Talk:Lovely (Desperate Housewives)

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Good articleLovely (Desperate Housewives) has been listed as one of the Media and drama good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
April 11, 2010Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 3, 2010.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that when Dana Delany and Julie Benz shared a kiss scene for the Desperate Housewives episode "Lovely", Delaney noticed "crew members on the set that were never there before"?

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Lovely (Desperate Housewives)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Judith Merrick (talk) 18:54, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting article but had a stolen (or accidently wrongly taken) photo. I took it out so now it is a good article. Judith Merrick (talk) 18:54, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Judith, the photo is a television episode screenshot, which is permitted for use if a fair use rationale can be explained. The current photo has a fair use rationale. Perhaps it needs to be strengthened, but I think rather than removing the photo without discussion, we should go over why it needs strengthening and what is lacking in the fair use rationale? I've readded the photo for the time being so we can discuss this further... — Hunter Kahn 20:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I abstain from considering this article for GA. Using a legal excuse may be permitted but we are stealing if we use it. I don't want to cause trouble so I am not voting for or against GA. Good luck. See if you can have the will power and not use the photo. Judith Merrick (talk) 00:03, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please note to any future reviewers - I had removed the picture and informed Judith so she could continue the review. However, she has not responded, and I can only assume she is no longer interested in conducting this GAN review. I have restored the picture for now, so that whoever takes on this review in the future can judge a) whether the picture should be removed, b) whether it's fine as is or c) whether the fair use rationale needs to be strengthened. Thanks! — Hunter Kahn 14:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Lovely (Desperate Housewives)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Matthewedwards :  Chat  22:37, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'll be reviewing this article against the Good article criteria. I have already checked it against the "quick fail criteria", and it passes that, so I will now begin the "review proper". This may take me a few days, so please be patient :)

