- The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a featured article nomination that was successful. Please do not modify it.
George Roubicek
- Nominated by: Hunter Kahn 16:02, August 31, 2010 (UTC)
- Nomination comments: I have something of a fascination with the actors who play bit roles in Star Wars films... :D
(4 Inqs/3 Users/7 Total)
Support
- Simply fantastic. The amount of research blows my mind. Menkooroo 03:07, September 6, 2010 (UTC)
- Fantastic work, Kahn. You should seriously consider starting that OOU project.—Jedi Kasra (comlink) 16:45, September 12, 2010 (UTC)
- Good stuff. ~ SavageBob 22:48, January 2, 2011 (UTC)
--Eyrezer 03:23, January 8, 2011 (UTC)- Cavalier One
(Squadron channel) 10:56, January 25, 2011 (UTC) 
Excellent. Green Tentacle (Talk) 18:28, January 31, 2011 (UTC)- 1358 (Talk) 11:25, February 6, 2011 (UTC)
Object
I owe so much to you!
Can you source the entire infobox? Good form and all. Imdb and whatnot.The wikipedia linking seems to be inconsistent --- for example, "Russian" is linked but not "German", "Vienna" but not "London", "television film" but not "mystery novel" --- Can you link as much as possible for completeness's sake? I see a lot of things that could use one (American, Atlantic, horror film, astronomer, etc), and some are linked in their second or third appearance (anime).- I've added a number more wikilinks, and I think I've got them all now, but please let me know if I've missed any. — Hunter Kahn 01:56, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
- Added a few more. S'all good.
- I've added a number more wikilinks, and I think I've got them all now, but please let me know if I've missed any. — Hunter Kahn 01:56, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
There's no context on who "The Doctor" is --- I think a wikipedia link would do the trick, though. :^DThis may seem nitpicky, but saying that he was cast in A New Hope is inaccurate --- he was cast in a film called Star Wars. ^^I don't think it's necessary to quote all three of his SW lines verbatim. Stating that he only had three lines and leaving it at that would probably do the trick.At the end of the second Star Wars paragraph, can you summarize what he said instead of quoting it verbatim? Especially because it's already the leading quote of the section.Ditto with the sideshow collectible quote.- I left in part of it and paraphrased most. If you don't like it, we can just drop the quote part. — Hunter Kahn 01:56, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
- Actually, I think that quite a bit of this paragraph can be dropped. The detail about what accessories the figure included might be relevant to the Praji article, but isn't to Roubicek. Noting that the reviewer thought it resembled Roubicek is good, but the bit about it being among the reviewer's favorites is extraneous. And I still think it's better to summarize the quote rather than "The reviewer said: '...'" It's always better to put it in your own words if you can.
- I incorporated all your suggestions. I dropped the remaining quote altogether because it didn't really feel like it makes sense to paraphrase it to me. It's really just a remark about how much of an honor it is to Roubicek to have an action figure, so paraphrasing it seems kind of silly to me. I dropped it altogether, and reorganized the section a bit so it would be two large paragraphs, instead of one big paragraph and two tiny ones. Let me know what you think... — Hunter Kahn 03:38, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
- Looks good. I'm going to go over the article one more time before I support, probably later today. Cheers. Menkooroo 06:29, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
- I incorporated all your suggestions. I dropped the remaining quote altogether because it didn't really feel like it makes sense to paraphrase it to me. It's really just a remark about how much of an honor it is to Roubicek to have an action figure, so paraphrasing it seems kind of silly to me. I dropped it altogether, and reorganized the section a bit so it would be two large paragraphs, instead of one big paragraph and two tiny ones. Let me know what you think... — Hunter Kahn 03:38, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
- Actually, I think that quite a bit of this paragraph can be dropped. The detail about what accessories the figure included might be relevant to the Praji article, but isn't to Roubicek. Noting that the reviewer thought it resembled Roubicek is good, but the bit about it being among the reviewer's favorites is extraneous. And I still think it's better to summarize the quote rather than "The reviewer said: '...'" It's always better to put it in your own words if you can.
