Talk:Characters of Carnivàle

Why this article exists
With the current attempts to rewrite Notability (fiction), I feel that I need to explain the existence of this page (just in case; if not, this rationale doesn't do any harm). – sgeureka t•c 19:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The info of this article started out as a subsection of the Carnivàle (before I set foot on the article). When I expanded that article and it got too long (55kB), I moved most in-universe/plot info to Fictional universe of Carnivàle, which was also expanded until I transformed the character table into a much nicer looking list and moved the info to this page here. When Fictional universe of Carnivàle was AfD-ed, I was bold and merged the sections #Genealogy and #Open questions here.
 * In the past few weeks, I have focused on making Carnivàle a Featured article. I then spent effort on establishing the notability of the Mythology of Carnivàle article to avoid another AfD. (That article still isn't finished though, but it's getting there.) What I want to say is that I cannot expand this article here and other articles at the same time.
 * I think the layout of the Characters article is pretty good now, although it still lacks the important character information from the plot. What I'm envisioning is a short paragraph for each season for each character, like I have already done for Tommy Dolan and Jonesy. (Since I won't start a page for each character or separate episodes, I don't see why the plot cannot be retold in the Character article.) I have also added Production notes sections for most characters. These sections are all not finished - more material exists, I just haven't added it.
 * If you want to expand this article yourself (or if you just doubt that more material exists for an article expansion), see a list of usable links and pre-compiled info at User talk:Sgeureka/Carnivàle. There is also a list of reviews for the show at User:Sgeureka/Carnivàle/Review and the related talk page. More info is present in the DVD audio commentaries and DVD featurettes.
 * Oh, and if you think that Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin Crowe aren't notable enough to have their own article, be bold and merge them here. I just haven't got around to do that. Neither have I thought about how such a merge should look like since those articles have a different article layout/structure than this article here. – sgeureka t•c 19:11, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Most of the above issues have been fixed now. I have not really added information from the audio commentaries though. There may be also a lot more info about the casting process in the DVD Extra "The Museum of Television & Radio's William S. Paley Television Festival". Because I based my sourcing mostly on the internet where I found no interview with Nick Stahl about Carnivàle, his section is a little shortish. But most of the important info is there. – sgeureka t•c 01:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

"Hank" or "Hack" Scudder?
I thought that Sudder's nickname was "Hack". Could be wrong, though. Mdiamante 00:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's "Hack". I already changed it. – sgeureka t•c 13:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review
I wish to make the Carnivàle articles a Featured Topic. You may leave comments for possible improvement of these articles as a group at Peer review/Carnivàle/archive1. Thank you. – sgeureka t•c 17:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Justin picture
That pic doesn't really give one a good impression of CB's face, IMO... I don't have any dvds, and a quick Google search doesn't turn up any better ones (this was the best I could find), so I hereby suggest a new pic. Thank you. Mdiamante 23:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I kind of like the one there is at the moment. Do you object to BJ's impression (e.g. "too stern"), his look (e.g. "that's not what he usually looks like"), or the quality of the lighting (e.g. "it's too bright and I you can't make out any detail")? The quality of my DVD caps is usually not that good, so I prefer those from from promo kits. My googling brought these images, but I don't like them for different reasons: two images, both too small, stupid background, 5th image, stupid smoke, too small. – sgeureka t•c 01:51, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Mdiamante, I overwrote your file with a new screenshot of BJ from the same episode. Your version had a nice background with BJ doing his preacher job, but I thought his face looked very funny on the image. I tried to take a screenshot from the same scene, but because BJ talks during the whole scene (or looks down so that his face is all shady), I couldn't take a better one and tried with another scene. BTW, I think it is kind of good that his grin in the new image somehow misleads about what he actually about to become. Isn't that the way it should be? :-) – sgeureka t•c 17:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I like it, especially because its composition is similar to that of the Ben picture. They look like a pair. ;) Mdiamante (talk) 01:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

failed GA

 * I really hate to do this to you. The article shows extensive amounts of hard work; I've seen articles promoted to GA that obviously required far less effort to write. I really want to offer you my congrats and my thanks for the hard work you've put into making this info available to Wikipedia.
 * The fatal flaw here is the extensive problems with WP:INUNIVERSE. Each bio section reads like a bio of a real person, at least for long stretches of text at a time. There is so very much of it that i didn't feel placing the article on Hold for a week would offer sufficient time to rework the text.
 * The references... you certainly have no fear of not having enough of them ;-) ... I saw at least one blog; I dunno how your refs would fare if compared one by one to WP:RS.
 * if you feel this review is inaccurate, please feel free to list the article at WP:GAR.
 * Ling.Nut 16:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I though I had made sure that the article itself gives the reasons for why it looks the way it looks, but I may be completely wrong. Listed at Good_article_reassessment to get more input. – sgeureka t•c 18:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Good article status??
Hello. I am considering posting this as good article but it needs an enema. Please tell me what is lacking. Guru dies on Namek —Preceding undated comment added 12:39, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

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This is not FA quality
MPE permalink This article is not of FA quality. Given all the problems mentioned at MPE, TFA and the article's own FAC, it is Start class. As the article is on the Main Page at this moment, I will not interfere for the moment.

