- The lead doesn't introduce what what the topic of this article is. I had no idea whether this is referring to a single theatrical performance or a series of theatrical performances which toured together.
- Other parts of the lead assume readers know all about the subject. For instance, the first para includes "As with the initial run in 2011, the 2012 performances were co-produced by Burnt Thicket Theatre and Raise Their Voice and were directed by Stephen Waldschmidt. Carl Kennedy portrayed Jason, Evelyn Chew portrayed Number 18, Glenda Warkentin portrayed Marta, Alysa van Haastert portrayed Ali, and Sienna Howell-Holden portrayed Mama." makes little sense to readers who've never heard of this play and aren't familiar with its characters or the history of previous productions.
- " Andrew Kooman, the playwright, was glad to have the tour conclude in his hometown of Red Deer, Alberta because the people of Central Alberta were very supportive of the play." - trivia and PR-speak
- The second paragraph provides way more detail than is appropriate for the lead
- The third paragraph of the lead reads like an advertisement
- The first sentence of the 'Preparations' section isn't well phrased, and doesn't really introduce the subject
- On that subject, this section doesn't provide any background on what the play is, and appears to assume that whoever's reading it is highly familiar with the play
- Much of the content of the article is quotes from people closely associated with the play commenting how important it is, how terrible conditions are in the developing world, etc. Pretty much all of this material could be removed or summarised, and the net impact of it is to make the article read like promotional material for the play.
- Much of the other material is trivia. We don't need to know absolutely everything associated with this string of performances (for instance, 'Chew was planning on returning to drama school', 'Chew is fluent in English, so dialect coach Nathan Schmidt trained her to speak in such a way that she would sound as though her first language was something other than English' (isn't this normal for an English-speaker portraying someone who's not fluent?) and 'there was a fundraiser for the tour at Foothills Alliance Church in Calgary, featuring desserts, hors d'oeuvres, an art auction,').
- "statistics gathered by the federal government of the United States suggest that there are approximately 300000 forced prostitutes in North America between the ages of 10 and 17" - is this actually true? (eg, which US federal government report provides this information?). The number seems horrifyingly high.
- "Some Americans expressed an interest in staging She Has a Name in the United States as well." - which Americans, and what's the relevance of this to the subject of the article? (the tour of this play through Canada).
- Watch out for advertisement-speak such as "A Better World (ABW), an organization based in Lacombe, Alberta, partnered with Raise Their Voice throughout the tour"
- The 'Talkback panels' section could be reduced to a single paragraph: we don't need to know who spoke at each session and what their message was
- The 'Impact' section actually says almost nothing about the play's impact - most of it is text describing the work of the charity which was involved in the production and outlining what they hoped to spend any money raised through the play on
- What's the relevance of the first half of the para which begins with "The day that the play opened in Ottawa, MP Joy Smith presented Bill C-10 to the Senate of Canada;" - this section makes no connection between the tour and the bill entering parliament.
- This section also states that "Smith personally supported the She Has a Name while she was in Ottawa and when the play was performed in Winnipeg where she serves as MP", but the supporting reference states "Member of Parliament Joy Smith is going to be part of the talk back in Winnipeg and Ottawa" which doesn't establish that she 'personnaly supports' the play (eg, 'personally supports' is vague advertising-talk, and 'Smith participated in the talkback sessions in...' is true to what happened - though you need a source which states that she actually was able to make it to these sessions rather than the current one which states that she intended to take part).
- "Nonetheless, The Chronicle Herald consented that the play was well-rehearsed and ran smoothly." - what 'consented' means here is unclear (I presume you mean 'conceded' - which is rather POV), and if this is the only thing positive they said about the performance it's not worth mentioning.
- While the coverage of this review in the article summarises it as: "The Chronicle Herald was very critical of the play, blaming Waldschmidt for directing the actors to shout their lines and writing that Chew was the only actor who performed admirably", on my reading the reviewer was mainly focused on what he saw as major problems with the script. He seems to have thought that the actors were generally OK (with Chew being the stand out) and the production standards were good.
