Wikipedia:Peer review/Great Reality TV Swindle/archive1

Great Reality TV Swindle

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I would like to see if I can get this article up to GA status, but I wanted a fresh pair of eyes to look over it and offer any criticism first. My main concern here is the prose, and whether I've explained things well enough. I'm also concerned about whether the 'Media reaction' section contains too many quotations. I welcome any other advice and feedback on how this article can be improved. Thanks very much. A Thousand Doors (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

First off I commend you for wanting to pull this article up to GA status. It's a noble effort and thank you for your work. I'll go through the article with the GA Criteria in mind. I'll also make some small edits to improve flow or prose.

• One thing I see that you may want to look at is the haphazard sprinkling of in-line citations. Usually in-line cites go at the end of the sentences and/or paragraphs. See WP:CITE for more thoughts on citations and specifically their placement w/in an article.

Thanks for bringing that page to my attention. I've gone through the article and moved as many cites as seemed appropriate to the end of their sentences.

• This quote strikes me as odd:

"Reality TV was a popular genre of television programming in the UK in the early 21st century."

We are still in the early part of the 21st century. Perhaps replace with "in the first decade of the 21st century." Better yet, is it still a popular genre of television programming in the UK? If so then make it present tense and take out the time frame altogether.

Done. I'd put that as I felt that it was important to put some sort of historic context to the article, but, if it makes it confusing, I'll change it.

• Not sure what is meant here:

"Most reality TV shows offered a cash reward to winning or successful participants...."

Aren't winning and successful the same thing? Could one of the adjectives be deleted?

Removed "winning".

• The Craig Phillips image has a caption that starts with "Two years before the swindle...." I would recommend removing this wording as it tacitly implies that Phillips was in some way involved in the swindle.

Heh, that's a really good point. Based on your comment below, I've just removed the entire image.

• I might try to combine the two sentences on the motives for the people who applied for Russian's show. See if you can trim it a bit and make sure that it is referenced well.

Done.

• In the Aftermath section after the sentence about the contestants being gullible wannabees there are 6 references. I don't think this is necessary. Is there a reason for all 6?

I was just aware that any sentence that begins with "Some critics..." usually gets slapped with a {{who}} tag pretty quickly, so I wanted to make sure that I established who the critics were that were being referenced. I've reduced this to just three, which I hope is a more suitable number.

• References:

• I'm not sure what the purpose is of the General vs. Specific reference breakdown. If the General references are intended to be broad coverage of the topic then this should be listed under a Further Reading section. I see that you do have a specific reference to each of the books in the article. To avoid confusion you may want to list the books in a Notes or Bibliography section.

Done. Added a Bibliography section.

• The format of the references is consistent and coherent.
• Ref 3 appears to be a TV show? If so you rely heavily on it and it cannot be independently checked (unless someone recorded it or ordered a copy from the producers). This weakens the source a bit. I don't think you'll have much trouble at GA with this but if you have aspirations of moving it to FA then you'll need to not rely so heavily on this source.

Done. Thanks for the advice. I've tried to reduce the number of times that I use that particular source. It is all available on YouTube (albeit in about seven different parts), but I don't see anyway that can be easily cited here (or even if it would be appropriate to).

• What is the point of the quote after Ref 24?

Just to highlight the use of that particular ref to source the info that it cites. But if it doesn't work, I'll remove it.

• Overall the article is well put together. There aren't too many quotes in the final section and I've outlined or fixed some of the prose issues I see. If there is a free image of Russian that would be far better than the image of Phillips. Nothing against Phillips but it's a little odd to have an image of someone who is only tangentally connected to the article while the primary subject is not pictured. This concludes my review I hope it was helpful. Best of luck at GAC. H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 20:26, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the review H1nkles, your advice has been very helpful! A Thousand Doors (talk) 22:17, 19 April 2011 (UTC)