Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ralph Bakshi/archive2

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 02:20, 1 February 2008.

Ralph Bakshi

previousFAC
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Self nomination. This article has improved greatly since its last FAC, and I believe it is ready for another chance. There are enough references, the context is pretty in depth, there is only two fair use images in the article, and the article itself covers a significantly important subject. Article is currently listed at requests for copyediting, and as such, any problems perceived by FAC reviewers should be fixed before the time the article makes it to FA status. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 00:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]

  • Strong oppose - Despite the superficial impression this article this gives of being adequately-cited, NPOV and well-written, it has a large number of problems:
NPOV
This article passes off lots of POV as fact:
  • "with legendary painter Frank Frazetta", "Hunter S. Thompson's legendary novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, done in the style of Ralph Steadman's legendary illustrations."
  • famed fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta, famed underground comix legend Vaughn Bodé.
  • Hubert Selby Jr.'s controversial novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn.
  • this famous cartoon studio during what were to be its final days. - also, awful prose.
"unquestionably aimed primarily at adult audiences" - bad prose, POV; and... no mention of why it was controversial at all. Fun fact: this sentence is a remnant of the very first draft of the Ralph Bakshi wikipedia article from way back in 2002.
Citations
  • "While Ralph's Spot and Bakshi Productions studios were in production, Bakshi and his crew were always coming up with new ideas for films. Whether it was an original idea or an attempt at portraying an existing story that Bakshi really thought could be animated and make a great film, the ideas were explored to the fullest potential and then most were scraped for other, more immediate, potential projects." - large block of uncited stuff.
  • "Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi" - Why not wait until this book comes out before attempting for FA? As of now, I see zero offline refs and that can be a problem for info from the 70s and 80s.
  • "produced several experimental animated short cartoons, although none of them had a major impact with audiences. Paramount closed its cartoon studio for good in 1967. In 1968, Bakshi founded his own studio, Ralph's Spot, and headed a low-budget but distinctive animated series for television based on the Spider-Man comic book; new episodes appeared until 1970. After 1970, Bakshi left the world of television and went into full-length animated feature films." - big block of uncited, badly-written, opinionated text.
  • Uses forums as a reference multiple times. Some of the refs are "Bode died in an accident related to autoerotic asphyxiation." and "Bakshi's daughter." Should be incorporated into the prose.
  • References aren't consistently formatted.
Prose
Lots of redundant wording, flow problems etc.
  • during the span of his career.
  • Top animators of the era took a full page ad out in Variety telling Bakshi to "take [his] garbage back east." - This is followed by a blockquote by Bakshi himself. This is very confusing as first you're taking Variety's opinion then suddenly followed by a big Bakshi quote the attribution of which is right at the end.
  • "members of the Congress of Racial Equality, led by a young Al Sharpton, none of whom had seen the movie." - That assumes we know Sharpton as an adult; the sentence itself could be improved: none of whom shouldn't come after Sharpton, it reads absurdly.
  • "Sharpton charged up to the screen," What?
  • Lots of past/present/future tense issues - Eg: "Bakshi asked why Sharpton didn't come in and see the movie" - use wouldn't.
  • "who saw Bakshi's film Wizards as being a rip-off" - to whom does "who" refer to here; Vaughn or Mark? Rewrite.
  • "The script he wrote was hysterical, something about a Don Juan Lizard with a wooden dildo because in those days lizards had no balls. At any rate, I loved Vaughn and his family very much and never speak of him because of what he did to himself." - what does all that mean? What did he do to himself? What do you mean in those days lizards had no balls? "I try to erase that whole part of my life out of my mind." - What part? Really, what are you trying to say in that paragraph? It starts with plagiarism accusations and ends with mourning.
  • "Noted fans of Bakshi's include directors Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee,[39] who are both credited as being big fans of Bakshi's 1975 feature Coonskin." - you use fans twice there.
  • Is "stagings" even a word? Does it need to be used twice in the same sentence?
  • "cited as an influence on director Peter Jackson's adaptation" followed by "After initially denying having seen Bakshi's film" seems contradictory.
  • "he wasn't initially inspired to read the books.". Bakshi or Jackson? And what does that quote actualy mean in conjuction with the rest of the sentence? Also, two "initially"s.
  • "Bakshi attributed Jackson's change of tone towards the film to his own vocal complaints through interviews." What? Again ambiguous "his"? "vocal complaints through interviews" - huh? I just can't understand.
  • "One approach I used at the time because it was hard to sell a picture was like shooting ducks in a barrel. I knew what picture I wanted to make cause I could see it visually, so I knew they would work." - again no clue what Bakshi is trying to say. Why not convert some of these quotes into prose?
  • ". Though Bakshi pursued the project, the person holding the rights, a girlfriend of Thompson's, presumably producer Laila Nabulsi, refused because she wanted the film to be made in live action (and it eventually was in 1998)" - Rewrite.
  • A sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat was produced in 1974, without Bakshi's involvement. - remove, not suitable for Bakshi's article.
These are not exhaustive but merely representative of the problems with this article. The prose is very very choppy throughout and the rarely, if ever, does the text actually flow logically from one thing to another. Also I also doubt that image is free; at the very least the actual photograph you based it on would be copyrighted. indopug (talk) 06:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I worked on the things you pointed out. It should be noted, however, that the film is currently at requests for copyediting, so the article should be up to standards by the time it is passed as a FA. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 09:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]
