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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Subway (Homicide: Life on the Street)/archive1

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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 Karanacs 17:44, 2 February 2010 [1].

Subway (Homicide: Life on the Street)

edit
Nominator(s): — Hunter Kahn (c) 04:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Toolbox

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it is well-written, well-sourced and as comprehensive as possible. — Hunter Kahn (c) 04:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Alt text done; thanks. Please add alt text to images; see Wikipedia:Alternative text for images. Eubulides (talk) 04:42, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: All of my issues were taken care of in the GAN review I conducted for the article—still, though, please add the ALT text. The Flash {talk} 05:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is the first article I've reviewed for some time, so please excuse me for being a little bit out of touch. That said, I don't believe that the criteria have changed that much.
    Prose
    Generally good, with some minor niggles, for example:
    • "as the man police believe may have pushed Lange" → "as a man suspected of pushing Lange"?
    • "...was filmed on location in a real-life Baltimore Metropolitan Transit Authority station.": you don't need "real-life"; the word "on location" implies that already.
    • "Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Bayliss (Kyle Secor)": give context for people who never watched the show. Just saying the word "Detectives" before makes it much clearer. It would also be helpful to give their first names too, but it's not required for the context.
    • "Biedron says he was bumped from behind along with Lange, but other witnesses give conflicting reports, with some saying Biedron pushed Lange, others saying Lange pushed Biedron and yet others saying it was an accident." -> "Biedron says he was bumped from behind along with Lange, but other witnesses give conflicting reports: some say Biedron pushed Lange; others saying Lange pushed Biedron; and others saying it was an accident."
    • "Pembleton sends Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Falsone (Jon Seda)": see point #3
    • "In this particular episode" -> "In the episode he saw"
    • "Rashomon thing": italics are allowed in quotes
    • "But Goldstein remained convinced": "But", in this case, isn't needed to keep the same context.
      • I think I've addressed all of the specific items you've pointed out, and I'll conduct a more rigorous look through for some additional prose improvements over the next few days. — Hunter Kahn (c) 04:14, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The prose can generally be improved with minor changes to remove extraneous words such as "but", "with", "where", and replacing them with things such as colons and semi-colons.
    Comprehensiveness
    At 45KB, it's on the long side of 45-minute episode FACs, that tend (or used to tend) to around 32KB. Still, I wrote a 110KB article about an episode of the same length, so I can't complain it's too long <g>.
    Well-researched
    Appears to be, using what scant material there would be from twelve years ago, when the Internet was in its infancy; generally, I don't oppose an episode FAC for not having been on LexisNexis.
    Neutrality
    passed.
    Lead section
    concise and offers a nice bitesize of the plot summary too: something I find very hard to do!
    Appropriate structure
    Your structure differs from mine, as I count writing to be part of the production process, but it's still good. If you want to appear a bit more professional, you could rename "Plot summary" to "Synopsis".
    Citation style
    consistent.
    Images
    you use two fair use images.
    • Infobox image: you are correct in your assessment that the concept is difficult to explain without an image. I also appreciate that you gave a good secondary reason: that it portrays the relationship Pembleton develops with a dying man, a crucial point in the script.
    • Filming image: again, good rationale, showing how the camer a tricks were visualised and showing how cramped the space was better than the text.
    Length
    not too long, not too short.
  • Support. All in all, the article is pretty good. There are some minor prose issues, but it will not stop me from supporting this candidcay. Good work. And, perhaps you could tell me: was this the basis for a similar Robot Chicken sketch? Sceptre (talk) 02:39, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Source comments Everything fine. Minor thing: If you're going to include publisher location, do it for all refs or none for uniformity's sake. As it is, some do and don't. RB88 (T) 23:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose on criterion three:
    • File:Homicide life on the street subway.jpg - Needs to attribute a copyright holder per NFCC#10A. (This is a minor issue; oppose is per issue below).
    • File:Homicide life on the street subway filming.jpg - Doesn't appear to be making a significant contribution to our understanding - NFCC#8. The purpose includes:
      • A) "illustrates the John Hopkins Hospital Metro Subway Station which was used as a setting". This is a real station (i.e. free image could be obtained - NFCC#1). Setting is also perfectly clear in File:Homicide life on the street subway.jpg. NFCC#3A requires minimal use.
      • B) "[illustrates] the camera and sound techniques used for the filming". The back of a seated cameraman and a man holding a boom mic is poor, at best, illustration. No meaningful technique is illustrated and technique, if any, does not appear counter intuitive, unique, or otherwise complex enough as to require a non-free image to understand.
      • C) "[illustrates] the cramped conditions the cast was faced with with during the making of the episode". Cramped quarters are illustrated equally well by File:Homicide life on the street subway.jpg. The crew is shown to have ample room; both images depict the limited space for the cast. NFCC#3A: "Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information" (emphasis mine).
      • Image also does not credit the copyright holder, but that is moot as per above. Эlcobbola talk 17:00, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - No major concerns for me; looks pretty good. ceranthor 23:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Reluctant withdrawal of oppose. Tony (talk) 07:57, 28 January 2010 (UTC) Not well enough written. Here are random issues just in the lead.[reply]

