Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Uncyclopedia is bad for your kids
Uncyclopedia is bad for your kids[edit source]
It didn't do too well on PLS, so I thought that I might want to put this up for review before VFHing it. ~jcm 03:16, July 5, 2012 (UTC)
- I've got this one. 24 hours. --ChiefjusticeDS 11:52, July 13, 2012 (UTC)
Humour: | 5 | Right, before I get started with this one I want you to bear in mind that the scores aren't really the point at issue here, the main priority of this review is to help you improve as opposed to deride you for any mistakes. The crucial part of the review is the advice, not the numbers attached to them.
The initial thing that struck me about this article was that you don't seem to be certain of a base for all your jokes. It is evident that you are going for the conservative outrage tone, which is fair enough. However, your tone is hugely varied, at times you sound juvenile and at others you sound a little more adult. You need to ascertain which of these you want to use, whether you want to go more along the line of "Uncyclopedia is a wicked evil place" or whether you want to say "Uncyclopedia is a nexus of atheism and liberal humour". The current version of your article has contrasting lines at the end of each section which uses terms like "stuff" and colloquialisms like "Go figure" while the text has the line "The farcical nature of Uncyclopedia is so egregious" in it. The present contrast between the two of them is very jarring, it makes it difficult for a reader to enjoy a particular joke, or indeed for you to transition from one to the other. It presently sounds as though two people have written your article, wanting the same end result but with very differing styles, as a result you are not gaining the full potential from either of them. My advice would be to decide which one you want to use and look at rolling it out so that the entire article is utilising it. The other point that struck me is that you are banging something of an old drum here, the Uncyclopedia is a terrible place thing has been done an awful lot and, while this is more relevant to your concept, it does need to be considered in line with your humour. You evidently have a grasp of the sort of thing you are wanting to achieve with your jokes, a similar style to that found here, portraying Uncyclopedia as a bastion of filth in an otherwise family friendly atmosphere. However, your struggle here is going to be finding some jokes that haven't been told before, while the substance of what you say differs the basic meaning of the article is the same as many other articles written on this subject. Your task needs to be to find something that is original, be it through utilising something that somebody else hasn't satirised yet or by coming up with a novel way of expressing your point. My impression was that you had grasped this idea as you mention the content warning a couple of times, this is something I'd advise you to pursue more since it is fairly fertile ground, make sure you utilise the "Even Wikia thinks Uncyclopedia is bad for you" angle to the fullest extent; you need something to set your article apart. Further to the tone that you have chosen to use, don't be afraid of exaggerating ridiculously, the general writing style when writing from a Conservative point of view is to exaggerate, so by all means do so, and then do so more. To explain, rather than saying "Uncyclopedia is a terrible place, the content warning was put in place after three children were taken ill having viewed the article on Anal Sex" try saying "Wikia were required, by law, to add a content warning after several children began expressing opinions and taking the lord's name in vain, both of which have been proven to cause cancer, possibly". While that isn't the funniest thing ever written, I hope it demonstrates the point appropriately. I can't stress enough how important it is for you to come up with a way to not only make the most of the style but also separate your article from the others in some way. Your first priority should be going through your article to ascertain where the potential lies and which jokes need development. As part of this I'd advise that a lot of jokes need cutting and a lot of others need re-purposing. As a separate suggestion, you might meet with a bit more success if you change this article to an UnNews article about the content warning, or as a PSA from BURP, that would mean you didn't have to try and cover so many bases and would thus avoid the main issue that is causing you problems at the moment. Focus firstly on establishing a tone, then move onto the originality of your jokes. This a pretty challenging concept so you need to work at it a lot to get the approval you're after. |
Concept: | 5 | The concept isn't so much poor as it is very challenging to do well. I've talked at some length about this already, but it bears some re-stating. The more a concept is done the harder it is to do well. This concept has been done an awful lot, leaving you with an exceptionally difficult task to undertake. It isn't so much that your article is poor, if looked at in isolation it isn't bad at all, as demonstrated by your performance in the PLS. You have the ability to write an excellent article but I would seriously advise that you try to narrow the focus from Uncyclopedia as a whole, to the content warning, which is why I feel UnNews might suit the article a bit better than just simple mainspace. The more focussed it is the more original you can be. |
Prose and formatting: | 6 | Not much to say in this regard, your prose is good if a bit bumpy in places. The spelling is fine, but as mentioned already you shift drastically from colloquial language to professional encyclopaedic language, you would benefit from selecting one and sticking with it throughout, this would also help you avoid re-stating things that you have already said. In terms of images I was pretty impressed with the formatting which is done competently and doesn't need much in the way of changes. |
Images: | 8 | The images are fine and are captioned appropriately where they are used. Just make sure that if changes are made, the images change to reflect that. Otherwise good work here. |
Miscellaneous: | 6 | My overall grade of the article |
Final Score: | 30 | The article is competently written but suffers majorly from being based in the "Uncyclopedia is the worst" bracket, which makes it very difficult to write and achieve laughs with. In terms of your VFH hopes, I'd warn you that articles about Uncyclopedia face harsh criticism on the grounds of concept there, articles are often condemned as "navel-gazing" despite otherwise positive attributes. This all leads back to my ultimate recommendation: narrow your focus and try to find an aspect of this topic that you can write about with some originality, if you can do this well you will reap the benefits. If you have any questions or comments about this review then feel free to ask me on my talk page. Good luck making any changes. |
Reviewer: | --ChiefjusticeDS 13:41, July 13, 2012 (UTC) |