Darth Vader was one of the Media and drama good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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I recently requested a peer review of the "Cultural impact" section of the article. I posted my request on the WikiProject Film page. Below is the resulting thread. Here is the version of the Darth Vader page that existed at the time I made the request.
Hi, I'm hoping to get some peer review for one section of an article I'm working on. I'm posting here instead of going through the formal peer review process because I only need help with one section, not the entire article. The section in question is "Cultural impact." I've been looking at WP essays and how-to pages about how to write a cultural impact section, but I've learned all I can from those pages at this point, and now I need an actual person to look at the section and give feedback. I've been editing the entire page a lot, but have hardly touched that section because I'm not sure what it needs. Therefore, most of the content in the section was created before I started editing the page. I've done a little trimming, but that's it. I'm aware a few of the segments are unsourced. Wafflewombat (talk) 06:49, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That section is, not to put too fine a point on it, atrocious. It starts out with misrepresenting the scope of the AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains list and it's all downhill from there. IGN is an okay source but should by no means be treated as an authoritative one and is given outsized WP:WEIGHT the way it is used here. What follows is a random assortment of references in media without any sourcing to back up that these are significant ones, let alone the most significant ones. A species is named after Vader—sure, species named after popular culture items are a dime a dozen. The same thing applies to astronomical objects, by the way. Architecture inspired by Darth Vader might be relevant here, but architecture that is just compared to Vader almost certainly isn't. Darth Vader being a kind of shorthand for "villain" is probably noteworthy... but merely listing examples isn't enough, that kind of overarching analysis needs to come from WP:Reliable sources making that exact point. The borderline personality disorder thing is in the wrong section—that's in-universe character analysis. And so on. In summary, it's all an arbitrary collection of trivia. The way to fix it is to start over from scratch using sources that actually cover the overarching topic—(the cultural impact of) Darth Vader. That's the only way to ensure that the section is compliant with Wikipedia's WP:Core content policies. In particular, we need sources to tell us what's an important WP:ASPECT and what is not so we can treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. TompaDompa (talk) 19:11, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the detailed reply! Unfortunately I'm not the person to re-write the section at this point in time, because I'm still getting my head around everything you said, and I don't feel confident in my abilities to discern between important information and trivia when it comes to a section like this. At least not yet...I'm learning and growing as an editor every day. Should I just leave it as-is with the clean-up tag, or should I remove some of the most atrocious bits? Wafflewombat (talk) 01:51, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The basic idea of relying on sources on the overarching topic is that editors do not have to (and really, are not supposed to) discern between important information and trivia—the sources do that for us. This is admittedly oversimplifying things as there is a bit more to it than that, but merely identifying quality sources on the topic and covering the same things as they do in roughly the same WP:PROPORTION will get you most of the way there. If you have already located quality sources in the course of working on other parts of the article, I would encourage you to give it a shot by removing the entirety of the current section and starting over. It's not like it can get much worse than it currently is. TompaDompa (talk) 10:36, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I created a section called "Profile" to share a succinct version of Vader's life story. Before, his story was split between the lead and other sections. Right now, the Profile section is sourced from StarWars.com and from the films (as primary sources). Is this acceptable sourcing, or do I need different or better sources?
I honestly don't know too much about sourcing regarding fictional characters. I would recommend looking up some fictional characters whose articles are either FAs or GAs to get a better idea.