  • Remove the second word. Possibly remove "overall", which is odd. Can "simultaneously" be removed?
  • "helmed" is a word I've never heard before. I had to look it up. Why not use plain English?
  • "based ... off". Isn't it "on"?
  • NYC hardly needs to be linked; don't you want to avoid diluting the valuable links? Who would click on that link, especially when it's probably present in the link-target just before.
  • Remove "some"; both of them.
  • "overwhelmingLY"
  • only number three. Make the logic easy for the readers. Shouldn't the "but" be an "and"?
  • Remove "long". Replace "called" with a comma.

An independent copy-edit is needed throughout. Tony (talk) 02:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've fixed all of the specific items you've identified (Except I kept the wikilink for NYC, which I think is totally appropriate.) I would suggest that since this article already has pretty strong support in this FAC, that any grammatical problems are manageable in this FAC process, and I'm willing to address any and all outstanding problems that can be identified. — Hunter Kahn 02:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments from Binksternet (talk) 02:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The closing of the third lead paragraph is a sentence that is too long: "Fleder included cinematic elements in the episode that were uncommon in the traditionally naturalistic show, which led to conflicts between Fleder and director of photography Alex Zakrzewski." Split this up.
    • "The conception, making and reception of 'Subway'"... I am wondering what would make this sentence better. Swap "making" with "production"? Losing all those words and starting with "Subway"?
    • I think "discussing their lives and experiences" is redundant.
    • You can trim "a New York Police Department detective who responds to emergency situations" to just "a New York Police Department detective". The fact that some detectives don't respond to emergencies is not important here.
    • These two sentences need some tweaking: "Due to a long history of poor ratings, NBC officials had been placing pressure on Homicide: Life on the Street producers to improve its viewership and become more popular than its higher-rated time-slot competitor, Nash Bridges, or risk cancellation. Yoshimura and the other producers, however, decided to continue pushing the envelope with "Subway" because they felt the series to maintain its quality and survive." I think "risk cancellation" should be pulled off of the first sentence because "survive" is in the second one. The second sentence is missing a word, probably "needed" as in "needed to maintain". "Due to a long history of poor ratings" should be something like "Distressed from a long stretch of poor ratings, NBC executives placed pressure".
    • Please wikilink the first "greenlighted". Don't need "NBC executives": just "NBC" will suffice here, after greenlighted.
    • Please split up a long sentence such that "Yoshimura anticipated backlash about the episode, but said, 'Every episode, we have trouble with NBC'" stops at "episode" and restarts "He said,..."
    • The phrase "a trend throughout the sixth season of the detectives" is clunky. How about "a sixth season trend in which the detectives"?
    • No need for hyphen in "visually-engaging".
      • Dropped the hyphen.
    • Need a reference after the quote "one of these indie kind of guys (who is) going to come in and try to reinvent our show". The GAN people missed that one...
    • If Yoshimura did not say "who is" in his quote then that editorial addition goes in brackets, not parentheses. Same with "who are" which comes in another quote.
      • Replaced with brackets.
    • The quote, "frankly, nauseated me, the idea of that", where did that come from? Are you quoting Braugher? Needs a reference.
    • Please clarify "not only based on his acting, but his short physical structure" to become "not only based on his acting, but on his short physical structure". Or "short stature."
    • Trim "does not get along with him well" to just "does not get along with him."
    • Wikilink storyboarded.
    • Can you change "Braugher had some previous scenes with D'Onofrio" to "Braugher had some previous dramatic interaction with D'Onofrio"?
    • Wouldn't "become emotionally invested" be better than "become heavily invested"?
    • Too many superlatives: "very over-the-top and bombastic" Over-the-top doesn't need very.
    • What if the "the actor was acting too crazy" was changed to "the character appeared too crazy in earlier scenes—the actor was telegraphing..."? Pipe link to Telegraphing (entertainment).

