Wikipedia:Featured article review/Film noir/archive1

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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 delisted by Casliber via FACBot (talk) 9:44, 9 September 2018 (UTC) [1].

Film noir[edit]

Notified: WP Film

Review section[edit]

This featured article review is a procedural nomination as there was sockpuppet involvement at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Film noir/archive1. Thus the article needs to be immediately reassessed. Note that this does not necessarily mean that it is not up to standard, but that it needs to be checked. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:11, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • I did the image review 8 years ago; it's mostly the same, but 3 fair-use music samples have been added. They're all pretty short, but frankly having 3 seems excessive, I'd cut to 1. --PresN 01:23, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Size also a concern for me. Look at the copyvio tool, the main element driving it up seemed to be film titles. Removed two of the audio files. Article has been heavily edited since promotion, and since the first retirement. Ceoil (talk) 18:22, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've read through both the promoted version of the article and that which exists today, and I don't see any major red flags in the differences between them. In fact, in some ways today's article is better; the prose has been tightened up in places, and there have been a couple of layout improvements. On the copyvio front, like Ceoil I don't see any issues; the Berkeley page similarities are down to article titles and film titles, while the other high % match appears to have cribbed from our article for a couple of sentences. Of some small concern is the slight bloat in size from the promoted version. Some of this is well-cited, and I'm not bothered so much by kB count (it's very large, but not precedent-setting), but by the occasional insertion of detail that is not cited, appears to not have fresh citation to go along with it (to all intents an purposes looking like it's cited to whichever one was there for the existing material), or has resulted in content where even with a new citation it's now unclear what's referencing what. The current last paragraph of 1980s and 1990s] is a good (bad) example of the latter two issues; without access to the original sources, it will be difficult to wrangle this into shape. I also share some of the concerns that were brought up by several people during the original FAC, most especially by Moni, regarding the structure. These concerns were brushed aside by one or more socks and consensus seemingly reached, but the problem remains. Long story short, the Identifying characteristics section does not work at all where it is now bolted onto the end. This should be tied to Problems of definition somewhere closer to the top to aid those readers unfamiliar with the subject. However, I don't know if this can be done without significant rewrites elsewhere to ensure context is kept. As Moni put it, "Primary components to Film noir appear at the end of the article, following an extensive and interesting discussion of film history. This creates a chasm of prose that gives readers no connection to what they are trying to grasp: film noir is difficult to define; this is its history; these are films considered noir; these are the characteristics of noir. It would be much clearer to arrange the article as: film noir is difficult to define; these are the characteristics of noir; this is its history; these are films considered noir, so readers can understand why films are considered to be within the noir genre." She wasn't the only editor to point out that on such a large subject it would make more sense to to "[start] with the basic and [get] more cognitively complex". What does everyone else think on this point? Steve T • C 23:16, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Steve, yes and my gut feeling about the socking, born by many years of experience, related and not related, is that Geist was too involved, arrogant and proud of his contributions to have made deliberate mistakes on sourcing. It just doesn't scan. I have already mentioned my concerns on focus and length. Its your area of interest, so if editorializing is needed, you would probably be the man for the job and as such you might go for it. ps, we all miss Moni. Ceoil (talk) 23:30, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You may be right about the sourcing; digging through the history, I was set to use this diff as an example of added content to multiple sections with no cite, but it turns out that DCG went back later to add the necessary (e.g.). After another read through, I think this needs less of a rescue job than did Tenebrae. To begin with, I'm going to put each section through a better diff checker than Wikipedia's, see where we might have problems with uncited or unwanted additions. That might take some time, but after that I'll have a better idea of whether we need to alter the structure and if we do, what might need to be rewritten to accommodate that. Steve T • C 21:15, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I read through this today and I agree with previous comments that the article organization is not ideal. It seems that Steve has not been active since April so I don't know where this leaves us. I believe DCG was a breed of FA writer who didn't want to compromise their vision for anyone, and used socks to help ram it through. It's a good article but not as good as it could be. --Laser brain (talk) 14:12, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sorry I haven't been able to work on this recently; work commitments have left me with very little free time these last 6 weeks. As far as the quality of the article stands, I've been through every section diff-by-diff, and have removed those unwanted and uncited additions that have crept in over the years, along with some other minor clean-up. However, this is still fundamentally the same article that passed the original FAC. It is a good article, and doesn't exactly bring shame to the gold star, but the organisational problems still exist and whichever way I imagine it, no natural structure presents itself. I had a mind to bring Identifying Characteristics to after the Background section, but that doesn't quite work either, owing to the section's reliance on examples that span several decades, which I think would then sit oddly with the strictly chronological nature of the subsequent sections. What do you think? Steve T • C 19:24, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section[edit]

Moving to get more input on organization and related issues. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:35, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Default keep. I'm not enthusiastic but the only problem identified is that the source review was inadequate (as it was done by the puppet). Most of the sources are offline, so unless someone can demonstrate that the sources do not support the article content, there is no reason to delist. DrKay (talk) 16:39, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Laser brain: what or how would you reorganize? Is it within stylistic bounds or is it really suboptimal? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:51, 10 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Casliber: At this point I think it's subjective. If no one has the bandwidth to propose an alternate organization, I wouldn't hold up the FAR on my comment. --Laser brain (talk) 11:51, 10 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Spot check and source review: Numbers refer to footnote numbers as of revision 858730187
    • 34: website confirms caption content but "thrillingdetective.com" wouldn't count as a high-quality reliable source
    • 90: verified
    • 92, 93: websites confirm article content but "koreanconfidential.com" and "articledestination.com" wouldn't count as a high-quality reliable sources
    • 101: verified with reservations (the source confirms that one source ranks Chinatown as the greatest neo-noir but doesn't explicitly state that it is universally acclaimed)
    • 107: AFI ranking verified
    • 115: Barra supports statement "Miller's Crossing—loosely based on the Dashiell Hammett novels Red Harvest and The Glass Key"
    • 122: confirms the immediately preceding sentence but not the two that precede that, which are unsourced. Also, there's no mention of noir at the source, so its relevance to this article is questionable.
    • 124: I would call this unverified. The source doesn't seem to support the claim that Park is "the most prominent director outside of the United States to work regularly in a noir mode" and Thirst isn't a noir picture. It's a vampire flick.
    • 125: most commercially successful neo-noir verified; "extravagantly stylized" not verified by source, though self-evident from the movie itself
    • 127: winner of 2005 Village Voice poll verified, but graphic novels and Road to Perdition are not mentioned in the source
    • 128: verified
    • 141: verified
    • 144: verified
    • 150: source says the film poster is by Bass, but why are being told this? The source says nothing about noir and so this content seems irrelevant.
  • A bit of a mixed bag. It would seem that the greater part of the article is well-sourced and verifiable, and there's a comprehensive reading list, but occasionally the article trips up. I'm finding it difficult now to decide between keep and delist. After re-reading Wikipedia talk:Featured article review#Sock issue and Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/archive 12#Two-step process? Is it necessary or does it just confuse or complicate things unnecessarily?, I'm tempted to say default demote for articles with no keep declarations and sock puppet supports. DrKay (talk) 08:32, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@DrKay: if there are actionable issues that are not resolved, then the default is to delist - would be my opinion. The good news in the article is in good shape and within striking distance, so if someone wants to buff it in future, then they'll have plenty of tips on the past review pages. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:41, 9 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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