Wikipedia:Peer review/Walt Disney/archive3

Walt Disney

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I have worked in the past to improve the content of this article and am looking for suggestions to help this article reach GA status, and need assistance with evaluating its current quality and making improvements before actually nominating it for GA. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Tiggerjay (talk) 23:37, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Comments by H1nkles

Thank you for your efforts to improve this article on a seminal figure in the world-wide entertainment industry. I'll review the article with the GA Criteria in mind since that is your aim at this point. I'm not completely familiar with WP's policies on biographies so you should make sure this article conforms to those policies and is comprehensive. This review will be done in installments given my busy life and the length of the article. So hang in there and we'll get through this together.

Lead

• I see several and templates in the lead. Per WP:LEAD you don't have to have citations in the lead because it is assumed that the information in the lead will appear in the body of the article with citations. One or two references wouldn't hurt or be discouraged though.
• The lead for this article is going to be important and difficult to write. A lead should be a summary of the entire article. It is a skeletal version of the article. An article of this length should have 3 to 4 paragraphs.
• One thing I can see already that will need to be addressed is the use of peacock words. Keep terms like "well-known", and "popular" to a minimum.
• From a writing stand point there are two instances of "well-known" and one occurance of "best-known", consider using different terms.

Beginnings

• Is there a reference for the sentence about the family settling in Norton Disney?
• "He also developed his love for trains in Marceline, which owed its existence to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway which ran through town." Two "whiches" in the same sentence usually means two subjects in one sentence, which isn't good prose. Consider rewriting or breaking up the sentence.
• consider combining the two sentences about Walt listening for the coming train and looking for his engineer uncle.
• See WP:LINK. You only need to link a term once in the article, perhaps twice if it is a long article and the term is not used very often. You link Disney's parents twice in two paragraphs, this isn't necessary and overlinking should be checked throughout the article.
• I added a tag to the end of the Childhood section where it says that Disney acknowledged that Electric Park was a major influence on his design of Disneyland. This should be sourced.
• Consider tightening up the prose in the Teenage years section. A key to good WP writing is not to say in 10 words what you can say in 5. Here's an example:

"After considering becoming an actor or a newspaper artist, he decided he wanted to create a career in the newspaper, drawing political caricatures or comic strips."

Rewrite - "He considered a career as an actor but decided he wanted to draw political caricatures or comic strips for a newspaper." It is not redundant and is more direct.

• Book titles should be italicized.
• "Walt and Harman then secured a deal with local theater owner Frank L. Newman — arguably the most popular "showman" in the Kansas City area at the time — to screen their cartoons — which they titled "Laugh-O-Grams" — at his local theater." This sentence should be reworked.

Here's how I would do it: "Disney and Harman agreed to screen their cartoons at a local theater owned by Frank Newman who was one of the most popular "showman" in Kansas City." I would put the fact that they were entitled "Laugh-O-Grams" in the preceding sentence about hiring Harmon, I would add that they created cartoons they called "Laugh-O-Grams".

• Also it's important to be consistent with using last names, which is better than first names. I wouldn't refer to Disney as Walt, especially when you refer to Fred Harman by his last name.
• When did he open the Laugh-O-Gram studio and then when did he move to Hollywood?
• I would move the details about the Disney Bros studio to the Hollywood section. This makes more sense then in the Alice Comedies section. I would also move the info about the Alice Comedies in the Hollywood section down to the Alice Comedies section for the same reason.
• There are no references in the Alice Comedies section, this needs to be remedied.
• The Oswald the lucky rabbit section is underreferenced, I count two in the last paragraph. This should also be remedied.
• "Mickey's popularity would now skyrocket in the early 1930s." This sentence is important but not well-written. Consider reworking thus, "Mickey's popularity grew steadily during the early 1930's." "Skyrocket" is a peacock word and "would now" doesn't fit in the past tense.
• Check your linking of the Ub Iwerks studio. Make sure you link the first reference to this studio.
• I notice the use of the word "would" a lot on the text. This word often diminishes the force of the writing and isn't usually necessary. Example:

"The same year also saw competition increase as Max Fleischer's flapper cartoon character, Betty Boop, would gain more popularity among theater audiences."

Remove "would" and make "gain" → "gained".

