Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/RKO Pictures/archive3


 * 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 promoted by Karanacs 02:08, 15 July 2010.

RKO Pictures

 * Nominator(s): DCGeist (talk) 01:25, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Vagary or sign? In May–June 2007, the FA nomination for RKO's deeply obscure (≈25–30 hits per day) silent-era predecessor, Film Booking Offices of America, attracted 4 !votes. In May–June 2010, the previous FA nomination for this article on one of the Big Five classic Hollywood studios (≈400 hits per day) attracted none. So perhaps I should point out that it's full of insanity, drugs, and bondage.

N.B.: One intentional dab link—"WOR TV and radio stations"—to most efficiently guide reader to three applicable articles.—DCGeist (talk) 01:25, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment—no dab links but the intentional one; no dead external links. Ucucha 05:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Comments
 * There are multiple problems with images. Several of them are claiming public domain but also have fair use rationales. You can't have both. PD status does not require a fair use rationale. Several images are missing the summary template; these are needed for uniformity. Reconsider the number of fair use images and whether they are required to illustrate the subject of RKO rather than a movie RKO produced. Certainly a fair use RKO logo is ok but I'm not sure about the others.
 * Inapplicable FURs eliminated. While file page uniformity is not an FA consideration, in fact the formatting of the file pages for the six PD images currently hosted by Wikipedia (as opposed to Commons) is absolutely consistent: Summary section, followed by Licensing section with tag, followed by Public domain explanation section. No fair use images are used to illustrate particular RKO movies. The article includes four fair use media files: the classic onscreen RKO Radio Pictures opening and closing logos, whose fame is sourced; a historical Radio-Keith-Orpheum logo, to illustrate the original corporate identity; and the logo of the extant RKO Pictures LLC, in its dedicated infobox.—DCGeist (talk) 21:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The article appears overlinked. Please reduce wikilinks to subjects that are not important to the article such as Post Cereals. There are also multiple links for the same topic. Robert Mitchum is linked three times for example.
 * As the source of the current owner's wealth, Post Cereals is relevant. However, an examination of the Post Cereals (actually, Post Foods) article reveals that it has little pertinent historical information, so the link has been eliminated. The three Mitchum links are as follows: (1) lede, (2) first appearance in main text, and (3) first appearance in image caption. I had thought that was customary. I'm more than happy to eliminate one or more of these links, and any analogous multiple links, if there's a consensus view that they are excessive.—DCGeist (talk) 21:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The section title Hughes's mismanagement is POV and leading to the reader. I'm aware that Hughes did wreck the company but a less pov title is required to allow the reader to decide.
 * Done.—DCGeist (talk) 21:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Your notes are claiming that EB is in error on a particular point but you aren't providing citations to back up this claim.
 * The actual nature of the original merger, which demonstrates the Britannica error, is summarized in the article's lede—at the end of the sentence in question, the note to which you refer is called out. The primary reason the note is placed there is to help forestall fly-by erroneous "corrections" to the lede, which used to be common. The relevant specifics are laid out in great detail in the first section of the main text, and rigorously cited there.—DCGeist (talk) 21:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * With the image problems alone it's apparent that a GA review should have been done. Any particular reason why it was skipped? Brad (talk) 21:16, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * "Skipped" assumes a particular process is standardized, when that is not the case.—DCGeist (talk) 21:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Sources issues
 * Notes: (a) and (b) contain combative language, e.g. "demonstrably false", "wildly inaccurate". I suggest that these statements should be expressed more neutrally, e.g. by removing the adjectives.
 * Done.—DCGeist (talk) 16:19, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * References
 * The supposed link in Ref 3 does not work for me. When it does I suggest that this, also 155 and 166, are formatted as online links in the normal way.
 * Link corrected. These are historical hard-copy magazine sources, which were identified and cited in their original form; the online links are supplementary. (As sources, they are similar, for instance, to the historical hard-copy newspaper sources cited in refs 6 and 15, which happen not to be freely available online at present.) The current formatting—which mirrors that history and the sources' status by bracketing the links—is thus, I believe, the most appropriate.—DCGeist (talk) 16:19, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Ref 31: "pp." required for the page range
 * Done.—DCGeist (talk) 16:19, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I feel that ref 211 is overcomplicated, comprising six different sites. If they each refer to different elements of the paragraph they support, should they not be separated? Otherwise, verifying the facts in the paragraph could be a nightmare.
 * Content edited for better focus; ref split—now two refs, each comprising three sites, tied to individual sentences.—DCGeist (talk) 16:19, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Otherwise, sources look good, no other issues. Brianboulton (talk) 14:51, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sources issues resolved. Brianboulton (talk) 10:08, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Support: I've read through this article back and forth a few times and I can't say I've found any problems. Excellent work! Andrzejbanas (talk) 06:39, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Support Nicely detailed article.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:40, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Leaning to support - I have not yet finished reading the article but it looks to be comprehensive, authoritative, well researched and well written. I will endeavour to review it more fully over the next few days and provide further comment. PL290 (talk) 11:52, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Support - I've now read the whole article and am happy to support this high-quality nomination. I list below some minor points I noted as I went:
 * 'Instituting unit production at RKO, he predicted substantial benefits in both "cost and quality."[27]' - quoting the final three words is a little distracting, and perhaps adds nothing.
 * I provided a more informative quote on the quality point, and—via paraphrase—more detail on his cost prediction.—DCGeist (talk) 21:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * "In contrast, a clear majority of the features put out by each of the other Big Five were budgeted at over a half a million dollars." - I don't think "other Big Five" quite works; it implies "other five", when RKO was one of those five. Perhaps add "studios" again here, or use "other members of" etc.
 * Edited.—DCGeist (talk) 21:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * "The British government imposed a 75 percent tax on films produced abroad; similarly confiscatory taxes and quota laws enacted by other countries led to a sharp decline in foreign revenues" - appears to need a slight tweak to allow that the British move itself (I assume) contributed at all to the decline.
 * Edited.—DCGeist (talk) 21:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Within the Studio library section, you have a lone subsection, International rights. The MoS is, I believe, currently silent on the matter, but I personally discourage lone subsections as a structural anomaly. PL290 (talk) 19:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Subhed cut. Thanks for the close read.—DCGeist (talk) 21:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.