...I'm back picking up where I left off yesterday. Binksternet (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • In the editing section, a guy name Felder helps. Fleder?
    • The quote "The feeling was let's get out of the insanity of the sweeps and say, 'This is a little different' (and) hopefully we'll bring more people to this episode" should have brackets, not parentheses. Or drop the "and" to replace it with a dash or a semicolon. When he says "let's get out..." he is sort of quoting the general feeling. Do you think we should use one more layer of quotes-within-quotes? If so, this would be the result:

Warren Littlefield said, "The feeling was, 'let's get out of the insanity of the sweeps and say, "This is a little different"—hopefully we'll bring more people to this episode.'"
    • "When all Nielsen Ratings markets were accounted for, "Subway" was seen by 10.3 million households." It was seen by that many before the ratings were tallied. The tally only determined how many after the fact. How about "When all the Nielsen Ratings markets were accounted for, "Subway" was listed as having been seen by 10.3 million households"? Or similar.
    • The phrase "third-most ranked" probably wants to be "third-highest ranked".
    • I don't much like "due to" in a sentence. As a result, I am turning one of your sentences around in my head to see how it could be reworded: "Although Homicide: Life on the Streets typically placed third behind those two programs, NBC executives hoped "Subway" would outperform Nash Bridges due to the amount of advertising and press coverage it received." Maybe this would work for you: "NBC executives had hoped that the extensive promotion and press coverage of "Subway" would help it outperform Nash Bridges and so lift Homicide: Life on the Street above its usual third place in the rankings. When it did not, "Subway" was considered a commercial failure..."
    • Need references after the quotes "a tour de force for D'Onofrio and Braugher" and "This is as gripping an hour of television as you're ever likely to see."
    • When you say that Jay Rabinowitz and Wayne Hyde won an award, you are following an account of awards not being won. Do you want a connective word to tell the reader that this next sentence is not about more losses? Something like "Nevertheless" or "However" or similar.
    • Please rewrite this sentence so that it does not have two instances of the word "history": "The documentary included a brief history of Homicide: Life on the Street and its history of both critical acclaim and low ratings."
    • The phrase "intelligent and quality episode" is clunky. How about "intelligent, high quality episode" or "intelligent and superior episode" or "intelligent and distinctive episode"?
    • The term "radio microphones" should be pipe linked to, or changed to, wireless microphones.
    • Two sentences in a row begin with "Fleder, comma" Rephrase one of them.
    • Fleder's feelings about the documentary crew's presence peak at his statement about pulling away from the focus. His final sentence "To me, they were kind of there lurking" is not needed for comprehension, and it weakens the power and finality of "pulling away from the focus."
    • We need a connecting word: "Owen said, 'Rare, because' ". Maybe Owen said this was "Rare, because..." Or Owen said this was rare, "because..." If Owen's "Rare" is kept, the capital letter should be made lower case.
    • In Manuel Mendoza's quote, his "Homicide" is capitalized. Why? Is he using a shortened version of the name of the TV series? Is he simply referring to the concept of murder? What the hell is he talking about anyway? You cast his quote as praise, but it could be interpreted otherwise. That quote doesn't make me understand the documentary or Mendoza's viewpoint more than before. Expand on it for clarity or delete it.