• The section entitled "First Academy Award" has one part of a sentence about an Academy Award and the rest of the sentence and the section is about the stable of characters that surrounded Mickey Mouse. I think the section should be renamed. Also the first sentence has two subjects and should be split into two sentences, perhaps even three. More review to come. H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 17:45, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Golden age of animation

• The Disney's Folly section is under referenced. Claims like the fact that other industry insiders dubbed Snow White "Disney's Folly" need to be sourced. Same can be said for the fact that Snow White was the most successful movie of 1938 and grossed over $8m in its initial release.
• I don't think the picture of the Cinderella book belongs in the section about Snow White. There are two reasons for this, first Cinderalla didn't come out until 1950 and second the picture of Disney with the seven dwarfs sits right below it. It's a great picture, I would just move it to the Post-war era section.
• The caption also links to the story of Cinderella rather than Disney's film version, I would recommend linking it to the Disney film.
• The tag is warranted here. Why were the Silly Symphonies ended?
• The paragraph about the financial disappointment of Pinocchio and Fantasia and the animators strike needs to be referenced.

WWII Era

• One sentence paragraphs are frowned upon. Consider expanding or combining the information with the paragraph below.
• Why the information about Benton's unsuccessful bid for Disney to make educational films? I'm not sure that this adds.
• Consider moving the Amazon Basin information up to the paragraph about WWII.
• I think all of this information could fit into one paragraph. Though I'm surprised there wasn't more activity or happenings during WWII.
• Why are there five references for this information? That seems kind of overkill.

Post-war period

• "Disney studios also created inexpensive package films, containing collections of cartoon shorts, and issued them to theaters during this period." The word "also" infers that something else was happening during this time frame. This is the first sentence in the section so the readers don't know what else was happening so I would remove "also", unless this information belongs in the WWII section.
• I don't think this is a good way to start this section. I would instead start with the big picture, like the beginning of the second paragraph.
• the end of the first paragraph talks about Mickey's waning popularity after the end of the war. In my opinion we've heard multiple times now about Mickey's waxing and waning popularity and the various reasons for it. This isn't an article about Mickey Mouse so I would eliminate further discussion about his popularity unless there is something notable that impacts Disney. Make sure you're staying on topic.
• "In 1948 the studio also initiated a series of live-action nature films, titled True-Life Adventures, with On Seal Island the first." The writing here isn't very clear. "In 1948 the studio initiaed a series of live-action nature films entitled True-Life Adventures, it's debut episode was On Seal Island."
• References needed for the one-sentence paragraph on the space program films. Also either expand or combine the one-sentence paragraph.
• I would move the image of Disney with Von Braun up to the top of the section, it spills into the testimony before congress section and throws off the spacing for the Theme parks section. Since the reference to Von Braun is above the picture this move makes sense.
• Another one-sentence paragraph in the Testimony before Congress section. Ok I'll leave it there for now, more to come as we dive into Disneyland. H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 16:16, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Theme parks and beyond

• I added a template to the first paragraph in this section. This section is very under referenced.
• This sentence is a bit awkward, "As Disney explained one of his earliest plans to Herb Ryman, who created the first aerial drawing of Disneyland presented to the Bank of America during fund raising for the project, he said, "Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train."

I would remove the portion about being presented to BofA for funding. It's a bit too detailed and tangental to the subject of the sentence.

• I don't think you need to put the full date for the media preview of DLand. Seems a bit redundant, perhaps replace with "the day before" or something to that effect.
• "...Disneyland hosted a live TV preview, among the thousands of people in attendance were Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings and Art Linkletter, who shared cohosting duties, as well as the mayor of Anaheim."

Not sure about this sentence, it sounds like Disneyland and Art Linkletter hosted the event. I assume Linkletter cohosted with Disney?

• The Carolwood Pacific Railroad section seems chronologically out of place where it is. I would place it at the beginning of the Theme park section as a precursor and inspiration for the train in Disneyland. The section also needs to be referenced.
• To build on the previous entry, the chronology of the events in this section seem to be out of order. Expansion into new areas contains portions before and after the opening of Disneyland. You talk about the opening of DLand and give the date...again, which is duplicative information. In my opinion the entire Theme park section should be reworked to give it more continuity and flow.
• I'm not sure it's wise to speculate about how much competition Disney would have posed to Hanna Barbera in the Saturday morning TV cartoon slot.
• I would make his death a full separate section. It doesn't really coincide with the subject of Theme parks and beyond.
• In-line citations belong at the end of sentences or at least after punctuation marks like commas. Ref 81 is dropped right in the middle of the sentence and this is usually frowned upon.

