Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/1990s

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1990s

EpicWinner (talk) 22:51, March 16, 2014 (UTC)

I've got this. I'm using the old template to do it; if you don't like it feel free to meet me in the car park for a brief and violent exchange of views. --ChiefjusticeDS 18:08, March 20, 2014 (UTC)

Humour:	4	Hello, I've not done a review for you before so before I get going I'll establish some details that will help you digest the feedback found below. First of all don't be disheartened by any low scores, the review process here is not intended as a rubber stamp for articles on their way to the front page but rather as a means for improvement. Secondly you are welcome to disagree; if I tell you that something isn't working you should take it as my opinion, I must confess to being utterly baffled by Family Guy, but there are others who find it hilarious, the same principle applies here. Finally, I'm on your side with this, I would be overjoyed if this article were gracing the front page of the wiki next week, I'm happy to work with you to achieve that if it is your aim. The humour in your article is promising in quite a few places and I cracked a smile a few times on my way through it, the problem is that you are letting yourself down by some poor choices in places. One of the very first things that I noticed was that you have a tendency to break from reality in order to make a joke, a good example being where you say "The Mighty Stephen Hawking, physicist and popular new era gangsta rapper". The humour in an uncyclopedia article is generally derived from subverting the encyclopaedic style and writing in a factual manner about amusing things, while many articles are founded entirely on silliness it is generally advisable not mix the two tones together. It will probably help you to understand what I'm getting at here if I give you an example, consider the two following statements: "The 90's provided golden times for many, that is until noted physicist Stephen Hawking who proved that time is not, and can never be golden. Hawking postulated is in fact "a rather pleasing shade of Mauve"" Or "Stephen Hawking gangster rapper, drive-by shooting enthusiast and honorary member of the California Highway Patrol made his contribution to the 90's by dancing sitting down" While those two examples may not be the apex of comedic writing I hope they illustrate my point, the first is amusing because it bases what it is saying upon well known fact (Stephen Hawking is an intelligent man) and works from there to come up with a joke. The second example simply slams a lot of random ideas together and while it may provide a fleeting laugh it quickly becomes tiresome and difficult to follow. I'd suggest looking at your jokes with this in mind, you have already got numerous jokes that fit with the above that could be changed, look at where you make these jokes and consider where you are basing your jokes on reality and where you are simply making things up to fill the space. Remember that randomness can be amusing but, like a house made out of bread sticks, it is unlikely to work for long. My second suggestion links quite neatly into the above, your article is quite difficult to follow, you plainly have a lot you want to say but you are in such a rush to pack everything into a single paragraph the good jokes are getting lost in amongst a whole load of others that just aren't as good. Consider the wikipedia article on this topic and note the style it uses in the non-listy sections (television and music). Since you are talking about a ten year period here and our aim is to amuse, rather than to inform I suggest cutting back on the number of things you want to cover. Have a look at this article or this one, the authors use a central theme and style throughout the article and I think this would be beneficial to you. Uncyclopedia has seen its fair share of articles considering periods of time and new ones need to consider this when starting off, coming up with a central theme is important and I'll discuss this a bit more in the concept section. The crux here is that you need to focus your efforts, if you are happy with the current style of the article I recommend utilising aspects of the 90's that everyone remembers, for instance "Who among us doesn't remember rushing home from school, going straight up to your bedroom, and then waiting three hours to see a woman's breast load incredibly slowly with the awesome power of dial-up this, we knew, was as good as it would ever get". That sort of thing encourages humour from the shared experience of your reader or at the opportunity to laugh at someone doing such a bizarre thing. As a bit of an aside to this, profanity and cursing such as where you say: "You teens should stop pretending to be 90s kids. Just accept your shitty decade the 2000s and stop bitching about how us 90s kids are "bullies" or "arrogant." is a horrible break from the encyclopaedic style. It is easy to convey this thought in a better way e.g. "You young people these days with your fancy gadgets and whole lives ahead of you probably can't quite appreciate what this article is getting at so feel free to "rave" or "tweet" until the danger of you learning something has passed.". My final point is the lists, there's so many of them on Uncyclopedia at the moment that it's hard to move, in an article like this it's easy to get drawn into them but try saying what you are trying to say in lists in prose instead. This ties into you trying to cut down on the number of things that you are talking about in the article. Don't let the criticism above discourage you, this is a decent effort and your humour in places is quick and intelligent and really works; the score probably reflects my disappointment that there wasn't more of it. Take the time to look at each of your jokes and decide what you want to keep and what you think needs to go, I'm more than happy to assist you if I can.
