Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson

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 promoted 01:01, 4 February 2008.

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The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson

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I am nominating this article as I believe it's reached it's peak in terms of information and other improvements. Through the help of several of my WP:SIMPSONS mates, including the great help of User:Cirt, I was able to have the episode reach it's current area of excellence, as it is a WP:GA, and I hope that this article will be promoted to featured status once any issues are dealt with. Thank you! xihix(talk) 21:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Does the FU image of the WTC really add anything to this article? Does it show anything significant that wouldn't be in a free image? You've already got the buildings in the infobox shot anyway. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 22:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Not really, I suppose. I had the image in there earlier before that picture, so it just got moved around when I changed the main picture. I'll remove it. xihix(talk) 22:03, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment As mentioned by Xihix (talk · contribs), I helped out a bit with the article, so I'm not going to formally "Support" at this FAC - but I keep looking it over and really don't see any more room for improvement. My personal opinion is that it is very well-sourced, well done. If there are any problems that Xihix has trouble addressing during the course of this FAC, I'd be glad to try to help out. Cirt (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comments I did a quick run-through and proofread, but I think another copy-edit is needed.
  • I know some people aren't a fan of elegant variation, but the repetition in the lead really jumped out at me. "The episode sees the Simpson family going to Manhattan, New York to recover the family's car, which was taken by Barney and left there. Homer, who had a negative experience in the city at a younger age, wishes to leave the city as fast as possible, though the rest of the family enjoys their time in the city. While the rest of the family tours the city, Homer finds the car in the plaza of the World Trade Center with a wheel clamp attached to it, and when he fails to be with the car when an officer comes to unlock it, he decides to drive the car even with the clamp attached. He is later successful in removing it, and races to Central Park to find his family and leave the city." Also, I think "after an officer..." would work better.
  • "...as they would want an area of New York which would be widely known." Why the conditional? "As" is a poor connector.
  • "a very closely detailed replica" and later "closely detailed replica"
  • "Because of the WTC's" If you use abbreviations, you need to introduce them in parens next to their full definition [in this case: "Homer finds the car in the plaza of the World Trade Center (WTC)"].
  • "Later, while driving the drunken men home, Homer allows Barney" The earlier sentences imply that Barney was the designated driver. Is this not the case?
  • "Bart also leaves the group" Why "also"? Implies that others left the group, but this isn't mentioned anywhere.
  • "and finally decide to ride a carriage" And why "finally"? Implies that they perhaps were having trouble deciding what to do, but the reader is left wondering.
  • "when the construction of the towers were complete" Do you mean when the towers had just been completed? Current wording could imply any time between its completion and 9/11/01.
  • "spent a lot of time" "A lot of" isn't very encyclopedic. How much time?
  • "Oakley and Weinstein were very pleased with the final results, and both noted that the buildings, streets, and even elevator cabins were true-to-life in even minute details."
  • "He spent two hours alone to write the song." Somewhat humorously ambiguous. :) "Alone" is most likely unnecessary (unless you really are emphasizing that he was alone when writing the song).
  • The music paragraph in Production is kind of awkwardly placed.
  • "the use of computer animation was not as widespread when the episode was produced" "As" implies a comparison, but none is given. Either one should be given, or "as" should be removed.
  • "suffering cocaine abuse" I'm not a medical expert, but does one "suffer" cocaine abuse? Grammatically speaking, it seems incorrect.
  • "The actor in the musical that part of the family watches, "You're Checkin' In", was based on Robert Downey Jr., who was suffering cocaine abuse during the time the episode was being created, just as the character in the musical was." Awkward sentence. I'd suggest cutting out the unnecessary stuff: "The actor in the musical "You're Checkin' In" was based on Robert Downey Jr., who was in the news for abusing cocaine when the episode was being created." We already know that part of the family watches the musical. "Based on" implies "just as the character...".
  • "writers of Off the Telly" Either link this or explain what this is (newspaper? magazine?)
  • More repetition: "Due to the World Trade Center being a prominent location in the episode, the episode was pulled from syndication after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The episode " BuddingJournalist 03:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the notices of repetition. I fixed most of them except for the lead, but I am in a hurry at the moment and must leave. I will fix them tomorrow, unless someone gets to it before me. xihix(talk) 03:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

