Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Island

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Island

Thank you. Is it any good, or is the ending too derailed? Nameable • mumble? 10:02, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Nameable, I know I have another one to do as well, but these are relatively short so I'll hope to get this one done tonight too. --El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 13:58, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Whenever you get round to it, that'll be great. Nameable • mumble? 15:59, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Just so you know, it will be tomorrow :) --El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 00:31, 17 August 2009 (UTC) Sorry Nameable, if I get time to focus on giving you a decent review I'll do it, but I can't promise anything at the moment... --El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 18:49, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll review (:  –              zh              07:15 August 20

On second thoughts, no.  –              zh              08:57 August 20

User:POTR/Template:PEEing Or maybe I just came in here to put this at the back of the queue again? Hmmm.... Pup t 22:47, 6/09/2009

Prose and   Formatting: The writing style, spelling, grammar, layout and overall appearance.	5	Okay, I'm going to give nothing for spelling and grammar. The reason being is that I doubt that this has been proof-read, with the exception of running this through a spell check. In the first three paragraphs I found inconsistency in the presentation of quotations, smart quotes mixed in with straight quotes, and incorrect smart quotes being used, ellipses not followed by a space. It was also poorly written, passive verbs throughout, and a definite lack of encyclopaedic style. Now while the occasional error for comedic value is okay, the over-abundance here is off-putting, and given this is your introduction, it is a proof reader's nightmare. So from there we kick into layout. I don't like short sections of text, as this has a tendency to make your contents panel huge for no real reason. Especially under types of islands, these are only one or two sentences. Kill the === header, and create your own header by just having the header as Bold text. Again, apology for digression should be a false header under short digression. And I'd suggest shortening the header titles as well In short, the contents panels are there only to provide only one real purpose - to make this look like an encyclopaedia. Has anyone ever come in here, started reading an article like this, and thought "Actually, that section on Apology For That Short Digression looks interesting. I might skip forward to there." You can remove it all together with __NOTOC__ at the top of page, but I'd advise against it as it does remove some of the parody factor of the article. Writing style... It's a tricky one, in that you're writing this as though it were from the perspective of an uneducated slob who thinks he knows something, but the problem there is that in the end you have something that looks as though it's written by an uneducated slob who thinks he knows something. There was some argument recently elsewhere regarding the value of first person perspective in an uncyclopedia article. I won't rehash it all here, but suffice to say that there are people who will be completely against this article on that basis alone. I can't see a way with a complete rewrite of being able to do this - especially as the humour relies heavily on the understanding of the author. As for the general layout and overall appearance of the remainder of the article - good balance of picture vs text, and all uniform size and right float, which is my preference.
Concept: How good an idea is behind the article?	7	Islands are a really dull topic. So if you are going to write an article about islands, make it an article that says that islands are a boring as topic, use that nugget of humour. (I'm not saying anything new, just explaining what you've done.) Also keep it close to the style of the Wikipedia article on the same topic. Even steal images from there if you need to. (I'm impressed to point out your article is actually longer then the Wikipedia that it is parodying, and has less listcruft.) I love that you've taken a dull argument about the classification of islands and thrown it in here at all, as well as inventing a new field of study. (At least I really hope that Islandology is fictitious. Knowing my luck it's probably a fully government subsidised field of study.) Again you've chosen a topic that limits you to having to work in first person.
Humour: How funny is it? Why is it funny? How can it be funnier?	7	The major issue that I have with the humour is the use of Meta-humour and self-reference. In some article it works, here it doesn't, and more to the point it's not necessary for the overall humour value. Otherwise it has good gags in it. It does need a little more humour injected into it, but it's not far off the mark
Images: How are the images? Are they relevant, with good quality and formatting?	7	Nothing exciting about this. The repetition of an image is a nice touch, but when it comes down to it these are lifted from the Wikipedia article and moved here. The last image is a good summary of the end of the article. But in short you're looking at an average score here.
Miscellaneous: The article's overall quality - that indefinable something.	7	Okay, the misc score is an average score as well. I haven't got any misc comments to add except this. I've done an example of the way I would like to see this introduction done, assuming you don't do a major re-write. “ An island is any piece of land that is surrounded by water. That’s all there really is to know about islands. Except of course, no man is an island, as said by John Donne. This is "technically" true, because "technically" no man can be a piece of land surrounded by water. They can be surrounded by water easily enough, but it’s the land thing that makes it tricky. So there is really no reason why everyone should keep quoting him. It wasn’t anything special. I mean, if I say no woman is a landmass, people won’t call me a wise thinker, will they? But then I suppose there is Dawn French... anyway, I digress. The word island comes from the Old English island meaning land that is surrounded by water. It is interesting because it is one of only two English words to have a silent s after an i. The other word is erotisca. The French word for island is île and no one is sure where that comes from. The French word being the word from from France, not from the robust comedienne. Nobody cares what she says. ”
Final Score: How much can it be improved and what are the most important areas to work on.	33	I read somewhere that you were taking a hiatus from Uncyclopedia. If so it's a shame, as you do have some good contributions and your stuff will be missed. This article is worth the effort needed to polish it, and I would love to see it finished.
Reviewer:	Pup t 03:43, 8/09/2009