Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/eHarmony

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eHarmony

http://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/EHarmony Legolas11 11:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

...getting feedback on... —Unführer Guildy Ritter von Guildensternenstein 13:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll do this one tomorrow afternoon --El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 22:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Postponed--El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 21:12, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Humour:	5	Well I didn't find the quotes funny to be honest (I don't like unnecessary use of quotes generally tbh). The first one was reasonably amusing and the second was ok, but are these plagiarised? If they're written in the style of the comedians then it's ok (as long as you mimic the person's style effectively) but if it's pure plagiarism then it shouldn't be used unless it fits in with the tone of the rest of it. This article, for me, doesn't need quotes at all, since it appears to be written from Todd Lyons' perspective. If you were to include quotes, I'd consider incorporating them into the narrative. Like Todd Lyons reads an advert for eHarmony on another webpage that includes some (dubious and unintentionally funny) celebrity endorsements which leads him to click there, but he must acknowledge the quotes in my opinion. I think you should provide some background about Todd in some way, try to explain his failed loves and what it is about him that makes him fail (and hence visit eHarmony) - without being too blatant, just nice subtle hinting - and do this all in the intro. You have the right idea with the questions approach, but make sure it is relevant to the website and explain exactly where these questions are coming from. The key is to make your humour more subtle and less obvious or crude as it sometimes is. Try and exploit the eHarmony user's neuroticism (I imagine a lot of online daters are probably quite neurotic and anxious) for the sake of comedy. Imagine Woody Allen doing it and that should give you a good idea of how to go about it.
Concept:	6	First of all, I feel that if you are to satirise eHarmony, you must concentrate specifically on the website and what makes it different from other websites. That should be the point. Your angle should be to introduce the concept, or narrate someone coming across the website and then use that as a basis for satirising it. While of course you will be satirising online dating in general, the title of the article specifies that you must make observations on EHarmony and its users in particular. I went to eHarmony to see how accurate your observations are (also because I'm lonely, don't tell anyone) and I feel if you're going to satirise it as you have, you must respond to it as it is, like a new user coming across the site and filling it in, narrated with their thoughs and observations. Or something. I like how you answer the questions and how it reveals things about the average eHarmony user, perhaps you can try and emphasise certain flaws, quirks or other humorous observations on eHarmony and its users but still using the same basic technique?
Prose and formatting:	6	The formatting is decent enough, I mean the way you construct the article overall. The writing could be more expressive though - it needs to suggest more about the character and give him greater depth - and there are quite a few grammar errors in there and just things that could be a lot smoother. Minor errors aren't really a problem though, if you add a proofread template when you think it is finished, someone will come along and proofread it for you.
Images:	0	A shame. You just need to include some fairly simple images, one per section, that correspond to the text. I would include a suitable image of the visitor in the beginning, followed by either some screenshots of the corresponding part of the website - or some images to reflect what the visitor is saying - in the next sections, followed by a concluding image of some kind. It may be best to consider images last of all, after you next put this up for review (but do put something in, just so you dont get a 0 again).
Miscellaneous:	5	All you need to do is have a clear aim, a starting point (neurotic -> eHarmony), a (longer) narrative, and a conclusion (what happens to the character) bearing in mind everything else I have written in the previous categories.
Final Score:	22	It has definite potential and you have already made a good start. The overall mark is a unfair really because of the image problem, so don't be discouraged by this. All you need to do is introduce a sympathetic character that would enable you to satirise both the website and the website user, otherwise the reader won't really care much about the article and will lose interest. I would suggest including a mixture of real text (i.e. the user reading aloud text on the website) and the narrator's own voice thus developing a kind of dialogue, something that always helps add depth to an article. Good luck :)
Reviewer:	--El Sid, the lazy one • parlez-vous franglais? 13:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)