- I left in part of it and paraphrased most. If you don't like it, we can just drop the quote part. — Hunter Kahn 01:56, September 2, 2010 (UTC)
I think it's best to avoid abbreviations whenever possible (ie. sci-fi).Even though it's a short quote, can you turn his bit about dubbing and subtitling scripts being different into a not-quote?- Wonderful! Just wonderful. I'm very happy to see another actor FAN from you. You blazed the trail that I followed, man. Menkooroo 03:49, September 1, 2010 (UTC)
Eyrezer
Has Roubicek participated in any fan events/signings/interviews etc? It would appear from the infobox image that he has at least done some signings. I think any info on these should be added to the article. --Eyrezer 02:17, December 11, 2010 (UTC)
Prepare to be savaged...
- This is mostly really good. I have a few quibbles, though.
First, the phrase "in the Star Wars universe" in the intro seems oddly placed to me. I realize that you're trying to say that A New Hope has been his only Star Wars work, but the way it's worded makes it sound like Roubicek portrayed Praji in the Star Wars universe, which is, of course, not true. In other words, could this be reworded? "his most impressive film credit" sounds POV to me. Could you elaborate to say who called it such?The term "spy-fi" seems jargony to me. Maybe "science-fiction/spy" would be better.- I added spy fiction. What do you think? — Hunter Kahn 04:23, December 17, 2010 (UTC)
"he played the small role of Nahdonnis Praji, a commander in the Galactic Empire..." This reads oddly to me, since the character had no such name when Roubicek played him. I'm on the fence about this, since we all know the character was later named this, but if it were me, I'd probably say that "he played the small role of an Imperial officer" instead and then go into how the character was later named Praji.- Since I later mention when the names were given later and that info is sourced, I reworded it to say that he played a small officer "who was later named Nahdonnis Praji.
Perhaps Menkooroo or others can comment on this, but to me, several sentences written in the past tense would be better related in present, particularly plot info. This is especially true in the Star Wars section, where "He appear[s] in only seventeen seconds of the film, and his role consist[s] of three sentences of dialogue spoken to Darth Vader."- Not to be difficult, but I'm not sure why it would be better to have this in present tense than past? It seems to me his filming of these scenes were all in the past, so that tense strikes me as appropriate. Maybe if you could explain a bit more to me why you feel it should be in present? — Hunter Kahn 04:40, December 17, 2010 (UTC)
- The problem, to my mind, is that once you start talking about the content of his scene, you're no longer talking about Roubicek's past actions; you're talking about the film, which still exists and replays exactly the same way (until Lucas monkeys with it :). In other words, if I pop my A New Hope DVD in the machine, Roubicek still appears on screen for that length of time, Praji still says those same lines, etc. etc. Menkooroo and me and others have discussed this kind of thing with regard to BTS sections in in-universe articles, but this is the first I've encountered it in an OOU article. But, speaking as someone who writes a lot of long papers in the discipline of film studies, I can say that I would treat descriptions of the on-screen action as present tense whenever possible. ~ SavageBob 15:11, December 17, 2010 (UTC)
- Ola! Bobby asked me to chime in here. The truth is, I've actually been slowly coming around to this whole literary-present-tense thing. :P For Bob's reason above, I agree that "He appears" would probably be better than "He appeared," but I'm not sure about "His role consisted of" --- in that sentence, it kinda seems like "His" is talking about Roubicek, not Praji, and Roubicek's role was limited to 1977. However, I think that that sentence would make more sense if it was talking about Praji, in which case, "the character's role consists" might be better than "his role consisted". I've been reading through your Cushing article, Hunter, and you use present tense whenever you're talking about what one of Cushing's characters does in a film ("Cushing's Frankenstein commits vicious crimes to attain his goals", "who in the film is portrayed as having an affair with Wagner.") --- using present tense here would be no different, would it? Menkooroo 11:58, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
Sorry it's taken me so long to address this; I'm buying my first house, and it's been QUITE a process. :D I will try to address this this weekend. — Hunter Kahn 17:35, December 30, 2010 (UTC)Ok, I made some changes to the tenses in the SW section and elsewhere where plot summaries/character descriptions are concerned, but not so much elsewhere. I think this is what you guys have in mind, but may be still unclear and in further need of guidance. Please let me know whether this is right or not, or feel free to change the tenses yourself if I'm still not getting it. — Hunter Kahn 22:00, January 2, 2011 (UTC)
