Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Monmouth

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Monmouth

A bit stuck at the moment. Definitely too many in-jokes, but I want to keep some of them. I've been trying to link it with the Newport article, possible making it "sister cities" with other shit places (noticed that wikipedia has been adding sister cities at the bottom of pages). I would appreciate more specific advice like "delete this" or "add this" instead of general comments. Thanks. Baina 22:36, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• I like bits of this and would review it, but i don't think i'll be much help on this one... I can only suggest taking a look at the recently featured Failure University article... Get some ideas from there to get an idea how not to be so blatant Sir ACROLO KUN • FPW • AOTM • FA •(SPAM) 07:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Read the article and I must say, I nearly pissed myself haha. Thanks, I think I'll get some ideas from that.--Baina 23:39, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
    • • I'm in here but I'm happy for you to go and have a look at the article while I'm messing about in here and write down whatever you like on the talk page. I may be a little while Pup t 04:54, 21/07/2009

Ahem, Before I get too deeply into this, for the uninitiated I am reviewing this article here, although that may indeed change over time, so the most up to date version should be here.

Prose and   Formatting: The writing style, spelling, grammar, layout and overall appearance.	5	All right Chuckles, let's see what's in this bag here then. That's interesting, it looks like an original work of art, or failing that, an article for Uncyclopedia. Well, why don't you sit on Uncle Poppy Ontaradieu's knee and well talk all about it. Okay, are you comfortable there? Well let's have a look at this. You know, when I was a little lad we used to have this thing called bulletin boards, where people would write lots and lots and lots of these things called words. Now some clever person came up with a way to link all these bulletin board thingies together. Then some other clever person came along and created this thing called a browser that we would all view them in. Now when I use my browser to look at you artwork, I have this first view come up. Now an old feller like me, my eyes aren't what they used to be, so I use a resolution called one-oh-two-four by seven-six-eight. So when I open this page the first thing I see is what we used to call the "first view." So in my first view here, I have a rather lovely looking pink template, that gives me absolutely nothing at all about the article, and in fact makes me want to go away. What was that? Why do I want to go away? Well, you see little Chuckles, I'm not British, and the first thing that your article does is attempts to alienate the Americans, the Canadians, and the Australians. The second thing is something that takes four lines of code to replace what could have been done with {{Whoops2|link here|'''display text here'''}}. This bit I do like, but the whole lot falls apart straight afterward, with what is known as quoticide. You see, Chuckles, one thing that you are trying to do is appeal to the biggest possible audience. Now most of the population will start to read these quotes, which are from Charles Rolls, who I'll come back to, Lord Nelson, Osama Bin Laden, Russian Reversal, Oscar Wilde, and Captain Obvious. Now seeing this list I'm glad that people are deciding to avoid in-jokes, because to someone outside of the Uncyclopedia community most of these would mean nothing. Fortunately I'm part of the Uncyclopedia community, so this mean I understand these in-jokes. It's just a horrible shame that I'm sick of them. Oh, and the other thing that I saw on the right hand side of the screen is an image from the top of an infobox. It's a pretty bridge and a pretty caption below it. It's a shame I can't see the rest of it. Now the real problem here, Chuckles, is that I'm looking at this and there's almost nothing to make me want to keep reading. I compare this to a random article, say for instance Failure University, and the opening on that, and the first thing that grabs me is the witty text and the infobox on the right hand side. So if I just cut away this template here, this pseudo-template here, and these quotes here and - well looky there. The layout is almost the same as good old FU. But don't let yourself get down about it. Let's have a look at the second view. Eh, what was that. Oh, that's where I hit the PgDn key over here. Yes, my ability to pronounce words with no vowels in is amazing. So let's have a looky lou here. Argh! Two redlinks! No Category:Self-respecting encyclopedias would allow an article to feature that has two redlinks. That's okay, let's try another view down because these might be exceptions. Three redlinks! That's an average of one per view so far. Well, let's keep going down. You might be able to get away with them. Umm... give me a second, Chuckles, I'm counting redlinks. Well, all in