All done. xihix(talk) 22:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. According to this source ""The City of New York vs Homer Simpson" wasn't shown for reasons of taste and has never appeared on terrestrial television in Britain". I think this should be noted in the article. --Maitch (talk) 19:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Hmm, not sure how I never saw that. Must have confused the two Off The Telly links as being the same. Thanks, I'll be adding it in as soon as I figure out how to fit it in. xihix(talk) 22:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I went ahead and added that new cite, w/ info to the article in the Reception section, 2nd paragraph. Cirt (talk) 23:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support. It's well written and is put together with as much information as humanly possible for this article, and provides more than enough information for this one episode, so long as a few key points (Most of them already addressed above) are worked on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheVaultDweller (talk • contribs) 22:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• OpposeProvisional neutral—It's too easy as yet to take pot-shots at the prose. For example:
  • It was Maxtone-Graham, who was raised in New York, who had conceived the idea of the family in New York to locate their missing car, as he believed it was "a classic Manhattan problem." Who ... who, and unnecessarily complex sentence structure; and another "who" in the next sentence. MOS breach: when a quote starts within a WP sentence, the final period goes after the quote; please audit throughout for that.
  • Redundant (indeed confusing) uses of "also", such as "The production staff also contacted Fox to make sure that it would not run commercials during the scene." I see nothing about what production staff did in the previous text. Tony (talk) 08:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

All "also"'s gone, and who's are fixed. Thanks for the notice. xihix(talk) 18:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support. Well written. Well referenced. Excellent work. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 02:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC))

• Comment - What does--"the episode has been highlighted out of the other episodes of the season by newspaper reviewers"--actually mean? I see the three newspaper sources but how do you mean "highlighted"? Do the articles actually discuss the episode, or is it merely a passing mention? What do they actually say, because if they do discuss the episode it would be better to summarize their thoughts. If it's a passing mention then maybe it doesn't need to be said at all. I'm trying to see the context of this statement.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 06:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll go and fix it to make it make more sense. xihix(talk) 16:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Is that all there is? Are there any quotes from the newspapers we can use to flesh out that statement a bit more. It just seems to bare.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment 2 (pics) - Neither of the two pics in the body of the article really have any critical commentary to support them. What's there is very vague and weak with regard to justifying their use. For the first image, I read the text in the section and the image itself doesn't illustrate any of that. I cannot tell from a single image the idea behind "pulling out as if shot by a helicopter". I have the image in my head, the text itself is fine, but the image in the article isn't necessary to understand what that means. You cannot really illustrate the helicopter style shooting with a single image. For that matter, any image in the opening credits when the camera zooms into Springfield could be considered the same thing. For Robert Downey Jr., I don't see how an image of the musical helps illustrate the fact that the character in the musical was modeled after Downey. You can't see the character all that well to begin with, and his look is irrelevant because it's Downey's situation with drug abuse that was being reflected, not his appearance.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 06:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was asked to have the pictures of the scene of the pulling out while a someone was doing a little reviewing of the article in IRC, but I agree that you can't really tell that it's pulling out with just that picture. Regarding the scene with Robert Downy Jr., I originally uploaded it and put it in the Reception section to illustrate the scene, as it won an Emmy and an Annie award, thus giving it reason to be there. Someone later came and moved it, so I'll move it back. Thanks! xihix(talk) 16:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the awards, it wouldn't make sense to have a picture at all because the awards are for the music and lyrics, not the animation itself. It would make better sense to have a sample of the music as that was what won the award.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that is not public domain. The best we could do is the illustrative image. But if this is a sticking point, I don't think it would be that big a deal to just remove it. Cirt (talk) 16:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, should I remove it, or keep it there? I'm not quite sure what the consensus is here. xihix(talk) 16:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Wait for Bignole (talk · contribs) to reply again - I'll defer to that. Cirt (talk) 16:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Just take a "sample" of the song, not the entire song. See what I did for the Friday the 13th franchise page. The song won awards, that right there is your justification for fair use. All you need to do is add like a 10 - 20 seconds. Per WP:FU, it shouldn't be more than 10% of the length of the song...I don't know now long the song actually is..but 10-20 seconds is pretty long for a sample so that should be enough.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Done. - I will go ahead and remove that image, and I'll let Xihix (talk · contribs) take care of the appropriate length of soundbite. Xihix, if you need help w/ WP:FURG for that, let me know. Cirt (talk) 16:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Audacity is a good song editor, if you have the song. It can edit and save the song in OGG, which is the file type you have to save in so that song will work on Wikipedia. If you're worried about it, I'll help you out. I just need the song, or a place to download the song.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I actually upload music for WP:ALTROCK whenever I'm asked or needed, so I know what to do. xihix(talk) 16:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet. Cirt (talk) 16:28, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

