Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Gertie the Dinosaur

Gertie the Dinosaur[edit]

This nomination predates the introduction in April 2014 of article-specific subpages for nominations and has been created from the edit history of Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests.

This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 8, 2014 by Bencherlite ^Talk 01:32, 20 January 2014‎ (UTC)[reply]

Blurb as proposed by Curly Turkey:

Inspired by the flip books his son brought home, American cartoonist Winsor McCay (c. 1867–1934) turned his hand to the infant art of cartoon animation. His first film, Little Nemo, debuted in 1911 and featured characters from best known comic strip. This film and his next, How a Mosquito Operates (1912), featured in McCay's vaudeville act, but not to the degree of the interactive Gertie the Dinosaur (1914, pictured), in which McCay pretended to give commands to an animated trained dinsoaur before live audiences. McCay spent nearly two years drawing the realistic documentary The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918), a patriotic call to arms reenacting the 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania by German submarines. In 1921, McCay realeased three films in the series Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, after which he was made to give up on animation by his employer, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Blurb redrafted by Bencherlite (per previous multiple TFAs, for comparison):

The animated films Little Nemo, How a Mosquito Operates, Gertie the Dinosaur and The Sinking of the Lusitania, and three films in the Dream of the Rarebit Fiend series, were all created by the American cartoonist Winsor McCay (c.1867–1934). Inspired by the flip books his son brought home, McCay turned his hand to the infant art of cartoon animation. His first film, Little Nemo, debuted in 1911 and featured characters from his best-known comic strip. This film and his next, How a Mosquito Operates (1912), featured in McCay's vaudeville act, but not to the degree of the interactive Gertie the Dinosaur (1914, pictured), in which McCay pretended to give commands to an animated trained dinosaur before live audiences. McCay spent nearly two years drawing the realistic documentary The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918), a patriotic call to arms reenacting the 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania by German submarines. In 1921, McCay realeased three films in the series Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, after which he was made to give up on animation by his employer, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. (Full articles: Little Nemo, How a Mosquito Operates, Gertie the Dinosaur, The Sinking of the Lusitania, and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend)

6 points for the 100th anniversay of Gertie the Dinosaur, and a whole whack o' bonus points for sheer balls, the number to be determined by the volume of your most generous applause. Also, bonus points for getting a whole bunch of this pop culture fluff out of the queue all in one go to make room for more articles on inclement weather. Curly Turkey (gobble) 00:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support as nominator. Curly Turkey (gobble) 01:15, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmmm.... Five FAs in one blurb? What do people think of this? I've rejigged the blurb to put the FAs in bold at the start, rather than have links elsewhere before we get to the TFA(s), and added a "full articles" bit at the end, in the way that it's been done before here (3 FAs) and here (2 FAs). Bencherlite^Talk 01:21, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Of course, people think it's great, don't you, people? I think bolding at opening and closing is overkill, though. Maybe just leave the "Full articles" bit bolded and drop the first line? Curly Turkey (gobble) 01:24, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- While it's impressive to get the 5 animated works to FA, this seems like a way to avoid getting Mccay's article to FA (which is nearly there, it's a GA, and certainly well sourced), or would preclude McCay's article, should it later get to FA, from being a TFA. I would suggest keeping this to Gertie (which is fine as a TFA on its own, and early the same points listed) only to avoid creating any future situations where this could be seen as a precedent and to get the McCay article its own chance to shine. --MASEM (t) 01:25, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - The only thing keeping the McCay from getting to FA is the emptiness of my wallet—there are a couple of expensive books I need to get my hands on. But why would it keep McCay from TFA? Curly Turkey (gobble) 01:29, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - It shouldn't. McCay just wouldn't run in the near future. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - It just seems like this is about "him" and not the works, as the blurb is written. --MASEM (t) 01:50, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      - A blurb about McCay would also include his comics, which are fairly absent here. That and the obvious biographical information. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:57, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      - There are three articles on McCay's comic strips alone, and I think there's enough material out there to work up a short one on Hungry Henrietta if I were motivated. On top of that, I have long-term plans for doing an article on his nearly 40 years of editorial cartooning. Animation was a ten-year off-hours detour in McCay's long, productive career, while he did comic strips and editorial cartoons full-time during the day. Curly Turkey (gobble) 03:41, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as multiple nomination, Support iff just Gertie. Sorry, Turkey, but I do think a sea of bold blue is not what the doctor ordered here. Gertie certainly has date relevance, but the others deserve their own time in the limelight. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gertie only. I will offer mad props for attempting it, but as with Crisco, I don't think a sea of bolded links is especially good for our readers. Plus, I think each of your FA's deserve their own moment in the sun! Reso lute 01:52, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gertie only. Like Resolute said; the other articles are all great and deserve their own showcases. When the Sedin twins were featured in September as a double bill, Henrik ended up scoring more views simply because he was placed first in the blurb. Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 02:04, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, you partypoopin' hunks o' dung! Curly Turkey (gobble) 03:30, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I won't say "oppose" but I'm not ready to "support"--although I have to say, Curly, you get points for a clever and creative idea. But I would hope five FAs deserve their own day in the spotlight given the amount of work that went into them. I do concur with the others that Gertie would be the most appropriate for that date. Would it be acceptable to have those five FAs for five days in a row? a McCay week?...like the week of George last year? I'd support that. --ColonelHenry (talk) 03:35, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd totally support that, but mostly because of the remarkable amount of whining it would cause on Talk:Main page. But realistically, this idea might present issues if there are any other anniversaries that fall in that timeframe. Reso lute 04:14, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose multiple—those should be limited and rare. Unlike DYK, there's no real bonus to combining multiple articles together into a single blurb. Each article should receive its "day in the sun" at TFA, while DYK may combine multiples together to avoid repetition and monotony when a string of similar articles are nominated at once (and where the hooks would overlap significantly among the group). Because TFA spaces out nominations to achieve diversity, we don't have that issue related to monotony. For that reason, I would oppose a "McCay week" as proposed by Colonel Henry; let each article come to TFA individually as they reach individual anniversaries.
Support running a single article that day, and Gertie makes the most sense because of the centennial. Imzadi 1979 → 04:31, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. For any of the above proposals by Curly Turkey -- they all seem fine to me. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 02:37, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed cop-out[edit]

