Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/User:Dbtng/Spherical Cows
User:Dbtng/Spherical Cows[edit source]
This is my very first article. I sporked it from Wikipedia and completely redid it with an improbable back story. I would appreciate any constructive feedback, from content to wiki-mechanics. I do not have sufficient experience with Uncyclopedia to reciprocate and review someone else's article.
-- The way the dates and the convention are mentioned during the article does certainly need some work. I'm trying to weave these elements into the story because the spherical cow graphic actually came from that convention. It's unwieldy so far, but I find it funnier that there are grains of truth throughout.
-- I went link crazy. Did I do too much? Some of them are very funny and relevant, and others are superfluous. I could trim some back out if it's too over the top.
Dbtng 03:35, February 16, 2010 (UTC)
- I'll do this one, 24 hours. --ChiefjusticeDS 19:43, February 20, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 4 | Right, the humour here isn't too bad and you seem to have the right idea as to what to do with it but there are a couple of problems that I recommend you take a look at. The first thing that struck me was that this article bears a huge similarity to the wikipedia article, now I realise the point of sporking but you should try to make the article clearly different and separate as we don't just want a copy of the wikipedia article with a few extra lines. Permit me to expand, the idea behind sporking is that it is an easy way to get a good concept for your article, so for instance if I sporked an article from wikipedia titled 'Darth Vader' I would take it over here and write with the character of Darth Vader as my driving force, I would avoid restating exactly what is written in the wikipedia article. What I am essentially trying to communicate to you is the necessity of being original. For instance, keeping the concept of 'Spherical Cows' as a physicists joke is good, but restating the wikipedia article is a real blow to your humour. Try being a bit more original, this will take a fair bit more work, but will be worth the effort. For instance you could consider expanding the idea you move into towards the end of the article, the idea of spherical cows as an actual species is a good one and a lot of my disappointment comes from the fact that you don't make more of this idea. The jokes that you have used aren't too bad but they make the article difficult to believe. A large amount of the humour in our articles comes from making the article sound feasible but by talking about something ridiculous. I admit that the idea of cows in space is vaguely amusing but this joke does not have much of a lasting appeal to a reader. You would be better deciding at the start of the article what spherical cows are supposed to be in the context of your article, are they intended to be what they are in the original joke, since you suggest that you are talking about spherical cow modelling when you say: "Spherical cow modeling is intended to demonstrate that physicists will often reduce a problem to its simplest form in order to make calculations more feasible, even though such simplification may hinder the model's application to reality." You should decide whether you want to advocate this idea or whether you want to use the idea of cows being launched into space (though you seem to suggest that spherical cows exist before this). Your article seems confused as to what it wants the reader to believe and this effects your humour in a lot of ways. My recommendation is that you take a look at your article and decide on a basic direction for it; decide what points you need the reader to get and summarise them quickly in a preamble at the start of the article. For instance, if I go back to the Darth Vader example from before, my preamble would be "Darth Vader is a sith lord and high ranking member of the Galactic Empire" this basically establishes to the reader what I want them to think about the character and I feel that your using a similar idea in your article would significantly reduce any confusion.
The remainder of your humour is OK, though does feel like it has come from nowhere, all of a sudden these cows are a staple of everyday life in the US and you say that the hunting of them is even regulated. Take a look at HTBFANJS to help you put this in a better way. It is OK to be random, but make sure you can justify it, again this problem comes back to a general lack of context in the article, which can make the humour feel a little strained in places. |
| Concept: | 6 | The concept is certainly eye catching and certainly has the aspect about it that encourages further reading of the article. You realise the idea quite well too, though, as I mentioned above you need to direct your efforts into one idea or another, decide whether you want to focus on the physics joke or whether you want to refer to the idea of spherical cows as real creatures. The tone in the article isn't too bad just ensure that you keep the encyclopaedic tone throughout. Since you are obviously familiar with the wikipedia article follow the example that is used there. Try to remain professional at all times and avoid offering opinions or being colloquial. Take a look at this article if you are having trouble with the tone, as it does it pretty well. |
| Prose and formatting: | 5 | The prose aren't too bad, your spelling and grammar could do with some work in places, I noticed a couple of errors as I was reading through. The solution here is to ensure that you proofread carefully when making edits to the article; if you don't want to proofread or feel that you won't do a very good job then feel free to call upon the proofreading service. The formatting in the article is what is causing you most of the problems, however. You could really do with having a second image in the article as the second half feels rather blank without one. As to the links, which I notice you mentioned above, I don't see any major issues, if I were being particularly picky then I would say that some of them could be better considered, but on the whole they are good enough, the main concern on uncyclopedia is that you avoid unnecessary red links. |
| Images: | 5 | Your score is comparatively low on this one as you are missing a second image, and the image caption needs more work. Again, you need to make the distinction that your article is talking about something different to the wikipedia one. To achieve this just try to relate the caption to your article and the image, images and captions work best when they compliment the text, the link between your text and the image at the moment is tenuous at best. My recommendation is that you get another image (choose carefully) and that you think carefully about your existing image caption. |
| Miscellaneous: | 5 | My overall grade of the article. |
| Final Score: | 25 | Your article feels like it has made a start but has only gotten half-way to being complete. I would strongly recommend that you look at expanding your jokes and your humour, use HTBFANJS to help you and make sure you build the distinction between your article and the wikipedia article carefully. I realise there is a lot of criticism here, but I would urge you not to be discouraged, there is definite potential here, and with some more work, you will be able to realise it. If you have any questions or comments for me then feel free to leave them on my talk page. Good luck making any changes. |
| Reviewer: | --ChiefjusticeDS 14:32, February 21, 2010 (UTC) | |
Thanks, Chief. Your feedback was very specific and actionable, although I'd quibble with reliance on HTBFANJS. I do appreciate you individually addressing each of the questions I asked. You put a lot of work into the review. Your advice that I focus on only one of the two main themes will probably lead to a better article.