Wikipedia:Peer review/Daredevil (Marvel Comics)/archive1

Daredevil (Marvel Comics)

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for July 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because this underrated character could easily be a GA with a bit more work, and has FA potential written all over it. It was nominated for GA over two years ago, but I think the quickfail reasons cited at the time no longer apply. Any suggestions you can provide would be helpful (where to look, any books you know of). Anything else you think this article needs to really help it shine, be bold and speak up.

Thanks, BOZ (talk) 00:06, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: It took me a little while to catch on, but much of the article, the entire first paragraph of the lead, for example, has been copied word for word from here. Please don't waste valuable reviewing time with things like this.

Oh, arrgh! Mea culpa. Please disregard the note above. It was a late-evening mistake. The wikicomics material has been copied from this Wikipedia article, not the other way around. My other observations from last evening will still be useful, I hope, and I will add more comments and suggestions today below the first set. Finetooth (talk) 16:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

"His father, a boxer named Jack Murdock supports him as he grows up, though he is later killed by gangsters after refusing to throw a fight." - Maybe "though the father is later killed" to avoid confusion about which "he" is meant.
"Although Daredevil had been home to the work of many legendary comic-book artists — Everett, Kirby, Wally Wood, John Romita, Sr., and Gene Colan, among others — Frank Miller's influential... " - Em dashes should be unspaced in Wikipedia articles, according to MOS:EMDASH.

Publication history

MOS:QUOTE says in part, "A long quote (more than four lines, or consisting of more than one paragraph, regardless of number of lines) is formatted as a block quotation, which Wikimedia's software will indent from both margins." For this reason, the fancy quotes here and elsewhere in the article should be replaced by blockquotes.
"When Everett turned in his first-issue pencils extremely late... " - Jargon or special terms like this need to be linked or explained. What is a first-issue pencil?
"Romita had felt he no longer wanted to pencil, in favor of being solely an inker." - What is an inker? What does it mean to "ink"? What is a penciller?
"Romita later elaborated that "Stan showed me Dick Ayers' splash page... " Here's another. "Splash page" should be linked or explained.
"when he refuses to throw a fight" - Readers unfamiliar with boxing might not know what this means.
MOS:BOLD says that only the first use of the title terms are to be bolded. For this reason, "Daredevil" should not be bolded in this section.
"Daredevil would embark on a series of adventers involving such villains as the Owl, Stilt-Man, Gladiator, and the Enforcers." - Watch out for tense changes like this one. For consistency, shouldn't the verb be "embarks" rather than "would embark"?

1980s

A good rule of thumb is to provide a source for every statistic, every unusual claim, every direct quotation, and every paragraph. The first three paragraphs of this section are unsourced. The language is sophisticated, and the information here is not common knowledge.

~~Oh, I see. Much of the article has been copied word for word from here. I need go no further. Finetooth (talk) 03:17, 3 August 2009 (UTC)~~[reply]

Was it copied from there to here, or from here to there? BOZ (talk) 12:53, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was copied from Wikipedia on 28 June 2009 under the GFDL, as the WikiComics log shows. Thank you, User:BOZ for patiently showing me the log. Finetooth (talk) 16:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further Finetooth comments:

1980s

"However, successor Dennis O'Neil did not find the commercial success of his predecessor." - "achieve" rather than "find"
"then writing the acclaimed "Daredevil: Born Again" storyline in #227-233 (Feb.-Aug. 1986)... " - Each of the issue ranges, page ranges, and date ranges in the article take an en dash rather than a hyphen, thus: #227–233. Also, WP:MOS#Longer periods says in part,"Write months as whole words (February, not 2), except in the ISO 8601 format. Use abbreviations such as Feb only where space is extremely limited, such as in tables and infoboxes." Thus, all of the constructions like (Feb.–Aug. 1986) really should be (February–August 1986).
"Miller ends the story on a positive note, with Murdock reuniting with Karen Page as his sometime lover, and the mother he thought dead, now a nun, and resuming a less complicated life in Hell's Kitchen." - I won't attempt to point all of these out, but generally "with" doesn't make a good conjunction and forces the rather awkward "-ing" verb forms. Usually sentences like this can be recast to be slightly better. Suggestion: "Miller ends the story on a positive note when Murdock reunites with Karen Page as his sometime lover, and the mother he thought dead, now a nun, resumes a less complicated life in Hell's Kitchen."
The final paragraph of this section lacks a source or sources.

1990s

The first two paragraphs and the last paragraph of this section lack sources.
"Its first eight-issue story arc" - Wikilink story arc?

2000s"

The first three paragraphs lack sources.
"The 2001 miniseries Daredevil: Yellow presented another take on Daredevil's origins using letters written to Karen Page after her death as a narrative device. Here Page believes she is in love... " - Here the verb tenses change unexpectedly from past to present. Shouldn't it be "presents" rather than "presented"? I'd suggest looking for this pattern throughout the article. The switch happens, I think, because sometimes you are describing what the creators did in the past and, shortly thereafter, you are describing actions in the narrative present of the story. It's important to keep them separated by verb tense to help keep readers from confusing the two groups.
"Over the next couple of arcs, Brubaker would make use of older characters... " - "made" rather than "would make"?

Powers and abilities

"Due to his lack of sight, Daredevil developed a radar sense." - "develops"?
"This weakness is often used to immobilize Daredevil if he were bombarded by too much sound, which will cause him great pain and disorient him." - "when he is bombarded by too much sound, which causes him great pain and disorients him"? Narrative present.
"However, this ability can be fooled if the other persons heart is not beating at a natural rate, such as if they have a pacemaker." - "person's" rather than "persons". Also, to avoid the number disagreement between "person" and "they", you might say "... natural rate, as would be the case with a pacemaker". Also, wikilink pacemaker?
"his specially-designed billy club" - Wikilink billy club?
"his billy club can extend into a six foot bo-staff" - What is a bo-staff?

References

Most of the date formats in the citations are yyyy-mm-dd. The Manual of Style suggests making the formatting in the references consistent. The quickest way to achieve this would be to make them all yyyy-mm-dd.
Citation 5 has a dead url.

Images

MOS:IMAGES says in part, "Images should be inside the section they belong to (after the heading and after any links to other articles), and not above the heading." IMAGE:Ddsmith.png violates this guideline.
MOS:IMAGES also says in part, "Do not place left-aligned images directly below a subsection-level heading (=== or lower), as this sometimes disconnects the heading from the text that follows it. This can often be avoided by shifting left-aligned images down a paragraph or two." Several images in the existing article bump into third-level heads.
I've never seen so many non-free images in a single article. Each individually might have a convincing rationale, yet I would find it hard to argue that they are all needed for the reader to understand the subject.

General

It would be good to merge any extremely short paragraphs or sections with other paragraphs or sections.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 19:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]