Wikipedia:Peer review/Bianca Montgomery and Maggie Stone/archive1

Bianca Montgomery and Maggie Stone

• I would like to come to a consensus about what quality this article should be rated at this time before I nominate it for higher quality than Start-Class or B-Class. I have looked over current B articles such as Damien Spinelli, good articles such as Homer Simpson, and featured articles such as Andrew Van De Kamp, The Cat and the Canary (1927 film), etc. And while there are no (as of yet) rated B, Good or Featured fictional couple articles that I can compare the Bianca Montgomery and Maggie Stone article to, I'm pretty sure that this article is of higher quality than Start-Class and would like to know what other editors think of this article.

Suggestions on improving its readability, if it needs improvement, would also be appreciated. Or if you feel that this article needs to be improved in any other way. Flyer22 00:25, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Automated Peer Review

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

• Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Wikipedia:Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.^[?]
• Consider adding more links to the article; per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and Wikipedia:Build the web, create links to relevant articles.^[?]
• There may be an applicable infobox for this article. For example, see Template:Infobox Biography, Template:Infobox School, or Template:Infobox City.^[?] (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually)
• Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Build the web, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006.^[?]
• As per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), dates shouldn't use ^th; for example, instead of using January 30^th was a great day, use January 30 was a great day.^[?]
• Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Wikipedia:Summary style.^[?]
• This article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, than an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.^[?]
• There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
  • allege
  • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).^[?]
• Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
  • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
  • “In the year [of] 2005”
• The script has spotted the following contractions: didn't, won't, can't, don't, isn't, doesn't, isn't, can't, can't, doesn't, doesn't, isn't, won't, doesn't, aren't, isn't, doesn't, doesn't, isn't, isn't, wasn't, couldn't, couldn't, didn't, didn't, can't, weren't, hadn't, can't, hadn't, if these are outside of quotations, they should be expanded.
• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Davnel03 15:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Bignole's review

• You shouldn’t open with "are the members of a popular…" – They aren’t a band, they are two fictional characters. The first paragraph of the lead should be "basic", "objective" information. Try something more along the lines of: "Bianca ___ and Maggie ___ are two fictional characters in the _______." Because introducing them as the “BAM couple” means nothing to the casual reader. They are a lesbian couple, but BAM doesn’t say that.

• The original love story was to be a short-lived one between two young women, where the murder of one prompted a murder mystery on the show. – This probably needs to be reworded. It’s slightly awkward sounding. It may even read better if it was broken into two complete sentences. Probably identifying which was supposed to die, and how got the twin is a good idea.

• Former All My Children head writer Richard Culliton, who thought up the story, decided to bring the deceased character of the once-existing love story back as an identical twin, after fans of the show expressed notable discontent over the end of the romance. – "thought up"--> "developed". Reword to say, "…decided to bring ____ (actress’ name, not characters in that blank) as the identical twin of ____, after a notable discontent was expressed over the ending romance for ____."

• With instant fan support of the duo displayed by viewers of the show, a deeper friendship between Bianca and Maggie came into focus by the show's writers. – Cut it. You should keep all dialogue such as “the fans” out, because it becomes really subjective. The rest just doesn’t make sense. It’s probably better left at the previous sentence, and the body can explain the outcome later.

• much campaigned for on-again/off-again romantic flirtation – If you believe in citations in the lead, then this would be an instance where one might be necessary.

• Despite the couple taking three and a half years to make their romance official, the couple gained a large and loyal fanbase (to this day) and managed to constantly intrigue not only the noted All My Children audience, but soap opera critics, gay/lesbian magazines such as The Advocate, and lesbian websites such as AfterEllen.com, ultimately becoming the most demanded homosexual pairing in American daytime soap opera history. – ditch the “fanbase” stuff again. The important stuff is not the fan opinion (though that’s important to fans, don’t get me wrong), but how the couple was viewed by professionals.

• The pairing of Bianca Montgomery and Maggie Stone were designed to have many ups and downs, but were seemingly written with the underlying concept of being each others' star-crossed true loves. – Move it to a better place in the lead, or strike it out. It’s coming after you’ve discussed the cultural impact of the characters, which should be the last thing discussed.

• Words such as "overwhelmingly" are peacock terms, and should be avoided. The peacock term page I believe gives examples on what to do to avoid such usage.

• You mentioned on my talk page "formatting references to how they should be", I don’t know if you meant proper template usage…so I won’t beat this to the ground, and I’ll only mention it once because you may have meant otherwise, but references should come after punctuations marks, not before. You’ll need to go through and make sure all are after as I spotted at least one that wasn’t as I was reading.

• …in which Culliton had set off earlier. – I don’t understand this statement. Probably needs rewording or clarification.

• "some" is a weasel word. Check for more of those alongside the check for peacock terms.

• Too much "fans said..." type of sentences. I know you have citations for when it’s mentioned that fans, but be careful how it’s written. Sometimes it’s ok to use it, but others it comes off like they are the priority. There are ways around it, like simply stating what the problem ones without directing the source to "fans". Like for: When the character of Frankie was killed, some All My Children fans claimed that the show was afraid to focus on a lesbian romance. – You could say: "When Frankie was killed, there was concern the show was afraid to focus on a lesbian romance".

• Culliton’s firing in 2002, doesn’t appear relevant, unless it was because of these characters.

• but that now audiences know them as well as writers do - ??? maybe drop the "that".
  • Actually, that entire paragraph is devoted to Frons and his belief. It strays from the characters. I'd scrap it for this article as it doesn't talk about how his ideals affect the characters.

