Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/St. Louis Cardinals
St. Louis Cardinals[edit]
I suspect the intro could probably use some punching up. Ideas on that would be welcome. I'm happy with the rest, for the most part, but I'd appreciate someone pointing out any major flaws I may be missing. Thanks! -Sloublues 13:41, October 8, 2011 (UTC)
- Why not? Haven't done a review in ages. ~Sir Frosty (Talk to me!)
01:29, November 13, 2011 (UTC) - Gimme 48 hours actually. School 'n' shit. ~Sir Frosty (Talk to me!) 08:10, November 13, 2011 (UTC)
Oops, I didn't see you in here, Frosty. Well, I put in my review anyway since I spent way too much time on it to not put it here at all. --HM (T) 21:06, November 13, 2011 (UTC)
| Humour: | 7 | Some of this article (actually a good bit of it) but some of this article is quite mediocre and should be improved draastically if you want his article to go places, so yeah here is what I thought in some detail:
History - To put it quite simple, you put too greater focus on the history of the team and an insufficient focus on the team at present. Try and eliminate all the needless detail on the past, and instead provide a brief 3 or 4 paragraph overview of its history. And no, they don't need to be in separate sections as you have done. As for whats there, its funny but more of the same with little variation and after a while it just gets boring, due to the fact it's just too long. And I'd also like to mention that a phrase like this:
Is a big no no and a killer, it says you're running out of ideas and kills the mood and the readers interest. Basically what I'm saying here, is you dedicate 1 line to this section whilst having upwards of 6 decent paragraphs for others, something has to give in this area, especially since some of it is simply not funny. Stadiums the team has called home - Excellent I love it, some humorous satire on teams and what they are stereotypically like. It's also the right length, has some good images. I really don't think it needs work, its close to the best section (I have a favorite, I'll get to that later) of the whole article. Well done. Mascot - Alright this is a a good length, but I seriously think lines like this:
Popular Media - I don't know if putting this into dot point format was such a good idea, at first. Bu some of the content is a pretty damn funny Matt McGwire made a cameo in a 1999 episode of the police drama Mad About You in the role of a pillow on Helen Hunt's bed. is a great example of stereotypes combined with something that is almost certainly a fact, and its funny. Maybe a paragraph format would be better, but if you are to stick this sorta format, maybe add another couple of dot points for this section? Of the article its definitely the funniest I've read and needs more to it, if you ask me. Trivia - Alright this needs a combination of expanding, making funnier and a funny image. This point for example is what I've labelled as lacking in humor:
Although I've persevered in trying to see the joke, I'm afraid I failed to. I think a greater focus needs to be made on the team, as in the previous section of the article, you were at your funniest when you were discussing the team members. A section on the current team and its current players would be a good idea, don't make it too lengthy but make sure it has enough info to be interesting and of course funny. | |||||||||
| Concept: | 7 | Well judging by the fact you've managed to write this much article about a subject I've b=never even heard of, before reading this article, strongly suggests to me you are very familiar with the subject matter. However, as I've suggested already and will suggest again. Cut out needless information.There should be 4 paragraphs used here and no more and each section under the history heading should be a maximum of a 4 lines and possibly even less than that.
This article is one example of too much information being a bad thing. | |||||||||
| Prose and formatting: | 6.5 | Some good links et cetera added to the articles, but a few too many of them are red links which sorta ruins it a tad. So I'd suggest piping to some still relevant but existing articles to make it look more appealing.
There is also in this article significant blocks of text without any images to go with them, I'd suggest cutting it down a little, only keeping the important bits and getting rid of any unimportant stuff and adding some more images (more on this later). There is also some spelling and grammatically errors. Try and fix them up by running a proofread of your article. | |||||||||
| Images: | 6 | For the amount of test in your article, I think there is an insufficient amount of images (seven) to the text. A ration/balance need to be struck in order to make it pretty and interesting. So first of all, as I suggested before maybe brief some of the information down, as it seems a tad overdone and poinltess in some areas.
