Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Christian Bale/archive1

Christian Bale
Self-nomination: I rewrote the article from scratch, citing sources whenever neccessary. I reckon it meets the criteria to be featured. I already submitted it for peer review, addressing a number of concerns in the process. If there's anything else that requires editing, I'll get to it as soon as I can. --Antrophica 03:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Comment: The main issue are the small sections: Early life, Personal life and 1980s subsection. The Career section has alot of information but yet alot of it is split in one sentence paragraphs. Merge this sentences to create fuller, proper size paragraphs.
 *  Conditional Support. The early life section looks a bit small, is it comprehensive? Other than that, I'm ready to support. RyanG e rbil10 04:03, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'll keep looking for something to add in. The man values his privacy and usually doesn't tells stories about his life unless it's neccessary, which is why the "Personal life" section itself is so small. --Antrophica 04:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: There. I've expanded it. --Antrophica 08:16, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, if it's going to be near-impossible, I guess it's kind of mean to demand more information, which probably doesn't exist. It's good enough for me. RyanG e rbil10 11:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The next big point is alot of the article, especially in the career section is spoken in a non-encyclopedic tone. There a few sentences that begin with things like "He felt/thought/tried" which are not sourced by any citation. I'm sure that where ever you got this information from is in the references, sourcing might not be an issue, its just this type of stuff creates a doorway for vandalism because people can just come along and tweak such sentence with them going un-noticed. Like I could I just come out and edit one such sentence to say something like "He had trouble adjusting to the batman suit" which might not be true but still sounds good and the article is well sourced so it might go unnoticed.

I would also like to see a few tweaks done. The third one sentence paragraph in the lead needs to be merged with the first paragraph. In the first paragraph regarding his accents it states he "developed different ones", I would suggest rewording. In career section, "1980s" subheading needs to go. Its absense would create a nice introductory paragraph and the content already informs the reader of what time period it talk about. Thats about it for now, Thanks. - Tutmosis 02:33, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * All done, aside from the alleged few sentences that begin with "he felt/thought/tried" as I'm having trouble hunting for them. I was under the impression I'd sourced everything that needed to be sourced. I'm going to need help pinning them down. Specific examples would be a godsend, being that others are usually better at pointing out your mistakes than you are. --Antrophica 05:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak Support Like the others, I believe that the Personal life and the Early Life sections are too short. Also, there are no inline citations, however that is not a deal breaker for me. The Filmaker 04:41, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: Personally, I prefer footnotes to inline referencing, hence the reason the references in the article are comprised of footnotes. If inline citations are supposed to be superior to footnotes, then it's over my head. As I said, information on Bale's early and personal life is scarce, but I'll keep looking. --Antrophica 05:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Object. Early Life: first pgraph needs citation. too many 2-sentence pgraphs. merge them or expand them. cite "neither of which garnered him the acclaim he found in Empire of the Sun.". provide specific quotes from reviews about bale's performances in things like little women. american psycho should be a section by itself, not lumped in with 2000s (which is too long otherwise). would like to see more actual quotes of critics reviews of his psycho performance, especially as its important enough to be mentioned in the lead. cite this: "and from then on made an effort to avoid being typecast". who says? also this: "none of which were successful at the box office". dont external link to hall of mirrors. again, for the action vehicles, need specific reviews of his performances in those films. e.g. did he show talent as a a screen martial artist? give a specific quote to back this: "critics were impressed by Bale’s dedication". should mention bale did howl's english dub only - not the original japanese one. this also makes the japanese grosses redundant for this article. batman can also have its own section. videogame stuff appears irrelevant: " it featured Bale as Batman." how exactly? was he motion-captured? any quotes about that? first pgraph of personal life needs references. filmography is back-to-front. dont hardcode image sizes. remove this from lead: "Bale’s fans refer to themselves as “Baleheads”.". so what? its never mentioned again anywhere in the article so i assume its not important. remove "pre-production" stuff as its crystal ball material. Zzzzz 11:25, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Mostly done, I'll get to the rest of it by tomorrow, excepting (assumingly) the Batman Begins pre-production info that I fail to see as crystal ball material since it's already happened and I've cited sources. Also elaborate what you mean by the image sizes. As for critics being impressed by Bale's dedication in The Machinist, the quotes were already provided. In regard to the filmography being back-to-front, that shouldn't be a deciding factor in the article's nomination, as the format is still being debated and a resolution has yet to be reached. --Antrophica 12:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Alright, Zzzzz, I've gone through most of your issues, the significant ones. --Antrophica 06:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose - as I mentioned in Peer review/Christian Bale/archive1, I'm dead against using film titles as headers because it is highly POV. I can completely understand though why User:Zzzzz suggested using American Psycho as a header "because it's too long anyway".  I think the real problem is that American Psycho and Batman Begins are discussed in too much detail, and although using the film titles as headers solves the problem of the overly long sections, it highlights the fact that both film sections are out of proportion to the rest of the article.  There needs to be balance.  I think that the headers are far less acceptable than the ones I originally objected to because now you not only have an American Psycho section but a Post-American Pyscho section.  It creates the impression that Bale's entire career orbits around that one film and that the article also uses that one film as its core.   I see this as a major problem in a very well written article.   I also agree with Zzzz in saying that the filmography is "back-to-front".  I don't believe that it should be grounds for objecting but I think it's fair to state as part of an overall objection.  You are correct in saying that it is being discussed at the moment without a clear consensus, but I feel that it is better to follow the format that is most widely used, and although there is no "rule" on how to do it, the oldest to newest style seems to be used more often.  Just a suggestion/comment - I won't support or oppose on that point.  Rossrs 09:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll revert the film title headers to nonexistence, but you two had better make up your minds and come to a resolution, because I can't please both sides. --Antrophica 09:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * That's right you can't, although there may be a satisfactory common ground. I'll go through it and copyedit it when I have more time, and perhaps there's a way of using a more generic type of subheading that doesn't rely on the film titles themselves.  That may be a way of satisfying both objections.  Also could you please have a look at the use of language in the article - I think it's mostly good but anything like "tanked" should be replaced with a word that's less colloquial.  It's just one word that jumped out at me.  Thanks Rossrs 13:22, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I just now realized that "tanked" is too informal. Anything else that needs fixing? --Antrophica 13:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I figure, at the very least, your objections have been taken care of, Rossrs. Turn your vote around? Or are there other issues? --Antrophica 06:19, 9 June 2006 (UTC)