Talk:Once More, with Feeling (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: BelovedFreak 23:05, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

What a great article, I really enjoyed reading it; it's a long time since I watched this!

A couple of minor issues:

• "After trying to escape by dancing with Sweet's minions in a nightclub called The Bronze ("Dawn's Ballet"), Sweet (Hinton Battle) makes his appearance as a color-changing zoot suit-wearing, tap dancing, singing demon who tells Dawn that, by the (stolen) charm necklace she wears, she has called him to Sunnydale and he will take her to his dimension to make her his bride ("What You Feel")." - does this sentence make sense? It reads to me like Sweet's the one trying to escape his minions.
• "Although Salon.com writer Stephanie Zacharek states "The songs were only half-memorable at best,..." - is the capital "T" at the beginning of the quote intentional? Because it appears that you have changed letters lower case in other quotes, when the quote starts in the middle of a sentence.
• External link #5 appears to be dead.

Apart from that, the two concerns I have are criterion #1b and criterion #3b. At the moment, I don't feel that the lead summariss the whole article (per WP:LEAD). I'm also a little concerned about whether or not the article's focused enough. I picked a few FA class articles about TV episodes at random, and none of them went into much background detail about the series as a whole. Of course, just because that's how they are, doesn't mean it's set in stone, but this article does seem to go into a lot of detail about the background and I'm not sure it's all necessary. I'm open to persuasion on it though and would be interested to know what you think. The plot section's also quite long, per MOS:TV. I know it's over an hour long, but at 831 words, it's longer even than what's recommended for film plot sections. It is a more complicated story than usual though, and I couldn't see any obvious bits to cut, so I'm not too bothered about that.

So, if you could expand the lead & let me know what you think about it being focused, or not, that would be great. I'll put it on hold in the meantime.--BelovedFreak 23:05, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey Belovedfreak. Thanks for the review (really quick, too!). I just saw this episode for the first time last month. Actually, I just started watching Buffy in March.

• I think the show itself deserves some discussion as several sources made pretty strong points about multi-episode and -season story arcs, and this episode takes some background to explain because everyone's secrets that they've been hiding for weeks or months come out. If there are specific sentences or paragraphs you think are extraneous and add nothing at all, let me know which ones. I admit I tend to add as much as I can and then it gets hard to cut it down. There's a lot of Buffy info and I still have a book on the way about music from the series. Let's discuss them and see if we can compromise.
• I also read some other episode FAs like for The Simpsons and such, but this one simply is so unlike any other TV show FA that I had to stop trying to compare them. If it didn't have the musical element to it, maybe it would be more appropriate to compare to another TV show episode. I really think I have to compare this episode to a film article.
• I know the plot is not as concise as I like, but to explain how each of the songs fits into the episode...there are 14 songs...Either not all the songs need to be included in the Plot section, but that info should be shifted elsewhere making another section larger. I'm not sure.
• The lead is perhaps too concise, but I didn't know what to add without going nuts. I'll add a bit. Let me know what you think.

• I fixed the other things. Thanks again! --Moni3 (talk) 23:35, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

• Ok, I've read this through a few more times, and to be honest I'm at a loss as to what to cut, where. I agree that the background is important. The episode does involve ongoing stories, so it's necessary to explain the background. It's actually something I've thought about other episode articles, that they sometimes need a bit more background, so that the story means something to the reader who hasn't seen the episode. Not always necessary of course, depending on the show, many have more "stand alone" episodes. Anyway, My concern is that there's quite a large amount of text that's not actually about this episode. I wondered if maybe the information should be somewhere else and that we could link to it, summary style, but looking around, I don't know where that would be. I see there's no article discussing the story arc for that season, for example. So, I think that it's ok as it is for now. I would like to see some of the background moved elsewhere, but I agree with you that it's important to help the understanding of the reader, and at the moment, there isn't really a better place for it. Sorry to bring up a complaint and then completely fail to offer a solution!
• I looked again at the plot section, and couldn't see anything really to cut out of it, so I'm happy with that as it is.
• I like what you added to the lead, perhaps you could give examples of the musical styles used? Also, perhaps you could mention a bit more about themes; that's a pretty big section that hasn't really made it to the lead. Maybe just emphasise how it was a turning point in the various characters' stories, and Buffy having to face responsibility etc. Also, you could mention the Emmy situation.
• Again, sorry - I don't feel I've been much help here. I think it's a great article, but was just immediately struck by how much extraneous background there was. Now, I've recovered (!) I pretty much agree that it should be there. Maybe it's something to look at again, with a view to tightening it up a bit, if & when you take it to FA.--BelovedFreak 15:57, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok. I added some info about music styles and theme to the lead. I'm going to let it stew for a while before nominating it for FA. If anything occurs to you or if you take a chance to read it again soon, please let me know if you have any other suggestions.

I don't know if I'm thrilled or surprised at how much information has been written about this show. I understand about the summary style, and although each episode and major character has an article, and there are ones for the show itself and Buffy studies, there should probably be more. For instance, the amount of information produced on Willow and Tara's relationship probably warrants and article about their relationship instead of info being duplicated in both their articles. For sure, an article about the writing of the show including dialogue and story arcs should exist somewhere. Once the rest of Wikipedia writes that, I could happily link to it.

Thanks again, Belovedfreak. I appreciate the time you took to read and review the article. --Moni3 (talk) 16:39, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for adding to the lead, I'm happy to pass it now. I definitely think more could be written in general, since there's apparently so much written about the series. I had no idea about "Buffy Studies"! Anyway, good work. I'd been thinking lately of whipping a couple of TV episode articles into shape, thinking that'd be an easy job. You've given me something to aspire to! I'll let you know if anything more springs to mind on this.--BelovedFreak 17:09, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I guess I should let you know that I'll be working on "Hush" (already started it) and "The Body". I would love to get "Family" to GA/FA, but that's one of the ones I'm not sure I can do. The sandbox is at User:Moni3/BtVS if you have suggestions. Thanks again! --Moni3 (talk) 17:11, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'll keep an eye on them, mostly out of interest to see their development, but I'll make suggestions if any come to mind!--BelovedFreak 17:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)