Talk:Winter Is Coming/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ealdgyth (talk · contribs) 14:33, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll bite. I liked the books, liked the shows, and there is a huge backlog of "pop culture" GANs... review incoming. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:33, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Some prose issues and the lead doesn't meet requirements

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   Citation needed tags need addressing as well as some issues with the reliablity of some sources

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

• Lead seems a bit skimpy, and the short paragraphs give the prose a choppy feel. Suggest adding a bit to the lead to help avoid the choppy feel to the prose. You also have information in the lead that is not in the body of the article - per WP:LEAD all information in the lead should be in the body of the article also.
• Plot:
  • A problem here is that you mention a lot of things like "The Wall" or "Night's Watch" or "Kingsguard" without specifying what they are. I realize there is a a limit to space for the plot section, but it might be better to lose some of the details that aren't important (such as the detail that a raven bore a letter - instead of "Catelyn informs her husband that a raven has come bearing a letter announcing the death of Jon Arryn, The Hand of the King and Eddard's old mentor. The message also reports that the king himself is coming to Winterfell." this might work better "Catelyn tells Ned that news has come of the death of Jon Arryn, Ned's old mentor who has been the Hand of the King, or main royal advisor, and that the king is coming to Winterfell." The whole section would benefit from this, as right now unless you are a fan of the books you really won't get a lot of the context here.
    • I've gone through and tried to implement these via a series of expansions, trimmings, copyeditings, and the like. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
• In the North:
  • "After the opening sequence, the Starks of Winterfell are introduced, including Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark (Sean Bean), his wife, Lady Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley) and their six children, the heir Robb Stark (Richard Madden), Ned's illegitimate son Jon Snow (Kit Harington), the eldest daughter Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), the youngest daughter Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), ten-year-old Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) and the youngest son, Rickon Stark (Art Parkinson)."... runon sentence and it also implies that Jon Snow is also Catelyn's son because you have him listed here in with the rest of the children. Suggest breaking this sentence down into several sentences.
    • Revised. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
• Across the Narrow Sea:
  • "...in exchange for the Khal's army." suggest "... in exchange for the Khal leading his army in support of Viserys." or something similar. I don't think it was ever stated that the Khal would give his army to Viserys.
    • Revised. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
• Original pilot:
  • "HBO, after acquiring the rights to the novels with the intent of turning them into an international cable television series." Why is "international" in there? Sounds like you copied it from a press release.
    • Added a ref for international. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Need to address the citation needed tags here in the article. Cannot be a GA without these being addressed.
  • "...reusing the sets of Kingdom of Heaven to stand in for Pentos..." totally lost me here. What is "Kingdom of Heaven" - another movie? another TV show? link? And what is Pentos? There will be people reading this that have not read the books slavishly - you need to provide context for those readers also.
    • Revised. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
  • "In the series, Winterfell was created combining different locations in Northern Ireland and all the scenes from Pentos were relocated to Malta." I believe you mean "In the series as it actually aired, Winterfell was filmed at different locations in Northern Ireland and all the scenes from Pentos were relocated to Malta."
    • Revised. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
  • "The pilot remained unaired and the first episode was filmed by new director Tim Van Patten, although some scenes from the original pilot were used in the final cut." I believe you mean: "The original pilot remained unaired and the first aired episode was filmed by new director Tim Van Patten, although some scenes from the original pilot were used in the final cut of the aired episodes."
    • Revised. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
• Writing:
  • "The creators stated that this last change was made to simplify the narrative arc, having the situation improve gradually." Huh? I think one thing would be "the writers" instead of "creators" but what situation? Context is key here.
    • Removed, since it needed to grow a LOT in order to be clear, and would have been about the arc, not the episode. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
• Reception:
  • Do we know where else the episode has aired? Given the "international" nature of the series - surely it's aired elsewhere.
    • There's a ref to Sky Atlantic viewership, and per IMDb it's aired in 30+ countries to date. How much do you want to see about that? Do we need foreign language reviews? Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
      • If we can see some foreign language viewership or reviews, just to show something beyond the US and UK - that'd be good and help with the "broad" coverage. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:59, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
        • I've added refs to Canada, Mexico, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand. There has been a real dearth of solid reviews in those local papers, though. They print the teaser/promo material the few days before the airing, but then there's not a lot of RS coverage of the airing. I found an indirect ref to its popularity on an article on copyright and file sharing, though... Jclemens (talk) 05:38, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
• General:
  • Is there more critical reception, now that some time has passed? Did not HBO decide to commit to a second season after the first episode, or was that before even that first episode aired?
    • Yes. Added that.
  • the plot section is a bit overmuch for the size of the rest of the article. Some solutions might be to cut the plot section down a bit (as per the example section above) as well as fill out a bit more - where were the scenes for this episode shot?
    • I've trimmed a bit, will try to augment others, but since this has to do the exposition of everything in a way that future episode articles do not, I'm open to other suggestions on how to balance the article better while leaving it accessible to newcomers. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Added more to the international, preview, and reception sections, although not a whole lot relative to the text in the plot, it's my hope that copyediting that and expanding the rest has brought the balance to an acceptable level. Jclemens (talk) 05:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
• References:
  • What makes http://winter-is-coming.net/ a reliable source?
  • What makes http://www.westeros.org/GoT/ a reliable source?
    • These are both reputable fansites endorsed by GRRM in his "not a blog", but I will see if I can replace them. Jclemens (talk) 23:09, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Any progress on this? They are probably both borderline - and it'd be best to replace them. I honestly lean not reliable even with the GRRM endorsement. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:59, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
        • Replaced Winter-is-coming, but the Westeros.org ones we're using are 1) to Harry Lloyd's interview, a primary source, and 2) an analysis of which chapters of the book were covered in the episode, and which new scenes were added for the adaptation. In looking for replacements elsewhere (especially for 2) in my work on these series, I just don't see it covered in any RS anywhere. I don't want to remove the material, but I also don't think it's "challenged or likely to be challenged" material that requires and RS citation. I would prefer to leave it in as is: cited to a reasonably respected fansite, vs. removing it or leaving it in uncited. Jclemens (talk) 05:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
• Images:
  • I'm not sure that File:Eddard Stark.jpg is going to pass fair use muster - it doesn't really "identify" the episode - it identifies the character - but a critical scene from the episode itself would be needed to ID the episode. And any such screenshot would need some commentary also.
    • Rephrased FUR. If needed, I can dig up a bit on the beheading, which was actually part of the teaser, too. Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Let's go ahead and put in something to tie the pic to the episode ... mentioning that the pic was used in the teaser wouldn't hurt with the FUR.
        • Found a cite, put it in the new section on the preview. Jclemens (talk) 05:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
• These problems probably aren't utterly unfixable, but they do need attention before I'll feel comfortable passing the article.

I've put the article on hold for seven days to allow folks to address the issues I've brought up. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, or here with any concerns, and let me know one of those places when the issues have been addressed. If I may suggest that you strike out, check mark, or otherwise mark the items I've detailed, that will make it possible for me to see what's been addressed, and you can keep track of what's been done and what still needs to be worked on. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:19, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, we're to the point where I'd like you to review the work done to date and propose additional tweaks or any other deficiencies that have come to light. Not saying everything's done, of course, but it should be a good bit closer. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 06:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks good enough for me. I can't say it's anywhere close to FA status but it meets the GA criteria - good work! Ealdgyth - Talk 19:50, 11 January 2012 (UTC)