My sentiments exactly.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:32, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

All is done. xihix(talk) 17:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Nice job.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment 3 - Looking at the article, it may need someone with good copyediting skills to pass over it. Some of the prose could be tightened some. Also, this statement--"The production staff contacted Fox to make sure that it would not run commercials during the scene."--might need a bit more context. Why did they request no commercials during the scene? Was it to get the full effect of the shot? It's kind of out in the open right now.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:30, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I put that there so no commercials or promos would go over the ending scene. I'll make it more apparent in the prose, thanks. xihix(talk) 17:32, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

You need to explain why they didn't want them airing commercials during the ending credits. It just seems odd. I mean, I understand why, but casual readers might not.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much more sense I could make out of it. From the prose, you can tell why they didn't want them to. Trying to make more sense of it would seem like it would become, I dunno, redundant. xihix(talk) 17:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if you've exhausted what is already covered about this in WP:RS/WP:V sources, not much more you could add if you wanted to. Cirt (talk) 17:54, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, it just seems like it has a weak bond to the previous statement as it currently is. But that's just my opinion.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:59, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm sure the episode itself mentions the car accrued several parking tickets before Homer finds it clamped. Maybe mention that? Will ^(talk) 19:56, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't think it needed that much of a mention, but I'll add it. xihix(talk) 20:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Note - The article has gone through a large copy edit, thanks to several users, including User:Qst and User:Cirt. Thanks! xihix(talk) 22:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support now. Looks good. Will ^(talk) 22:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support looks excellent! Compwhiz II^(Talk)_(Contribs) 00:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - I'm opposing at the moment because I've found some issues with the article. First, it seems that there was a copy edit to the article, but when I actually began reading I found quite a few simple mistakes. It would seem to me that these would have been the easiest things to find when copyediting. That tells me that it probably needs to be copyedited again, more thoroughly. For example
  • "After an announcement made by Moe, he informs Homer and his friends that one of the frequent visitors of Moe's Tavern is chosen to be the designated driver for the night." -- Who informs Homer? I assume it was Moe, but the statement doesn't make sense with the dependent clause "After an annoucement". Just say, "Moe informs Homer..." That brings me to another thing real quickly, the plot is a little long for a 22 minutes episode of TV. 521 words is a lot when you think about the length of the show and the uncomplicated nature of the plot. I think this has more to do with the wordiness of the plot section and less to do the level of detail regarding it. Scratch that first bit about the opening sentence I just made and lets just look at the first paragraph.

