Wikipedia:Featured article review/Superman/archive2

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

The article was removed by Nikkimaria 18:16, 11 February 2012 [1].

Superman

Review commentary

Notified: Alientraveller, Ace ETP, Hiding, Maestro25, (all users with over 100 edits to article who have been active in past year) WP Media franchises, WP Film, WP Fictional characters, WP Cleveland, WP Comics, WP Comics - Superman work group

I am nominating this featured article for review because I began cleaning up the numerous dead links that were present in this article, and in the process discovered there were a number of issues that I couldn't fix that together made the article of sub-FA quality. Examples:

Three dead links
Update banner in Copyright issues section
Video games section needs referencing
Critical reception and popularity section is trivia heavy and could easily be presented as prose rather than in bullet points
Reference formatting, particularly for books, is not consistent
Prose could use a go-over. For example, what does "By 1943, Jerry Siegel was drafted into the army in a special celebration," mean? The staff had a special celebration when he was drafted? The Army had a special celebration to draft him?
Image issues:
- Lead image, File:Superman.jpg is currently up for deletion on ~~Commons~~ en.wp
- ~~File:Harold Lloyd in A Sailor-made Man.jpg is lacking source and author information~~
It should also be noted that this article has grown from 41 to 55 kb of prose since the last FAR in 2007. It would be interesting to know what all had been added and if this significant growth was really necessary, or if there is fat to trim. At the moment the article is over 9,000 words, which is headed toward the high end of the length guidelines at WP:SIZE.

At this point, due to the number of the issues and the lack of response to two postings over several months on the talk page, I feel that this article needs to go through the FAR process. Dana boomer (talk) 20:37, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the image issues...

Harold Lloyd in A Sailor-made Man.jpg is in the public domain as per the file hosted at Commons. An explicit source line would be nice, but based on the notes on Commons it looks like it was lifted from A Sailor-Made Man. If scanned or captured from the film or a related still, finding out who the photographer/cameraman was is highly unlikely.
Superman.jpg used in this article is hosted on the English Wikipedia and is compliant with non-free content guidelines. The commons file of that name - [2] - is not up for deletion nor is it relevent/useful for this article. What is up for deletion is essentially any of the files related to the Fleischer animated shorts that contain an image of Superman - see: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Superman-fleischer.jpg. The upshot being that the films maybe in PD but the copyright on the character that was licensed for them is still valid and putting them under non-free content.

- J Greb (talk) 21:00, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And looking at the other issues...

Size: Yes, the article currently is in the "upper end" based on size. That means we take a look at the difference between the last FAR reviw - [3] - and today - [4]. The comparison nets this - [5] - which is at least somewhere to start.

- J Greb (talk) 21:42, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed the Lloyd image myself. Yes, I apologize, the image is up for deletion on the English WP, not Commons. It's still up for deletion, though, with some editors arguing that it doesn't meet non-free guidelines. As for the size, it looks like the major additions were sections on Merchandising, In other media, and Musical references, parodies and homages. I would be interesting in hearing the opinion of the major editors to the article on why they feel that relatively large sections are needed for information some might consider trivia, especially when the article is already so large. I'm not arguing that they be cut altogether, simply wondering if it might be better to make better use of summary style and move some of the immense amounts of information and popular culture references to Superman in popular culture, History of Superman, List of Superman comics, Alternative versions of Superman, Superman in other media or one of the dozens of other articles on various facets of Superman that are floating around WP. Dana boomer (talk) 21:46, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

I agree the article seems to be filled with trivial type entries and tries too hard to include as much as possible. Further along I see many uncited passages that appear to have been tacked on after the fact. Two examples:

The "S" shield by itself is often used in media to symbolize the Superman character. It has been incorporated into the opening and/or closing credits of several films and TV series.
Furthermore, the surname Kent, in early 20th century real life, was a common Americanization of "Cohen," and Clark Kent's wimpy, bumbling persona strongly resembled the classic Yiddish schlemiel. But there are so many others I can't list them all.

At this point it doesn't look like much is going on toward article repair. Brad (talk) 15:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

Issues raised in the review section include referencing, coverage and prose. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delist - Basically nothing has been done to improve this article since the FAR was initiated. Still major problems with focus, sourcing, cleanup banners, etc. (details above). Dana boomer (talk) 14:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment; it's not clear to me why a revert to the version that passed FAR in 2007 wasn't discussed or contemplated. At the least, it would then mean less repair work to bring the article to standard, and even if the article is defeatured, it would theoretically be left in better shape than when it came here. At minimum, that option should be discussed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A revert to the 2007 version would fix the sprawl problems, but would introduce comprehensiveness issues, and I don't think it would fix much else. A glance at the 2007 version (here), shows issues with sourcing (places needing references, unreliable references, etc) and images at the very least. It also shows that the Copyright issues section (currently hosting an update banner) would be put even farther out of date. What would probably work is a reversion to 2007, followed by the integration of necessary material that has been added over the intervening 4+ years, followed by additional referencing, image and general cleanup work. However, I think we need someone with a solid background in the subject matter (or at least access to all of the pertinent sources) to know what "necessary material" is... So, basically, I'm not sure that a revert to the 2007 version would help anymore than, say, wholesale chopping the sections on Merchandising, In other media, and Musical references, parodies and homages that have been added. Dana boomer (talk) 15:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delist. Thanks for looking Dana. OK, so I'm a Delist on that basis, but even if the star can't be salvaged, we can still hope that someone may show up to do the basics you suggest above, as that will at least leave the article in better shape than it is now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delist per above. JJ98 (talk) 08:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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