- File:DisciplesCelebrate.jpg probably needs an ORTS release
Nick-D (
talk)
05:54, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- I have introduced the subject in the lead, added more background information and reworded sentences so as to not assume the reader's prior knowledge of the play, removed trivial information and PR-speak, reduced the level of detail in the second paragraph of the lead, made the third paragraph of the lead less advertisement-like, removed quotations from people closely associated with the play, removed the sentence about Americans expressing an interest in staging the play in the United States, shortened the "Talkback panels" section to one paragraph and merged it with the following section, removed the word "Impact", clarified the relationship between Joy Smith and the play, and summarized the Chronicle Herald review better. I hope I have addressed these concerns to your liking; please let me know if I have not. The only two of your concerns that I know that I have not addressed are the concern about the accuracy of the "300000" statistic and the ORTS release for File:DisciplesCelebrate.jpg. I have tracked down a book that states that the report itself is cited in a journal article, and I should be able to find the journal article through my local library; I will try to do so soon and then add the name of the report. As for the ORTS release, how do I go about doing that? The image appears to have been uploaded by someone who claims to be the copyright holder.
Neelix (
talk)
21:22, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- That was quick! Those changes look good, and I'll post a more full review over coming days (hopefully tomorrow). I might be able to help with checking the journal article BTW (I'm a student at a major university with an excellent online library system) - please let me know if you can't find it. Regards,
Nick-D (
talk)
10:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- Thank you for your offer of help. I have found an article in the
UN Chronicle and another in
The Christian Century that both state that the United States Department of Health and Human Services report a number of 300000. Unfortunately, neither article names the report. Does the US Department of Health and Human Services name their reports? I have added both the UN Chronicle and The Christian Century sources to the article. A publication by the United Nations should be reputable, but it would be nice to be able to cite the report itself. Do you find the additional sourcing sufficient? If not, any help you can provide in locating the report itself would be greatly appreciated. Also, I know that your offer of help was specific to finding a source for this particular statistic, but if you would be able to help in performing (or locating someone to perform) the copyedit that SandyGeorgia has requested, that would be greatly appreciated as well.
Neelix (
talk)
20:50, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- The 1995 UN reference seems rather outdated. Googling the figure returns various advocacy websites which claim that this is (variously) the number of prostitutes and/or children at risk in the US or South East Asia but nothing I can find backs this up. It's hardly unknown for well meaning human rights campaigners to use outdated or wrong data I'm afraid. You could ask at
WP:GOCE for a copy editor or approach
Dank (
talk ·
contribs) (though I don't think he usually copy edits whole articles).
Nick-D (
talk)
11:04, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
Further comments:
- I'm afraid that I agree with Sandy's comments on prose - many of the paragraphs don't flow well (for instance, the first para of the 'Background' section is about two quite different topics and the sentences don't run together all that well). This makes the article heavy going.
- While the shorter length helps, I still think that the article is over long - this is about a small scale production which has had no lasting impact, and very few people are going to read through all this detail.
- The following as some examples of issues with prose and the amount of detail in the article:
- "Actively opposing human trafficking on a political level" - this doesn't mean much as worded (eg, any citizen can advocate for or against things politically; I think you mean 'government level' or equivalent, and even then its a bit vauge - is Smith a member of the Government and was this a government policy? - and I'm still not seeing any clear connection to this string of performances).
- "She Has a Name was selected to be performed in this festival by lottery. Of the total 34 spots in the festival, 13 spots were reserved for shows local to Calgary; 30 local shows applied, and She Has a Name was one of the 13 successful applicants." - if the play was accepted on the basis of luck, this could be expressed much more concisely.
- "Local supporters in Victoria" - this is redundant - people living in Victoria are obviously locals of the area. In general, 'local' can be avoided.
- "These supporters worked to bring the play to Victoria in order to increase awareness about human trafficking on a local level, bringing attention to cases like that of Stephen Charlie, a man who was charged by the RCMP with forcibly prostituting a sixteen-year-old girl in Victoria and advertising her online." - who were these 'supporters'? (and avoid terms like 'these supporters worked' which are fairly leaden)
- The reference provided doesn't support much of this BTW (eg, the appeal for $10,000 in donations was still going at the the time and there's no mention of Stephen Charlie.