Second of all, add some more images I'd suggest for a lengthy article like this, at least 10 and make sure you don't just add a heap at the top and none at the bottom, even it out and keep them relevant. Add funny captions and make sure you can get some quality images to use. Third of all, cheat. And by cheat I mean alter the image sizes to make them appear bigger than they actually are, it will add color and effect with the minimal amount of effort. It's great I hear! | |||||||||
| Miscellaneous: | 7 | Overall rating out of 10 | |||||||||
| Final Score: | 33.5 | So yeah, a nice start, but could use some help, especially in the images and formatting side of things. And to a lightly lesser extent it needs a trim down and be made funnier.
I look forward to reading this when you finish it! | |||||||||
| Reviewer: | ~Sir Frosty (Talk to me!) 21:02, November 13, 2011 (UTC)
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| Humour: | 5 | Right off the bat I should tell you I'm not a huge baseball fan. At least I'm from the US? ...Yeah, I'm also really tired, so this might be mediocre. Also, advanced warning: I'm rather critical and pessimistic.
Your intro isn't really flawed...it just doesn't have much in the way of humor or substance. It would probably be a good idea to flesh this out a bit, although I suppose it's already a decent enough way to introduce the St. Louis Cardinals. I don't really have much in the way of helpful advice here. Um...what's with the random change in tone in "History" section? It starts out in third person then changes to first. That's rather inconsistent. You should decide if you want a third or first person tone throughout, because, with few exceptions, complete changes in tone are unnecessary and kind of confusing. It really doesn't match up with the rest of the article's encyclopedic tone, particularly because it has little to do with the history of the St. Louis Cardinals. I would remove that since it significantly detracts from the section's humor, and replace it with something more encyclopedic. It's not that it's particularly unfunny, just out of place. Okay, enough rambling. I liked the first joke in that section. OK, you're back to encyclopedic tone in the next section, which is better. I liked that until the last sentence, because of two things: 1. What did you mean by "quacking"? I doubt you meant him literally making duck sounds, so... and 2. I didn't like the joke about "the Leo". So he's named after a zodiac sign that isn't his. That doesn't seem funny or satirical to me. I would just remove it, it seems kind of pointless. ...Wait, Powerball? Isn't that a lottery thing? o.O Am I missing a local reference or something? If I'm not, a whole city obviously can't win the lottery, so that just seems unnecessary. Other than that, I'm not a huge fan of this section. I mean, I see the jokes you're trying to make, and they're not really bad, but they're not really spectacularly funny either. The next paragraph also has significant problems -- the "blues" joke isn't particularly funny or necessary and should really be removed. The rest, while moderately funny, just seems like the writer complaining about the Browns. That's not really good - opinions really shouldn't leak into articles. It seems unprofessional and doesn't really work satire-wise. I did find the third paragraph amusing, except for the link to "Mr. Magoo", it's namedroppy and we don't have an article on him anyway. OK, I cannot stress this enough, impossible percentages are not funny. "136%" - please don't do that. I know it's for the purpose of hyperbole, but it just seems ridiculous. I like the second paragraph...except, wtf is a "philharmonica"? If that's a real thing then that's fine, but if it isn't, then I must tell you that making up instruments isn't really funny either - it's just random. After a quick Google search, I discovered that Red howeveryouspelltheirlastname and the rest of the Cardinals actually weren't female. Oh. Haha. Well...I guess that works as a decently funny joke, then. I thought you said they were girls? Of course they "throw like girls". I know (because of google hahaha) that they aren't actually girls and that that's just a joke, but you're still contradicting what you said previously. Unless that's what you meant. Then I'm stupid and I'm sorry. Aaagh another change into first person tone. Always avoid words like "I" and "me" in first-person articles. Also, I didn't find linking to "racism", "evil", and "lame" that funny - I think it ruins the subtlety of the joke. I'd just remove those links. The 1970s thing...well, that's not much of a section, so yeah. It was pretty amusing, I guess, although it seems kinda lazy. Also another change to first person here >:C ...Huh? I do not get the thing in the beginning of the 1980s section at all. Is that based on some event...? It probably isn't, which just makes it kind of odd and random. I really would just suggest removing that whole thing, it doesn't really work. Also, the cookie empire thing...um, what? I kind of liked the Dick Van Dyke show reference, I guess, but it's not really spectacularly funny. I just found the next paragraph really confusing. I'm guessing he was injured and made up some kind of bullshit story, which is a satire target , but a tarp? That came out of absolutely nowhere. It would be funnier if you at least said something that was possible happened