just making sure I understood what had happened.--TEHodson 21:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you all content with the current article revision, then? I don't want to pass it until I'm content it'll remain stable, but if the main editors are okay with it then I'll be satisfied. GRAPPLE X 22:52, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm satisfied.--TEHodson 00:29, 20 August 2011 (UTC) By the way, Moni, I don't see any evidence that this was a Featured Article. Why are you saying it was "FA quality" before I edited it last night, but now is only GA quality? Did I miss something?--TEHodson 02:47, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't around during the review (work). I'm content with the changes, it looks great and is an easy GA pass. As for FA, no, it was never an FA. I believe Moni is just referring to how the prose was worded previously. If Moni wants to eventually push it to FA, it'll have another extensive look at the prose with a copyedit. But, for a GA, it's fine. Also, thanks TEHodson for your recent work on the article to commend the reviewer's suggestions. And of course give kudos to Moni again for all the hard work put in the article. Drovethrughosts (talk) 13:30, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I see. It was a little dig about how I down-graded her article. Well, what can I say? I am not a fan of sentences such as this one: "He had a dream where such and such happened" instead of "He had a dream in which such and such happened." The first sounds like High School-level writing to me. And this is just plain wrong: "the conventions by which society in the episode functions is so disrupted..."; it should be: "in this episode, the conventions by which society functions are so disrupted..." This is pretty basic sentence structure stuff, and I'm certainly not going to apologize for correcting all those twisted up subject-predicate messes I rewrote. I do not have the time nor the inclination to heavily research and generate from scratch complex articles and I admire Moni for being able to do that again and again--her articles are stellar and no one disputes that. But one does not have to be brilliant at everything, and in fact, I have no idea whether she, or one of the many other editors of this page, wrote those sentences, and I'm certainly not going to criticize any one person for them (nor defend any one person). It would be nice if there could some recognition of what other people may have to contribute. I edit and write in the real world and that's what I bring to WP on those occasions when I drop by. I do a good job of those things and I don't pretend to do anything else. I feel that seeing this as teamwork where everyone brings to the mix whatever it is they do best is a far better attitude than "Mine! Keep away or I'll insult you!" But that's just me.--TEHodson 21:04, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, if everyone's content with the current revision then I'm content that stability won't be a concern. I'll pass this one then and we can leave it at that. GRAPPLE X 15:45, 21 August 2011 (UTC)