    After an announcement made by Moe, he informs Homer and his friends that one of the frequent visitors of Moe's Tavern is chosen to be the designated driver for the night. The task falls upon Barney, who is frustrated that his friends are free to consume their alcohol when he must stay sober. Later, while driving the drunken men home, Homer allows Barney to use the car to drive himself home, expecting Barney to return it the following morning. In his distressed state, Barney disappears for two months, leaving Homer without a car. Barney returns to Moe's Tavern, unable to recall where he left the car.

    This could easily be trimmed into...

    Moe makes Barney to be the tavern's designated driver for the night, forcing him to stay sober so he can driver everyone home. Homer allows Barney to use his car to drive himself home, but Barney never returns the car. Two months later, Barney returns to Moe's Tavern unable to recall where he left Homer's car.

    I cut that paragraph in half by simply removing some extraneous details about the events that led to Barney losing the car. This can be done for the entire plot section. Done.
    • I have shortened the plot section a bit and I did some copyediting. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 02:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • ""The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham and directed by Jim Reardon." -- Unnecessary. When you come to the first usage of their names (in this case, Graham is mentioned again in the next sentence) just identify them as "writer Ian Maxtone-Graham", or "director Reardon.." It cuts back on the wordiness of the paragraph. Done.
  • "...had conceived the idea having the family travel to New York to locate their missing car. He believed it was "a classic Manhattan problem."" -- Periods and other such punctuations go on the outside of the quote marks when the statement is not a complete sentence (per WP:PUNC) This is just one example from the Production section, there are probably others in the article if there are more direct quotes. Done.
  • Incorrect use of the word "were", it should be "was" in the Production section. For "Production staff", you should start the sentence with "The" and then change "were" to "was". It should be "was" for the sentence about the construction of the towers just above this one. Done.
  • "Alf Clausen composed the music for the "You're Checkin' In" musical number, and Ken Keeler wrote the lyrics." -- Same thing as with the writer and director. Cut the words and mention who they are when you discuss what they were doing specifically. For example, "Ken Keeler, who wrote the lyrics for the "You're Checkin' In" musical number, spent two hours ...." Done.
  • "Some of the lyrics were rewritten after feedback from other writers." -- what was their feedback? This sentence seems to break off in mid thought. I would try and reword it and work it into the sentence above it. Done.

    I'll stop here for now. I'd have someone look over the rest of the article using some of these suggestions as basis.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 02:34, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

    • I think I have have addressed your concerns. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 03:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
• Neutral - I'm changing to neutral. The article has some good information, and is on the right track, but I think the prose could be tightened up. My copyediting skills are not perfect and I miss plenty myself, not to mention some of the sentences seem to be weakly strung together, and someone who is good with copyediting could probably tie some of that stuff up in a nicer bow. You can always request Tony to come back and give some suggestions. He's typically the go-to editor on that sort of stuff. A lot of my concerns were addressed, but as many times as I'm told that the copyediting has been address I see myself finding more things in the article that apparently slipped through the c/eing. Good article, but I think it still needs some tweaking. But, since this is more of my personal opinion I can't stay "opposed" to the article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:46, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Reply: I'll try to go through and give it another once over as far as copy-editing/prose, perhaps other editors will as well. Cirt (talk) 03:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

• I see at least one dot before the final quotes, where the quote started within a WP sentence. I see an ellipsis without the required space. Tony (talk) 05:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I fixed the ellipse problem, that was my fault. I was cleaning up all the excessive spacing inside the citations and just got carried away. As for the quote mark, I searched and there are only 3 quotes that have periods on the inside of the quote marks, and they all appear to be part of the quotation. I didn't check the sources on all of them though because they are DVD commentaries, so I'm not positive.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 06:20, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
    • All fixed. xihix(talk) 06:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Actually, Bignole and I discussed the three quotes, and we came to a conclusion that they were properly placed. Do you object to this, Tony? If so, I'll look at it tomorrow, must sleep right now. xihix(talk) 06:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
• Support looks good to me. Jonathan 18:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

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