to him, just incredibly unlikely. Or, this could have been completely random and not based off of anything, in which case I'd suggest removing it. "Cross-continent"? Don't do that, just make that serious. That one didn't go over well at all. Same for the thing about doing the math. It has nothing to do with the angle the rest of the article has and is just kind of...there. And the thing about the announcers. Same thing applies as the two things I pointed out above. And...did you really need to explain the pun? That seems unnecessary to me. I liked the thing about them not showing up to the next game. And there's another change in tone. That line is really unnecessary anyway, so I think you should just remove it. The first paragraph of the next section is good. The second paragraph...bleh. None of the jokes here are really funny, and except for naming who the manager is, it really doesn't seem to serve any purpose, so I would suggest just removing it. Really, I'd prefer just getting rid of the "stereo" joke. Yeah, you're saying "stereo" instead of "steroid", but really, what's the angle here? It falls flat. And the end of the last sentence, with the change in tone? Yeah, I really didn't like that either, it just seemed to come out of nowhere. The footnote about the songs is actually pretty funny, except for the "3,000" thing - why couldn't a normal number have been used instead? And then a whole paragraph about the "stereo" joke...meh. I still don't like it that much. Same reasoning as above. Also, I just saw Mamma Mia, so haha, ABBA. ...Saying Jackie Robinson is Japanese? Really? That bit is pointless and random. Same goes for the South Park reference. The rest of the paragraph is fine, and I really liked the next one, especially the Tamagotchi thing. ...The next one, on the other hand, just seems kind of odd. I really don't like the whole idea of completely making up a name change, meeting. And then bringing back the philharmonica thing, which wasn't really funny the first time. I would suggest just trying to find a more basic way of calling them marginal - I never really found made-up events that funny. I do not get the squirrel thing at all and am currently without internet, so I can't verify if that's based off of anything or not. Same deal as with other things - if it is, fine, if it isn't, remove it. I can't really find anything wrong with it if it is, so...moving on. That last paragraph needs to go though, no matter what. It's pointless, confusing, and not funny. There's no way to fix the angle and it's not really necessary, so removing it completely is the best idea. ...Meh, I would remove the "stadiums they called home" thing, it's not really funny and it's a list, which are unpopular. The thing is, the stadiums they used were already mentioned in the above sections. Perhaps you could try to work the jokes you put into this section into that one instead? Footnotes could work. The next section is fine, except for the jokes about the arch and equating them to actual housemates. Both of these fell flat and it would work best if they were removed, in my view. I really don't like the next footnote. You make references to both the writer and the reader...that seriously breaks the fourth wall. I would suggest either removing this or replacing it with an actual joke about Germans and baseball. ...Then again, those types of jokes are rarely original or really funny, so unless you have a really good one, it's really a good idea to just get rid of this. I liked the first paragraph of the "Ballpark Village" except for linking to Fidel Castro, which is namedroppy. And ending the sentence with "Okay, maybe not" really ruins the subtlety and also breaks the tone a bit - presenting it seriously would have been a bit funnier. I liked the next paragraph too, except for "Big Mac Land" and the way you ended it. Once again, it would have been better if you had just ended the sentence normally. Bleh, didn't like the footnote, the outright sarcasm would be funny in daily conversation, but isn't really here. Also, why is he talking to his dog? That seems pointless, you really should just list that as if he were talking to a regular person. I liked the Mascot section. However, I didn't like the "popular media" section at all. It just seems random and not really inspired by anything, and it's also another list, so I'd recommend just chopping it, and maybe putting in some of the jokes from here into other sections if you're attached to them. Trivia: Um...please don't. Even Wikipedia doesn't like trivia sections. Please remove this. |
| Concept: | 6 | The concept is simple: It's a baseball team. And not a very good one. The problem here isn't your concept, it's more inconsistencies in how you execute it. A lot of the stuff I talked about above is what the problems are. The primary concerns here are some listy bits, changes in tone, and some unfunny/random jokes. I think a lot of stuff can be trimmed from this, and then afterwards, it would be a much better article for it. |
| Prose and formatting: | 7 | This was pretty decent. I outlined the tone inconsistencies above which negatively affect your prose. I noticed a few grammar errors here and there, such as a missing comma in the squirrel's "quote". Make sure to read, re-read, and then grammar check your article for these kinds of errors, because at the very worst they can ruin the article's flow.