Unless there are any serious objections, I propose to be WP:BOLD and invoke WP:IAR to initiate an emergency demotion to start class tomorow at 18:00 UTC. Mjroots (talk) 18:03, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The established procedure is to nominate it for review at WP:FAR. Graham Beards (talk) 18:12, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, if the goal was to somehow remove it from the main page, I could understand an "emergency", but this proposal is for tomorrow. what's wrong with just doing the normal thing and nominating at WP:FAR? --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:16, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * - it can't be removed as there is nothing to replace it with. We are stuck with it for now (unless someone wants to post tomorrow's article early). Pinging for opinions. Mjroots (talk) 18:21, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * That's just BS. You can replace it with yesterday's article, tomorrow's article, a previously run one, a notice that "sorry, folks, we messed up and there's nothing worth putting here ready right now", or just blank space. --Khajidha (talk) 18:35, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * - pulling and leaving a blank space or a "we fouled up" notice is not an option. As an admin, you quickly learn that being able to do something, and actually doing it, are not the same. For example, I could block from editing. But I'm not going to do it because there is not a damn good reason to do so. IMvHO, leaving the sub-par FA up is less harmful than pulling it and leaving a blank space/notice. There are less than 4 hours before tomorrow's FA replaces it. What is important here is that a lesson is learnt, there is better scrutiny of FAs before they get on to the main page, and that the emergency list is revived. Mjroots (talk) 19:14, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * There's no reason why this has to be demoted tomorrow; it'll already be off TFA and there might be editors interested in bringing this back to FA standards. Step 1 on WP:FAR is to list concerns on the article's talk page. I suggest that or another editors summarize the concerns raised at MPE and TFA below and see if anyone steps forward to fix the article. I regularly contribute to the FAR process, so please ping me if help is needed. Z1720 (talk) 19:16, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I am of the complete opposite opinion, leaving an article that is demonstrably not up to FA standards in the TFA slot is lying to our readers about its quality. I find that much worse than an honest "whoops!". --Khajidha (talk) 19:30, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * My comment was a response to delisting the article tomorrow, after this article's TFA run is over. Pulling an article from the TFA is different from delisting an article. Z1720 (talk) 19:50, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * And mine was in response to Mjroots, not you. --Khajidha (talk) 19:55, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * My mistake. My apologies. Z1720 (talk) 19:57, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm surprised Mjroots that despite your urgent concerns about the quality of articles that run on the main page, you have never actually read WP:FAR. The process is to post notes on this talk page and notify contributors to see about improvements; if there's no meaningful action then you take to FAR and after a suitable period its merits will be debated before delisting. Invoking IAR to bypass longstanding community processes you are ignorant of is not a great idea.
 * As for the idea of harm befalling the project from TFA not being of sterling standard... you might want to spend more time looking over the stuff run at WP:DYK, and then you might get to thinking we shouldn't feature anything on the main page. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs  talk 19:40, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * A capital idea! Where can I !vote for it? Gog the Mild (talk) 22:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Just wait your two weeks after this and take it to FAR if its that bad. There's a process for handling featured articles that may not meet the standards.  It's not an emergency. Hog Farm Talk 23:06, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

OK, there have been serious objections so I won't be downgrading the article. I will be formally raising concerns and this article will be going through the FAR process in the coming days and weeks. Mjroots (talk) 17:04, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
 * - Are you still interested in taking this to FAR? Hog Farm Talk 04:46, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * - yes, will attend to it this week. Mjroots (talk) 04:49, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Pre FAR comments
As I said at the time this appeared on the Main Page, this article is not of FA quality. In fact, reading the FA nomination, is should never have passed in the first place. The main failing is a lack of reliable sources. This was even admitted in the FA nom - Some sources are to a yahoo group that requires registration, but these are forum posts by the producer of the show (Daniel Knauf) and are thus reliable in their essence. Forums, by their very nature, fail WP:RS. Blogs also fail WP:RS. For the purpose of this discussion, we are discussing the current version of the article, last edited at 16:16, 6 September 2021.

References 4, 23, 40, 64, 96, 97, and 100 are all sourced from a Yahoo forum; references 22, 29, and 77 are sourced to blogs. There may also be a WP:PRIMARY issue, as HBO was the channel that Carnivàle aired on. References 3, 8, 11–13, 21, 25, 37–39, 41, 44, 45, 47–52, 55–63, 65–73, 84, and 99 are all from HBO. Similarly, interviews given by show creator Dan Knauf are also PRIMARY sources - references 5, 9, 10, 28, and 101 are in this category, as well as other references already listed above. So, there are issues with 54 of the 101 references used in the article, more than half.

It is apparent that this article should go through a FAR, with a recommendation that it be delisted. I've temporarily watchlisted this article, so there is no need to ping me in replies. Mjroots (talk) 10:29, 10 September 2021 (UTC)