Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sardines (Inside No. 9)/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 13:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC) [1].

---

Sardines (Inside No. 9)

Nominator(s): J Milburn (talk) 14:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

"Sardines" is a free-standing, half-hour story which introduces 12 characters (played by 12 actors familiar to British viewers) and manages to cover the themes of murder, incest, sexual abuse, vengeance and adultery. Most of the episode takes place inside a wardrobe. It's a comedy, but I'm not sure the humour would be everyone's cup of tea- you can see clips here and here. The article was promoted to GA last year, and more recently formed part of a good topic. The second series of Inside No. 9 will be broadcast this year, and, while I'm working on articles for the second series, I'd like to see if I can push some of the articles about the first series to FA level. I look forward to your comments! This will probably be a WikiCup nomination. J Milburn (talk) 14:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Inside_No_9,_Sardines_poster.jpg: could we fill in the "n.a." parameters, please? They are applicable. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Quite right- I've expanded the rationale considerably. Thanks for your comment. J Milburn (talk) 11:05, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Support from Jim

I wish I'd seen this, real League of Gentlemen stuff. Near the end, I wondered if "watched my more people" might be better than "more highly viewed", but I have no real quibbles, so I'm happy to support as is Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:41, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much Jim- I personally really enjoyed the series. Keep your eyes open for the second series coming at some point in the next couple of months! J Milburn (talk) 18:37, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Comments

• External links are good and no DABs.
• Article and book titles need to be in title case as per MoS.
  • I prefer to use title case for book titles but not article titles. Could you point to the piece of the MOS you're referring to specifically, please? J Milburn (talk) 11:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
    • Sure, it's MOS:CT. The only difference between book and article titles is italicization, not capitalization.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
      • Hmm. It's certainly not explicit, and a recent discussion reached no real conclusion. (I also note that many other FAs do not follow this rule- Rodrigues starling and Money in the Bank (2011) were both promoted this month, and prefer sentence case for article titles.) I accept that (say) journal and newspaper titles should be capitalised, but I am not convinced that article titles should be- article titles are sometimes extremely long. My understanding is that professional style guides disagree on this, and as our MOS isn't explicit (individual articles are not listed anywhere, as far as I can see, as "works of art or artifice") I would have thought we can choose either way, as long as we're consistent. If there's a consensus to change this, I will, but I really do think it's ugly. J Milburn (talk) 19:24, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• In several places your cites are out of numerical sequence.
  • Fixed the one I could see. J Milburn (talk) 11:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• One duplicate link for The Observer in the main body.
  • Fixed. J Milburn (talk) 11:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• The prose is pretty smooth; nothing jumped out at me on first read. I'll give it another go through once these comments have been dealt with.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:17, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your comments! J Milburn (talk) 11:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Support Comments. I've made a couple of minor copyedits; please revert at will.

• "As such, the story was not initially about the game of sardines": what does "as such" mean here?
  • I've rephrased- I think it was clearer in an earlier version of that paragraph. J Milburn (talk) 10:12, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• You don't need "[o]ur" when you uncap an initial uppercase letter; you can silently make it "our". Similarly with "[w]ickedly" and "[b]eing".
  • Ok, removed. J Milburn (talk) 10:12, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• There's a lot of repetition of "writing for" at the start of the reception section. It's not easy to come up with smoother ways to say this but I think something should be done. Perhaps "Kendall, writing for the Daily Telegraph, gave the episode four out of five stars, as did A, B and C, writing for X, Y and Z (respectively); Veronica Lee, writing for The Arts Desk, gave it five out of five."?
  • Do you prefer the new approach? J Milburn (talk) 10:12, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

    Yes, that does it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:09, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• "Allusions to past unhappiness is a typical trope": "allusions" is plural, so I think this has to be restructured.
  • I think I can use "unhappiness" as an uncountable noun. The allusions are plural, but the unhappiness is uncountable. Compare "allusions to religious scripture" or "allusions to ancient philosophy". I can rephrase if you like, but I think it's pleasantly prosaic. J Milburn (talk) 10:12, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

    I think we're looking at different issues here -- the problem I see is that the subject of "is" is "allusions", not "unhappiness". The phrase "to past unhappiness" is descriptive of the allusions and doesn't form the subject of the sentence, so there's a number problem in the verb. How about "Allusions to past unhappiness occur frequently in Shearsmith's and Pemberton's work"? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:09, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

    Sorry, I did misunderstand- I do think "allusions to past unhappiness" could be my example of a (single) trope, so could be read a as a singular noun phrase, but I accept that it does read a little oddly. I have rephrased. J Milburn (talk) 16:09, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

    Struck; and I've supported above. Nice work. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:21, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

    Thanks! J Milburn (talk) 18:18, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Overall a very clean article; I expect to support once these minor issues are dealt with. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:22, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the review- it's appreciated. J Milburn (talk) 10:12, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Comments

When I first read through this article I thought it was pretty cool that I was able to follow along without have ever sen the show or any of the characters. That along with good writing and adherence to the MOS is enough to Support. A few notes that might improve the article, though:

• The image of Timothy West is forced at 200px unlike the others. Is this intentional?
  • Changed. J Milburn (talk) 10:18, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
• Is it beneficial to have the "Notes" column of the table sortable?
  • I've rejigged the table to make sortability useful- good spot. J Milburn (talk) 10:18, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
• I think the "Analysis" could be improved. "Dark" or "Black" humour is mentioned in 3 of the paragraphs. I think that its mention in paragraph 3 should be in paragraph 4. This is primarily a concern over maybe moving a line or two .
  • Actually, the black/dark humour is only discussed in paragraph 3. In paragraph 2, I'm discussing the overall tone of the episode (starts comedic, becomes darker) and in paragraph 4, I'm discussing the themes (including "dark" themes like child sexual abuse). J Milburn (talk) 10:18, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Nice work. (Mandatory disclaimer: Reviewer is also in the Wikicup)Cptnono (talk) 19:03, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, review and observant comments- it's appreciated. J Milburn (talk) 10:18, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Source review

• Everything looks good, although I'd prefer linking items on first mention only. Minor complaint and surely personal preference. --Laser brain (talk) 16:58, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the review. I prefer quite heavy linking in the references as footnotes are often viewed individually, rather than one after the other. I can change it if others share LB's view. Josh Milburn (talk) 23:52, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 13:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.