Concept:	5	The concept for the article is simple and is something I've seen attempted in a lot of different forms during my time on the wiki. The style you're using is good, but I can't help but feel a different way of executing it may help you. What I mean by this is that you could adopt a particular persona when writing the article, this is one of my favourite ways of writing that I never seem to have gotten round to attempting properly. You could write it from the point of view of someone born in the early 2000's who doesn't appreciate what the 90's was about and makes no secret of this in his/her writing "People in the 90's would write about their drab colourless lives on paper, if you can imagine such a thing, it's so analogue only old people and the bourgeoisie use paper". There is a whole host of ways to convey your point, be it through an interesting way of presenting the article or through the persona you use to present it. The most important thing to remember is to be consistent in your tone whatever you choose. If you're writing and satirising wikipedia, bad language and juvenile writing can spoil your article even if the jokes they are being used in are excellent. Have a read of some of our best articles for some ideas. If you see one you like, copy it, use that authors style to create your own.
Prose and formatting:	7	Your prose is generally fine I will, as always, recommend that you proofread this carefully to make sure that there are no lingering errors in the spelling and grammar. From my initial reading I could see a couple of errors, so make sure you proofread carefully after any major revisions, if proofreading isn't your thing ask someone else if they wouldn't mind helping. In terms of formatting you should try to avoid putting a template directly opposite an image as it tends to squeeze the text into the middle of the page, spread things out and the article becomes a whole lot easier on the eyes. Otherwise your images are well spaced, just consider where they end up if you make any significant revisions, it's easy to forget about formatting when you're focussing on the writing, but articles have been voted down on VFH for less.
Images:	4	The images are okay, however there is an awful lot going on in the first and the fourth images. They aren't particularly pleasant to look at and this can put some users off your article from the start. Remember that people will make a snap judgement on your article from their very first sight of it. If the images are out of focus or look like 5 minute MSPaint jobs they will dislike your article even if the text is grade-A comedy. It's an easy thing to fix, look at the wikipedia article for ideas, their images are usually very good, not to mention being in the public domain. I'd suggest reworking all but the image of the man with the phone as they just don't look very good. The captions underneath the images are also very important, a good caption can make a good image excellent, just as a poor caption can detract from a good image. Consider your article and the jokes you make in it, try to link them to the caption. What I mean by linking captions to your article is just that, if your article talks about the tiny mobile phones available these days, you could caption your image of the man with the phone with something like "I'd like to see anybody smuggle this into a prison in a bodily orifice!". Good captions are a really important aspect of your article and I'd urge you not to neglect them.
Miscellaneous:	6	My overall grade of the article.
Final Score:	26	This isn't by any means a bad article. It's a good first effort, I can assure you that it's very rare to have someone arrive on the wiki and immediately start writing amazing articles, I certainly didn't (I still haven't really managed it) and don't be upset that you haven't either. You definitely have the potential to turn this into something that we'd be proud to display on the front page, but if it is to reach that point you need to work at it. Consider what I've said, my advice is just that, I can't command you to change the article and even if I could I wouldn't; it is important for you to decide for yourself what you want to write and more importantly how you wish to write it. There's always help available here if you'd like it, just ask someone, if they can't help or don't want to ask someone else! Most of us are more than happy to help people improve. If you have any questions or comments about this review then by all means let me know on my talk page. Good luck making any changes.
Reviewer:	--ChiefjusticeDS 19:39, March 20, 2014 (UTC)ChiefjusticeDS