I used the present tense when writing the short biography in the lead. The Biography section uses the past tense to describe all of Vader's life, including his death. The idea in the lead is that it describes how he is at various stages of his life (and how he is when he appears in films, etc). If we called him a widower, it would mean we were looking at his life at a certain point in time, but he doesn't always appear at that point in time in every film, novel, etc. Does that make sense? Wafflewombat (talk) 03:49, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't follow this article, but it seems to me that unfortunately Wafflewombat's overhaul has seriously damaged the article. Simply the fact that they have reduced all plot coverage to a section titled “Fictional biography” with no real world context (films/dates) and from an in-universe perspective (MOS:REALWORLD) and have used past tense (see WP:FICTENSE) is a red flag. This article is a former Good Article that was most recently assessed as a B, and I don't think it even meets those criteria anymore.— TAnthonyTalk20:49, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wanted to reply directly to this post. I'm planning on removing the “Fictional biography” section and restoring the "Appearances" section. At some point, I'm hoping you could explain which other parts of the article you feel have been damaged. In one of your edit summaries, you said that the Bio/Appearances issue is the least of the page's problems. I'm curious to hear more about that. I understand it may have been a shock to visit the page and find it much shorter than it used to be, but my many edits were made over a period of over two months, with edit summaries provided, and you or anyone else could have jumped in at any time to point out problematic edits. What I'm saying is, there have been good reasons for my edits, even if the article is reduced in length. The Cultural Impact section was peer-reviewed and called "atrocious" (see previous thread on this page), and the reviewer recommended it be entirely scrapped. There were a number of unreliable sources in use, and a fair number of claims in the text that were not supported by the cited sources.
I am absolutely open to the possibility that I made mistakes when editing other aspects of this article. Probably the best thing would be for you to go to the version of the page that existed before I started editing in March, and alert me to changes you are concerned about. Then we can go through and I can explain the edits. In the meantime, I am myself reviewing that same version of the article and pondering if there is any content that should be restored. I feel awful about the mistakes I've made, and I'm taking damage-control very seriously. Thanks for your dedication to quality on Wikipedia. Your feedback has already taught me a lot and made me a better editor. Wafflewombat (talk) 19:28, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The infobox has undergone various changes as I and others have experimented with different configurations of collapsible headers (where it says "more" and "show"). The idea is to make the infobox shorter since there are a lot of portrayers of Vader/Anakin. However, I keep coming back to the same conclusion that the collapsible headers make the infobox cluttered and difficult to read. I would vote that we don't use the collapsible headers at all on this page, and just live with a long infobox. But I don't want to make any more changes without seeking consensus. Could I get your thoughts? Thanks! Wafflewombat (talk) 11:00, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking of the infobox, I question whether some info is really worthwhile. For example, I think listing every title that Vader had while as a Jedi is not really that important; and I don't know that slave should really be listed as an occupation, as I do not think that is something that would be done in an in-universe way. Furthermore, I think that "Others in Legends" under Apprentice isn't really valuable information. Speaking of info that may be worthwhile to add, species and gender may be valuable, since neither is evident from the image. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 10:53, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the input! I made a couple edits based on your suggestions. Regarding Legends, I've been a little uncertain about how much Legends info to include on SW character pages. I have been told that lots of people did/do care about the Legends works, so my impression is that it shouldn't be disregarded entirely. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Legends info should be removed from the info box of all SW characters, or just Vader? Wafflewombat (talk) 15:44, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, Legends info was formerly referred to as EU, correct? If so, I think that sticking to only info from the films and TV shows would probably be for the best as far as infobox content goes. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 19:58, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, obviously, Darth Vader is notable, one of the absolutely most notable fictional characters on the project. Unfortunately, the article doesn't do much to really assert that. At first I thought that the article didn't have a reception section due to the way it was structured, but when I did find the reception section, I didn't really see anything to say what makes him a notable figure. Strictly speaking, it feels wrong that Admiral Piett and Darth Vader have similar amount of content in these sections. Now, granted, it's understandable why these kinds of articles languish in this way; after all, there's no reason to believe anyone's going to argue that Darth Vader should not be deleted, while, say, Admiral Ackbar may need a stronger show of notability. It would certainly be good to see more done to demonstrate to the uninformed reader why Darth Vader is such a big deal. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 11:30, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comments and your attention to various SW character pages! I've been working on these pages on my own for a long time with little feedback from others. Vader absolutely needs more demonstration of notability. Do you have the time and energy to take a crack at the Vader Reception section? Wafflewombat (talk) 15:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Resolved