Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Chicago Seven

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Chicago Seven

I has a spork here. Dish it out in small portions, and cut it with a knife. What are you looking at? I have a right. Get out. GET OUT!!! Aleister 2:27 31-5-'11

I'll review this this evening. —Unführer Guildy Ritter von Guildensternenstein 19:30, June 1, 2011 (UTC)

Needless to say, I didn't get to this last evening. Today at some point for sure. —Unführer Guildy Ritter von Guildensternenstein 15:02, June 2, 2011 (UTC)

No hurry at all, it's nice of you to say you'll do it (even if you don't). If you have anything else to do (eating things sounds good, as well as bird watching. I've seen birds.), seriously, do that instead. Thanks again. Al 15:35 2-6-'11

Humour:	6.25	Hey Al, sorry this took so long for me to get to. I know you said that you didn't particularly mind, but still, I wish I could have done this in a more timely manner. Anyway, this article is pretty solidly amusing in the humor department, but it falls short of being great. Part of the reason is that this article is over-long at times (more on that later), which hampers any comedic momentum you manage to get going. Indeed, I feel this article's most amusing sections are the introduction and "Charges and Indictment", and the reason for this is because you present a number of jokes succinctly, clearly, and in rapid succession. Let's take the "Charges and Indictment" section as an example: You present the actual charges brought up against the Chicago Seven, what they are essentially being accused of (i.e., driving, lighting a bong, talking and exercising free speech, etc.), and you throw in a couple of the article's running jokes for good measure (i.e., Sunshine and Wildflower, hippie sex, etc.). This one section is the epitome of what the whole article should be: you presenting a slightly-satirized version of the events that actually happened to point out the hypocrisy and injustice of The Man and late 1960s America. While you proverbially 'nail it' (in my opinion, at least) in the "Charges and Indictment" section of the article, the vast majority of this article is over-long, and rehashes what amounts to basically the same jokes over and over again. Throwing in a joke about dirty hippies or how unjust The Man was for the 16th time doesn't add anything to your article, it just bogs it down. More on this when I address Prose and Formatting.
Concept:	8	Easily the strong point of this, in my opinion. Your present a satirized-but-essentially-accurate version of the events in question, with the intent of demonstrating the injustice of The Man (excuse me for over-using that term, but I think it's appropriate given the article's subject matter). As to be expected, your liberal and humanistic impulses (or, as I like to call it, good sense) is present here, which is good. Unfortunately, it becomes rather heavy-handed for much of the article. I'm sure you're aware of this already, but always remember the 'show, don't tell' rule. As in, don't straight-up tell your audience The Man was unjust, show them by recounting your satirical take on the facts of the case and The Man's reaction to them.
Prose and formatting:	5.75	Your comparatively low score here is due to two things. First, there were a lot of misspellings and typos. Nothing too major: you wrote 'defendent' instead of 'defendant', 'unjustice' instead of 'injustice', 'facist' instead of 'fascist', and, once, 'woujldn't' instead of 'wouldn't'. Like I said, nothing major--as a matter of fact, I took the liberty of correcting all of your misspellings already, as my web browser has a spell check feature (which, incidentally, is the only reason I spell as well as I do). Though they're all corrected now, for the purposes of this review I'm going to have to take a point or two off. The second major problem with this--in my opinion, at least--is that this article is really over-long. Excluding things like references and formatting, your article on the Chicago Seven is markedly longer than Wikipedia's article on the same subject, and I didn't even make it through all of the Wikipedia article in preparation for this review. Brevity is the essence of wit, as that one guy said once. Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with writing long articles. Hell, I wrote this and this, which are two of the longest pieces on this site. However, that's to be expected when your aim is to parody something as sizable and broad as a D&D Players' Manual, or as utterly lengthy as Milton's epic poem. What you've done, on the other hand, is take something that could have been effectively conveyed in 1500 to 1800 words and padded it out to something like 3200. This really hampers your comedic momentum, and makes the article more of a chore than pleasure to read. When it comes down to it, you don't need a 17th joke about hippies, or a dozen jokes about Jew-baiting, because only a handful of each are ultimately just as effective. What I suggest you do is edit this article really heavily, remove any and all none-essential material, and streamline the rest. I'd suggest starting with the second paragraph of the introduction (the first paragraph gives you everything you need to know, the second just hampers your momentum), and the whole sections "A rouges gallery of the accused" and "Who were these hippies anyway...", because they're simply unnecessary when you get down to it. I'd also suggest trimming down the "August 28th" and "Trial" sections.
Images:	7.5	With the exception of the picture in the "Rogues gallery", I like all the images you've used. They're all funny, effective, and have pretty good captions. I've never been a fan of bolding picture captions, but that's more a matter of personal taste than anything else, so I'm not going to penalize you for it or anything.
Miscellaneous:	9	Even though I've been very critical (and, hopefully, helpful) in the course of this review, I think this page has tremendous potential. Some vigilant editing on your part, coupled with a bit more polish will put this on the fast track to being your 40-whateverth feature.
Final Score:	36.5	If you want any more feedback from me after you edit it some more, just let me know, and I'll be happy to oblige.
Reviewer:	—Unführer Guildy Ritter von Guildensternenstein 17:28, June 3, 2011 (UTC)