Talk:Quebec City
Humour: | 8 | Right, having just read your article in its entirety I find myself torn regarding what you say above. The article is of a good standard already, and I thought so without having any connection or prior knowledge of the city in question. In this particular case, my crippling ignorance is a blessing, the main difficulty that articles like this one face is that people who aren't from that city or who haven't ever heard of that city don't understand jokes, or get the jokes. Your article neatly skirts this issue by setting out a decent amount of context for the rest of your article by following the wikipedian structure and beginning the article with history. This is why I'd encourage you to leave this section where it is, moving it would, in my opinion serve little purpose, especially if you just launch straight into "Modern Quebec City" straight after the preamble, your history section sets up the stereotypes, this section utilises them.
The main issue that I notice reading through is that while a lot of jokes are set up and executed brilliantly others seem to start and then stop before the punchline is reached, turning them into facts rather than witty observations. A good example of this is right at the start where you are explaining the "Amerindian nomenclature" of "Stadacona", the tone of the article builds this to the point where I was just waiting for the punchline to happen, then it doesn't, ultimately finishing far more weakly than it began. This is a trend that occurs a number of times as you go through the article; during the History section, during the Moody Mayor section and during the Places of Interest section. While there is always a place for a rambling tone where the punchline is the constant deferral of an obvious punchline, it strikes me that you aren't aiming for this tone. It is infinitely better to say something like "Which is Amerindian nomenclature for "the place where one can see in the distance like eagle", this because it is a geological plateau with a steep climb on all sides allowing one to have a bird's eye view of the surrounding terrain, not because climbing to the top imbues you with the power of flight and a taste for small woodland animals." While what I have written there isn't the most hilarious sentence ever composed and committed to paper I hope it illustrates my point, something like that is infinitely more satisfying than a slow meandering to a confusing conclusion. This being Uncyclopedia, jokes tend to be anticipated regularly, there are times where your article begins to sound more factual than funny, while the humorous tone is well maintained throughout you do have a tendency to sacrifice humour for explanation. I'm not saying that every sentence must have a joke, too many jokes is just as bad if not worse, than too few. What I am saying is that if you start to make a point, you should make sure it is serving a purpose. I would agree that your history section is a little lengthy but it also contains some of your best humour, lines like "The Americans, suffered a humiliating defeat. It is a globally accepted truth that America is the best nation in all fields and can do no wrong, so all failures on their behalf must be shoved under the rug of history" cracked me up and should absolutely not be cut in the name of brevity. My advice for the majority of the criticism here is to read back through the article, try to divide your article up and identify where you make particular jokes and which lines are dragging jokes out unnecessarily. In terms of trimming the history section some little details can go but as I say, you have some tremendous humour in this section and you should not cut it just for the sake of making the section shorter since it provides a great leveller for those unfamiliar with Quebec city. In terms of expansion, stupid laws are a bit of a challenging prospect, I'd encourage you to have a go if you think you can keep it original, if you're struggling look at what the wikipedia article is focussing on, you can easily parody those sections, this is something I tend to recommend a lot to people struggling to come up with more ideas for articles like this and I've found it works quite well. Ultimately the main areas for you to focus on are to make sure you aren't missing out on potential punchlines and that you are only cutting out what needs to be cut out, not what you feel should be cut out to make the focus more equal. |
Concept: | 7 | I'm a little less keen on this aspect of your article, your tone is a little inconsistent in places. You do a lot with the encyclopaedic tone, but lose track of it with a reasonable amount of frequency. Profanity, like most things, has a place, but needless profanity hurts the style you are using and I would counsel against using it unless you deem it absolutely necessary. The titling of the "Moody Mayor" section is a good example; it would be better, in my opinion at least, for you to avoid being informal in the section headings. Part of the humour of a style like this comes from the appearance of an encyclopaedia article contrasting with humorous prose. While these are fairly minor flaws, they should not be neglected when you look back through the article, try to make sure that in line with the tone you are explaining jokes, stereotypes etc. while a humorous use of either is undoubtedly a good thing, if you don't explain things properly amusement turns swiftly to frustration, your reader becomes the Dickensian orphan pressing their face up against the window of your article gazing at the delights beyond, don't let that happen. Make sure you're keeping it accessible. |
Prose and formatting: | 7 | This isn't too bad, your prose are generally fine, the only major spelling and grammar problems are with your plurals and singulars, just double check these before finishing work on the article, if you're not sure then ask me by all means and I'll do my best to assist. Otherwise everything is broken up nicely and I've gone into any major issues already. The text to image ratio is good though has its own problems, more on that under images. |
Images: | 6 | The main issue here is that the images, while they are well chosen and have amusing captions, relate only tangentially to the text. It is something of a pet peeve of mine, images work much better when illustrating a point already made in the text and you should definitely consider trying this out, captions can be reworked to do this without having to vastly change images or text, just consider the image as illustrating a joke you have already made. Good examples can be found in most featured articles, this being one of the key aspects of successful articles. Have a look at Mordillo's article: Gemeentevervoerbedrijf for some excellent examples. |
Miscellaneous: | 7 | My overall grade of the article. |
Final Score: | 35 | Don't let the criticisms I have made give you the wrong idea, this is a very strong article already and I fully expect you to make it better in future. Make sure that you are doing your jokes justice, make sure they finish as strongly as they start and make sure the images are being better utilised. These are the main points to consider everything else, I feel, would compliment the final product well and are suggestions well worth consideration. Trim the article carefully, I can't stress this enough, you have some really good material in here and your first priority should be making sure this material is preserved. If you have any questions about this then you can ask on my talk page. Good luck making any changes. |
Reviewer: | --ChiefjusticePS3 17:35, July 9, 2012 (UTC) |