Talk:Pilot (Community)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: —97198 (talk) 08:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC) The article is looking pretty good right now, but there are still numerous minor problems to fix and a couple of bigger issues.

• The lead is a little short - per WP:LEAD it should summarise the whole article. Maybe explain the plotline rather than just say "The episode introduces Jeff Winger..." and you should add a couple of sentences about the production of the episode to the lead.
• Critics were generally favourable to the episode - poorly worded, anything like "The episode attracted generally favourable reviews from critics" would be better
• Viewers also got to know the show's other main characters... - a bit of a tautology since this happens in every show's pilot, and a bit informal for an encyclopedia
• a bright spot in NBC's Thursday lineup - "bright spot" is a bit of a WP:PEACOCK term unless you place it in quotation marks and say "and was referred to as..."
• where the other shows suffered declines in ratings - specify that this means NBC's other shows because I first took this to mean other channels' shows in the same timeslot
• The plot summary is far, far too long - MOS:TV suggests that plot synopses should be between 200 and 500 words, but this is 730 words long. If I'm correct in assuming this was a half-hour episode (about 20 minutes minus ads) then it should be at the lower scale of the suggested word count, probably around 200 to 300. You'll need to cut out a lot of detail.
• Usually, for episode articles, rather than having a cast/characters section, the actors names are integrated into the plot, e.g. "Jeff then meets with Dr. Ian Duncan (John Oliver)..."
• both Joel McHale, John Oliver and Chevy Chase had cameo roles - "both" doesn't make sense
• Reese Witherspoon's character from the 1999 movie Election - "Election" (like all films) should be italicised
• I started really liking them," he explains "even though they - past tense "explained" with a comma after it
• About Chase Harmon said that he - a bit clunky, something better would be "Harmon said that Chase..."
• In the reception section, italicise newspaper/magazine names, i.e. "TV Guide" and "Variety"
• Premièring in the 9:30 spot on the evening - I'm not American, but I think just "premiering" is the American spelling of the word (for an article about an American show). "9:30 pm" should also be clarified.
• seeing how The Office was down 18% from the previous the year's première - ditto with "premiere" and maybe start with "considering that The Office..."
• File:Community Pilot cast.jpg has a good fair use rationale but isn't low resolution. The rule of thumb is that non-free images shouldn't be more than 300 pixels wide or high, or any bigger than a size that lets it fulfil its purpose.

Nice work so far. I'll put the article on hold for seven days so that you can address the issues mentioned above. Good luck, —97198 (talk) 08:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Forgot to say, I'll do a check of the plot prose later, assuming that it's going to undergo significant overhaul. —97198 (talk) 08:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I'm going to fail the article since none of the problems have been resolved. I could have extended the hold period, but since there's been no activity on the article since November, it doesn't look like the issues are going to be addressed. It's not too far to go for GA, so good luck with future nominations. —97198 (talk) 12:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the thorough review, it was very helpful. Unfortunately I was away over Christmas, and didn't get a chance to fix the article, but I have done it now. There were a couple of points where I disagreed with the review, however:

• I agree absolutely with the length of the plot summary; this is in fact something that irritates me a lot in other articles. I cut it down to under 400, which I think is ok for a pilot episode, with so much information packed into it. One way to cut was to move the character introduction bits down to the next section. Though cast/characters sections are not common in episode articles, I thought it was legitimate for a pilot, where character introduction is such an important part.
• As for the size of the image, I disagree entirely with this. I don't think it is a correct reading of fair use guidelines to follow a 300px maximum slavishly. At that size the faces would be little more than blurry blobs, and the image's purpose - to introduce the characters - would not be met. The image in its current form is certainly low resolution compared to original photo files, and in no way threatens the commercial rights of the owners (if anything it should help).
  

I will re-nominate this soon, and hopefully I can reach an agreement with the next reviewer on these issues. Lampman (talk) 14:56, 15 May 2010 (UTC)