      • He is referring to the show. "Homicide" should have been italicized, and it is now. Does that clarify it enough to readers that he is in fact talking about the show, not homicide in general? Let me know, and if not, I'll rework it further... — Hunter Kahn 20:38, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The whole article ends with a whimper, draining off into a humorous scene in the documentary that critics agree upon. If you had your wish (and you do), how would you like the article to end? A high note about artistic excellence? A cautionary note about aiming high but missing? Maybe Rob Owen can be tapped again to give the final sendoff quote to the article. It should end strongly.
      • Well, if you're asking me, I guess the ideal ending would be something to the affect of the John Leonard quote in the pull box, about how although the ratings payoff wasn't there, the artistic experience is genuine. But it seems to me the documentary should be at the end of the structure of the article, so how could I address this concern? — Hunter Kahn 20:38, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't really know the answer. It's not a deal breaker for me at this FAC, but I wanted you to notice again how the article ends, and perhaps to begin thinking of what you want the reader to go home with. Overall, I'm this →||← close to supporting. Just fix the reading flow around "and the actor telegraphing" and you'll have it. Binksternet (talk) 21:26, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • I've fixed the telegraphing item. As far as the ending, you bring up an interesting point I hadn't considered before. I'm going to give this one more thought and see if I can think of a solution without disrupting the structure of the article. Thanks for the thorough copy edit! — Hunter Kahn 21:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. My concerns have been addressed. Nice work! Binksternet (talk) 22:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Nice nice work. A few minor quibbles.
I took the liberty of fixing a sstrange repetition "the a"
several characters describing different portrayals of a murder several characters offer differing description of the same murder.  ???
cliched moral...clichéd moral
add a artistic visual touch an artistic....? (in filming section)

Really nice. I'm happy to support. Auntieruth55 (talk) 01:31, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Spot check: "Writing" subsection.
    • "wanted him to be placed into a situation where he"—I think "in", not "into". Later in the sentence "would cause"?
    • It's not wrong: "wanted the Lange character to be a mean and unpleasant person, rather than the nice and innocent victim more typically portrayed", but you might consider "wanted the Lange character to be mean and unpleasant, rather than the nice and innocent victim more typically portrayed".
    • "Yoshimura wanted Braugher to initially treat D'Onofrio like bad luck and try to keep his distance at first, but gradually ..." We have both "initially" and "at first". Treating someone "like bad luck" is pretty colloquial and not pan-English. I think I can work out what it means.
    • "A New York City Fire Department firefighter named Tim Brown served as a consultant for most of the technical information in the episode"—you could pipe out the "Fire Department" and pipe in "firefighter", to avoid the rep. We'd end up with this (plus other changes): "A New York City firefighter, Tim Brown, was consultant for most of the technical information in the episode".
    • Why is "Japan" linked? Is it obscure, even to a seven-year-old? Does the link-target increase the reader's understanding of this topic?
    • ""Subway" also continued a sixth season trend in which the detectives became more personally involved with the victims, and thus becoming more emotionally drained at their deaths." I'd remove "also". I don't think it works grammatically unless the "and" is removed.
    • "In order to". PLEASE. "To". And there's a clunky and redudant "also" soon after.
    • Comma a must for meaning, after philosophical". It's ambiguous without.