all I counted 15 redlinks. Redlinks everywhere! Redlinks as far as the eye can see. Now some may argue that redlinks are okay. Redlinks happen all the time in an open source document like this. But 15 redlinks all stuck together in one article are an eyesore as well as an issue. It says that you haven't even tried to make sure that you have no redlinks at all. Especially as most of these redlinks would have been there when you first finished this artwork. So maybe you should get rid of them? Okay, now once you've gotten rid of the redlinks we won't have to talk about redlinks any more. Okay, so we've discussed layout and overall appearance, now onto spelling, grammar and writing style. Tell you what, I'm going to skip this for the most part. Oh, there are a couple of minor issues, but as you'll be doing a fair bit more work on this, I'm sure you'll take advantage of one of a million grammar and spell checks that are available out there, including of course our very own UN:PROOF The minor things I would pick on would be things like including the use of the word leach. Now leach is a valid word - it relates to a few things, but one of those would be the transitive verb meaning to get the crap out of a solvent by passing it through a mixture. The problem here is that a verb is a "doing" word, and here you've described something as "being" a leach, which means you're talking about a noun. So in this instance I'd say that you might want to use the word "leech." I know, us old people can be picky about the funniest things. Now the other thing that I'll point out is over-using local colloquialisms. Now you might notice that I haven't told you so far that you've done a "bewdy bonza article, and she'll be sweet, no wukkas," because I know that if I use colloquialisms from my home town you'll think me a drongo. By the same token the words "Chav" and "whitegash" are almost completely unknown to me, and the word "kinky" has, I assume, a very different meaning. (And we usually don't have capital letters in the middle of sentences.) I like to see these words used, especially when being used as quotes from the locals, but not in your narrative. Okay, Chuckles, you go and play for a minute as Uncle Poppy need to go and empty his catheter.
Concept: How good an idea is behind the article?	6	Ah, Chuckles, there you are. I've been looking all over for you. Why are you hiding in the attic and going through all my boxes of stuff left over from the war? I've told you before to keep out of there. There may even be live ammunition left over in those. Now I'm just going to sit down on this chest over here and tell you some other things that I was thinking of when reading that wonderful artwork of yours. Now I have to say that I've never been to this lovely Monmouth of yours - and by your description I doubt that I ever will want to go there. But I'm trying to work out why you've mentioned... hang on a second, I'll find it here soon. My eyes aren't weren't what they used to be. Ah yes, you've mentioned Hereford before you've even gotten to the table of contents. Now other than hurricanes hardly ever happening in Hereford - or in Hartford or Hampshire for that matter - I don't know much about the place. But I have to confess I don't know what these two have to do with each other. Monmouth does sound very interesting though. One thing I found out that it was once occupied during Roman times, and at that stage it was called "Blestium", which means "The Offshoot settlement." It sounds like not even the Romans thought about it as a town in and of itself. Like a town that doesn't show up on the world map. In fact it would hardly show up on a map of the town. Henry the fifth was born there, although to his friends he was simple called Henry Vee. He went on to beat up the French... oh, you've mentioned that them. Well, it's not surprising, it appears that the battle of Agincourt was so exciting to the town that large sections of the town are named after it, including the town square. Yes, it seems the most exciting thing to happen to Monmouth happened in another country, and another continent, and involved a lot of Frenchmen, and only one person from Monmouth. Apparently none of the rest of the town could be there because someone had stolen all the horses. Charles Rolls was born there. Oh that's right, you did mention him extremely quickly. A man so depressed by the poor fortune of being born in Monmouth that he decided to commit suicide by aeroplane. He even had to invent his own aeroplane with which to do so. He was the first person who died this way. Now this is something that I'd like to explain to you about these sort of articles. There is something stupid in every town, and all you have to do is look. The truth is the funniest thing that you will ever hear, and knowing this town as well as you do, you would be able to give me some very funny truths I'm sure. Then you wouldn't have to rely on all this bullocks about "Mad Will and his Gay lover." Now, I'll have to go downstairs, my arthritis is playing up. There's nothing funny about growing old, young Chuckles.
