Wikipedia:Peer review/Heath Ledger/archive1

Heath Ledger
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I would want to improve it into a better artical and maybe some day a GA.

Thanks, Pedro J.  the rookie 16:37, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is interesting, broad in coverage, and appears nearly ready for a successful run at GA. However, I notice a tendency toward over-complex or run-on sentences in a few places, and I have other suggestions related mostly to Manual of Style issues.

Images
 * Images need alt text. WP:ALT has details.

Sourcing
 * Adding so many multiple sources for simple claims like the following seems unnecessary and creates page clutter: "He died at the age of 28,[5][6] from an accidental "toxic combination of prescription drugs."[13][14][15][16]"

Lead
 * MOS:INTRO says in part, "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article." - A good rule of thumb is to include at least a mention of all of the main text sections. The existing lead says nothing about Ledger's personal life, trouble with insomnia, difficulties with the press, and so on. You might need to reduce the fraction of the lead devoted to awards and to increase the fraction devoted to the missing sections. For an article this long, a four-paragraph lead would probably be fine.
 * The phrase "toxic combination of prescription drugs" shouldn't be wikilinked inside the quotation marks. A workaround might be to add (combined drug intoxication) in parentheses after the quote. WP:MOSQUOTE says in part, "Unless there is an overriding reason to do so, Wikipedia avoids linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader."
 * "casting a shadow over the subsequent promotion of the $180 million film" - WP:NBSP suggests holding together combinations like $180 million with an nbsp code to prevent the parts from being separated by line break on computer screens.

Family and personal life
 * "first all-boy victory" - It isn't clear at first glance what this means. My first thought was "Why didn't any girls make the team"? Perhaps the cure would be to add "a boys school" to Guildford Grammar School a couple of sentences earlier.
 * What did Guildford Grammar's team do to win the challenge? What production? What kind of team?
 * "with former child star, actress Mary-Kate Olsen" - I'd unlink "actress" in this sequence because it's a common word that needs no explanation and because unlinking it would prevent "link bump".

2000s
 * "After Brokeback Mountain, Ledger costarred with fellow Australian Abbie Cornish in the 2006 Australian film Candy, an adaptation of the 1998 novel Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction, as young heroin addicts in love attempting to break free of their addiction, whose mentor is played by renowned Australian actor Geoffrey Rush; for his performance as sometime poet Dan, Ledger was nominated for three "Best Actor" awards, including one of the Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards 2006, which both Cornish and Rush won in their categories." - Too complex. I'd suggest breaking this up into two or three simpler sentences.
 * "To prepare for the role, Ledger told Empire, "I sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices — it was important to try to find a somewhat iconic voice and laugh. I ended up landing more in the realm of a psychopath — someone with very little to no conscience towards his acts"; after reiterating his view of the character as "just an absolute sociopath, a cold-blooded, mass-murdering clown," he added that Nolan had given him "free rein" to create the role, which he found "fun, because there are no real boundaries to what the Joker would say or do." - Too complex. I'd at least replace the central semi-colon with a terminal period. Also, Wikipedia generally does not put spaces around the em dashes.

Directorial work
 * "Ledger created and acted in a music video set to Drake's recording of the singer's 1974 song about depression "Black Eyed Dog"—a title "inspired by Winston Churchill’s descriptive term for depression" (black dog);[71] it was shown publicly only twice, first at the Bumbershoot Festival, in Seattle, Washington, held from 1 September to 3 September 2007; and secondly as part of "A Place To Be: A Celebration of Nick Drake", with its screening of Their Place: Reflections On Nick Drake, "a series of short filmed homages to Nick Drake" (including Ledger's), sponsored by American Cinematheque, at the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, in Hollywood, on 5 October 2007. - Too complex.
 * "Ledger's final directorial work, in which he shot two music videos before his death, premiere in 2009." - Premiered? Or maybe they haven't yet. Do you know the month or the exact date?
 * "the Woodroofe video for her cover" - Wikilink cover?

Sleep difficulties...


 * I'd remove the spaces from around the em dash in the quote at the end.

Death
 * "At about 2:45 p.m.... " - Times expressed as digits and "p.m." or "a.m." need to be glued together with nbsps.

Memorial tributes and services
 * "Verne Troyer, who was working with Ledger on The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, at the time of his death, had a heart shape, which is an exact duplicate of a symbol that Ledger scrawled on a piece of paper with his email address, tattooed on his hand in remembrance of Ledger because Ledger "had made such an impression on [him]." - Too complex.
 * "Later that night, his family and friends gathered for a wake on Cottesloe Beach.[27][111][113][114][115][116]" - Does a simple claim like this need six sources? I doubt that this and some of the other claims in this and the subsequent section need so many serial sources.

Federal investigation
 * "as it resulted in: "shock and confusion" about "the circumstances", the ruling of the death as an accident caused by "a toxic combination of prescription drugs"," - Unlink words inside direct quotation.

Controversy over will
 * ""While Ledger left everything to his parents and three sisters, it is understood they have legal advice that under WA law, Matilda Rose is entitled to the lion's share" - Unlink WA. Ditto for all linked words or dollar signs or anything else in direct quotations later in the article.
 * If for any reason you decide to shorten the article, I think this would be the section. It seems a bit gossipy and speculative in places. For example, "may have fathered a secret love-child" and "could split his multi-million dollar estate" fall into the category of gossipy speculation. It's the sort of thing the tabloids thrive on, but they can say anything about anybody by using words like "may" and "could". Most of this speculation comes to nothing. Does it belong in an encyclopedia? If the love-child actually appeared and won half the estate, that would be a different matter.

Posthumous films and awards
 * "Ledger's death affected the marketing campaign for Christopher Norans's The Dark Knight (2008)[17][64] and also both the production and marketing of Terry Gilliam's forthcoming film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, with both directors intending to celebrate and pay tribute to his work in these films.[148][65][64][149]" - "With" doesn't make a good conjunction. Suggestion: "Ledger's death affected the marketing campaign for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008)[17][64] and also both the production and marketing of Terry Gilliam's forthcoming film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Both directors intended to celebrate and pay tribute to his work in these films.[148][65][64][149]"
 * "In February 2008, as a "memorial tribute to the man many have called one of the best actors of his generation," Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell signed on to take over Ledger's role, becoming multiple incarnations of his character, Tony, transformed in this "magical re-telling of the Faust story,"[152][153][154] and the three actors have donated their fees for the film to Ledger's and Williams' daughter." - Too complex.
 * "On 11 December 2008, it was announced that Ledger had been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight; he subsequently won the award at the 66th Golden Globe Awards ceremony telecast on NBC on 11 January 2009 with Dark Knight Director Christopher Nolan accepting on his behalf." - Another awkward use of "with" as a conjunction.

References
 * I don't think you need to add the .dot com data to citations like "(Variety.com (Reed Elsevier))". I've never seen anyone add these to the citations. They are already embedded in the url, and they create a confusing double nesting of parentheses.

Other
 * The dabfinder tool that lives here finds a wikilink to "immunity" that goes to a disambiguation page rather than its intended target.
 * The link checking tool that lives here finds four dead citation urls.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 18:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)