Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Aquaman (TV program)

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 17:04, 10 June 2007.

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Aquaman (TV program)

Self nomination - I believe the article fits FA criteria, or is atleast exceptionally close for a television pilot. I think it's well written, but it may need some separate eyes for better criticism.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

• Support It looks really good now. I'm sure that it is at a high enough quality to be a featured article, so I support the nomination. 01:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Davey4 (talk • contribs) 19:19, May 7, 2007
• Comment I can't support this yet, but it isn't bad enough that I will oppose it... it is a little choppy in sections and reads like a fan who wants to see the series picked up wrote it. Tone down some of the enthusiasm and this will be an excellent article.Balloonman 15:35, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Could you give me a couple instances. You don't have to go through all, but some so that I can understand exactly what you are referring to and then I should be able to find the rest.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:36, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I've reworded some of the sentences that were "highly anticipated", to just reflect that it was expected to be on the new line-up that fall. Please let me know what else I can reword to be more neutral.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:35, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't see the choppiness as much this time... but I still read it as way to positive towards the series. The entire reaction section (except the last sentence) just reaks of "this is a good series... it's so good that even the critics think it has potential."Balloonman 19:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
      • It took me forever to find that bad review, and even the positive reviews are from places like Kryptonsite. Even though Craig Byrne (webmaster of Kryptonsite) has written two official companion books for Smallville, which kind of shows his connection to the official material, I think that maybe we can do without any "reviews". I say this because the pilot wasn't "officially" released on television, so mainstream critics would actually have to go out of their way to buy it on iTunes just to review it (which I don't see them doing, especially when I've looked for them). We could remove the subjectivity behind the reviews and just leave it as objective facts about how it performed on iTunes. It seems like a logical conclusion since there are not really enough professional reviews on the canceled pilot to be able to give a well written, neutral review for the article itself.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:41, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose—1a. Random issues show that a copy-edit is still needed:
  • "The Aquaman pilot was anticipated to debuted in the fall of 2006." "anticipated to debuted"?
  • This is more of an opinion, but "picked up" seems a bit informal.
  • "The pilot has since become available online through iTunes in the United States, where it would occupy the number-one spot on the list of most downloaded TV shows, as well as the Xbox Live Video Marketplace." Case of "woulditis"; perhaps change "where it would occupy" to "where it occupied", and perhaps specify a date. "The pilot has since become available online" can probably be strengthened.
  • "McDonald would also play the role of Gloria," another case of "woulditis"; try "McDonald also played the role of Gloria".
  • "The show takes place in the fictional community of Tempest Key. Tempest Key..." Repetition.
• Nice article. It just needs more polish. — Deckiller 02:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  • • I made the changes. I did them in one edit so you can just click the history and see them all at the same time. I found a CBS source for the iTunes number-one spot. It doesn't give an exact date, but it says "earlier" this week, and since the pilot was release on July 24, and the article was written on August 2, I just listed as "within a week". I know that's kind of vague, and I'm searching for a source that might have a specific date, but I figured that was better than not even having an idea of when it became number-one.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Switched to neutral; prose looks much better.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Deckiller (talk • contribs)
        • I'm sure it still needs tweaking, nothing is ever really "perfect". I appreciate you returning.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
• Observations

• Under Development, "which featured the character as played by" should have a wiki-link to Aquaman, considering that it's the beginning of the actual article after the lead paragraphs.
• Miller and Gough should be identified in Development -- who are they, are they tied into a previous show (Smallville)? This information should be defined for the reader as if they are new to everything in this article.
• Is "apparently" necessary for the sentence about the Lois Lane series? Did they consider it or not? The quote seems to suggest they did look at the series.
• The first sentence of the second paragraph in Development seems to contradict what follows; rather than the pseudo-speculative statement, why not specifically focus on what has been said?
• "rumored to be the title" could be "speculated to be the title", since "rumors" was used in the previous sentence; a little variety, ya know?
• Under Casting, "Although the show had no official website, original casting calls were published" makes it sound like an official website was required for original casting calls? Does not seem immediately clear why the first part is needed.
• The CW spokesperson's quote can be reduced to just the latter sentence; we don't need the pseudo-praise in the first sentence.
• "A young A.C. is played in flashback scenes by Graham Bentz." This is said before there is any mention of producing a pilot, which is misleading. Can there be some introduction to the Casting section that it was for a pilot episode?
• "Siren" should be linked. Who is McCaffrey? Where is the citation that supports what he said about sirens being the weakest of the evils?
• "Sherriff" is misspelled. Should be Sheriff.
• "When the series was not picked up" -- the previous context was about Smallville, so it needs to re-specify that the Aquaman series was not picked up.
• I think that the actors in the pilot should be cited to their IMDb pages to show their involvement with Smallville episodes.
• Reference should come after the punctuation after "Coconut Grove"
• "Aquaman used the 482nd Fighter Wing Airmen as extras" -- sounds like the show is personified in doing something. "482nd Fighter Wing Airmen were used as extras in Aquaman" may be more suitable.
• "have done" in the Entity FX sentence should be "has done" -- it's a singular entity.
• Greg Beeman was the director... why not mention this earlier in Filming, or perhaps Development? His attachment to the project should be cited as well, maybe.
• Is "Plot" the most appropriate way to describe the section? I was thinking "Pilot summary".
• The comparison of water to krytonite seems awkward; I understand the point, but I think it could be written more clearly, especially if someone is not aware of Superman lore. (It is possible, you know.)
• "The pilot was consider by many" -- many whom? Critics, Smallville fans, producers?
• Under Reaction, who wrote the reviews? Fans, professional critics?

