RunningTiger123

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96th Academy Awards potential Featured List Candidate updates

HI there,

I have recently transferred an updated version of the 96th Academy Awards from User:Birdienest81/sandbox twenty-nine. I have been working on the article slowly but steadily since May 22. I was not able to do so earlier because I had intermittent computer problems for the first five months of 2024, but now my computer is working to the point I can do substantial amounts of editing. The original pre-copy-edited version of the article is still kept on over at User:Birdienest81/sandbox seventeen. It is of my understanding that this Oscar ceremony had been a previously failed FLC back in March because the original nominator did not make any significant changes to improve the article as suggested by commentators. I was going to help but as I said, my computer kept freezing. And the original nominator all but abandoned the nomination. So I took it upon myself to improve the article. Hence I found many of the citations did not support the statements that were being made, and there were no alt text for the pictures. So I made a complete overhaul of it.

Now, is it possible that you could help me add some finishing touches particularly with regards to Jonathan Glazer's speech and the critical reviews. For Glazer's speech, I followed how I wrote the description of Michael Moore's speech at the 75th Academy Awards and the ensuing reaction. I was wondering if there is something missing or is it adequate enough. Also almost all of the critical reviews of the ceremony were on the positive side. I cannot find a single negative review from a reliable source. If you could help me finish the improvements to this article, I'll promise to name you as a co-nominator when the article will be submitted for FLC. I am aiming for a July 29th submission for FLC. I surely would appreciate the help.

--Birdienest81talk 07:42, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Birdienest81: I think both of these issues would be fixed by returning the "Critical reviews" section to be more in line with how it was during the first FLC (where it was just "Reception"). As I noted then, I thought it did a good job capturing the specific parts of the ceremony that drew positive and negative responses, and it's also much more engaging. This would also be a good place to put Glazer's speech – it drew a response, but the response was basically "some people supported it and some people didn't", which easily fits into a single paragraph, and I don't think that warrants its own section.

I think some of the issues here are a side effect of an overly formulaic approach to writing these sections. Please don't take this personally, but I feel like every ceremony's reception section has become exactly one paragraph of positive reviews and one paragraph of negative reviews, with a few fairly generic quotes in each paragraph. We shouldn't promote a false balance – based on Rotten Tomatoes, the clear majority of reviews were positive, so we shouldn't go scrounging for negative reviews. It's also really difficult to judge the overall reception from year to year when every year looks so similar. The 75th ceremony is a good example of the pitfalls; it says it received a positive reception from most media publications but has a paragraph for negative reviews that is just as long, the quotes are generic (there were several heartfelt and memorable moments – like what?), and I'm left with no real impression of what it was actually like.

Again, I think returning to the old section would fix this; since very few reviews are entirely positive or entirely negative, you could talk about the specific parts critics liked and didn't like instead of boiling their responses down to a single sentence each, making the entire thing much more engaging and resolving the "issue" of not having many overall negative reviews. RunningTiger123 (talk) 02:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

@RunningTiger123: Okay, so I moved the text for Glazer's speech back into the Critical reviews sections now renamed "Reviews and reception". I renamed the section because come July 17th, I'm pretty sure the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards and its corresponding Creative Arts Awards will nominate the Oscar ceremony for a few awards and this is probably more fitting section rather than the ratings part.

I remain very wary about using Rotten Tomatoes (although I do agree that almost all the reviews for this ceremony are pretty much positive on the whole with only a few quibbles on some elements). As I have stated before, the reviews page for the 72nd Academy Awards on Rotten Tomatoes is dubious regarding its critics score because it most likely hasn't accounted for several other reviews for newspapers/news outlets that don't have archive on Newspapers.com for older ceremonies. I know for a fact that there were more positive reviews for the 72nd ceremony as promoted in the book Inside Oscar 2 by Damien Bona. My fear is that using Rotten Tomatoes now in an Oscar ceremony will lead to pretty much every ceremony including much older ones from the 1980s and 1990s using the score even though they very well be skewed toward negative. Birdienest81talk 10:09, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

You don't have to incorporate the Rotten Tomatoes score; you could just use it to support an assertion that reviews were generally positive. (See 74th Primetime Emmy Awards#Critical reviews and viewership for an example.) However, from this edit request, it seems other editors may have a different perspective. I wouldn't get worked up about a purely hypothetical addition of RT scores to old ceremonies; if that happens, have a conversation at the relevant talk page and explain your concerns. RunningTiger123 (talk) 03:01, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

@Birdienest81: forgot to ping you for my reply. RunningTiger123 (talk) 03:02, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Controversies on Oscar being included in the lead section

I decided to describe another dilemma regarding Oscar ceremony articles and featured list status. Well last year, someone out a brief description regarding the Chris Rock–Will Smith slapping incident toward the end of the intro, I tried to remove because I thought it would be overblowing the controversy more than it was, but was unsuccessful. The following year, I get feedback regarding my nomination of the 50th Academy Awards ceremony regarding FLC promotion. It said, "It summarizes the winners but there is nothing about Redgrave's speech and the reception.". I wasn't able to address that concern and the others because of computer problems, and therefore my FLC for the 50th Academy Awards failed. I feel that this is connected to the 94th Oscars intro because in hindsight the person who wrote the brief blurb about "The Slap" was right because that incident is so inseparable from that particular ceremony. I think though that the mention of that incident should be mentioned before the statement regarding the viewership figures since I think the ratings are the last thing the article mentions about the ceremony and the ratings are pretty much the final verdict. I think this could also be applied to the 61st Academy Awards which had the infamously panned Rob Lowe-Snow White opening number.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think every controversy should be brought up. Not all controversies or incidents during are of the same weight as others, but I hope you understand where I am getting at. Birdienest81talk 10:25, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

@Birdienest81: MOS:LEADREL says emphasis given to material should reflect its relative importance to the subject, according to published reliable sources. For an awards ceremony, it makes sense to emphasize basic ceremony information and the winners, as that receives the most coverage. Reviews and controversies also receive coverage, but not nearly as much (in most cases – the Rock–Smith incident being a notable exception), so I think it's perfectly fine to omit that from the lead. I recognize this may seem opposed to summary style, but if we made sure the length of each section reflected its relative coverage, we'd have to repeat the winners and nominees several times – obviously there's a limited amount of information that should go in that section regardless of depth of coverage, so the relationship between the length of each section and the section's relative importance breaks down. The comments at the 50th ceremony's FLC relied on a more straightforward application of summary style, which isn't wrong per se, but I think omitting reviews and controversies is generally better. RunningTiger123 (talk) 03:26, 29 June 2024 (UTC)