I will be back soon with a complete review. All the best, Matthewedwards :  Chat  22:37, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
    Prose is generally good, but I have some issues regarding the plot.
    • Although the subject of the article is an episode of a serialized drama, we shouldn't make the article serialized in the same manner. It currently assumes the reader knows too much. Maybe they do know some of the background, but maybe they don't, especially if they arrive here by Special:Random. They may have never seen an episode. Take the first two sentences of the Plot section: "The episode opens with the residents of Wisteria Lane throwing a "Welcome Home" Party for Katherine Mayfair (Dana Delany), who has just returned home from a mental hospital. There, everyone meets Robin Gallagher..." Who are the residents of Wisteria Lane? Where is Wisteria Lane? Why has Katherine been in a mental hospital? Who is "everyone"? As a reader I am unable to put any of this into WP:Context
    • "Robin Gallagher (Julie Benz), a former stripper who has just moved in with Susan (Teri Hatcher)." Why? Has Susan been living alone or does she have a husband and son? (hint, hint)
    • "Lynette (Felicity Huffman), who is in the middle of celebrating her anniversary with Tom" Wedding anniversary, one assumes?
    • "[Bree] is having trouble connecting with her husband Orson (Kyle MacLachlan), who is confined to a wheelchair." Why is she having trouble? Why is he in a wheelchair?
    • "Ever since learning their neighbors the Bolens are on the run," - the who? Why are they on the run? "On the run" is also unsuitable WP:TONE for an encyclopedia. Please try to come up with something less informal
    • Don't WP:OVERLINK common terms such as "New York City", especially if they have no real relevance on the understanding of the article
    • "Susan grows jealous when Robin starts giving Mike (James Denton) massages to ease his sore back. Susan tries to give Mike a massage, but ends up putting him in the hospital. She confesses her jealousy to Robin, who decides to preserve their friendship by moving out." is a parastub and should be expanded or merged with another paragraph
    • As you're going over the plot, it's like "Robin saw A, and did B. Robin saw C, and did D. Robin saw E, and did F. It's a bit to repetitive and linear. Try mixing it all up a bit.
    • My recommendation is to have an introductory paragraph, telling the backstory of what's happened in this season with a sentence or two didcated to each of the wives. Bree has been having an affair with Susan's ex husband, Karl, who died during the cul-de-sac's Christmas celebrations, which also put her husband, Orson, into a wheelchair. Lynette, a mother of four, found out that she was pregnant with twins, but lost one of them, creating a rift between her and Tom, her husband. Susan, who recently remarried her second husband, Mike, has invited a former stripper, Robin, to move in, after Susan, who inherited a stripclub from Karl, learned that Robin wanted to stop stripping, etc etc etc. Basically, the article needs to provide the reader with context. See WP:MOSFICT#Contextual presentation and WP:MOSFICT#Plot summaries.
    • After that initial paragraph, you can then go into the actual plot sum of this episode. I would go with one paragraph for the initial setup and backstory just one paragraph for the episode summary. Right now, some of what is in the Plot is too much of a recap, for example, "Later, Robin asks Bree (Marcia Cross) for help in baking a cake to thank Susan and Mike for helping her." or "Robin seems happy to be on Wisteria Lane. She is out for a walk when she runs into Karen McCluskey (Kathryn Joosten), who asks her if anyone is giving her flak for being a former stripper. Robin tells Karen that everyone has been very nice to her, and that even though she spent many years being stared at, this is the first time in her life she feels as though anyone actually "sees her"." See WP:PLOTSUMNOT and WP:Plot summaries.
    • The production section is pretty good. There's some good information about the lesbian storyline, with good quotes from both actresses involved; however, I feel that some sentences are not necessary, such as "Delany said of the filming, "There were all of a sudden crew members on the set that were never there before. Typical male interest." -- What does this really have to do with how the episode was made?
    • The sentence, "In an interview with E! Online, actress Marcia Cross jokingly said of the kiss scene, "I'm a little jealous that I'm not involved. What is going on?"[6]" would be better suited being placed next to the one that says, ""A lot of the ladies on the set have said, 'Why has this not happened before?' I think everybody wanted to be the one who got to do it."[2]"
    • "The pairing between Robin and Katherine would be the first lesbian relationship in Desperate Housewives." why is this in a future tense?
    • Besides writing about the lesbian storyline, is there anything that can be said about the other characters? Were any of the other characters developed during the episode?
    • The Cultural references section is very trivial, and as it has no real impact on the episode, I have to question whether it should be there
    • "Among viewers between ages 18 and 49, it received a 3.7 rating/9 share," -- this is WP:JARGON and needs explaining to the average reader.
    • "but said introduction of Katherine's possible lesbianism" seems like it's missing a "the" after "said" -- please check
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
    • "Delany compared Katherine's new realizations to that of actress Meredith Baxter, who realized she was a lesbian late in her life after entering into a relationship with a woman." The bit about Baxter needs a reference as it is a WP:BLP issue
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
    • Besides writing about the one storyline, can you say anything about how else the episode was produced? When was it filmed? When was it written? Where was it filmed? I fear the article may have a problem with regards to the Production section because all it discusses is one storyline, not how the actual episode was produced.
    • There's a bit of waffling about ratings for previously and subsequently aired episodes. Try to stick to information about this episode. If you're trying to show the ratings are declining week by week, just say that.
    • "just as "The Glamorous Life" competed against the 52nd Grammy Awards,[12] and "How About a Friendly Shrink?" competed against the 67th Golden Globe Awards." again, not important to this episode. Suggest moving it to Desperate Housewives (season 6) instead. Stick to the facts that relate to the subject of this article
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
    A Distribution section where the article can state what countries the episode has aired in would do a lot to avoid WP:BIAS. Besides ABC, was it made available for viewing on any new media formats such as streaming at ABC.com or Hulu? Is it downloadable from iTunes? etc) This section could be developed in the future when it gets released on DVD and sent to syndication. Besides it airing on ABC, you should also include broadcast information for other major countries for which en.wp has readership, such as Canada, Aus, UK and NZ.
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
    Checks out fine
  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):
    The FUR for the Lede image could be strengthened so it without doubt meets WP:NFCC#8. A couple of good examples of articles that meet NFCC for reference are The Stolen Earth, and Mother and Child Reunion (Degrassi: The Next Generation). (Check the File pages of the lede images, and use the FURs from them)
  7. Overall:
    A pretty decent article, but there are issues. I will place the nomination on hold for seven days so that the nominator and other page editors have the chance to address the concerns raised. Good luck! Matthewedwards :  Chat  06:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Pass/Fail:

Thanks for the very thorough review. My initial responses are below. Please give me any feedback you'd like and I'll respond in turn. Thanks again! — Hunter Kahn 03:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • OK, so, initially, I disagreed with your assessment that the plot summary needed more back story. I've felt given the serialized nature of the series, it would bog down these episode articles if every one included it. Also, especially given that this particular show involves so many characters and so many subplots, the summary is already slightly longer that WP:MOSTV recommends, and adding back story would only lengthen it. However, your talk of an introductory paragraph struck me as sort of a good idea, except I placed it into a subsection separate from the episode summary itself. This allowed me to further tighten the plot summary section a bit too. I think it's better this way, but I'd like your feedback. — Hunter Kahn 03:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem as I see it is that somebody comes to the article, somebody who has never watched the show, has no clue about the characters, and it immediately jumps into all the residents on Wisteria Lane, and everybody welcomes her. This somebody doesn't know who the residents are or who everybody is? It then went on to mention things that had happened in previous episodes that one would only know about by watching those earlier episodes. I didn't mean that you had to go over every single plotline from every previous episode, just what is important to aid the reader's understanding of this article. If it is possible to just write about this episode without referring to anything has has happened in other episodes, then that would be fine, but because the episodes are serialized, you need to inform the reader of some of those plots. I tweaked the wording of the intro paragraph, but it seemed okay. (Why no mention of Tom or Lynette though? I haven't seen the episode, were they not an integral part of the storyline?) Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with you that the back story intro paragraph works well. And I didn't mention Tom and Lynette because although they play a role in the episode, there were no continuing subplots up to this point that played any role in this episode. — Hunter Kahn 12:48, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    MOS:TV's recommendation of a plot section being 200 to 500 words is ancient. It was written when WP:PLOTSUM and a bunch of others said that, but now they all say the plot should be a similar size to the other sections. However, I think that the actual summary for this episode is still too long. It still reads like a recap, rather than a summary and I'd still like to see some of it cut. Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I've tried to tighten it further as per your suggestion. The episode section (not include back story) is now below 450 and I think is much improved. — Hunter Kahn 12:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding the quote about all the male crew members watching the lesbian kiss scene, I tightened it a bit. Normally I wouldn't be opposed to dropping it altogether, but since it was the hook of this article's DYK (see the talk page), I'd rather not get rid of it entirely. I also think it provides some interesting information about the filming which I know borders on trivia, but I don't think it's so bad that it warrants removal. — Hunter Kahn 03:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I wasn't aware it was part of the DYK hook. I suppose it can be left in the article as it's not doing too much harm. Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately, I couldn't find much for the production section besides the information about the lesbian subplot, which naturally generated the most press. However, I don't think this should count as a strike against the article, as long as I'm not neglecting any sources... — Hunter Kahn 03:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay. You can only work within the confines of reliable secondary sources, so if that's all that has been covered by the sources, and you've exhausted them all, then you're right, I won't count it as a strike against the article. Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've removed the cultural references section, although frankly, most television episode articles have one, and I think they are fine as long as they are well cited with reliable sources. I'd ask you to maybe reconsider it, but if you still feel the same way, leave it out. — Hunter Kahn 03:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:OSE doesn't mean it should be here too. Just because something can be sourced, doesn't mean it is suitable for inclusion, and to me, WP:TRIVIA generally isn't suitable. Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, no problem. — Hunter Kahn 12:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've added a citation tag on the Baxter thing directly to the end of that sentence. — Hunter Kahn 03:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, good. Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd like to make an a strong argument that the ratings info stay as is. I mean, if you have specific things you need reworded or removed or whatever, that's fine, but I think it's OK to mention the other episodes as long as they are mentioned in a context of why it relates to this episode. In the end, it's all still about this episode, not to mention the fact that this episode article is really all part of an interconnected series of articles about the season. Anyway, let me know what you think... (I did, however, remove the bit about "Glamorous Life" and "Friendly Shrink" with regards to the Grammys and Golden Globes. — Hunter Kahn 03:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You make a valid point, and it's not worth arguing back and forth over. If you have strong feelings that it stay, then I can live with it. Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have not found any reliable sources with any info about this episode's broadcast outside the United States. As a result, when I made the "Distribution" section as per your suggestions, it was limited to Hulu and iTunes info besides the United States bit. It was only one sentence and in my opinion not worthy of a separate section, so for the time being I've reverted it back. Can you direct me to any sources that I might have missed regarding other broadcasts? — Hunter Kahn 03:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Something like Radio Times would give information for the UK. I'm sure other countries have similar TV listings magazines that can be used as sources. I checked the website for Radio Times, and the UK is only up to "If...". http://au.tv.yahoo.com/desperate-housewives/ shows that the Australian Seven Network is only up to the one where Katherine stabs herself, so they're a while behind too. It may not be possible to find sources right now, but in the future this information should definitely be added in. Your best bet for sources is asking someone on WP who lives in those countries to go to the store and collect the issue date, issue number, ISSN, page number, etc etc for the TV listings magazines for the week the episode is broadcast. Canada's CTV Television Network probably aired the episode on the same date as ABC did. Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'll keep this in mind for the future. — Hunter Kahn 12:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've tried to strengthen the FUR base on the examples you gave me. — Hunter Kahn 03:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so I have a couple more comments now. :)

  • "Danny, who leaves town in a taxi, secretly at night, to chase Ana." -- where has Ana gone?
    • I added a sentence to make it more clear she went to NYC. — Hunter Kahn 12:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Try to come up with something that is more formal and suitable in WP:TONE for an encyclopedia for "giving her flak".
    • That part is gone now due to my edits to shorten the plot summary. — Hunter Kahn 12:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • For that backstory paragraph, it would be a good idea to use {{cite episode}} to refer to events that occurred in previous episodes.
  • Try to cut down some of the unnecessary parts of the plot section so that it doesn't read like a recap of the scenes.

Good luck! Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  1. Pass/Fail:

Hi. I've made a few script edits to the article, fixed a couple of typos and added three references. Coupled with the improvements done during the GAN, I believe this now meets WP:GA?, and I am happy to announce that I have decided to list the article at WP:GA. Well done to Hunter Kahn, and everyone else who has contributed to the article! Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:20, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unsourced notes section[edit]

I've removed the unsourced notes section from this article (as have other editors in the past) but it appears to be restored again. I know the editor means well, but the only source they cite for this information is the Internet Movie Database, which is not a reliable source. I could go to that site right now and add myself to the cast if I wanted to. I was planning on removing the section again, but wanted to post here first in case anybody had anything to say, or in case anybody could come up with a reliable source for the info... — Hunter Kahn 13:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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