Talk:Super Bowl commercials/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Wasted Time R (talk · contribs) 11:03, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

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

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This is good treatment in many places, but still has some shortcomings with respect to the good article criteria.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   The lead and citations are particular areas; see comments below

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   The biggest problem is recentism; see comments below

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   No edit wars, but substantial editing after nomination and before review, which is unusual

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

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

   Concerns about the top image are below; rest are okay

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Here are some specific comments:

• The biggest problem with the article is WP:RECENTISM − the article is heavily skewed towards the last few years. There needs to be more coverage of ads from earlier years.
• In particular, Master Lock should have its own section. I've seen every Super Bowl since the beginning, and for many years you would be waiting for the Master Lock commercial to turn up − it was the 'event' among ads. I believe it was the only TV ad the company ran all year, which is certainly unusual. So the article should have more on this, including a quote from their CEO or VP Marketing or the like on their advertising strategy. It should also include the begin and end years of the Super Bowl involvement and why they eventually stopped doing it.
• There also should be a little more on the Mean Joe Greene ad − while it may not have premiered on the Super Bowl, that is where it became famous and it usually places near the top of best Super Bowl ads ever.
• You might add celebrities in ads − the one that most comes to mind is the Leno-Letterman-Oprah spot that ran, production of which was kept a tight secret if I remember correctly.
• I was surprised to see no mention of the Go Daddy ads and their testing of broadcast standards for sexually-themed material.
• There should be a mention of a show that CBS has run for a number of years that counts down the greatest Super Bowl commercials of all time. It was hosted by Jim Nantz for most of the time but then it switched to Boomer Esiason and someone. You could also add what the top finishers have been on that survey. And it and other rankings might point to some early-years ads that deserve mention.
• The image at the top needs updating for years since 2011. And with four lines it's a bit busy − maybe simplify? And what is the original source for the data in it?
• The second sentence of the first paragraph of the lead is a mess. It gives figures as of 2011, not now, and then goes off on a tangent about M*A*S*H. I would just eliminate it, and move "As a result of being one of the few annual events to achieve such wide viewership, many high-profile television commercials are broadcast during the game." into the first paragraph, and then start the second paragraph after that.
• Also, per MOS:BOLDTITLE, the bolding should be removed when it has to be split up like this.
• Regarding "The Super Bowl is one of the few events on American television that a critical mass of viewers (covering almost all demographics and age groups) watch simultaneously." − that's certainly true now, but wasn't true back when it started.
• The cite formatting is inconsistent - in particular, newspapers and magazines like USA Today, LA Weekly, Forbes, etc are sometimes in italics and sometimes not. They should always be in italics.
• Many cites are missing author credits.
• Cites have dates in both mdy and dmy order; it should be mdy given that this is an American subject.
• And newspaper cites must always give dates of publication, not just retrieval dates (the publication one is far more important). See them lacking in footnotes 9, 10, 11 for instance.
• There is a missing closing paren in the sentence with 'Scientology' in it.
• Why is the "Cable and DBS companies of Canada" category here? Does not belong that I can see.

It also concerns me that the article has had many edits, some substantial, since it was nominated back on January 20. It's even had a lot of additions since I started making notes for this review. If you did not consider it finished, why did you nominate it?

Anyway, I'm placing the nomination on hold for now. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:07, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

My original goal was to have this be a GA in time for the Super Bowl, but it took much longer for this article to get through the backlog (and then of course, the Super Bowl itself happened in between, meaning that the page had to be updated to reflect some of its developments). I went through your list and addressed many of those changes. ViperSnake151  Talk  03:11, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Does that mean you are finished with your changes in response to the initial review? Unclear to me.

There are also some MOS issues that need addressing:

• Per MOS:DECADE, decades should be written as "1990s" not "90's" (the usages here do not match the exceptions noted there).
• Per WP:DATERANGE, a year range should be written as "in 1986–87" not in "1986 and '87".
• Per MOS:PUNCT and MOS:QUOTEMARKS, don't use curly single quotes or curly double quotes. For instance there are several of these in And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like '1984.’” Use straight ones instead.
• Per WP:LINKSTYLE, there shouldn't be links inside quotations, which occurs several times in the sentence "Coke's targeting of Latino ..." This could be paraphrased − although on content grounds I think this may be undue weight − was Coke's lack of nutritional value really one of the major reactions to this ad?
• Also, you shouldn't have partial linking inside a quoted name, as in "Invisible Mindy". This can be reworked as "Invisible Mindy" featuring Mindy Kaling.

Wasted Time R (talk) 11:57, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I've addressed most of those issues. I actually trimmed down that Guardian quote too because I felt giving it that much prominence would be undue. ViperSnake151  Talk  23:11, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

There are still MOS issues for which your changes have been incomplete.

• You removed part of the lead bolding but the other part over "television commercials" needs to be removed too.
• You still have many cites missing dates of publication – see 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, and there are many others, for example 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 and so forth. You need to systematically go through all of your cites and add publication dates when they are missing.
• While you're doing this you can also add author credits, since some of your cites are missing those as well.
• One of your cites has The New York Daily News; there is no 'The'.
• One of your cites has Los Angeles Times (Tribune Publishing) and another Huffington Post (AOL); there is no need to include publishing companies in cases like this.
• One of your cites has The Gazette (Montreal); the '(Montreal)' should be outside the italics.

I'll take another look at the content issues as well. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:18, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Here are the content issues still open:

• The section on Master Lock should say it was their primary/only TV ad. See this recent WSJ piece that it was 1/3 of their total ad budget; some other sources like this book say it was their entire TV ad budget and this book which says it was 90 percent of their overall ad budget. Which figure is right? Who knows, but clearly they were notable for spending a big chunk on the Super Bowl, and the article should indicate that.
• Still no mention of Go Daddy ads. Per this source, they likely wouldn't have achieved the success they have without them.
• Still no mention of Letterman-Oprah-Leno. This Variety story that you are already using could be a source.
• That same Variety piece also makes a case for the long-form Chrysler/Detroit ad being mentioned.

Wasted Time R (talk) 02:03, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

@ViperSnake151:, are you still interested in continuing with this nomination? It's been a week and a half since you last edited this article (you have been active in working on other articles during this time). I can see you added some material on Master Lock and Chrysler/Detroit; the other points above are still outstanding. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:08, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

I am getting back to work on this. ViperSnake151  Talk  14:23, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

@Wasted Time R and ViperSnake151: What's the status with this review? It's seems like it's been in idle for over a month. If so, this review should be closed since there has been no activity for quite a while.--Dom497 (talk) 20:52, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I've been holding this open on the hopes that the nominator will finish the few outstanding items. A lot of work has been done and there isn't that far to go. And the nominator has been active on other articles during this time. Usually nominators are driven to get to FA/GA/DYK/whatever status and have to remind the reviewer to finish their part ... this is the reverse and it's a bit puzzling. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

@Wasted Time R: Ok. I would say if no more progress is made in a week (max), it would probably be better to close the review. :) --Dom497 (talk) 19:53, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Is there any reason why you don't want publishers listed? ViperSnake151  Talk  17:45, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Most editors think it isn't very helpful to the reader. On the other hand, it does no harm, so you can leave them in. You can also skip adding author credits to the news cites, they aren't vital. However there really should be dates of publication on all the news cites. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:27, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to have to give up on this one and fail it, there's just no movement forward. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:40, 13 June 2015 (UTC)