Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Arrested Development (TV series)/archive1


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

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 16:35, 1 November 2012.

Arrested Development (TV series)

 * Nominator(s): Wikipedical (talk) 03:18, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

A former FA, the article was demoted three years ago in large part due to poor citations and original research. Now a GA, it is in marvelously better shape, due to the vast improvements made by other editors and myself. The article is now comprehensive, well-written, and meets all other FA criteria. Thanks for your consideration. -- Wikipedical (talk) 03:18, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Is it appropriate given that a new season is coming out soon? --♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 03:23, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of Featured Articles that are currently-airing television series or were currently-airing when nominated. As it stands, the article meets the FA criteria and will not change drastically when the fourth season airs.  --  Wikipedical (talk) 03:31, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Good explanation :) --♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 04:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Oppose—1b and 1c; this article isn't nearly comprehensive enough. Over half of it is in-universe info (plot and character summaries), but there is little analytical discussion about the show's unique style of humour, themes, motifs etc (which were curiously present in more detail in 2009). The reception section could use bulking up as well; there is no discussion of influential the show was or its legacy. The article also misses out several important and well-known facts: for eg, why the show was a ratings failure—its style of humour was so dense and layered that most fans preferred to watch it on DVD or Tivo where they could rewind it and go back-and-forth. It also neglects to mention that there were several fan-based campaigns to keep the show on air. On the other hand, I'm not sure each season's plot needs to be summarised in such detail when there are separate articles for each season and episode; I think a three/four-paragraph summary of the entire show should suffice here.

Further, all your sources seem to be exclusively online-based (missed a few though); a quick GoogleBooks search reveals a few print sources exist too. Further, there is a glaring absence of DVD commentaries, usually a treasure trove of useful and interesting info. I also object to the use of the episodes themselves as references, as this entails a violation of our no original research policy.

To summarise, this is barely GA-worthy work (and as I suspected, the review was quite inadequate), and to be FA it needs to be much, much more comprehensive. Please see FAs like The Simpsons, or even South Park and The X-Files, for good models to base this article on.—indopug (talk) 15:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand your comments. Briefly, I would say that the detail in 2009 was all original research, citing individual episodes or nothing, and most of it was not really encyclopedic ('Continuity' was all in-universe).  A couple of sources are Google Books (the Lotz book you mention here is cited in the article), but more offline sources would be good too (but not required).  Regarding citing episodes, per WP:PSTS says: "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source," so citing individual episodes for a plot section without interpretation is fine.  --  Wikipedical (talk) 18:07, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Jesse V.
 * I noticed that this article has a deadlink and other redirect issues. Please see its Checklinks entry. &bull; Jesse V.(talk) 00:40, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Modified links. --  Wikipedical (talk) 04:53, 21 October 2012 (UTC)


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