• began writing her character to become every woman, to make her more real and to understand what makes her good or bad -- This is plagarized from the source that is linked to it. There are no quotation marks, and I think even the source meant to say "everywoman", kind of like the everyman, instead of two separate words. I don't know how much more plagarizing is going on (not saying it was done maliciously, I'm sure it wasn't), but that needs to be checked. If you copy that much of the text, you need quotation marks around it. Even though you sourced it, you have to make it clear that you didn't paraphrase the text, but that you conveyed "word-for-word" what was said.

It's getting late for me, so this is where I will stop for now.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 02:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Okay, Bignole, I took care of your first pack of concerns and Paul's first pack too regarding this article, though I know that you may still want some of the plot within this article trimmed down and that there may still be some weasel words within this article that I need to take out. In the plot, I left the part about Bianca fainting, but that part is re-worded, and what was after it is re-worded and or cut out as well, to where I took out the quote and extra detail. I also left the two youtube clips in this article's plot. And, yeah, I didn't like the use of the word "members" in reference to Bianca and Maggie being a part of a fictional couple either. It wasn't there when I created this article. Another editor (IP user, to be exact) did that on the day that this article was featured in the Did you know? section on Wikipedia's main page.[1] I didn't protest that editor having re-worded it to that though, obviously. As for mentioning that Richard Culliton was fired, I added that to better transition from the paragraph about Culliton's writing to Frons' take on these characters, to point out where Culliton's whereabouts were, with the article then not mentioning him anymore, but I went ahead and cut off that part about Culliton being fired and just rather left it at when he stopped writing for this show. I also re-worded the mention where Frons states that now audiences know soap opera cliches as well as writers do. But I left that paragraph about Frons because I feel that it relates to his take on the Bianca and Maggie relationship, that it really shows what he was going for after a while, in trying to make these two characters as real as possible, and how he felt that some instances in their relationship were very real, as in relation to real-world issues. Oh, and the part of the message on your talk page where I comment on fixing some references within this article, I meant the references format. Flyer22 08:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Continued review

• Already spoken about the lead sentence on your talk page.
• The original love story was to be a short-lived one between two young women, as a murder mystery was set up for one, character Frankie Stone, in the aftermath of the character's death. Former All My Children head writer Richard Culliton, who developed the story, decided to bring Hendrickson back as the identical twin of Frankie Stone, after notable discontent was expressed over the ending of Bianca and Frankie's potential romance. -- I'm thinking this can be trimmed and reworded. It's too detailed. You go from identifying Elizabeth as Maggie to talking about the death of a different character. I would simply say that "the story revolved around Maggie coming to town to investigate the murder of her identical twin sister, Frankie, whom Bianca was in a romantic relationship with." [<--or friendship with..I don't now how they were connected]. Then say, "Elizabeth ____ was brought in as the character Frankie Stone, but when her death attracted criticism, writer Richard Culliton decided to bring the actress back as the character's identical twin sister to advance the potential romantic interest that was started between Bianca and Frankie." -- or something closer to that. It reads somewhat confusingly right now.
• The twin, Maggie Stone, brought on in 2002, was then immediately set up to bond with Agnes Nixon's creation... -- We know already know she's the twin, so we can drop that part. I'd say something closer to: "In 2002, that character of Maggie Stone was brought into the show, and set up to bond with Agnes Nixon's character Bianca..." -- I've expressed my confusion over the suceeding sentence on your talk page.
• And the pairing was designed to have many ups and downs, with the underlying concept being each others' star-crossed true loves. -- Don't start a sentence with "And". "Many" is a weasel word, just remove it.
• "The couple" is said twice in one sentence. Change the second to a pronoun, "they". Remove "noted" from "noted All My Children audience". What are they "noted" for? Change "gay/lesbian" to "LGBT".
• magazines such as The Advocate, and lesbian websites such as AfterEllen.com -- just say "LGBT magazines and websites," -- no need to be specific here.

Stopping here for a bit. Also, here is my version of a trimmed plot section. All major plot events are still there, I just trimmed out the unnecessary details.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• •  Done Okay, Bignole. I took care of your other newly-listed concerns toward this article. Though, in its plot section, I left the image of when Bianca and Maggie first meet, because I feel that that adds to that section's readability. And I added a quote box, with a quote in it, of course. You can tell me what you think of that, as I know that you will. Also, on the topic of the plot section, you feel that it's better to name it Characters instead of Storylines? I mean, as we both know, that's what you renamed it in one of your example edits, of course. Thus I left it as that as well. Flyer22 06:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
    • • I'll read over it in detail tomorrow morning, it's kind of later right now. As for the "Characters" thing. That's a title I've seen used for Bernard Quartermass, the only featured television character. Normally it would be called "Appearances", but these characters only appear in one place so that's irrelevant. "Character" or "Character(s)" in this case is meant to say "this is who the character is in the show". I'm weary of certain titles, because if you say "Storylines", someone could take that to mean you want every storyline...and frankly, I'm sure that not every storyline involving the character is terribly important. But, if you prefer the other, that's your choice. It's just a header, and as long as it doesn't say something like "Biography", then it's usually alright.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 06:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oops, I meant to state Storyline, Bignole, not Storylines. I'm right there with you on not titling it Storylines, but I do feel that titling this article's plot as Storyline would/is better than titling it Characters. Talk with you later. Flyer22 10:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I re-worded the lead again, but just a little bit. Also, I went ahead and named this article's plot section back to its original title: Storyline. And thank you, Bignole, for the smile on my talk page. Flyer22 03:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)