Wikipedia:Featured article review/Manos: The Hands of Fate/archive1


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

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 04:32, 20 October 2009.

Review commentary

 * Notified: WikiProject Films

I am nominating this featured article for review because I do not believe it is up to FA-class standards. For example, the plot section is too long, and there are too many one- and two-sentence paragraphs. Honestly, I do not feel as if this article was ever up to FA-class standards. – Dream out loud (talk) 19:47, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Images need alt text as per WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 21:47, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm working on it. --Moni3 (talk) 22:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The claim "Reports that the only crew members who were compensated for their work in the film were Jackey Neyman and her family's dog, who received a bicycle and a large quantity of dog food, respectively, would seem to indicate that the film failed to break even financially" seems like original research. The source only quotes Nayman saying "Everyone worked real hard, and the only ones who got paid were me and Shanka. I got a new bicycle, and Shanka got a fifty-pound bag of dog food" - the Wikipedia article appears to draw from that that the movie didn't break even. Yeah it probably didn't... but it still seems like a claim that runs afoul of WP:OR. --Sancho Mandoval (talk) 20:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * A broader problem is that, in tracking down the source for the above issue, it seems this article is heavily based on 2 articles that ran in "Mimosa", a fanzine of some sort. It is cited 17 times for core information about the movie. Both articles are written by Richard Brandt (almost certainly not the Richard Brandt there's a WP article on). Brandt's source appears to be interviews with 2 production people, but his story seems rather unlikely... he decided to write an article about the movie, then by shear coincidence learned that two people who made the movie are poker buddies of his good friend? It's not even clear the article isn't just a joke. I'd like to see some kind of corroboration that Brandt is to be believed before we report his claims as facts. This issue doesn't seem to have been raised in the FAC or on the talk page. --Sancho Mandoval (talk) 20:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I will say that this article still does a fantastic job of summarizing the production and reception of an obscure film... those sections read like a textbook featured article. If the information in them proves not to be BS, and the plot section is trimmed (its length caused me to skip over it to more interesting sections), this could be salvaged as a FA. --Sancho Mandoval (talk) 21:04, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The more I dig, the stranger this is. Everything about the production of Manos seems to trace back to Brandt as the source. People have pointed out various claims of his seem more intended to be interesting and funny than factually accurate (for instance, his claim that Harold Warren was a fertilizer salesman has no non-Brandt source, and many people claim it's not true... in the MST3K episode they joke that he's a fertilizer salesman, but it seems like it was purely a joke). Furthermore, even the 1966 newspaper article someone scanned in is problematic. Maybe I'm just being overly paranoid here, but I find the last sentence "Someone is spoofing us" to be very strange... it has nothing to do with the article, as far as I can tell... and could be a clue that the whole thing is a prank. --Sancho Mandoval (talk) 00:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Suggested criteria are citations, original research/verifiability. Also note the recent changed to WP:WIAFA requiring "high-quality sources"  YellowMonkey  ( bananabucket '') 03:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delist. It's been almost a week and no reply to my concerns raised above. I did some more digging and found nothing to make me more confident in Brandt as a source. Apparently his 2004 documentary on Manos is based around an outright false claim (that everyone involved in the movie died or disappeared mysteriously, except a lone stuntman). As it stands, this article is based heavily on a fanzine article by a questionable person... it's not really FA material and could need a total rewrite if I'm right. I know I could be wrong, but someone needs to clear things up... and that doesn't seem to be happening. Sorry... I know people worked hard on this article... and don't doubt they did so thinking they were using a trustworthy source. --Sancho Mandoval (talk) 01:35, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delist, concerns not addressed. Cirt (talk) 21:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.