Talk:Ben-Hur (1959 film)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ankitbhatt (talk · contribs) 15:50, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

An iconic Hollywood film, I was wondering when this would get a GA nomination. Sadly, one look at this article is giving me strong quick-fail vibes. Some broad problems (and I am usually very nit-picky) are :-

• For an article this big, the lead is very small. Besides, its incomplete, missing details regarding principal photography, box office, reviews etc.

• The plot is big, certainly beyond any lenient norms for plot lengths.

• I can understand the amount of information regarding this film, but seriously? The script development section is gigantic; the size of it alone makes me afraid to read it.

• And that's hardly the worst. The chariot race sequence's length would make up half of any normal article. Same goes for the unwieldy Production design, Cinematography and editing - in short, practically everything.

• The article suffers from a lot of prose problems. Generally, the text is confusing, lengthy, stuffed and elaborately written so much so that reading it all is fatiguing.

Such wide-range problems will be very difficult to rectify. I am not in any way saying that information should be cut from Wikipedia, but some sections need to be moved out to separate daugther articles. Other than that, thorough copy-edits and a lot of referencing improvement is needed. While I feel a withdrawal is the best option, I'll AGF and see how much improvement can be made in a week. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 15:50, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Some observations:

1. I echo Ankitbhatt's sentiments in regards to the lede; the lede is not an introduction to the article, it is an abstract i.e. it should summarise the article, but it skirts production and completely omits Reception.
2. As for the plot length, the word count stands at 798 words, and WP:FILMPLOT recommends 400–700 words; if it could be brought within those limits that would be great, but those guidelines are written in respect to a film of typical length i.e. a couple of hours. This film is nearly twice as long so in view of that I think we can cut a bit of slack since it is only 100 words over the limit (by comparison Titanic (1997 film) is a similar length and the plot summary stands at 850 words).
3. I don't really see much point to the cast list. I know many film articles have them but in this case it is just repeating the parenthesised names in the plot summary. It's redundant. The closest FA example to this article is Witchfinder General (film) which offers the actors names in the plot summary and has a dedicated 'casting' section, similar to this article, but omits a cast list.
4. I don't think the script development section should be trimmed by much, if at all; the writing process seems like it was pretty integral to the entire direction of the film. I found it absorbing rather exhausting.
5. The Differences between novel and film needs to go too since it does not comply with MOS:FILM#Adaptation_from_source_material.
6. I have mixed feelings about the Chariot Race section. It could be transported to a sub-article since it is pretty self-contained, but even then it would still only bring the article down to about 100k, and pretty much isolate the aspect the film is most famous for. I think a better approach may be to break this section and the scrip development section into sub-headings, and then it will be in a more digestible form for readers.
7. There is also some inconsistent date formatting in the references section that needs to be addressed. Betty Logan (talk) 22:10, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Hello Betty! I thought you had left Wikipedia, but anyways, glad you're here :) By splitting, I had not referred to completely removing the sections. As per WP:FORK, the original article must summarize the split parts in a thorough manner. Under the present circumstances, summarizing would be the best option but I don't know if it will be entirely possible. In addition, the Script development section is confusing or abrupt in places, which needs work. Same goes for the other sections as well. I'm sure we could all come to a compromise, so I would first suggest a complete copy-edit and re-writing so as to make the information more condensed. After that, we could take a call on splitting. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 04:42, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I still check in regularly; I can't quit permanently or the articles I've developed will just go to the wall, but I don't develop articles anymore. I still do a bit of assessing for the Film Project when I'm bored. I don't think 100k is an unreasonable size for an article about such a classic film, I think the problems can be addressed through some structural changes, so I will see if I can do anything later. I won't be overhauling the article though but I honestly don't think it needs it. We'll see what I can do anyway. Betty Logan (talk) 14:49, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Quite the contrary, this film deserves much more than just 100k, seeing its stature and fame (a much less acclaimed film on which I worked upon is 142k). The problem lies in the readability, which is poor, and the prose, which is definitely not up to the mark. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 16:40, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you should probably close the review. It has fantastic coverage and is well sourced, but there are so many other aspects that need to be addressed. I wouldn't even say it qualifies as B class at the moment. I've made a few changes to the structure, but we need to look at that more closely and it needs a good copy-edit too. I don't think it can be sorted out in a week, so I think it should be made ship shape and then re-submitted. Betty Logan (talk) 20:40, 24 June 2012 (UTC)