Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/User:Fag/Practical Plumbing for the Desperate Housewife
User:Fag/Practical Plumbing for the Desperate Housewife[edit source]
hey, this is an unfinished article from ages ago between me and SysRq. i think the main reason for it being unfinished aside from us deciding the best course of action was to go AWOL was that we had no idea how to wrap the article up. so, reviewer, if you will, please feel free to suggest something :) —
talk 12:51, January 4, 2010 (UTC)
I'll get this one at some point in the next 24 hours. --ChiefjusticeDS 22:51, January 4, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 5 | Right, the humour is OK, and I was amused (yes, I do mean amused) by the sexual undertones that run through the article, and you are to be commended for the subtlety with which you have achieved this. The above said there remains some more you could do with it. The first point I would like to mention is the aforementioned running joke that the guide is referring to sex, this is absolutely fine and done correctly, as it is in places, it works very well. The problem is where you go a bit over the top with it and ruin the pleasing subtlety of the joke. The route to success, I feel, lies in never blatantly expressing the joke and always presenting it so it fits in with the guide, if you don't do this the joke becomes less amusing and more tiresome and this happens very quickly. Since you should keep the joke in, it is therefore of paramount importance that you make your guide sound like a guide. For instance things that are bad in plumbing should remain bad in your article, things like the floor becoming covered in mud, the goal of plumbing is also not to get yourself covered in 'the stuff', so these things should not be taken into account in a guide. If you wish to include these things you would be better referring to them as though the reader has done something wrong in order to prompt it, for instance, something like: "That's it you're doing it, but careful not to- oh, now look you're covered in it, go and have a cigarette or something and come back in half an hour, the pipes have to refill naturally". While that may not be the pinnacle of innuendo, it keeps things in the perspective of a guide. My recommendation would be to comb the article carefully, including the image captions, for instances that do not work in this context. You also have to consider your other jokes in the context of what you are writing, in a manual that you say is sexist to begin with it is not really advisable to say that a husband would not want his wife going near the sink, I see the joke you are trying to make but it would be better for your article if you could make the joke fit.
A similar difficulty to the ones mentioned above is that your article needs to link back to sex in the majority of things, it is no good to have the joke work in some sections and not in others, for instance the tools section doesn't really work as the tools you prescribe don't really fit the context of the joke later, if you expanded the non-sequitur use to include these then it would make far more sense. What I am desperately trying to get to with the above is that you cannot write an article in this style without making sure that your jokes fit in from the perspective of the guide and from the perspective of it being about sex, and, less importantly, from the perspective of the guide being sexist. You may feel I am banging on (ha ha) about this a fair amount but as the running joke is a big part of your article and without it the entire article doesn't work nearly so well, the humour in an article like this, for me at least, comes from being able to construe the article in each way, you are nearly there with it, but it needs some more attention from you. |
| Concept: | 7 | I like the idea you have come up with for the article, for some reason this style amuses me a lot more than others, and what you have done keeps the article from becoming boring and keeps things relatively fresh. The main problem is with the execution of your tone. My feeling is that you have started with a guide, but seem to have lost your way with it midway through. Consider changing the tone so that the writer takes a more sexist and thus more patronising tone in the article. Consider adapting the style of a HowTo to fit the article, it is my feeling that this would work better than that. To deal with your other request, how to finish up the article, I feel that adapting the style will permit an appropriate conclusion to appear. I think that you have reached a good point to finish the article as it is but the article needs to be extended prior to reaching the natural conclusion that you have reached here. If you feel that that is inappropriate then my recommendation is that you include some kind of summing up, a brief blurb from the fictional author of the guide, or maybe some customer testimonials as to how brilliant the guide is, i.e. "I used to be terrible at plumbing, and my husband had started hiring help from outside, but now etc etc". |
| Prose and formatting: | 6 | There are a couple of problems to sort in this regard, the first of these being your spelling and grammar, while it is generally good you need to proofread carefully to make sure any mistakes are caught. I realise that the article is still under construction but you should still try to be thorough with it in future, remember that the proofreading service is available should you need it. Otherwise you need to carefully consider your formatting, I cannot advise on it too much at this point as I would recommend that you expand the text before you start thinking about your image formatting, but make sure things look tidy, there are plenty of people around who will happily let you know what they think if you ask. If you expand the article much more you will need another image, so consider that too. |
| Images: | 8 | You have chosen well with these thus far, and I am sure you will continue to do so, jut make sure you consider your images carefully and consider your captions with equal care, try to make the captions fit the humour choices you have made unless you have a particular reason for wanting to avoid this. Otherwise keep this up. |
| Miscellaneous: | 6 | My overall grade of the article. |
| Final Score: | 32 | You have a good piece of work here, but it is suffering from being unfinished in more ways than it's length. Some more thought and a bit more work will go a long way for you here. The overall priority should be fixing the running joke, everything else should follow quite nicely after that. If you have any questions for me then feel free to leave them on my talk page or just ask me on IRC. Good luck making any changes. |
| Reviewer: | --ChiefjusticeDS 18:42, January 5, 2010 (UTC) | |