Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/War on Drugs

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I just discovered Uncyclopedia and wrote this. I think it's a good article but could be improved, so please give feedback.

War on drugs

Humour:	4	Some decent lines (such as ""ice", "speed", "pot", "grass", "reefer", "skag", "smack", "crystal", "crank", "tina", "speedball", "bigflake", "charlie", "rock", and just about any other name that sounds vaguely like a Top Gun callsign. Most of these drug deals "go down" in a place called "da hood" and could actually be anywhere between 20 feet and 20 miles from your house"), and there's the germ of a good article here, but there's too much randomness and name-dropping.
Concept:	4	Starts out looking kinda interesting, then loses the thread and goes more random.
Prose and formatting:	5	Not that badly written, but not great either, needs a tidy up, and some sense of a coherent article injecting.
Images:	6	There are several images, and they're kinda relevant. Not bad.
Miscellaneous:	5	There's potential here, but will it be fully realised?
Final Score:	24	This looks like it could go one of two ways: You spend some time with this, try to take a central idea and run with it, keep the whole article nice and coherent, and it becomes a worthwhile addition to the Uncyclopedia canon. You leave it as it is, some IPs add a bit more random shit to it, and it ends up on VFD. I'd prefer the former, as I think some of the lines in this are good, and plenty can be squeezed from the concept.
Reviewer:	--Sir Under User (Hi, How Are You?) VFH KUN 11:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, more in-depth advice:

• Lose the list - unfunny lists are pointless, and this one adds nothing at all to the article.

• Also lose the Drug Use in Pop Culture section - it's not relevant to the rest of the article. There's a place for stuff about drug use in popular culture, but not in an article on the War on Drugs - concentrate on the war.

• Lose the random celebrity references - what the hell do Elton John and Jane Fonda have to do with it? Putting their names in don't add anything.

In general, try for a more Encyclopedic feel, and try to explain your concepts more, instead of trusting people to follow your leaps of logic.

Try to pick a central idea, and stick to it. Take, for example, your idea of Jimmy Carter losing his monopoly on drugs. OK, so what's the government's response? Do they try to compete with new vendors, or do they try to kill the drug industry and search for other ways to extract similarly massive sums from their people, such as stupid taxes? Having decided the latter is more fun, they then declare war on drugs, and all suppliers thereof. After a brief embarrassing interlude of internal conflict, they amend the fine print to read "except the CIA", and the war is on! Then you examine the tactics involved - perhaps the pushers are more creative as they're high on their own supply? This leads to some great smuggling ideas people wouldn't have thought of, but also some less successful ideas ("Hey guys, why don't we, like, send the drugs in a massive crate marked 'Cocaine'? It's the last thing they'll be expecting!"). Then move on to the effects of the war - pushing the dope into the hands of ever more dangerous criminals, and driving people to have to deal with more and more lowlifes in order to get their stash, all in the name of protecting these people, for instance. Again, easy on the celeb name-dropping, but I like the "the homeless guy you saw yesterday on the street, and people who refer to themselves or their friends as "homie"" line. Basically, try to ensure all the sections have a central thread running through them.

Perhaps a slight tangent is people who got involved, but got the wrong idea, and went to war while on drugs? ("Hey, lookit the pretty colours you get when you shoot their heads off! Who else can I shoot?)

Those are quite poor suggestions off the top of my head, but hopefully they should show you what I mean. I'd be sorry to see this article tail off and die, partly because the history shows you've put quite a bit into it, and partly because there is some potential there. You just have to get ruthless, chuck out the irrelevant bits, and get creative while remaining close to the central concept.

If you want any more suggestions, ask any of these users, who are happy to help out, or give me a shout on my talk page. I can't promise to come up with something, but I'll always try if asked!

Finally, as always, this is just my opinion. If you don't agree, others are available. And good luck! --Sir Under User (Hi, How Are You?) VFH KUN 11:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)