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) is an animated short film by American cartoonist Winsor McCay (c. 1867–1934). McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act: the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. McCay's employer, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, later curtailed McCay's vaudeville activities, so McCay added a live-action introductory sequence to the film for its theatrical release. Gertie was the first film to use animation techniques such as keyframes, registration marks, tracing paper, the Mutoscope action viewer, and animation loops. Although Gertie is popularly thought to be the earliest animated film, it was McCay's third, and his earlier films were preceded by animation made at least as far back as J. Stuart Blackton's 1900 film The Enchanted Drawing. Gertie influenced the next generation of animators, including the Fleischer brothers, Otto Messmer, Paul Terry, and Walt Disney. McCay abandoned a sequel, Gertie on Tour (c. 1921), after producing about a minute of footage. (Full article...)

6 points for the 100th anniversary. Curly Turkey (gobble) 05:04, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Strongest possible oppose for suckitude and, like, giving in to The Man, man. You all suck, by the way. You'll all be getting fossil fuel for next Christmas—whole bagloads of shiny, turdlike stones. Curly Turkey (gobble) 05:04, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Awesome. Average temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius in December were just what I needed to fix! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:39, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support this version. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:39, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Surrender sucks. I would have loved McCay week.--ColonelHenry (talk) 06:10, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- @Bencherlite: - would it be possible to do a McCay week starting with Gertie if nothing else bumps up against it? Would that negatively effect page views? What would be the hub-bub that results?--ColonelHenry (talk) 15:29, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - A week devoted to the work of one film-maker, no matter how great the films or the articles, would be completely over the top. Interest in the TFAs would be bound to decline very rapidly (increasingly the reaction would be "I've read that already, not interested", I expect) and complaints about lack of TFA diversity would soar, given the fuss that some people already make if TFA schedules e.g. cricket / weather / [x] articles insufficiently far apart for their liking. OK, "George week" was all biographical articles but at least it used five articles across a range of topic areas: religion, music, literature, warfare. "Eagle week" featured a coin, a warship, an bird and a comic. (Both of these themed series have now been added to Wikipedia:Today's featured article oddities - I'm sure Raul used to run subtler themes of TFAs, so please add them if you can find them.) The occasional themed group of TFAs is all very well, but some diversity is still required, I think, which "McCay week" would not provide. Bencherlite^Talk 16:14, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - Well, if we want to go for the greatest effect I can schedule pictures of Australian birds five days in a row as well. Maximum drama. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:36, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      - I like birds (although I don't write enough about them)...so I'd say yes. Make February a series of four "TFA theme-weeks" :) Although, I know given the need for diversity and reader interest, it wouldn't fly (pun intended).--ColonelHenry (talk) 16:07, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would totally go with McCay week if it didn't block other potential nominations, but Oppose Curly's strongest possible oppose. So, err, support. Reso lute 14:40, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support. For any of the above proposals by Curly Turkey -- they all seem fine to me. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 02:37, 9 January 2014 (UTC
Support It will be great to have this landmark film on the main page for its centenary. All the other films should have their own TFA day IMO. --Loeba (talk) 21:16, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]