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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 01:36, 23 September 2008 [1].

Odex's actions against file-sharing

[edit]
Nominator(s): Mailer Diablo
previous FAC


I managed to get assistance is having the article properly copy-edited (thanks Maclean25!), which was previously the main concern for FAC. It underwent another round of peer review, with several subtle changes incorporated into it (particularly style). Current a GA, and I believe that it is ready now to go further. - Mailer Diablo 03:44, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]


image comment Image:Odex-defaced.jpg should be tagged as a screen shot of open source software (firefox) Fasach Nua (talk) 12:49, 30 August 2008 (UTC) [reply]

Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. I wasn't able to evaluate the non-English sources. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:59, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I read through the article, and the prose was very good. A few things that the traditional common redundancy phrase-searching yielded:

  • "Odex's evidence failed to meet a number of requirements for the release of such information"
  • "Odex had hired some anime fans"
  • "Another netizen created a video parody of the incident, entitled "Xedo Holocaust", and uploaded it on a number of video-sharing websites"
  • "There, he brought up some additional points of law"

Nousernamesleft (talk) 23:49, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Graham Colm Talk for now:

  • Please be consistent with the linking of dates and years. I would prefer to see them all de-linked, but as of now there is a mixture.
  • I have made some suggestions to the Lead to help the flow of the prose, [2]. I think the whole article would benefit from one more copy-edit. This should take no more than an hour; on the whole, the article is in good shape. Graham Colm Talk 13:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Odex's website was hacked and defaced on 21 November 2007, possibly in retaliation to the pre-litigation letters that were sent by the company." (image caption) - rather than OR speculation, you could just quote some stuff from the image about why it was hacked. —Giggy 05:56, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is one of those great articles that slips through our review system. It has had 2 peer reviews, a failed fac and good article review last year. It remained in B-class limbo since then. I recently took the time to provide a full copy-edit, worked through some formatting issues, and fact-checked it all. I nominated it for GA in July and encouraged Mailer Diablo to nominate it for FA. --maclean 00:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as very well done and looking even better thanks to maclean's work. Giggy (talk) 00:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose—1a. A scan of the lead shows that the whole text needs careful scrutiny for linguistic precision and grammar.

  • "Infringed on"?—Nope.
  • "This led to pre-litigation letters' being issued"—Impossibly stilted. "This led to the issuing of pre-litigation letters".
  • "issued from Odex"? Nope.
  • Comma splice: "Odex's actions were considered controversial by the Singaporean anime community because fans perceived the legal maneuvers to be sudden and heavy-handed, this led to significant online reactions"
  • "failed to meet requirements for the release of such information"—"the" is missing.
  • A few commas between adjacent nominal groups would help the readers.

Please buzz me when someone else has been through the whole article carefully. Tony (talk) 03:10, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I started copyediting but stopped when I hit multiple misspellings. Please at least run a spell-check and check for obvious errors, then give me a shout. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update: The WP DVD is my crisis of the moment; I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to back away from FAC until until the DVD is out the door. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to hear. Anyway, copyediting is approximately at 75% done and well on its way to address Tony's concerns; Please keep this FAC alive. - Mailer Diablo 13:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's time to ask Tony for a second opinion; has anyone knocked his door? Graham Colm Talk 20:01, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not anyone so far. There's one more section to be copyedited ("Odex v. Pacific Internet") before it's ready, hopefully tomorrow or so. - Mailer Diablo 12:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I gave that section a copyedit [3]. Giggy (talk) 10:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I've notified Tony1 to have a second look now. [4] - Mailer Diablo 13:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments having been pinged. A spot-check of the first few sentences in the "Reactions" section revealed a high density of problems; most are serious problems affecting meaning and/or readability.

  • "and were harshly criticised by the Singaporean anime community as being sudden and severe."—Spot the redundant word.
  • "Several anime fans were outraged by children as young as nine years old being subjected to legal threats,"—ungainly, and strictly speaking ungrammatical. See noun plus -ing. ""Several anime fans were outraged by the issuing of legal threat to children as young as nine years old," perhaps?
  • "Calls to boycott Odex's products became widespread in online blogs and forums." Here's better: "There were widespread calls in online blogs and forums to boycott Odex's products." Consider dropping "became" and the "began to" in this role, which used to be a scourge among WPians.
  • Noun plus -ing problem again, only worse: "the fall in sales was due to Odex's products being inferior and released later than the online versions."
  • When in narrative mode, drop "then" wherever possible.
  • This is long, winding and awkward. "but blamed inaccuracies in the subtitling on fansubbers – anime fans who translated the Japanese dialogue – that it had hired and censorship laws for disallowing mature themes such as yaoi." Seems unlikely that they'd hire these people (and they still did a bad job?). "That" is not for people (who). ", and on censorship laws that disallowed ...". Oh boy.

