Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Birdwatching (resub)

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Birdwatching

Humour:	5	I honestly didn't laugh at this as much as I'd hoped to.
Concept:	8	It's there to be shot at, there are plenty of stereotypes and directions you can use for the article.
Prose and formatting:	7	Could do with a proofread, some sentences are quite clumsy. No obvious spelling errors, and no formatting problems.
Images:	5	There is an image, and it is appropriate. Not funny by itself though, and the caption is kinda 'meh'.
Miscellaneous:	5	I think this can go a lot further. Depends on how much effort you want to put in, really.
Final Score:	30	Needs expansion, and a bit of work. As it is, it's a mildly diverting article, I don't resent having read it, and it's kind of amusing, but I think it needs expansion. See comments below.
Reviewer:	--Sir Under User (Hi, How Are You?) VFH KUN 13:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Here goes:

I think you need to pick more of a direction with this one. All you're really doing is repeating that this really is an interesting pastime. That doesn't have much mileage by itself. It's an OK place to start from, but you need to go places. Here's a couple of ideas:

• The shotgun in the list of equipment points in the direction of hunting. So why not have this becoming more of a hunting article the further you get? Follow the list up by describing how hard birds can be to watch, flying all over the place and stuff. Then explain how it's much easier to watch them if they stay still in one place. It's also much cheaper to study them in detail if you shoot them out of the sky - no need for tags and expensive tracking equipment, there they are, on the ground, not going anywhere. Keep expanding, getting more ridiculously pro-hunting as the piece continues. Could work.

Or:

• At least go into more detail. Explain why it's so interesting. Just saying it's interesting, and then implying that people who do it have no life is a really easy stereotype, and not particularly funny by itself. What may be funnier is having experts trying to explain the interest, either by couching it all in "extreme" sports terminology ("dude, you gotta slam those binoculars to your eyes, totally rip your concentration, ride your focus, and like, stare at that patch of ground until your gnarly bird nails a two-point landing, and you can strike it up on your list! Sweet!" - something like that, but more considered, I'm typing on the fly here!), or having them at least trying to explain the appeal and not understand how anyone can fail to be enthused by it ("well, of course, there's the thrill of the hunt, spending days at a time to find the nesting territory of a bird can be endlessly rewarding, and I often have to have a lie down to cool off after discovering another fragment of eggshell! And the feeling of achievement when a bird is fooled by your lure and swoops across your field of vision for a fraction of a second is immense - I'm sure that other sports, computer games, TV and sex just can't compare!")

OK, they're not great examples, but it's a bit more than just saying birdwatching is interesting in a faintly sarcastic fashion. Give it a bit of thought and see where you can take it.

Of course, you can just discard all this advice if you like, other opinions are available. Good luck! --Sir Under User (Hi, How Are You?) VFH KUN 13:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)