Talk:Joe Biden (The Onion)/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Hunter Kahn (talk · contribs) 13:38, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I will conduct the review of this article and will attempt to start it later today... — Hunter Kahn 13:38, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Hunter! I should be free today and tomorrow to respond to review your comments as needed, but I will probably be busier and less responsive on Friday and most of this weekend. Just a heads up in case the process needs that time. I just looked over your contributions and, based on how many are about comedy or politics (or both), you seem like possibly the ideal reviewer for this material—so I'm excited to hear what you think! Cheers, —BLZ · talk 19:03, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this article definitely hits upon multiple areas of interest for me; I love The Onion and have always loved their portrayal of Biden, and it makes me wish I had thought to create this article myself! lol At a glance the article is in great shape and I've seen no major prose issues yet. I've only had a chance to start looking at the beginning so far, so I'll try to finish the rest later today or tomorrow but here are a few observations to get you started...

• The second paragraph in the “Background” section talks about The Onion, but it mentions background information about it ("Founded in 1988 in Madison, Wisconsin", "began publishing online in 1996 and discontinued its print edition in 2013", etc.) that I don’t see mentioned in either of the cited sources… unless I’m missing it? If not, can you add additional sources to back up specifically those background facts? I should think they would be easy enough to find…

•  Done —BLZ · talk 21:10, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• Similarly, you mention in this paragraph that most Onion stories are “one-off”. Can you point to where in the sources it specifically says this? Also, the use of quotes on the phrase “one-off” made me assume that was a direct quote from someone, but it doesn’t appear to be the case? (I do see references to the Bill Clinton portrayals in the source, but not the one-off nature of most Onion stories...)

•  Done I've removed it. This is kind of a tricky point that was one of the most difficult things I tried to convey in the article. For anyone already familiar with The Onion, the status of Biden as a consistent "character" over time is obvious because he contrasts with their usual method of handling public figures. What's not obvious to non-readers is that, say, Barack Obama is not a consistent character over time. In The Onion, Obama is just whoever Obama has to be to make a particular joke work (and that goes for almost everyone besides Biden and a handful of others). He can be the Anti-Christ in one article, but that doesn't mean he ever will be again. The problem is that the sources all recognize Biden as a unique, noteworthy exception to The Onion's usual approach, but they spend all their time discussing the exception to the rule without articulating what the rule was to begin with. Most readers can probably infer this, but I wanted to find a way to put it on the record. —BLZ · talk 21:10, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• This source, which you cite in later paragraphs, mentions that The Onion started ascribing made-up character traits to politicians as far back as Bob Dole (being a Terminator-like machine man. LOL). Do you think this would be something worth including in this above paragraph, maybe as an example along with Bill Clinton?

•  Done Good point, I've added that in. —BLZ · talk 21:10, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• In the first paragraph of “Characterization,” there is a sentence “Often referred to by the nickname "Diamond Joe", the character loves hair metal and classic rock from the 1970s and 1980s. He drives a 1981 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am and motorcycles.” I don’t see this in the article used as a citation…

•  Done I've moved a citation from the very first sentence of that paragraph, which cites several sources all at once. All (certainly most) of those sources would also support those details. The citation casts a wide net because it's intended to support the statement that the character is "typically described" a certain way, the kind of generality that should be backed by ample justification.

More to come... — Hunter Kahn 21:20, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

• The third paragraph of "Notable Appearances" quotes the phrase "mystical-ass experiences", but the cited source says "mythical-ass experiences". Though your phase actually seems to make more sense, so it may be worth checking the original source if possible to see which one is used...

•  Done Good catch. I don't consciously recall "correcting" the quote, but I typically copy-paste anything I'm quoting (if only to save keystrokes—who has the time to retranscribe copy-pasteable text??). Either way, I just bought the Kindle single to double-check and "mystical" is correct, the secondary source quoted it wrong. Here's the surrounding text:

"Here's the thing though, that summer wasn't just about partying and porking like it was going out of style. Hell no! I had some mystical-ass experiences, man. Some heavy spiritual shit went down and rocked me to the core of my soul."

I hadn't bought it earlier because I'm not a huge fan of ebook formats that don't have set page numbers (like a pdf does), but The Onion surely deserves the three bucks it took to verify that. —BLZ · talk 21:39, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

• In the last paragraph of "Notable Appearances" you write that Donald Jr. and Eric are the characters that "have come closest in terms of popularity" to Biden's character. But looking at the source, I'm not sure they are saying that exactly. I read it more that they were saying Eric & Donald Jr. were the most similar characters The Onion has had to Biden. Could you take another look at the source, see what you think, and maybe attempt a rewrite if you agree?

•  Done You're right, it seems like I misconstrued something about the success/popularity of the characters. —BLZ · talk 03:54, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

• A minor point: you mention in the second paragraph of "Popularity and reception" that Gob and Tobias are from Arrested Development and Selina Mayer is from Veep, but you don't say Homer Simpson is from The Simpsons. Do you think that's necessary, or do you think it's common sense since it's in his name and all? lol I don't feel strongly about this one, so whichever you want is fine.

• My thinking was that Homer Simpson is famous enough in his own right that his origins go without saying for most readers. I would expect most ordinary people on the street to be able to recognize Homer Simpson's name or appearance, regardless of whether they'd actually watched The Simpsons. Plus, as you said, his name contains the name of the show he's from, which aids recognition—even a person who hasn't heard of Homer has still probably heard of the show called The Simpsons, and can put 2 and 2 together. On the other hand, Arrested Development and Veep may be well-known to comedy connoisseurs but the characters aren't exactly household names. —BLZ · talk 03:54, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

• As much as I love the tweet, and I think the context in which you use it in the article is fine, I'm not sure using the tweet itself as a citation quite follows Wikipedia sourcing guidelines. Can you add this source, which you use in the same section and which mentions the tweet, as an additional inline citation along with the one linking to the tweet itself?

•  Done I think this is fair enough, given that @blippoblappo is not verified. The Liquid Swords tweet is now double-cited to both itself and the nymag article which quotes it. Part of the reason I decided to add a citation straight to the tweet, rather than just to the nymag article, was a contingency plan in case @blippoblappo ever decides to delete the tweet, or has his account suspended, or anything else happens that might make the embedded version in the nymag article fail to display. This way there's an archive link to the tweet itself just in case. The archived link also allows us to quote the tweet as it appeared when it was first posted: the account has since changed its display name from "blupman" to "friendly neighborhood blupman", and who knows how many others in between, while the embedded version in the article will always display with the account's current display name. —BLZ · talk 03:54, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

That's pretty much all I've gone right now! I didn't find any substantial problems with the prose, most of the sourcing issues I've cited above are minor and I believe easily fixable, and I expect this article will be at GA status very soon. Nice work Brandt Luke Zorn! — Hunter Kahn 04:00, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi Hunter! I've just started looking through your comments. I'll mark them done and respond as needed. —BLZ · talk 21:39, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

• FYI Brandt Luke Zorn I've struck the items you've already addressed. Once the others are handled I think we'll be good to go! — Hunter Kahn 03:57, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Everything looks like it's been addressed and I'm pleased to promote this article to GA. Diamond Joe would be proud. :D — Hunter Kahn 00:11, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.