I'm sorry to say that I think this should be withdrawn and worked on properly, then resubmitted. Tony (talk) 15:10, 12 September 2008 (UTC) PS The Xedo Holocaust cartoon image: next time, corner the owner into saying yes to the actual license. "I allow the screenshot of my animation and so on." is really not a satisfactory reply, is it. Tony (talk) 15:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, most Singaporeans are not native speakers of English. Although I scored an A1 for O-Level English, I must confess that I do not understand any of the errors that you pointed out! Perhaps you should do copy-editing? (Feel free to check my post for language errors as well.) --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 15:24, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]


For the screenshot, hopefully a second day reply like the last time. - Mailer Diablo 16:09, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am not inclined to withdraw and send it back to PR. I can do just that, copy to GoCE (which is going to tell me PR is the correct place), cc to all Wikiprojects, and I'm not able to get any more assistance to improve the article to your standards other than messages of "this looks pretty good, please send back to FAC again". PR is broken. I've asked several regulars, copyeditors in particular, of FAC and all I got is only similar messages or well-wishes.
FAC is the only place left where this article can get any gainful criticism, and even so this nomination is getting a lot less feedback/flak than it is supposed to, compared to other nominations. It would be a lot less painful and preferable if you can do a complete appraisal of this article, say how terrible it is, etc. (your user talk says you don't do feedback outside FAC) and get the article fixed once and for you by this or next nomination, rather than repeating this nomination five times and things still don't get done. - Best regards, Mailer Diablo 16:09, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If I were retired, I'd probably do a lot of copy-editing; but in my restricted timeframe I try to have the largest "footprint" on WP by concentrating on the critiquing of others' writing. The negative stance is not something I like, but I hope I can claim to do a little good by encouraging higher standards. Now, what you might do is to gather a list of WPians you can rely on to collaborate with you in copy-editing, since your expertise is in the content rather than the English. I'd say such collaboration is essential for you. Identify likely people through the edit summaries of edit-history lists of other FAs and articles you know are well-written in this general topic area. Wikifriends make the whole thing much more social and interactive, as well as improving your chances at FAC. Have a look at the tutorial exercises in the link above, and see if they help. There's a link from there to a set of exercises in identifying and removing redundant wording. These might help to hone your skills a little. Tony (talk) 17:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I want to respond to some of this too; this will probably be my last comment in FAC until December when we put WP:V0.7 to bed. As Tony says, "sudden and severe" is better than "being sudden and severe". Reading between the lines of Mailer Diablo's reaction, we hear this a lot at FAC: "Oh come on ... people say 'being' all the time, even in good writing; this shouldn't be a requirement at FAC. Furthermore, if it is a problem, you could strike the "being" in less time than it takes you to complain. Furthermore, even if this were an important objection, it needs to be weighed against the downside of discouraging good editors." (And btw, Mailer Diablo is a fantastic contributor, and I feel his pain.)
My response is that I don't know anyone at Wikipedia who could do what Tony does better than he does it. Note that he's effectively acting as a judge here, because Sandy relies on him more than anyone else to step in in situations like this. Note also that he has to do this without any authority, and think about how hard that is; what would happen in trials if judges had to defend their conduct to every defendant that showed up? It's not possible for Tony to help out in cases like this, because that would make him judge, jury, and defense attorney; FAC can only work if there are different people for different jobs.
People keep on not getting why an article shouldn't pass (per the current FAC standards, about which I'm agnostic) for phrases like "being sudden and severe". It's not that no one would understand that; it's that really good writers constantly think about how to make what they're writing punchier, more forceful, and tighter, and the net effect of many writers and copyeditors thinking this way over many years is that you tend not to see "being" (in this sense) in writing of the caliber we're looking for; that is, it makes the article sound less professional to some people that we are really trying to impress with our FAs. It's not too much to ask to pick a little over 2000 articles on Wikipedia and hold them to a different standard than the other 2.5M articles, to serve a different purpose. It doesn't mean your article isn't a great article; it is.
I'm sorry I don't have time to copyedit this one; my purpose when I first came to Wikipedia was to collaborate with more technically-minded writers and try to keep them from getting discouraged by the process. I kind of feel like I'm part of the problem, today, and I hate that, but I can't take time away from Version 0.7. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to pass the email to OTRS to process the image. - Mailer Diablo 13:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OTRS recorded, image concern addressed. FYIP. - Mailer Diablo 10:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