I will try to copy-edit the article, as I've noticed a few punctuation errors and sentence mis-structuring. Otherwise, the content is succinct and cited appropriately for the most part. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 03:45, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• One more thing: The citations used Cite web templates. It seems more appropriate to use Cite news templates. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 03:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I've gone through and made the changes, with exception to some of the last ones, because it's late and I have a class tomorrow morning. I'll return and try and finish.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I struck out what I did. Please unstrike them if you think I didn't not satisfy them completely. I will try and do the rest tomorrow. Thank you for the critiquing.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the "many" from that sentence, as it alone falls under "weasel words". I provided 3 citations from sources where they expressed the opinion that it was believed the pilot was going to be picked up by the CW, the last source is from The Hollywood Reporter. As for the reviews, there really isn't much out there. What is in the section is from more fanboyish websites, and less professional reviews. IGN is probably the closest to anything professional, but even then... I really believe that the fact that this program was never released on television, and was remanded to iTunes and Xbox for paid viewings, that it really doesn't need a "reaction" section. I think the fact that it became the top selling television program on iTunes speaks for itself; it's objective about the program. I think what's notable about the program is that it was anticipated, but not picked up, and then became a sensation on iTunes.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• Weak oppose, page needs extensive copyediting to eliminate painful run-on sentences, jargon, repetition, supposition, and weasel words, as others have already said. Could also use more sources from legitimate journalistic outlets and fewer from fan sites (as the writer has already acknowledged); if none exist, don't strive so hard just to fill up space with ones you know are substandard. The fact that the writer of the article is the one who nominated it is slightly suspect; should we really be discussing this at all? Shouldn't an article be nominated by someone other than the writer? The lack of objectivity of a self-nomination almost makes this a strong oppose. There is a lot of good info here, it's just not presented very well. 12.22.250.4 22:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: To the user above, it's perfectly acceptable for someone to nominate their own work. It's the recommendations shared by other editors that matters. Please feel free to make more specific suggestions in terms of copy-editing. Bignole, I'll review the article when I find the time and see if I can help improve the writing further. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:01, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - The entire lead-in is unsourced at present. Matthew 23:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Leads are supposed to summarize the entire article, all the sources are in the article with their specific counterparts.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Sorry, but that's an irrelevant excuse. There's no reason *not* to cite the lead. If you're using the <ref /> structure then you can use the name="xyz" attribute. See Wikipedia:No original research: "Articles should only contain verifiable content from reliable sources without further analysis.", hence I shouldn't need to analyse the article to find a reliable source. Matthew 23:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, it's the first time I've seen a demand for citations in the lead, but I complied (partially). I didn't move the "generally favorable reviews" citations up, because I need someone to address the concerns I have about them first. You can see my arguments about using them, and why I think we could do without, in the comments just above.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Bignole is correct - the lead does not have to have citations. This objection is invalid. Raul654 18:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
          • Again, the lead does not need citations, the reason *not* to have them in the lead is because they aren't required if cited in the article body. Wrad 22:59, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support — Not a topic I'm interested in, but the article is very well-written and referenced. Good job. (Ibaranoff24 13:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC))
• Support -I think it's improved from when it was first nominated. Less "this was a great show that should have aired."Balloonman 20:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Thank you for taking the time to return and re-evaluate the article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support. I see that my suggestions have been implemented, and the article has been additionally streamlined since. It seems to meet FA criteria as best as possible for the pilot of a canceled TV program, and I'm happy to recommend it for the appropriate status. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support: I think it's good. I think I did make a few copyedits, but anyway, excellent. Alientraveller 21:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support, a great example for others to follow, and worthy of representing Wikipedia as one of our best. -- Ned Scott 01:16, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.