Talk:Dunces and Dragons/GA2

GA Review
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Reviewer: Vaticidalprophet (talk · contribs) 05:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

This is a good attempt, but has a number of issues in prose and referencing that need to be addressed before it makes GA.

The prose quality is inconsistent, and in particular there's a number of issues with run-on sentences. For instance, the second paragraph in the lede:


 * In the episode, SpongeBob and Patrick travel back in time, where they find that Mr. Krabs' ancestor is the ruler of the kingdom, which is being attacked by Planktonimor, Plankton's ancestor, and an evil wizard. SpongeBob and Patrick, assisted by Squidly, a jester and ancestor of Squidward, and the Dark Knight, Sandy's ancestor, must rescue Princess Pearl, ancestor of Pearl and King Krabs' daughter, who has been captured by Planktonimor.

is pretty questionable. If you read those sentences out loud, you'll notice they're overlong and have a poor signal-to-noise ratio. This is particularly important in the context that a lot of the audience for this article will be quite young and struggle to understand overlong sentences. Even for an adult audience this is difficult to comprehend -- for instance, it isn't clear until reading the plot summary whether or not Planktonimor and the evil wizard are the same person. Another low-quality sentence is:


 * They are to be executed for insulting him with a song but Princess Pearl, the 11th-century ancestor of the present-day Pearl, reminds King Krabs of the prophecy that two brave knights, having fallen from the sky, will be sent by the king to defeat the evil wizard, Planktonimor, Plankton's ancestor, who terrorizes the kingdom with his dragon jellyfish.

That's 58 words! Not only does this include the content of at least two different sentences, most of those words aren't going towards any particular content at all. For instance, most readers will be able to gather from context that Princess Pearl is the ancestor of the modern Pearl. While the preceding sentence ("Eventually, the king, Mr. Krabs' ancestor, King Krabs, orders SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidly to the throne room.") doesn't have length problems, it has a similar issue with repeating information and using an awkward amount of punctuation. In general, this is a recurring issue with the way the article draws connections between the modern characters and their historical counterparts. For instance, "As SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidly near Planktonimor's tower, the guard, ancestor of Sandy Cheeks, the Dark Knight, blocks them." is ambiguous to an unfamiliar reader as to whether "the Dark Knight" refers to Sandy or her ancestor.


 * Both sentences mentioned above have been rewritten. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk?

Ambiguous and poorly written sentences also recur later in the article, such as with:


 * The prizes were a trip to England, Spain, Germany or Mexico plus spending money, a family trip to Orlando at the Nickelodeon Hotel, and 2,000 fans got the SpongeBob SquarePants: Lost in Time DVD.

This should probably be three sentences. As is, the "overseas trip" and "interstate trip" at least seem to be describing the same prize, and it segues awkwardly into the lesser prize of the DVD.


 * Sentence has been rewritten. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk?

There are also some more minor issues regarding encyclopedic wording. For instance, in "5.2 million kids 2-11", "kids" should be replaced with "children", and in cite 19, 'Spongebob' should be capitalized.


 * Sentence has been rewritten. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk?

Past the prose issues, there are also issues with the citations. Concerningly, a number of the citations appear to be entirely lost. By my count, 4 out of the 21 total cites, occuring 8 times in the article total, are only available through HighBeam -- a service that ended access last December. These cites aren't available through any of the usual archives I've checked, meaning they're at risk of being completely inaccessible. This might be a trivial issue, but it also might end up requiring some fairly substantial revision of the impacted sections. There are also some issues with 'naked URLs', specifically in cite 24. More peripherally, there's room to criticize the number of cites that go to Twitter and to press releases, but in context I think these are used acceptably.


 * HighBeam references all had archives from 2013, which have been added. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk?

This might look like a lot, but I'm confident most of these issues are surmountable. Best of luck! Vaticidalprophet (talk) 06:34, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think I have just finished addressing all your suggestions. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk? 17:43, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your work here! Good progress, but I still have some notes. The improvements to the second paragraph are excellent -- no issues there. However, there are a couple sentences where the attempt to fix them instead made them more difficult to parse. For instance, the first paragraph of the plot summary previously ended like this:


 * They are put on seahorses and given lances. The seahorses charge without warning and SpongeBob and Patrick are thrown out of the building into 11th-century Bikini Bottom.

No issues there, and accordingly I didn't bring it up in my review. The post-revision version:


 * After being put on seahorses and given lances, the pair are thrown out of the building into 11th-century Bikini Bottom due to the seahorses charging without warning.

This has similar issues to some of the sentences I called out in my first pass. The sentence is made of more unnecessary compounds, and the passive voice weakens the impact and understanding of the text.
 * ✅ I have changed the sentence back to how it originally was. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk?

Regarding the references, I did search archive.is for reference text. The issue I ran into was that those references didn't give the full text, and now the full text seems to be completely lost. I'm unsure how much of an issue this should be treated as, and I think it might need a new set of eyes on it, so I'm requesting a second opinion regarding the HighBeam references (and to a lesser degree the prose quality). Vaticidalprophet (talk) 00:38, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * All of the HighBeam references have been removed and/or replaced with other secondary sources. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk?


 * Just wondering if a second opinion is really needed, and since the wait for one takes a long time, if you had found any other issues in the article that I could address. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk? 23:36, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This has troubled me, I'm afraid. I don't think I can pass the article in its current state, and I don't have the expertise to suggest anything that could make it passable myself. You're right that it's been a while, so I'll give it three more days from today to find a second opinion (on account of it's already been here for some weeks), and if not I'm afraid I'll have to end this review. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 08:47, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Second opinion
Everything looks good, but has issues needed to be fixed:
 * remove small in the infobox per MOS:SMALLFONT
 * Cites 3, 5, 9, 10, 12, and 15 must mark as dead
 * Cite 7 must be removed, as cite 6 already mentions the text
 * Wikilink articles of publishers and website within references: Zap2it, USA Today, PR Newswire, The Washington Post, The Hollywood Reporter, Al Bawaba, TVShowsOnDVD.com, About.com, Paramount Home Entertainment/Nickelodeon
 * Change link from DVD to DVD
 * "weren't" --> "were not"
 * Add comma after Wiese, per consistency with other articles
 * All ✅ with these edits. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk? 00:25, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Is this done? Chompy Ace 12:41, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Courtesy ping in case you didn't get the first from the 2nd reviewer. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk? 23:30, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Been thinking about this. I think I'll have to recuse myself from deciding GA status, with a vote of no confidence as to my own personal opinion. I don't think the prose can meet GA to a degree that I can shepherd it to, but I also don't think at this point I'm the right person to make that decision. If is willing to pick up the matter of deciding whether to promote, I'd be grateful. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 23:34, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Courtesy ping in case you didn't get the first. Some Dude From North Carolina wanna talk? 15:28, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Passed the GA review. Chompy Ace 20:22, 15 February 2021 (UTC)