Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/A Beautiful Mind (film)/1

A Beautiful Mind (film)

 * • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found.
 * Result: delisted Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 18:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Hello all, I'm regrettably nominating this article for reassessment because many of the required criteria for GA are decidedly lacking from it. I've bulleted the points that I feel don't meet GA status.


 * Firstly, the plot runs at a whopping 1150+ words! That's over double the amount that is acceptable for a plot summary.
 * There are several statements in the article that are lacking in references.
 * The references are not correctly formatted and everything is in italics for some reason... (there is also some sort of reffing error with this: "^London Academy of Media Film & TV,Russel Crowe" at the bottom of the list.)
 * There are 2 bare URLs in the reflist.
 * The Home Media section reads like an advertisement as noted by the template. (This section is also mostly unreferenced).
 * The article is unfocussed in its prose.
 * Ref 13 is unreliable (from about.com). Ref 25 doesn't work.
 * The article has an inappropriate external link at the very bottom of the list.

Thank you.  That Ole Cheesy Dude  ( Talk to the hand! ) 17:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. It needs a copyedit for the issues raised, if someone was interested that wouldn't take long to fix. A quick read made me wonder if there was any challengable material that needed a cite, that would be a bigger problem? Szzuk (talk) 08:24, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment re plot length: I don't think there are any concrete limits on plot length; the plot for a 2+ hour long drama needs to be longer than the plot of an 80 min. kid's film. The length does seem a bit excessive though so I'll take a look to see if there is material that should be removed.--RDBury (talk) 20:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:MOSFILM. Between 400 and 700 words.  That Ole Cheesy Dude  ( Talk to the hand! ) 20:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a guideline and, like I said, I'm working on it. Turns out it's harder to shorten prose than to lengthen it.--RDBury (talk) 21:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I know exactly what you mean. Am currently trying to shorten the plot to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (to prep for GAN), but it's tougher than it seems.  That Ole Cheesy Dude  ( Talk to the hand! ) 21:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. The GA criteria only includes WP:LAYOUT from the MOS. Szzuk (talk) 22:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I did some major work on the section and, with a bit of help, it's now at 716 words. (I rewatched the movie while I was at it.) It's possible that it might be shortened more but I'm probably too close to it now to do it well.--RDBury (talk) 02:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No need, you've done fabulously, the plot is now averagely sized. Good job. There are still the issues mentioned above however.  That Ole Cheesy Dude  ( Talk to the hand! ) 02:55, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You're welcome, I enjoyed doing it.--RDBury (talk) 04:44, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment re advert: I believe I have addressed this.--RDBury (talk) 21:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment re bare URLs: I removed one, a cite that Nash won the Nobel Prize which is unlikely to be questioned. I couldn't find the other one so perhaps it's already been fixed.--RDBury (talk) 03:25, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment re refs formatting: I replaced some of the italics with double quotes, and removed some other ones. Not sure how detailed the GA criteria get on this kind of thing but it's a start at least. I also cleaned up the London Academy line at the bottom, probably more trouble than it's worth to figure out what that was intended to be.--RDBury (talk) 03:59, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment re external link: I assume you mean the Film Insight link. The External links criteria are pretty broad, as long as it's on topic and not blatant spam it should be OK. So I claim it's a non-issue.--RDBury (talk) 04:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment re unreferenced statements, unfocused prose and everything else: Could you be more specific? It might help to add "citation needed" tag to point out specific statements that should be supported. I'm not sure what to do about unfocused prose, perhaps that's would be a concern for an FA review but I don't think GA requirements are that high. Now that the Plot section has been trimmed the Production section stands out as being too long and overly detailed. Much of the material comes from the DVD commentary and featurettes which I regard as somewhat dubious as sources, they often have patently non-noteworthy information. I removed a small amount of such material but didn't want to hog wild on it.--RDBury (talk) 04:44, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Delist - It's very light on sources at only 32. The budget is not sourced. A check on Boxofficemojo shows the budget is 58 million, not 60 million as stated here. A lot of unsourced statements in the 'Production' section. Looks like plenty of original research in the 'Divergence from actual events' section. I think this article needs more than a quick fix to check everything out and source it properly. BollyJeff  ||  talk  17:21, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't have an opinion about the article overall, but I do have an opinion about some of the "criteria" that the nom suggests are required. GAs are not required to have properly formatted citations.  Bare URLs may be evil, but they are a kind of evil that the GA criteria do not prohibit.  Similarly, the GA criteria do not prohibit dead URLs—which is a good thing, because WP:DEADREF basically prohibits you from deleting a citation merely because the URL isn't working today.  Similarly, compliance with the External links guideline is simply not required.  I find no recommended maximum number of words for plot summaries in any of the five actually required MoS pages.  So what you're left with is complaints about:
 * unspecified unsourced sentences (which may or may not fall into the five categories that GA requires citations for—noting that if they don't, then the absence of a citation is not grounds for de-listing, since the GACR do not require one citation per sentence),
 * a ==Home media== section that needs a copyedit, and
 * "unfocussed" prose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:37, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The home media section is gone, having just read I think the prose while not the good could scrape a pass, in that I can understand what is meant but I wouldn't write it that way myself and there are no spelling errors etc. So we're left with some inline cite requests. RDBury has done quite a fair bit of copyediting, credit for that. Szzuk (talk) 07:45, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I fixed the cite requests.Szzuk (talk) 08:06, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Article has been improved and appears to pass. Szzuk (talk) 08:06, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Delist: Still some concerns, I have added citation needed templates to unsourced statements, also a clarify tag to a puzzling reference to (apparently) an unspecified book. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * An overdetailed section, such as an overlong Plot section, would fall under criteria 3(b) ("unnecessary detail"). I have personal views regarding Plot sections - I find they are frequently overlong, and tend to include interpretation and opinion. Personally I would rather all Plot sections were built from reliable secondary sources rather than the commentary of various Wikipedia editors, but that's outside the scope of this GAR, and indeed of GA as a whole. The judgement of reviewers would be - "Is this Plot summary appropriately informative?" That it, does it give the readers enough, but not too much information? It's always a difficult judgement, as there are no reliable sources to measure against. A reviewer would need to have seen the film fairly recently to be able to make such an informed judgement. I have seen the film, but it was long enough ago for me not to remember the plot enough to be able to make an informed comment on the appropriate length of the Plot section. However, going by the plot summaries at IMDb, at Rotten Tomatoes, at moviefone, and Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook, it appears this article's plot summary is longer than necessary. Even though not actually required, I think it would be helpful to use and cite sources when building plot summaries. Sources are not much used in the article. The cast list is poorly done - it tends to repeat plot information, rather than give casting information, and is in list format, which is discouraged. Formatting of cites is not required for GA. I note that the Home Media section has been removed. I agree that the prose lacks focus - the Production section is fuzzy and unclear. It appears to be a series of cut and paste notes that haven't yet been written up into an informative overview. External links aren't covered by GA. It's worth looking at WP:EL to see if the links are needed. They do look excessive to me, and some are already used as references. Adding to the original points, would be that the lead is inadequate. It doesn't meet WP:Lead in that it doesn't appropriately summarise the contents - the Divergence from actual events and Production sections in particular are poorly represented in the lead. I feel that the article is significantly far enough from GA criteria to require rather more work than can be achieved in a reasonable time. Given that this GAR has been open for over a month with a range of significant issues unaddressed, then this is a clear delist for me.  SilkTork   ✔Tea time  09:23, 26 August 2011 (UTC)