Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Neptune (2nd)

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Neptune

Mimo&maxus 16:09, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

I've got this one. --ChiefjusticeDS 12:20, February 10, 2012 (UTC)

Humour:	4	Right, before I get going properly with my comments here I should say that this article is by no means bad and that and the score for this section should not be inferred as being indicative of failure. I like the general style that you adopt for your humour; the factual presentation of information that is obviously untrue is one of my favourite ways of writing and I think it is used fairly well here. However, several problems did strike me as I read through the article and I will suggest a remedy for those. I should point out also that I have not read the other review of this one this both because I am a terrible person and because I feel it prejudices me to focus on the same points as them so I apologise if I mention issues that have already been brought to your attention. The first thing that struck me about your article was that the randomness seems to be without direction for the most part. To explain: you go from a section which gives us a basic run-down of what Neptune is for the purposes of your article and that is that it is a planet (duh) that you have given various characteristics. My assumption on completing this was that the rest of the article would be considered in a similar vein e.g. "Neptune is of very similar composition to Uranus, a comparison that Neptune does all it can to discourage." That, while not comedy gold, makes a bit more sense to me than what you choose to do. You go from the initial text describing it into a section that talks about Neptune's 'remarkable career in music'. My main problem here is that rather than being nonsense with a factual basis we have simply moved to nonsense with occasional witty observations. This formula rarely works as made up aspects of the article must be carried by the concept, so in your case if you want to make your point about the vocals on Neptune's first prog rock track being from its moon, it should be as part of a point about why the Moon might sing about that. I fear I have not made my concern evident above so I will attempt to clear the waters as to why I feel it is an issue. You have to bear in mind why people will be coming to and reading your article, they are likely looking for some sort of witty observations regarding the planet and some general silliness regarding it, they are less likely to want to read imaginings, however well written, about "wild drumming time sigs that move from 12/8 to 35/6" on the planet's first non-existent progressive rock track. This joke is more likely to be palatable if it springs from a fact about the planet: "The storms that regularly occur on Neptune create the feeling of listening to a killer drum solo, while being simultaneously frozen, decompressed and tossed about by supersonic wind." You must understand that the more layers you add to nonsense the harder it becomes to find funny, if I say "Darth Vader is a Sith Lord who likes to wear high heels because he occasionally likes to feel pretty" I may get a chuckle from the mental image that produces but if I then go on to say "He bought these shoes at a small boutique on Tatooine, the boutique was run by an Angel who is actually Kurt Cobain and Elvis Presley merged into a single being." the joke becomes less and less funny and more and more stupid. A lot of people find stupid things hilarious, but you have to remember we are trying to be funny and not just stupid. When you are being silly the more layers you add to the joke the less amusing it becomes. I feel this is the main issue with your humour, you can obviously write with imagination and wit but your article in my opinion, takes the jokes further than they need to be taken and suffers for this. My advice is to have a think about your concept, which I will come onto, whatever you decide to do with that you can move back to your humour. Have a look at HTBFANJS and some of the other articles on planets (Earth is a particularly good one) and see how the authors are presenting the subject. You can continue to use your style by all means but ensure you are being careful with it, reread your jokes and try to decide, can this joke be shorter? Does this joke have a basis from which to work? You do this well in your preamble so it's just a matter of extending that. It's also a good idea to look at incorporating an underlying joke into your article as is the case with Earth. I know you already have something like this but it may be worth re-assessing, I leave that up to you however.
Concept:	5	The concept, like the humour, isn't particularly bad in of itself. The main issue you run into is in your execution. You have obviously decided that you want to juxtapose facts with silliness. This is a good approach to use and one that works very well. What you need to consider for your article is whether you should re-title your sections, it may prove easier for you to directly parody the Wikipedia page on Neptune; I get the impression that you have already had a look at it. I feel that if you take the information you need from the Wikipedia article you may find it a lot easier to find a source for a lot of your existing jokes so you need not rewrite but rather reshuffle. I'd suggest a quick look at the disambiguation page which might give you some good ideas. If you don't want to make this change then let the other articles on planets guide your changes, other writers are also on hand to offer advice on the best way to take your article if you decide you want to write in this fashion. If you aren't sure what I mean by any of this you are welcome to ask on my talk page where I will attempt to explain more clearly.
Prose and formatting:	7	I'm much happier in this regard. Your spelling and grammar are ok, I corrected one error as I read through and I'd recommend you double check for more. Proofreading is, regrettably, something of a necessity when presenting articles for VFH, you don't want to have Socky silently judging you in the article history. Always read through after you make changes and you should be absolutely fine. Copy the article into a word document and use the spellchecker there, it often catches issues that browser spellcheckers don't. However you seem to be doing okay at this so far so I won't belabour the point more than I already have done. Your image placement is fine and there are plenty of them, no issues there.
Images:	8	Your images are relevant to your text and they are captioned well, no real issues to resolve here. Hurrah! My only advice would be that if you make any major changes to the article the images should change also and you should make sure the captions remain relevant.
Miscellaneous:	6	My overall grade of the article.
Final Score:	30	This is by no means a poor effort and there are parts of it that did get a smile from me. The issue however is that these laughs are being prevented simply through jokes being made without a basis or where they have a basis they outstay their welcome and become an irritant to the reader. I have discussed your humour at length already so I won't repeat myself unduly. Have a look at some other articles on this topic and have a look at HTBFANJS, not because I think you must but because there are a lot of helpful tips in it and these can often be the source of good ideas and good jokes. If you are disappointed by lower scores than you were expecting then I urge you not to be, your article has potential to be excellent and at the end of the day this review is just my opinion, there are plenty of others available if mine is not helpful to you. If you do have any questions or comments about this review then you can leave a message on my talk page and I'll be happy to respond. Good luck making any changes.
Reviewer:	--ChiefjusticeDS 13:38, February 10, 2012 (UTC)