Talk:Too Cool! Cartoons

Reception section

Grayfell, before you revert this edit: I reread WP:NPOV and took out any sentences with editorializing language, just leaving uncolored introductions to quotes - with the exception of the first sentence, because I have found it in many, many "Reception" sections for TV shows with good press. If you are strongly opposed to the passage still, please work with me and with what WP:NPOV says in terms of editing: "As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone."

I realize the very positive nature of the reviews makes this section appear biased, and I went back into all of the reviews and picked out quotes that were not quite as colorful and excessively complimentary. I swear, I also spent a good two hours today looking for bad reviews of Too Cool! Cartoons. The only bad stuff outside of YouTube comments that I was able to find was on the forums cited. If you can find something, please, put it in.

If you think moving the bad reviews up in the section would help achieve neutrality, please do that too. I left them toward the bottom because they were a minority opinion and I already felt a little uncomfortable using forum posts as critics in the first place, not because I wanted to put positive stuff first.

Also: what adjective would you recommend to convey a creator who was not famous, but also not new to animation, that isn't puffery? Genuine question. I think it informs the term "cartoon incubator" to include that but I don't want to break neutrality.

I appreciate your patience in helping me edit this fairly and reasonably! As is obvious I'm new to the Wikipedia scene.

Thanks, Lrfranks (talk) 21:02, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

The bad reviews are merely forum posts, which are not usable at all. You should review WP:RS (again, if you have already). Forums and blogs are WP:SPS: self published sources, AKA user generated content, etc.. They're almost always unusable. Many of the current sources are borderline. Anybody can pay to start a review site, which is why 'reception' sections are so tricky. A general rule of thumb is that a personal opinion is usable if the person can be independently established as being an authority. One easy way to determine that is if they have an article themselves. John Blabber (or Bubble Blabber as a whole), Meredith Woemer, Laura Beck, Lauren Davis (almost certainly the wrong one), Chef Rich, Andrew Tran (or 8th Circuit Network)... none of them have articles, and none of them have been clearly established as experts, so their opinion needs to be reined in to maintain WP:DUE weight. It's easy to find a positive reviews, the question becomes, why should anybody care? Unless they are an established authority, it's just promotionalism and puff, which is why I reverted you, and will, unless there are substantial changes soon, remove the material again fairly soon.

What's more, this is a lot of info about specific shorts in an article about a channel. This is an important point, because where else should this info be presented? Well, not here. The bit about Bee and PuppyCat's reviews should probably be in the subsection of the Cartoon Hangover article, but that's only if it can be established as due weight. Right now the article is still lacking in sources about the channel. Sources about creators, sources about specific shorts, sure plenty of those. The only sources about the channel are from Frederator's own website. This isn't the end of the world (or the end of the article, although I'm not sure if it would survive being nominated for deletion), but it's a problem.

Finally, I have to ask: Are you affiliated with Frederator? This article was created by someone (a single purpose account) who's username indicated a clear conflict of interest, and right after I posted a notice warning them of some of the pitfalls associated with that, the account ceased activity, and you began making a number of highly flattering edits. You can understand why this is a bit suspicious. If you are that same person, you should be aware that starting a second account is WP:SOCK puppetry. If this applies to you, please come clean now to avoid future headaches. Pick an account, and we'll get the other one banned. In addition, I highly, highly recommend you review WP:COI and Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide. If this doesn't apply to you, I apologize. Paid editing is a serious problem which damages Wikipedia, and is not taken lightly. It may seem paranoid, but it comes from a lot of nasty past experiences. Grayfell (talk) 21:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

The thought occurs to me that Bee and PuppyCat could be moved here, as it might be a slightly better fit. It seems like kind of a hassle, since I suspect that once the series starts there will be enough coverage for it to have its own article. It might be more practical to wait until then. Grayfell (talk) 21:57, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, that makes a lot of sense about the reviews. Mainly, it's hard to find mainstream press about free media on YouTube, but I didn't think about it in the context you were saying, and that is completely fair. I referenced Bubble Blabber because I searched for them on this site and found other pages citing their reviews.

The BPC stuff is annoying because it's both a part of this series as an individual short, and a series in and of itself. So my opinion is that it should be in this article, but that once the series premieres that will merit its own article, which does not cover the original short.

So your main issue with sources is that there aren't any other than Frederator's that establish that the series exists? I can remedy that - had no idea that was the issue. Just read the Notability guidelines and I understand where you're coming from now.

As to your other question, no, it does not seem paranoid, but I have no financial connection to Frederator and do not have a conflict of interest. I was asked to work on the article after the original author, who is an employee of theirs, read their COI policy (for the record, the original assignment was not to be a "paid advocate" and create puffery but to create an accurate page, but she decided to step back from it). The flattering edits are a result of my lack of experience with journalism, not that I am trying to make a biased article, I promise. I really appreciate the corrections where I editorialized. I am sorry that this has been a hassle for you to clean up! The goal is just to have a page about Too Cool! out there just like any individual page about a series on a TV network, not to make a puff piece.

Man, all this would have been easily remedied had I thought to read Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide before I started this, but I didn't, because I thought, "hey, I'm a millennial without a lot of free time, I can figure this out on my own." My sincere apologies. Lrfranks (talk) 23:01, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Cool, I'm glad we could work that out, and it looks much better now. Like I said, I'm reluctant to get too fussy about Bee and PuppyCat because it has enough hype and anticipation that I would personally be shocked if it doesn't warrant its own article when it debuts. It would make a lot more sense to have the short be a subsection of that future article. I think Adventure Time is set up the same way, for example. This isn't really a policy issue, (kinda the opposite, really) just a practicality one.

As you've noticed, it can be hard to find reliable sources for subjects like this one. That's the heart-and-soul of editing Wikipedia a lot of the time. Wikipedia relies on verifiable, reliable sources rather than original research. If there aren't a lot of sources to be found, that's a good indicator that the section should be kept small and limited in scope. Sometimes the sources are just buried in academic journals or college libraries, but that's probably not the case for a recent YouTube series. Grayfell (talk) 00:10, 25 September 2014 (UTC)