Wikipedia:Peer review/Broadway Video/archive1

Broadway Video
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because over the past two weeks or so I've worked hard taking the article from stub class to hopefully something a bit more worthwhile. Any factual inclusions in the article I've done my best to back up with verifiable references, and have tried hard to not get too verbose in my writing style. That said, there are likely parts that could do with tightening up. I would have included some brief synopsis at the beginning of the "Divisions" section, but I feel like I would have just been repeating what has been already said in the article. I've been unable to find a verifiable location for Broadway Video in LA, so that's out, as well as anything regarding the name of the company (obviously it's called Broadway Video because of its location on Broadway, but without an article stating that was the reason for the name, I hesitate to even mention it in the main article).

Thanks, Mainly.generic (talk) 06:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: THis is interesting and has a lot of material in it, but it really doesn't follow the model of the best business articles in terms of organization, and could be improved with regard to the WP:MOS too. With a possible GAn or eventually FAC in mind, here are some suggestions for improvement. Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 01:58, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The first sentence doesn't really meet the criteria for WP:LEAD where it says The article should begin with a declarative sentence, answering two questions for the nonspecialist reader: "What (or who) is the subject?" and "Why is this subject notable?"[1]
 * The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. As such, nNothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself - but the fact that it was founded bu Lorne Michaels in 1979 iso nly in the lead.
 * The lead also seems to be incomplete - my rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way but the audio productions are not even mentioned
 * Spell out abbreviations on first use, so "United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)" - this is also only in the lead and should be in the article body
 * Avoid time terms like recently as they are vague and can become outdated quickly. It is better to ise thinks like "As of 2009..." or "Since 1998..."
 * The article has a lot of very short (one or two sentence) paragraphs and sections. Most of these should be combined with others or perhaps expanded to improve the flow of the article
 * Ok, all of these issues were just in the lead (though there are short paragraphs / sections throughout). My biggest problem with the article is that it is porrly organized and as a result does not clearly tell the story of the business. It is often useful to have a model article or two to use for ideas and examples. Wikipedia's finest work is supposed to be its Featured Articles (FA) and I looked at every FA on a business I could find: BAE Systems, Elderly Instruments, Icos, Idlewild and Soak Zone, Madman Muntz, Oliver Typewriter Company, Slate industry in Wales. Every single one of these has a History section (or sections) as the very first section(s) after the lead (usually called "History"). This goes immediately into a detailed listing of business divisions. Now my guess is that a lot of the history is there (as there are a fair number of dates and names already in the article), but it helps very much to explain how the business was founded, how it grew, where it expanded and where it failed. Without a History section I do not see any chance of this making GA let alone FA.
 * A few other points to mention - the tables shopuld be organized conistently - the Selected Productions Audio is chronological, from newest to oldest. The other two tables seem to be alphabetic. I prefer chronological, but just be consistent.
 * There are some apparent errors and contradictions in the article - for example the lead says the company was founded in 1979, but in films there are two things prior to 1979 (1973 and 1978) while the TV shows also have two that are older that 1979 (1969 and 1978). I also note that the Rutles All You Need Is Cash was a television movie (but is listed under films) while there is a Coneheads TV show listed for 1993, which is almost certainly meant to be Coneheads (film) 1993 (a movie).
 * I also do not understand why it is "Selected productions". What are the selection criteria?
 * Filling in the Notes in the tables would also be useful - for example Toonces was a half hour special.
 * Release date for television is also just odd - I would think it would be better to have air dates - this would also help show something that was a success (multiple years) versus a one shot or flop.
 * There seem to be a lot of people listed as staff that probably do not meet WP:NN for inclusion in an article.
 * Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. cite web and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V