Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Mastodon
Mastodon[edit]
One of my favorite bands. Hopefully the angle, despite being obvious, is funny. Review away. —Unführer Guildy Ritter von Guildensternenstein 00:15, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
| Prose and Formatting: The writing style, spelling, grammar, layout and overall appearance. |
7.5 | Okay, there's nothing really stand out fantastic in here. I guess the higher score is just because I've done enough of these now that my sensitivity to misspellings has not just diminished, but when I come across something that has few misspellings I'm happy, and none makes me delirious.
So spelling and grammar. Spelling is not bad, albeit American (which suits the topic, so it's forgivable). There's are a couple of little things. As a misspelling, I'd pick on moreso. Other things are just like the conjunction frontman, and hyphenated well-represented. The middle one can be gotten away with, but I'm being picky, and the third one is better than without the hyphen when read in context, but I'd honestly try to find a better adjective. Grammatically there are a few passive verbs, but again nothing wrong. (A slight diatribe on passive verbs. The issue with passive verbs is at times they weaken the action, and make the sentence less punchy and effective. It is not something that is wrong, but it is frowned upon.) Layout is good. I'm not a fan of the alternating left/right images, however other's say that it's the best way to format an article. Enough said, moving on. It gives the feel of an article about something from the natural world. The first image is the classic polar bear on ice, the map of habitat is fantastic, the animal rearing up to defend itself. (By the way, you got a high score on images. At the time I wrote this I don't know what it will be, but it'll be good.) I am also a fan of footnotes being <small>{{Reflist}}</small>. Normally I wouldn't take away points for leaving them normal size - and yes, I have left a few normal size in my stuff in the past. If you find any I haven't changed, please fix them - but the problem here is your footnotes actually contain a visual joke repeated a few times. (The guitar sound thingy.) Because of the size once I've scrolled down that far they seem to dominate in a nasty way. Overall appearance is good. I'm not waving a flag, but still good. |
| Concept: How good an idea is behind the article? |
8 | You're right, it's an obvious gag, but done well. And the main plus is that it means that you avoid most of the nasty traps that await the author of the THE BAND ARTICLE. But there is one nasty trap that you've fallen into, which may not be in this HowTo, but should be.
If you write a band article you either like the band (which you obviously do) or you hate the band. If you like them then you have a tendency to defend them - or rather to defend that fact that you hold that opinion of them - even when no-one is attacking. Seriously, here you are the writer, and even though in a Wiki the audience is not, by the nature of Wiki, passive, you are still by far the dominant voice in your own article. If someone is reading it and they think to themselves "But Mastadon suck donkey balls" - who really cares! But off the diatribe, this tendency to defend your taste actually results in the attacking of others. Now I'm a fan of a couple of bands that you obliquely mentioned in here in an unflattering light. I had to stop myself having an emotional reaction - after all, who really cares - but it did for a second jolt me out of the enjoyment of the article. In order to build up and sustain comedy you want to do as little as possible to disrupt the "fun" flow. But to be honest, I would rather be dragged over hot coals then to try and writye a band article, no matter how witty. Except maybe The Wiggles. |
| Humour: How funny is it? Why is it funny? How can it be funnier? |
8.5 | I found the jokes in this really funny. In fact they well and truly exceeded my expectation of what they would be once I had gotten the concept straight in my mind.
It is a temptation to play more with the titles of the albums, and to make this more of a description of a journey - whether it be a physical journey or a journey of discovery, or something else progressive - as well as the musical evolution. It is a very fine line to play with though, as overworking the metaphor can rip this to shreds. The problem is that this area feels a little light on the hahas - the repeated joke included. The other alternative is to strip this down somewhat and make it simpler, rather than expand. Again, I can't really drill down on specifics. I'll put it another way. I'm being raised up until we hit the discography, and then I seem to be flailing in the water trying to find my way again. Very abstract way of describing it maybe, but I am a poet and a philosopher as well. I think I'm a poet anyway. Maybe that means I am. |
| Images: How are the images? Are they relevant, with good quality and formatting? |
9.5 | So that's what I gave this as a score. Damned nice score, and not one you'll often see in one of my reviews, as I am a bastard, but you've done really well here. Brent Hinds is one ugly bastard, and the juxtaposition of him as an Neanderthal/Pleistocene era beast is marvellous.
The only thing that lets you down is the lack of a last image, but again that also relates to the size of the footnotes. (For any third party who will object to this as these are found images and not 'chopped at all - the score is for the humour factor and the quality, not the difficulty in cutting the head off Paris Hilton and putting it on the body of a Bulldog.) |
| Miscellaneous: The article's overall quality - that indefinable something. |
8 | VFH worthy as it is. Will easily make it to FA with a few edits. The main thing to avoid though is alienating your reader. I don't know this band that well, but a few of the other bands in there I know and I really like. Actually voted for one of them in the recent Triple J Hottest 100 of all time. I have to say that I'm a real fan of Triple J. Compared to them the Austereo Network sucks heavy rocks. They play shite like Mastadon.
See how obscure references to something that you don't recognise, followed by criticism of something else that you do like, means that you lose interest. You have to overcome the first by being funny, even for those not aware of the topic. Don't throw the second hurdle in there as well when it's not needed |
| Final Score: How much can it be improved and what are the most important areas to work on. |
41.5 | Yeah... all of the above. This is short for me, so it doesn't need a summary. |
| Reviewer: | Pup | |