Humour: How funny is it? Why is it funny? How can it be funnier?	6	Chuckles, is that my old army rifle? What are you doing with it at the kitchen table? Oh, you're going to take it to school are you. Is this some kind of "show and tell" thing? Well, that's a collector's piece and no doubt about it. Do you know how to use it? I've shown you before, have I? That's part of the problem with getting old young Chuckles. First your bladder goes, and then your joints, and then your memory. Or is it your eyesight before your bladder, I can never remember. Anyway, I was looking through this report of yours, and I have to say there were a few small funny things about it. The problem is you see that you have not stopped to read HTBFANJS properly. In there it gives you lots of ideas on how to make things funny. Escalation, Repetition, Misdirection, Understatement, Repetition, Being Self-referential, Having a straight man... and did I mention repetition? Unfortunately you seem to lose any of this by relying on the same tired jokes over and over. I can tell you three things about Monmouth after reading just your report. The people there like to have relations with sheep. There is a lot of crime in Monmouth Ummm... I can't quite think of the third thing. Now one of these jokes may work as repetition. Both of them together become monotonous. If I repeate the same thing over and over again it would be monotonous. Monotony is the same thing going over and over, like a broken record. Oh, of course, you kids wouldn't know about records. Well if there's a scratch in your record it can keep playing the same thing over and over. It becomes quite monotonous. Oh, and one other thing. Fifteen redlinks. I hope you've learnt your lesson about these, Chuckles. As you can see they are really horribly distracting. Excuse me Chuckles. I have to go and take my next lot of meds.
Images: How are the images? Are they relevant, with good quality and formatting?	5	Chuckles, your school principle has asked me to talk to you. I'm not very good at using this megaphone. If you could come down from the roof it might make this a little easier. Or at least if you put down the gun. Okay, if you have to stay up there then I guess you have to. Now I've been looking at the images that you put on this assignment of yours. Now the first image is pretty good. It's a boring postcard picture of a boring place, but with a very clever caption below it. The second image is a dilapidated train station. In black and white. And there's a sheep in the picture. Just the one sheep. Oh, he appears four times, sometimes facing left and sometimes facing right, but it's the same sheep. I can't even see the fact that he appears a fifth time on the roof, my eyesight is so poor and the sheep is so small. The historical comparison of Monmouth is funny. I do like the way that that works. I'd personally have this as two separate images, and both in different views, as the first image alone looks right for what it's supposed to be. The other thing I would do is convert it into sepis, like the photo s of your grandma as a little girl. Have I shown you that photo yet? Would you like to come down here and see it. That's okay, you come down when you're ready. Rolf the dog. Freaky photo. I don;t know that it works for what it's supposed to be, but it's definitely freaky. Tumbleweeds for entertainment. Good visual joke, but it does somewhat take away from the "Culture" and the "Nightlife" sections, as that is what they cover. I do like the picture of the student. Was that taken at this high school. Where is that young lad, I'd like to borrow his hat. And finally that image of the lads. That is not a bad photo, but the caption doesn't quite bring it to life. It sounds like a joke that your dad would tell, and you don;t want to include any dad jokes do you. Chuckles, don't you point that rifle at me. If I have to come up -
Miscellaneous: The article's overall quality - that indefinable something.	5	Hello, doctor. How are you today. I'm feeling much better, to tell you the truth. You removed that bullet like you do that every day. I'm sure the feeling in the left hand side of my body will come back eventually. I don't know what happened. I was trying to tell him that although he had problems with his essay, overall it showed promise. He could take some time to read through HTBFANJS, or read similar articles like FU. He could also ask somebody who has had a little more experience at these thing to look at his code at the back end, or help him out with Images, like at UN:PIC, or have somebody give him a hand with the proofreading, like at UN:PROOF. But of course, he never gave me the chance.
Final Score: How much can it be improved and what are the most important areas to work on.	27	Chuckles was a good boy, and it is with a heavy heart that I give this eulogy for him now. One of the last things he said to me was "I would appreciate more specific advice like "delete this" or "add this" instead of general comments", and I thought that I had done that. But maybe he just didn't have the time to listen to an old fool like me. Oh, and I just realised, his city sounds a lot like "Mosman", which has a similar demographic, although a little more affluent, and is in New South Wales. The similarities make it sound ideal as a sister city. Of course, there's not an article on that in Uncyclopedia yet.
Reviewer:	Pup t 08:00, 21/07/2009