- Ola! Bobby asked me to chime in here. The truth is, I've actually been slowly coming around to this whole literary-present-tense thing. :P For Bob's reason above, I agree that "He appears" would probably be better than "He appeared," but I'm not sure about "His role consisted of" --- in that sentence, it kinda seems like "His" is talking about Roubicek, not Praji, and Roubicek's role was limited to 1977. However, I think that that sentence would make more sense if it was talking about Praji, in which case, "the character's role consists" might be better than "his role consisted". I've been reading through your Cushing article, Hunter, and you use present tense whenever you're talking about what one of Cushing's characters does in a film ("Cushing's Frankenstein commits vicious crimes to attain his goals", "who in the film is portrayed as having an affair with Wagner.") --- using present tense here would be no different, would it? Menkooroo 11:58, December 18, 2010 (UTC)
- The problem, to my mind, is that once you start talking about the content of his scene, you're no longer talking about Roubicek's past actions; you're talking about the film, which still exists and replays exactly the same way (until Lucas monkeys with it :). In other words, if I pop my A New Hope DVD in the machine, Roubicek still appears on screen for that length of time, Praji still says those same lines, etc. etc. Menkooroo and me and others have discussed this kind of thing with regard to BTS sections in in-universe articles, but this is the first I've encountered it in an OOU article. But, speaking as someone who writes a lot of long papers in the discipline of film studies, I can say that I would treat descriptions of the on-screen action as present tense whenever possible. ~ SavageBob 15:11, December 17, 2010 (UTC)
- Not to be difficult, but I'm not sure why it would be better to have this in present tense than past? It seems to me his filming of these scenes were all in the past, so that tense strikes me as appropriate. Maybe if you could explain a bit more to me why you feel it should be in present? — Hunter Kahn 04:40, December 17, 2010 (UTC)
Finally, is it possible to find better sourcing for the non-film-role IMDB stuff? I think IMDB is generally OK for roles actors have played, but it becomes less reliable for things like birthplaces, birth dates, and trivia. The site is incredibly useful, but, aside from the credits to films, it's a fan-created site, not unlike a Wiki, and therefore doesn't seem to meet our criteria for reliable sources. Fortunately, for this article, this only applies to the birth date and birth place. ~ SavageBob 21:41, December 15, 2010 (UTC)I'll see if I can't dig up some alternative sources. Thanks for your comments! — Hunter Kahn 04:40, December 17, 2010 (UTC)As of now, IMDb is only used as a source for film/tv role stuff except for the fact that Roubicek was born in Vienna in 1935. Unfortunately, I've searched high and low and cannot find another source for this information. Let me know if you think I should remove it from the article altogether. — Hunter Kahn 22:04, January 2, 2011 (UTC)- Hmm. While I still think it's good to reduce reliance on IMDB, I've poked around a bit, and it seems they do have some editorial oversight these days, unlike in the past. Sourcing his birthplace and date to that site isn't ideal, but I think it's OK barring better sourcing. ~ SavageBob 22:48, January 2, 2011 (UTC)
Comments
Approved as a Featured article by Inquisitorius 11:25, February 6, 2011 (UTC)
FYI: In the second paragraph of the Star Wars section, I found two of the same ref tags (leading to Insider 89) in subsequent sentences, so I decided to remove one of the tags. Then I noticed that the second sentence mentioned a 2007 interview with Roubicek, which couldn't have been in the Insider issue since that came out in 2006. So moved the ref back up a sentence and put a {{Fact}} tag on the second sentence, since I have no idea what the source for that is. Xicer9
(Combadge) 18:36, October 3, 2010 (UTC)
- This was actually an error. Insider 89 should have been Insider 96. Specifically, it's from the article "The Men Who Built the Empire", and its a recap of some stuff Roubicek and others said at Celebration IV. I've fixed this. — Hunter Kahn 02:57, October 4, 2010 (UTC)
- Hey! Just a reminder to use the Insider cite template: "The Men Who Built the Empire" — Star Wars Insider 96 Menkooroo 03:03, October 4, 2010 (UTC)
- Glad that's settled. But I'm noticing other cases of the same ref being used right after the previous one, without a different ref in-between, like ref 10 in the last paragraph of the body and ref 34 in the first paragraph of the Star Wars section. Those I just noticed at a quick glance. Could you comb through the article for other double refs? Also, a lot of your refs are out of order. The first time a ref is used in an article, it should be the main one. For example, you have a bunch of IMDB refs in the infobox, but the main ref, the one that includes the IMDB link, is way down in the Filmography section. This main ref should instead be the first one in the entire body of the article, in this case the infobox ref about his birth. Xicer9(Combadge) 03:12, October 4, 2010 (UTC)
- Hey! Just a reminder to use the Insider cite template:
