Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Over the Edge (1999)/1

Over the Edge (1999) edit

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Result: List as GA. The fail was initially endorsed but significant improvements took place during this GAR, where the article received a thorough review. Editors, including the original reviewer, agree that it now meets the criteria. Hence further renomination is unnecessary. Geometry guy 09:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article primarily failed because of the way the death of Owen Hart was handled in the article. The reviewer stated that he failed the article because it did not include any discussion about the controversy of continuing the event or not, however, from the reliable sources available, there were no discussions about the WWF's decision to continue the event, (quote from Slam Wrestling! Stunned by the accident, the WWF talent continued on with the Over The Edge pay-per-view though the feelings over the loss of their friend and collegue were visible in their somber ring entrances which were devoid of any enthusiasm or excitement. Therefore, I can't in good conscience rate this pay-per-view or any of its matches. It wouldn't be fair to you, the fans, and the World Wrestling Federation.) (quote from Online World of Wrestling The decision was made by Vince McMahon and management that "the show must go on"..) What is mainly told from these reliable sources is that the WWF continued the show, and the wrestlers felt somber in their entrances, and that's primarily all that is said about the decision as the WWE, wanted to lure itself from the responsibility of his death. Currently WWE.com and Corporate WWE.com do not have articles about their decision. This article has been on the GA list for more than 1 month, and for it too fail like this is appalling, there wasn't even a chance (On Hold status) given to address the concerns. I also do not see how the article fails NPOV, I did not write this article with any bias whatsoever. Also again addressing the main concern, there a few sources that have information about his death, and all that is available is stated in the event section and the aftermath section. I understand however, that a seperate section could be needed for his death, but that would mess up the TOC, as his death occurred midway into the event, and if I place the content in a different section, I would have to put a "event (continued)" section after it, which is not organized IMO. --~S R X~ 20:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Endorse Fail~~. Sorry, the writing isn't up to GA standards. Some examples:

Back and forth action between the two teams, until X-Pac attempted to launch himself onto Henry on the outside, but was caught and rammed into the ring post, which allowed the double team on X-Pac by Brown and Henry. That's a sentence fragment.
Austin though, was able to untie and save Stephanie, after he attacked The Undertaker and his Ministry of Darkness. Punctuation problems.
However, Austin gained revenge... Poor verb choice.

I could go on, but you get the point. The article needs a good copyediting to get the prose up to par. Regarding content, I would suggest adding more details on Hart's death and subsequent reaction. I'm not sure if the article is NPOV; I'll need to re-read it before I can tell. Majoreditor (talk) 01:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I went through the article today and did a bunch of copyediting. I believe it now meets the GA criteria for quality of prose. GaryColemanFan (talk) 19:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have also added a "Criticism" section detailing the reactions to Owen's death and the decision to continue the event. GaryColemanFan (talk) 21:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Owen Hart's death and the controversy surrounding it should be summarized better in the lead. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 21:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I did the best I could with it, and added more about the Owen Hart tragedy into the lead, with a basic overview of it.22:03, 12 May 2008 (UTC)~S R X~

Thanks, I'll try to take another look before I leave for vacation. Majoreditor (talk) 18:55, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse fail. I encourage Majoreditor to look again, as the prose has improved, but it is still weak in places, e.g., "After the teams fought back and forth, X-Pac attempted to launch himself onto Henry on the outside but was caught and hit into the ring post. This allowed the Brown and Henry to double team X-Pac.", "Snow pretended to be out cold but surprised his opponent by countering Holly's powerbomb into one of his own through the table, pinning Holly for the win and retaining the Hardcore Championship.", and "Martha Hart, Owen's wife, refused to openly criticize McMahon in the immediate aftermath after her husband's death."

However, I think the article has more serious problems. In short, the entire article is far too "in universe" for a good article. Almost the only hints that everything is staged are in the wikilinks to wrestling terms. Apart from the criticism subsection, the article (the background, the event, the aftermath and the results) concentrates almost entirely on the in universe perspective. While the reviewer does not articulate this clearly, this is actually the main problem with the treatment of Owen Hart's death: it receives perfectly good coverage in the criticism section, but in the event section, it is a four sentence aside to purely in universe action. This is pretty shocking in my view. In an out of universe perspective on this event, the fact that a wrestler was killed is the most significant information. It should be in the first paragraph (maybe even the first sentence) of the lead, and the death should be clearly described in an out-of-universe context. If this imbalance is a result of following WikiProject guidelines on article structure, then there needs to be a serious discussion about this in the WikiProject if they wish to encourage the production of good articles.

There are other minor issues: the results section may fail the WP:Embedded lists criterion, and the article is overlinked: Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and we don't need to link terms like "abducted", "crucifix" or "casket"; terms with technical wrestling meanings should, of course, be linked, probably on the first instance in each section, but no more than that. Geometry guy 22:18, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for pointing out the problems with the prose. After looking at the article this many times, it's hard to catch them. I believe I have fixed all of the prose issues you mentioned. GaryColemanFan (talk) 00:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome: those look better now. I did a minor tweak of the last one. It may be helpful to look at other sports and entertainments GAs to get an idea for the balance between in-universe and out-of-universe reporting, e.g., Super Bowl XL, Super Mario Bros., Mulholland Drive (film). There are of course wrestling GA's to look at, and this article comes closer to these in standard, but in comparison with other sports and entertainment articles, I think a lot of leeway is already given to wrestling GAs on this issue. Geometry guy 18:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well this is the first time this comes up in many of GA's about the in-universe writing of wrestling GA's, the thing is of all of our GA's and our FA is written in-and-out-of universe, with links to the terms for further explanation. But if this is a major problem, then all of your GA's should have failed. Besides that, I feel that the Owen Hart death has been expanded and more covered throughout. Is there anything else we can do to improve it or does it still deserve to fail?S R X 18:31, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the links, especially to the FA December to Dismember (2006). I actually don't think this is FA-standard right now, and the FAC was not thoroughly discussed. However, I do think that this article provides a good example on how to write the report. It is punctuated throughout by out-of-universe facts, and so does not have the same in-universe feel as the current article. If you can capture some of this prose style, I doubt my objection to the fail will stand at the GA level. Maybe it won't anyway, but other editors need to comment. Geometry guy 19:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My concerns have now been largely addressed thanks to good work by SRX and others, and am no longer against listing the article as a GA. Geometry guy 20:38, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I don't think this is far off GA, although not there yet. The amount of in-universe writing is a concern, and more than I think we'd accept from a game, film or book article. There's also a dead link (check here) that needs fixing, and the prose wanders from present to past tense in places. For what it's worth, I think the Owen Hart death is handled fairly well, with plenty of sourced detail on the circumstances and ensuing controversy. For me, this was the most convincing part of the article ;) EyeSerene^talk 19:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Link is fixed. The article has also been copy edited. --S R X 04:30, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the delay in getting back here! I've been hoping I'd get the time to copyedit myself, but that's unlikely to happen in the short term, and given accepted practice in this area and the improvements made by SRX and others I think this article is now basically sound for GA. EyeSerene^talk 17:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify for SRX per my talk page: yes, I think this is now OK for GA. I'm still uneasy about the amount of in-universe prose, but I accept that professional wrestling is unusual in this respect and certainly don't think this article is any worse than other wrestling GAs. I've removed a couple of wikilinks that were bugging me though! EyeSerene^talk 09:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, overall I see that there is less disagreement for it to become a GA, should I renominate the article or will it pass straight from this GAR?SRX^--^Latino Heat 19:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to renominate then I can probably close this GAR with the next day or so as "No action" (not endorsing the fail and recommending renomination). However, if you wait a little, it might be possible to pass the article straight from this GAR. This would require more reviewers' comments: for instance a revised opinion from Majoreditor would be helpful. Geometry guy 19:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will wait for his opinion then.SRX^--^Latino Heat 19:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. The article is much improved. While some work remains, it's at or close to meeting GA standards. In light of the article's progress I am withdrawing my recommendation to delist. I have, however, one request. Is there is a way to legitimately correct the sentence fragment in this quote:

He wrote, "To question if this was really necessary. Shame on you, Vince McMahon".

Thanks and keep up the good work. Majoreditor (talk) 22:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fairly confident that this was the complete sentence, but I agree that it sounds awkward. I'll dig out the newspaper and see if adding more context helps. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 22:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was indeed the full sentence (the full paragraph, actually). I'm not sure why he phrased it like that—it doesn't fit the context of the previous paragraph, and it's not used for parallel structure in Hart's article. I have changed the phrasing for this article, though, so that it fits better. I hope that works. GaryColemanFan (talk) 22:33, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question. This discussion can either be closed as "no action" (recommend renomination), or "list as GA". Are there any objections to me closing it as "list as GA", on the grounds that it has been looked at closely by several reviewers, so that further nomination is unnecesary? I am equally happy to recommend renomination if reviewers think another pair of eyes would be a good thing before listing. Geometry guy 20:53, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
List as good article. I was the original reviewer who failed the GA nomination, and I now consider this article to be of GA-quality. In response to the question posed by Geometry guy above, I have no problem if this GAR is closed as "list as GA." Ice Cold Beer (talk) 06:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
List. Majoreditor (talk) 01:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]