Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Simon MacCorkindale/1

Simon MacCorkindale

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted per comments below. Articles can be renominated at any time. Geometry guy 21:43, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I believe that the GA review of this article was cursory and inadequate and am hence requesting community reassessment. Jezhotwells (talk) 09:35, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

• Although on the whole well written, there are some examples of clumsy phrasing such as:

• ''In January 2007, MacCorkindale was given a five month sabbatical from Casualty due to a storyline and toured the UK in a revival of the Agatha Christie thriller The Unexpected Guest.

• There are contradictions within the article:

• They lived together in Buckinghamshire near the River Thames, and from 1995 on a farm in Northamptonshire.
• After rejecting the chance to play Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek: Enterprise,[23] MacCorkindale settled in the UK once again, joining the cast of the BBC One medical drama Casualty in 2002, portraying clinical lead consultant Harry Harper.
• He was surprised to be offered the role of Harry, having spent years beforehand working in the United States, but found its Bristol location ideal having recently moved to the West Country.
• He lived on and ran an Arabian stud-farm on Exmoor with his wife, British actress Susan George.

• Some clarifications of where he lived and when would be good.

• Somewhat improved, but They had previously lived together in Buckinghamshire near the River Thames, and bought a in Northamptonshire in 1995. is meaningless. Did you check what you had written before (or after) hitting the save button?
• I am still confused about how he was living in Northamptonshiore whilst appearing in a TV series filmed in the US? Jezhotwells (talk) 09:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

• You are aware that people can own more than one property at the same time right? And that it doesn't say he was living there? There, I have made it clearer. Gran² 10:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

• Filmography:The film (and play) is called Macbeth, not Macduff.

Jezhotwells (talk) 10:11, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

• I think I have rectified these issues. Gran² 10:28, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I concur that the article is now sufficiently improved. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:25, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• Delist. Prose quality is below GA standard. There are short sentences which give a choppy feel. The information doesn't flow logically. We have use of first names. There is a feel of information culled from sources almost in a cut and paste manner, so language is sometime inappropriate for an encyclopaedia, and is not consistent throughout. Article would benefit from a good copy-edit, and some serious thought given to selection and arrangement of information. The lead doesn't inform the reader early enough why this person is notable. We have his occupation, and then we go straight into history. The lead doesn't fully cover the man's career, nor deal appropriately with the topic. See WP:Lead. The Filmography seems rather long, and criteria 3(b) may not be met: "unnecessary detail". There appears to be little critical analysis or reflection on the man's work. We are told what the man has done, and what he felt and thought about matters, "surprised", "never too comfortable", etc, in a manner that feels a little too show-biz gossip, and internal perspective, and not quite enough neutral, distanced commentary appropriate for an encyclopaedia entry. I feel this article doesn't meet criteria 1(a) and (b), 3 (a) and (b), and 4. I thought I would just tidy it up before closing this GAR, but I became aware of the amount of work needed. My recommendation is that this article is delisted and editors spend some time building the article up to meet Wikipedia:Good article criteria (following the links in that guideline for further assistance), and then resubmitting. It is possible sometimes for a GAR to be a productive process, but after a month, little work has been done on the article. SilkTork *^YES! 13:14, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that would probably be because nobody gave me any comments until you... I disagree with the bulk of what you say, but seeing as that's basically a death sentence, you may as well delist it, and be done with it... Gran² 14:32, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• Okay, let me deal with each of these points:
  • "Prose quality is below GA standard." - Examples?
  • "There are short sentences which give a choppy feel." - Examples?
  • "The information doesn't flow logically." - I disagree, so examples?
  • "We have use of first names." - Where? I can't see any there which shouldn't be.
  • "There is a feel of information culled from sources almost in a cut and paste manner, so language is sometime inappropriate for an encyclopaedia, and is not consistent throughout." - I strongly disagree, please provide examples.
  • "Article would benefit from a good copy-edit" - What wouldn't?
  • "some serious thought given to selection and arrangement of information." - I take offense at this.
  • "The lead doesn't inform the reader early enough why this person is notable." - It says he's an actor. Saying what he is most notable for as an actor clearly violates NPOV.
  • "The lead doesn't fully cover the man's career, nor deal appropriately with the topic." - I disagree
  • "The Filmography seems rather long" - Well, if it wasn't, then it would be incomplete...
  • "There appears to be little critical analysis or reflection on the man's work." - There's some; is this really a serious issue in a Good Article? I also strongly disagree on your further points relating to this.
  • "It is possible sometimes for a GAR to be a productive process, but after a month, little work has been done on the article" - Well, obviously, there were no comments for a month...

• So yeah, I strongly disagree with all of your points. Please provide concrete examples so I can actually do something about them. Gran² 23:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. First of all, good work, Gran2, in adding sourced content to bring a poor stub up to this level. The sourcing looks pretty good, although I would question the use of the "Simon MacCorkindale Fan Page" and the "unknown publisher" simon.helenheart.com.

Unfortunately, I agree with the concerns raised above that the article does not yet meet criteria 1 and 3b, and possibly also 3a and 4. The main issue is a lack of prose clarity. This is an encyclopedia article, and it needs to be written from an encyclopedic viewpoint; it should describe the life of Simon MacCorkindale in a way that the reader can easily digest. In particular, sentences such as

• "Poor eyesight prevented him from following his father's footsteps and so he planned to be a theatre director instead." and
• "His biggest role yet came in 1984 when he cast as Angela Channing's (Jane Wyman) lawyer Greg Reardon in the soap opera Falcon Crest, without requiring an audition."

are written from an historical viewpoint.

However, the latter example illustrates a wider problem of poor prose: in many sentences, the word order, punctuation, and content creates confusion. Does "he cast as" mean "he was cast as"? Who did not require an audition?

I can provide more examples before or after closing this reassessment, but here are a few general comments with indicative examples:

• Within a paragraph, each sentence should focus upon a single idea that follows naturally from the previous sentence. Combining multiple ideas into one sentence can be done, but if it is not done well, the result is a lack of clarity (Examples: "After appearing in a number of UK television productions such as Within These Walls, Sutherland's Law,[2] I Claudius as Lucius Caesar and Jesus of Nazareth as Lucius,[7] and making his film debut in 1974's Juggernaut,[2] his break came when he was cast as Simon Doyle in the 1978 film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile at the age of 25." and "MacCorkindale returned to the UK in 1986, once he had left Falcon Crest, to form a production company and the following year set up Amy International Artists based at Shepperton Studios alongside his wife Susan George; he also owned Anglo Films International.").
• When including multiple clauses in a sentence, try to order them so that they are closely linked. ("The role impressed MacCorkindale as Chase was "a very cerebral individual"[8] and also meant he "found himself in the first wave of UK stars to make it big in America," along with Joan Collins in Dynasty which led to a further influx of British actors finding work there.")
• Don't make temporal leaps ("When in the UK, they previously lived together in Buckinghamshire near the River Thames, and owned a farm in Northamptonshire in 1995, where they started their Arabian horse business.")

Good luck improving the article. Geometry guy 22:54, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I've requested a copy-edit from WP:LOCE... Gran² 17:36, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad they are stepping in. Feel free to renominate once the prose is fixed. Geometry guy 21:43, 9 April 2011 (UTC)