- "Opening night in Edmonton coincided with President of the United States Barack Obama's speech about human trafficking to the Clinton Global Initiative." - what's the relevance of this? Was this a deliberate tie-in or pure chance?
- I think that a spot check of references is also needed.
All up, and I really don't want to come across as harsh considering the large amount of work which has clearly gone into this article, I'd suggest that you consider withdrawing this nomination until it's thoroughly copy edited and trimmed down.
Nick-D (
talk)
11:04, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- I would be glad to follow whatever course of action you deem most expedient in improving the article to featured status. I have addressed all of the concerns you have mentioned to the best of my ability. Would the trim you suggest be part of the copyedit the article will likely eventually receive through GOCE or are there further points you wish to make before I send the article there? I want the article to be fully prepared for its next FAC.
Neelix (
talk)
15:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- While hopefully the copy editor will weed out unnecessary material, I'd suggest that you also go through the article paragraph by paragraph and weed out material which isn't directly relevant to the topic of the article or which you judge would be considered too much detail by someone with a keen but not deep interest in the topic (which is essentially the key audience for Wikipedia articles, IMO). Regards,
Nick-D (
talk)
10:40, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- I have attempted to follow your advice. Have I weeded out the unnecessary material you mention? I have contacted
Dank (
talk ·
contribs), but he is too busy to copyedit this article. I have therefore listed the article at GOCE, but there is a nearly two-month backlog there. If there is anything that I can do in the meantime, I would greatly appreciate instruction.
Neelix (
talk)
16:19, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- That helps, but there's still heaps of surplus detail. For instance, I'm still not seeing the connection between this tour and the bill outlawing human trafficking or Barrack Obama's speech and the Victoria News article simply doesn't support the claim that the performance was linked to raising awareness of the Stephen Charlie case.
Nick-D (
talk)
22:49, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- Joy Smith visited Ottawa to present the human-trafficking-related Bill C-10 to the Senate; she agreed to speak at a performance of the human-trafficking-related play She Has a Name while she was in Ottawa to present this bill. Obama's human-trafficking-related speech (the first by a United States president) occurred on the same day that She Has a Name opened in Edmonton, and this fact was noted as a significant coincidence by a reviewer. Can you think of a way to make these two connections clearer? I have removed the note about Stephen Charlie.
Neelix (
talk)
21:24, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- There doesn't actually appear to be a clear connection between the bill's introduction and the play, and there's obviously no connection between Obama's speech and the play other than pure chance so it's not worth including.
Nick-D (
talk)
22:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- I have removed the references to the bill and the speech. Are there any other details you feel should be removed?
Neelix (
talk)
03:50, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- I really don't want to be unkind, but there's still lots of surplus details, and I'm not going to work through the article and list them. As I suggested above, a good approach would be to systematically go through the article and summarise or remove everything which is unlikely to be of interest to a moderately motivated reader. As some examples to help you: "Brad G Graham served as stage manager", "Programs also included warnings about subject matter and language.[22] These find correlation in the play; the play deals with mature themes[1] and includes profanity." (could be a single short sentence noting that the play contains this stuff and audiences were warned accordingly), "Like Waldschmidt,[27] Wiebe had previously acted as Jesus in Drumheller's Canadian Badlands Passion Play", and the 'reviews' section could be cut back by reducing the use of quotes (also, I'd suggest a more common word than 'approbating'). I hope that's helpful. Regards,
Nick-D (
talk)
06:25, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- I have followed your advice and have removed the details you mention in addition to a significant amount of other information from the article. I believe that what remains is not trivial. Have I removed detail to your satisfaction?
Neelix (
talk)
14:01, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
reply
- Those changes look really good (sorry for the slow response BTW). Regards,
Nick-D (
talk)
09:52, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
reply
- I'm glad the changes meet with your approval. Does that mean that you support the nomination or is there something else you wish me to do to improve the article?
Neelix (
talk)
03:24, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
reply
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