You should really cut down on the ellipses, they look kind of unappealing and don't really contribute to your tone very well, as they break up the encyclopedic feel a bit. This is at least true on my monitor, in the "odd couple" section, the two images really need to be made smaller. You see how the "edit" buttons are out of place, with one even under the words? This is because the images and captions are taking up way too much space. Move them, resize them, whatever you think works best while getting rid of formatting issues. The same is true for that image of the baseball, which is creating a small amount of nasty whitespace in the "trivia" section - you should try to move this image up a bit. I think you have a few too many red links. A couple of red links, especially to potentially good articles, are fine, but too many look unappealing. It's fine if you're linking that way for the purpose of a joke, but for ones that are regular links, try to cut down on them. Finally, most of your images seem to be stuffed near the bottom, with a few at the top, making the middle look like a textwall. Try to space out your images a bit more, which will both help with your formatting issues and make the middle look a bit more appealing. What images could be relevant to the "ozzie" era? Are all of the images at the bottom really necessary? Could some of the bottom ones be moved up, or a top image moved down? There are a lot of options for you here. |
| Images: | 5 | I honestly didn't find the images and captions all that funny, this part really does need work.
Image 1: It's a logo. Both basic and necessary, so I like it. Except...I'm not a huge fan of the caption. It's just not really that funny...but...there's not many other jokes you could make here, are there? I think you should replace this with something, like some kind of comment that relates to the angle you took about the team itself. Image 2: I like it, although "Browns" is kind of difficult to see. Then again, there's not much you can do about that. The caption is fine, except it says "another run scores" when it should be "another run scored". Image 3: I...really don't like this one, anime and Dragonball Z have been joked about to death. Really, I think you should just remove this unless you can think of something else for that image. (which there isn't much in the way of jokes for) Images 4 and 5: ...Meh. It's a lot of space for a joke that's not really funny. Yeah, I know, it actually does look like a bottle cap. But...the angle you were going for here was the "inept narrator" thing, which is inconsistent with most of the rest of the article, and even if it isn't, it's also been done to death. I would seriously suggest editing your angle here, but don't get rid of this one entirely; an image of the stadium is helpful and important. Image 6: Just like the section, I like it. Nothing much to say here. Image 7: I think the section should be removed, so this kind of puts this image into a sticky situation. It's not really all that funny, but if you want to keep the bit about the movie somewhere else in the article, I guess it's not too bad, so I think keeping it wouldn't be too bad of an idea. |
| Miscellaneous: | 6 | Scoring is arbitrary. |
| Final Score: | 29 | This article has a few problems and inconsistencies, but I think that if you remove those, it will be a fine article. The article's quite lengthy anyway, so the loss of length won't be too big of a deal.
Also, I'm sorry this review is unorganized and terrible, I suck and am sorry. ;__; But, if you have any questions/comments, just come to my talk page. So yeah. |
| Reviewer: | --HM (T) 21:06, November 13, 2011 (UTC) | |