Well, I'm disappointed. When you said fairly thorough copy-edit I was worried, justifiably. It's admirable in its detail; it lets us into the production process. It's very long, but I'm not complaining; although if there's a way to trim it, please consider. I'm withdrawing my oppose reluctantly, and won't stand in the way of promotion. But I think you need to have it looked through by someone different. It's about 90 minutes' work throughout, whether it's done before or after promotion. Tony (talk) 07:57, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak support. I have to concur with Tony here; just a brief glance this morning revealed several places where redundant words make some statements a bit of a slog to get through; where the intended meaning has been conveyed by the time the reader is halfway through a sentence, there's no sense in continuing said sentence with words and phrases that by that point are implicit and only serve to delay the reader's getting to the next piece of interesting information. And it is an interesting article, giving a deeper-than-usual insight into the production process. I considered lodging a weak oppose, but other than the redundancy issue, there isn't a whole lot wrong; it's probably good enough to sneak by, and having looked at the article in more depth since this morning, everything content-related I'm happy with. I hope the examples I presented earlier ([2]; [3]; [4]; [5]; [6]; [7]) give the nominator some idea about what I mean, as well as the deliberate strike-throughs in this statement. Was anything at all lost by removing those words? Long story short, I strongly urge you to give the prose another pass; it'll be worth it. And if you find it hard going, it's worth refreshing one's memory of Tony's redundancy exercises every so often. All the best, Steve T • C 11:11, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support — This candidate has been here for a long time. To me it still lacks the full shine of a Featured Article, but there is nothing I can put my finger on precisely with regard to the quality of the prose. It is an engaging article—albeit a little too long for the subject—and the quality of the research is high. I think the article should be promoted in the hope that this will encourage the nominator and other editors to spend an hour or so more time working on it before it is chosen to feature on the Main Page. Graham Colm Talk 20:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I could certainly do that. I suppose I could also nominate it for an independent peer review before pursuing the front page. I may give it a few weeks before I do so given the backlog there, but I'd certainly be willing to do it. — Hunter Kahn 22:49, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Prose. Here's a randomly chosen paragraph:

Original:

The stunt simulating Lange's fall into the subway train was filmed on August 27, the second production day, and Yoshimura said it was the most challenging part of the shoot. D'Onofrio and MacVittie had to arrive at the platform just as the subway train was approaching, and their scene had to be reshot several times because the train did not pass the actors on time. The crew also filmed shots of a dummy dressed as Lange being dragged by the train inside the dummy wall, but most of those scenes were not used in the final cut.[2] The remaining five filming days focused primarily on the scenes between Braugher and D'Onofrio, which Yoshimura and Fleder felt were the most crucial element of the episode. During the filming of the climactic scene with Pembleton and Lange which ends with Lange's death, several members of the crew reacted emotionally, something Yoshimura said is extremely rare since the crew members typically look at their work as a job and do not become emotionally invested in the story they are filming.

Rewrite:

The stunt simulating Lange's fall into the subway train, the most challenging part of the shoot, was filmed on the second day of production, August 27. The tricky choreography of the scene required multiple takes to get right. These included shots of a dummy dressed as Lange being dragged by the train, although most were discarded from the final version. The remaining five days of shooting focused largely on the scenes between Braugher and D'Onofrio, which Yoshimura and Fleder agreed was the at the emotional heart of the episode. Indeed, the filming of the episode's climactic scene affected several production crew members, a relatively rare occurrence on the set of the show.

Thus: major need to improve style, flow and prose as well as expurgate too much trivia, which gets in the way of the article's exposition and has made it too long. Happy to reconsider once the prose has been reworked from top to bottom. Eusebeus (talk) 09:20, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well, it seems to me this objection is too general and comes way too late in the FAC process for me to address in its entirety. all I can suggest is there have already been suggestions about the prose that have been previously addressed, and those votes have switched from oppose to support. I will also point out that I have already committed to addressing prose issues further even after this FAC process ends. But I respect your vote and am willing to let the chips fall where they may. — Hunter Kahn 14:56, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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