Legacy

• What is a terrestrial television network?
• One or two sentence sections like the family museum are frowned upon. Can this be expanded?
• In the awards section there are dates in (parentheses) for all the awards except the last three. Why is that?
• I would remove the HBO show since it was abandoned, this doesn't seem to be significant enough for inclusion.

References

• Dead links need to be fixed.
• Here are a list of the dead links by reference #: 2, 4, 61, 71, and 97.
• The most important thing about formatting the references is consistency. There are a myriad of ways to reference an article but whatever way you choose to use, please use it throughout the article. Here are some examples of inconsistency with referencing in the article:

• The Gabler references. I see you rely heavily on this source, it is important to give the full book reference first and then the abbreviated reference for all the various pages you pull info from. When you do that then the rest of the abbreviated references can simply be Galber (2006), p. x. No need for the title of the book or the author's first name. Another idea is to put all book references in a Bibliography or References section with the abbreviated references for page numbers in the Notes section. See the Olympic Games article (which is FA) as an example.
• I see you have a References section with one book, why aren't the other books in this section?
• There are a few (94 and 95) that are simply website urls w/o publisher, title or accessdate. Wherever possible add date of the article and author.
• You link to Disney in the references a few times. Why? It doesn't seem to add much. I assume that Disney is the publisher of the particular website referenced? If so then the publisher should be the entire formal name (ie Walt Disney Company).
• Ref 37, the publisher is, "at ESPN website". Just say ESPN.
• Page range indications. If there is a page range say pp. or pgs. Sometimes you say pp. other times it's just p. This is nitpicky I know but if your aim is FA at some point for this article then that is one of those fussy little details that will need to be addressed.

• Ref 97 appears to be a blog, or a personal homepage (it's listed as a dead link as well). See WP:VERIFIABILITY and WP:CITE for policies on citations. Chat rooms, blogs, social networking sites and personal pages are not considered credible sites and should be avoided when referencing articles.
• Are you familiar with the {{cite web}} and {{cite book}} templates? These will help you formalize the references and make them more consistent.
• An article of this profile should have a considerable amount of book references. These are always viewed with higher credibility than websites because of the third party review and editing process that books go through. Google Books is a great online resource.
• Don't put books in the further reading section that are referenced in the article. It's duplicative. To me further reading sections in general are duplicative. If the information in the further reading books is important then it would be referenced in the artice so what is the need for a further reading section. That said I know people like the section so I wont go so far as to say it should be eliminated, but if the book is referenced in the article it shouldn't also be listed in the further reading section.

Overall

• The foundations of this article are sound and a lot of the heavy lifting has been done.
• But there is a lot of work still to be done to get this ready for GA consideration and beyond. Here are some general thoughts:

• The article is under-referenced and should be beefed up.
• Referencing needs to be more consistent and an overhaul of the references section should be done per my recommendations above.
• There are some comprehensive issues with the article:

• The article seems heavy on his company's work straying away from his life. I understand he was very involved in the projects his company was involved in but it seems hard to separate the company from the man. Is there information on his personal life during the pre-war through 1966 years? There are snippets of information, he moved from one home to another and had a railroad built for example. But for the most part the article covers his company and what it did.
• What about the personal relationships he built with the men who helped him start his company. There is quite a bit of information about these men early in the article but then they disappear. Did they all break ties with Disney?
• What other criticisms were leveled at Disney other than anti-semitism? A man of that much power and that much influence must have made some enemies and must of made some mistakes. Was there backlash for his collusion with the government during the Red Scare for example?

• The writing needs to be reviewed. I recommend a thorough copy edit after the content work is done.

• Those are the big things that should be addressed before the article goes to GAC. This concludes my review I hope you found it helpful. If you have questions or concerns please contact me on my talk page as I do not watch review pages. If you found the review helpful please consider reviewing an article here or a GAC to help reduce the ever-present backlog of articles that need to be reviewed. Best of luck to you. H1nkles (talk) _{citius altius fortius} 17:50, 31 May 2011 (UTC)