←Most WP articles don't get copyedited. This is my minifesto:

  • All professional publishing uses copyeditors. Publishers and writers are less than honest about this.
  • Copyediting adapts writing to look right to as wide an audience as possible, and it's also about a lot of stupid little things (like punctuation) that trick the reader into thinking that what's being written is good stuff by giving it the same look-and-feel as other good stuff.
  • You're not a good copyeditor until at least 100 people have told you that you're a crappy copyeditor.
  • Copyediting is not optional when you have competitors who are looking for ways to tear you down. Good writers stay positive; good copyeditors think defensively. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 18:21, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have no intention to see standards being lowered. What is discouraging to see is that after begging so many copy-editors to go over the article, it still reveal new problems, even as the prose is more or less rewritten. I want to be able to put my trust and to tell the copy-editors I have requested that they are doing a wonderful job. I personally would prefer the feedback be a bit more detailed and precise, rather than "please go get an copyeditor", because copyediting to weed out errors isn't a game of treasure hunt. - Mailer Diablo 18:42, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I feel your pain, I really do. I have written a lot about this problem. When no one is getting paid, fun stuff gets done, boring stuff doesn't. Giving up time on your own stuff to copyedit someone else's stuff is boring, and people with copyediting skills usually insist on getting paid. It's amazing we've been able to crank out over 2000 FAs. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 18:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Touché! - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 23:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose very reluctantly. I have spent a few hours copy-editing this article, and it has been difficult. I missed Tony's last points despite searching for every bloody "ing" in the article. During this time I got to know the article well and often felt it was below par. A lot of work has gone into the article after its nomination—but not enough. It's not ready for promotion yet. Please don't shoot the messengers, particularly Tony; Wikipedia is very fortunate to have his support. Graham Colm Talk 22:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments After reading the first paragraph, I'm not sure that it sets sufficient context for those unfamiliar with this issue. First, please at least give an adjective to describe what kind of company Odex is; I shouldn't have to click on the blue link to find out. Link for IP addresses for our non-technically-inclined readers? "tracked the IP addresses of people believed to be downloading anime and threatened legal action against them." --> perhaps, "it's anime"? BuddingJournalist 05:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • That was probably me who moved it. I moved it out because I couldn't think of a better/shorter description for what Odex is other than "Singaporean company that licenses and releases anime for local and regional consumption" and I felt it was interfering with the lead. I moved it back now [5] --maclean 04:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a policy stating that the lead section must always begin with the title of the article, even when the title is not a proper noun? If not, the lead section could start with something like: "Odex is a Singaporean company that...(rest of sentence). In 2007, they...(rest of sentence)." To be honest, I believe it is nearly impossible for Singapore-related articles to pass FAC, due to systemic bias in the FA criteria and FAC community. (Mailer and I have previously discussed this.) --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 09:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Diff since my last set of comments. Here's a spot check:
  • "Demand letters". I see that it's a law stub, but most folk, US and non-US, will be more comfortable with "letters of demand".
  • "Odex sent demand letters to people associated with IP addresses after sufficient downloading activity had been recorded by BayTSP." This is ambiguous: is it that the people in question were associated with IP addresses only after sufficient downloading act....."? Well, no, the compnay sent the letters to them after that. Need to reword: "After sufficient downloading activity had been recorded by BayTSP, Odex sent demand letters to people associated with IP addresses." See what I mean?
  • "The letter requested monetary compensation for downloads of the company's licensed material." Ambigious again. The downloads they'd already been recorded as having made, or future downloads?
  • "The company initially believed that, unlike other countries, a mere warning letter would not stop the downloads." Other countries versus a warning letter? False contrast.
  • "mainly sent"—reverse word order (slightly better, I think; it's not wrong as is, though).
  • "did not require all of them to each pay S$5,000" --> "did not require each of them to pay a uniform S$5,000".
  • Remove comma after "individual", since there are no other "and"s in the sentence, and it's not too long. Add "two" before "factors", for clarity.
  • Remove "issued".

And so on. You haven't taken our advice about withdrawing it. The thing is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing so: it gives you more time to fix it, crucially by forging ties with other WPians who can be future collaborators. Your English by itself is not yet at the required professional level. Most people's isn't. Thus, it requires the scrutiny of a number of helpers, and time. You're asking for this to be a one-in-a-thousand article. Tony (talk) 13:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC) PS Its very own tutorial exercise now. Tony (talk) 14:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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