Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Punji Stick

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Punji Stick

This article is short but painful as hell.

Funnybony 21:13, October 3, 2009 (UTC)

Short, but well written and thought out. Good work!

--Psychokitten 03:27, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

I'll really try to review this within 24 hours and see if I get the point. King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  05:13, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

"Get the POINT!" --- Haaa! Good pun on the subject--Funnybony 11:12, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

Yep, something like "This article is short but painful as hell." King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  14:07, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

Sure! The article is the same as it's subject, 'short but painful as hell', so it kinda matches.--Funnybony 18:08, October 11, 2009 (UTC)

Humour:	5	Intro You've suffered through one of my reviews before, so I'll just focus on my knowledge of your topic. Most of what I know about punji sticks comes from a few minutes of a lecture of a modern history class I took many years ago. My humour score is a mix--some parts I find very funny, some I don't. I'm combining my comments on Humour and on Prose and Formatting, but am scoring them separately. "Punji Stick is a type of bamboo carved...." Your opening is very encyclopedic, which I like. A few corrections--a punji stick is made out of bamboo but isn't a type of bamboo (at least as far as I know). Also "stripes" not "strips." I like the red and white stripes fooling hooch hungry soldiers, and the gingerbread reference to Hans and Gretel being tricked by the witch. I enjoyed your first paragraph. "Punji sticks are often placed...They were the primary weapon in the arsenal...."--I don't understand this part. Also notice present-past conflict ("are often placed" and "were the".) "Punji sticks were always...." Here, they're the trap, not leading to the trap (although if you can make it fit I do like the Iron Maiden reference). "The point of penetration...."--again, it's a trap. "...get his nut....'--there's no real problem with this phrase, but it's likely only people in a very limited age range will be familiar with it (of course many will know what a "nut" is). "...Atomic Bombs and Proton Cannons"--I don't get how punji sticks compliment these (also there's several spelling and grammatical errors here--if you want someone to look that or any article over, you can add {{Proofread}} to an article). "Ever since Howard Cosell vowed...."--I know who Howard Cosell is, but don't get the joke here or in the losing popularity part (I saw a poll where he was the top vote getter for favorite sportscaster and also the top vote getter for least favorite sportscaster--an amazing achievement). I do like "If you happen to step on a Punji Stick, DO NOT STEP ON IT! - That's an ORDER!"--love the irony. Wartime Use Like the Alfred E. Neuman quote. "Punji sticks would be placed...." Sorry, but I don't find most of this funny, especially falling into pits with cannons. I do like "This tactic would delay the enemy as it would take them hours to pick up all the body parts." Types of holes known to contain Punji Stick The five holes I like except it doesn't fit the theme you began with (I know you do have "apart from laying Punji sticks on the ground..." to explain this, but I think it would be better if we knew something about alternate uses earlier. The concept of being brave by having sex I think is OK, but didn't find the wording funny. Various poisons used--I really didn't care for this section (and HIV is of course much later). Effects of poisons--I get the reference to one of my favorite Jefferson Airplane songs, but remember many readers might not. And again, I don't find this funny--I don't see how getting high relates to these sticks. Modern Use--being used as weather vanes I think works, but don't get the stick it part--West represents a part of the body? Maybe is West was the direction the Vietnamese want U. S. troops to go--back home. Inventor--this part seems random, and I don't really get it. Trivia Sorry, but most of these I don't find funny. I rather like the under-arm deodorant, something like the dildo, like King Kong and Godzilla, somewhat like Ron Jeremy (but don't get the Jedi reference). References--I like having this official-sounding section.
Concept:	4	One of the limitations of this article is its topic. The Vietnam War had a major affect on your life and you've been living is Asia, so "punji sticks" may be as familiar to you as nuclear weapons are to most Americans. But I did a search on Google.com and found about 17,700 hits for "punji stick." That sounds like a lot, until you compare it to "Jane Fonda" at 2,110,000, or even "mellow yellow" at 918,000. I suspect that the vast majority of Uncyclopedia readers will have no idea what a real punji stuck is, and thus may miss some of the humour. But that's not necessarily much of a problem--every article isn't for everybody. What I do think is a problem is that your concept doesn't seem to be clear. First "Punji Stick is a type of bamboo carved into the shape of an arrow usually leading to a booby-trapped pit." Then they aren't arrows leading to a trap, they are the trap--"The point of penetration was usually in the foot or up the ass." Then it's a directing trap again--"The troops, seeing the arrows on the ground would feel impelled to follow them into various types of traps...." Then they're "stuck in holes" and are a trap again, sometimes a sexual one, etc. In Modern Use, I think you make the concept work--"Since the end of the War, punji sticks were converted to use as weather vanes...." Here, whatever they were before, they're now being used for something different. Making the other various uses tie together like this might help focus your concept. I really like the concept of punji sticks being used as directing arrows, although it may be hard to keep this through a full article. Or you could focus on punji sticks as they were, only expand their use (as you do with them being "stuck in holes" involving women). If you want to try to mix these concepts, you might want to do that in the very beginning of your article.
Prose and formatting:	6	Most of my prose comments are above. I would score this higher, but again the prose seems to be going in different directions. Some of it I really like, as specified above. Your formatting itself I think works fine.
Images:	8	I'm breaking the scores down here. Weathervane--really like the image and caption (although it needs a period at the end). (9 image/9 caption) Punji sticks being deployed--I like this image if you can make it fit your article's concept (however you decide to go with it). It doesn't fit punji sticks being used for direction--unless this is a punji stick farm (by the way, I don't know if that's a decent joke or not). "Slipping is not an option"--like this. (8 image/8 caption) VC Chick--like the image, but would like the caption better without "for the taking" and as "....Vietnam vets getting Posttraumatic stress disorder." This is both because is the term that's more common for this condition, and I think it's funnier with the disorder at the very end. (8 image/7.5 caption)
Miscellaneous:	5.75	Average of above.
Final Score:	28.75	I think parts of this are very good. With a clearer concept and some cleanup, I think it could work much better. Feel free to let me know on my talk page if you work more on this.
Reviewer:	King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  04:04, October 12, 2009 (UTC)