  • Oppose: I agree with everything Indopug has pointed out, including the POV issues. The last sentence in the lead, for example (He encouraged the public to look at animation in a new way by creating worlds that are sometimes familiar and sometimes alien, whose power and strangeness are completely absorbing), comes off as wishy-washy and superfluous. I also take issue with the image; it looks like a copyrighted portrait that has been doctored up in Photoshop. If that is indeed the case, then the license is incorrect as you would not be the copyright holder. It may be better to just do without an image. On a side note regarding the supposedly imminent copyedit, it seems rather optimistic to think that reviewers will want to review this article for FAC if they know that the prose may be drastically altered sometime later. How can we judge an article if someone is soon going to go in and change it all around? I suggest closing this nomination until the copy-edit has been completed so that reviewers can review the version of the article that you want reviewed. That is better than the nominator expecting reviewers to imagine the merits of the article after it has been (hopefully) copy-edited. It may take a while for this article to be seen by someone from the LOCE. María (habla conmigo) 14:17, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment — I created the image. There are no copyright problems with it. There is, in fact, enough of a difference between the image it is based on so that it would NOT violate anyone's copyright. The image as is, I own 100%, and have released it into the public domain. I deleted the sentence that you believe is not NPOV. The article is very high quality as it is, and the issues Indopug has referred to have been cleaned up. There is no reason for anyone not to support this FAC. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 19:51, 27 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]
  • I am not completely up on the image use policies, but you are not the copyright holder of the original image, which is a version of what I found here via a Google search. According to Wikipedia:Image use policy, "Simply re-tracing a copyrighted image or diagram, however, does not necessarily create a new copyright — copyright is generated only by instances of "creativity", and not by the amount of labor which went into the creation of the work." Also, Indopug did state that their suggestions were "merely representative" of the problems throughout the article, and not an exhaustive list. María (habla conmigo) 22:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sorry, but there is no reason why I would not own the image I uploaded to Commons. Andy Warhol once created a series of collages based on previously copyrighted images of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, etc. Warhol's art did not infringe on these copyrights. The copyrights were entirely separate. I created the image, thus I own it, thus I released it into the public domain for use in all WikiProjects in various languages. I fully understand copyright law, and I published this specific image with that understanding. There is no reason why the image would be considered a violation of any copyright law. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 22:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]
Could you address my comments individually (marking as done) so that I know which ones you've addressed? Thanks, indopug (talk) 05:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • Strongoppose. Thank you for your hard work, but I do not feel that this article is ready for FA status at this time. As mentioned above, there are some POV issues and a copyedit is needed. Furthermore, some of the sources are questionable, and the article does not use a recent biography of the subject as a source, leading me to think it would fail the comprehensive criteria. Karanacs (talk) 21:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Per WP:MOSBIO, place of birth should not appear in the lead, but should instead appear in body of article.
    • Reference issues:
    • I agree that this article has POV issues. Any types of extraordinary claims must be sourced appropriately to reliable, independent sources. They cannot be sourced to his website, his forum, or personal websites.
      • Sourcing the potentially disputed text "Bakshi tried to bring change to the industry and pioneered adult animation using political commentary and satire" to his website doesn't cut it.
      • " Bakshi's films have been ranked among the greatest animated films of all time" is sourced to a personal website (unreliable) and the Online Film Critics association. The lead (and article) needs to make it clear who voted on this (the OFC) so readers can decide what they think of that)
    • Mighty Mouse doesn't need to be wikilinked twice in one paragraph
    • The article needs a thorough copyedit. The prose does not flow well, sentence beginnings need to be varied, some sentences are overlong or clunky, and there is unnecessary repetition. Following are a few examples, but this is not a comprehensive list.
      • First paragraph of early life section does not flow well. Five of the first 6 sentences begin with "Bakshi" or "He". Please vary and try to transition better.
      • "saved the jobs of the studio" is not very clear, and that sentence as a whole is unwieldy
      • "he started trying to convince people " -> which people? This sentence is vague and does not sound encyclopedic
      • "In 1967, Bakshi moved to Famous Studios, the animation division of Paramount Pictures, where he was placed in charge of Famous Studios during what were to be its final days." - unnecessary repetition and unneccessary clunkiness - could be simplified to "In 1967, Bakshi became head of Famous Studies, the animation division of Paramount Pictures. Here he hired.... and produced several experimental animated short cartoons. The studio closed later that year, and the following year...."
      • "tagged on " is too colloquial
    • The image of Fire and Ice directing is not properly used in the article. Under Fair Use, the article needs to be discussing what is going on in the picture, and it does not. Either that text needs to be added, or the image should be removed from the article.
      • It clearly DOES illustrate the text next to which it appears. The section describes Bakshi's career during the 1980s. This is represented by a production photo from the making of Fire & Ice. (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 21:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]
    • Why aren't you using the book Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi (The Force Behind Fritz the Cat, Mighty Mouse, Cool World, and The Lord of the Rings) as a source? You reference the book in the article, but it isn't used at all. If the article hasn't consulted a biography of the subject, then I think it can't help but fail the comprehensive criteria.

Karanacs (talk) 17:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't notice that the book hadn't been released yet. I still think, however, that you should wait until the book is released and see what is in there. At the very least, it can help you to remove some of the more questionable sources, and I suspect it will have a lot of worthwhile details. I will strike the "strong" part of my oppose, but I can't support knowing that an ideal source is soon to be released. Karanacs (talk) 21:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just went and looked at the article, and you haven't made any edits since yesterday, so none of the things you've marked fixed have been fixed in the article. I assume you are in the process of working on them; please reply here when you've saved your edits so I can revisit the article. Karanacs (talk) 21:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
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