Talk:Michael McStay

This review is transcluded from Talk:Michael McStay/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Spectritus (talk · contribs) 17:01, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Someone who likes train writing (talk · contribs) 00:20, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

I am choosing to review this article using the template below. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask me. Someone who likes train writing (talk) 00:20, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Someone who likes train writing, I'll look over this review and leave a few comments for you to consider. You identified the article's strengths and weaknesses well. Here are some improvements, from most to least important:

• When identifying scope issues, you should identify at least one example (ideally multiple) of some information which is in a reliable source, but not included in the article. This is because if no reliable sourcing exists for the information lacking, then there's nothing the nominator can do and the article is fine as is.
• Well done for also identifying the original research issues. Similar to the scope issues though, it would be good to give at least one specific example of some information that is not supported.
• The source reliability review is good.
• Generally the paragraphs in this article are way too short, so it reads like a list of facts rather than an encyclopaedia article. This is generally necessary to fix for GA and would be raised in the prose section. @Spectritus, you can add this to the list of improvements to do before you next nominate, if you choose to do so.
• If you are failing in one pass, this is called a quickfail, and you should justify why it should be quickfailed. In this case, the article is a long way from meeting the no original research criterion, so can be failed under "It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria".

Feel free to fail this now, per the above reasoning. @Spectritus, once you have fixed the issues found in this review, you are free to renominate :) IAWW (talk) 10:22, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

@It is a wonderful world Okay, thanks. Spectritus (talk) 12:12, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

@It is a wonderful world Thank you for your observation! I will keep your advice in mind next time! And @Spectritus, I'm sorry for failing this review. Part of me wanted to pass this, but with the reasons already listed, especially the imbalance between the paragraphs and the lists, this article needs a lot of work. I do think you could flesh all the issues out, and I would recommend using a newspaper archive website (such as Newspapers.com) to help dig deeper into researching this actor. Someone who likes train writing (talk) 12:38, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

More information Rate, Attribute ...

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	An average reader could learn who McStay was from reading this article as-is. The way the grammar is laid out is perfectly easy to understand.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	The sections are not even close to being at a similar length. "Early life" and "Personal life" are summarized way shorter than "Career", but all of the biography paragraphs combined are shorter than the below works lists combined. It's not a good balance. Also, the articles themselves don't fully specify when he studied at the University of Bristol or when he took part in certain projects in his later career. Besides that though, the grammar itself is on point, and if only the sections had a greater length, as well as more descriptions on some of the details, I would've given this a pass.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	Every single paragraph is sourced. The lists could very well use citations, but the paragraphs each have sources to fall back on. The first sentence in 'Early life' has four references, which I would've either trimmed down or added an "Attributed to multiple sources" note. But other than that, the paragraphs are reasonably on point.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	Most of the sources used here come from certified publishing outlets like BBC, People.com, Radio Times, the Independent, or even the Doctor Who Magazine, so those get a pass. But some of the others, particularly guide.doctorwhonews.net and tobyhadoke.podbean.com, I'm not sure how acceptable those are as proper Wikipedia sources.
	2c. it contains no original research.	The article sections are well-referenced, but the list section does not seem to be referenced enough. I would think differently if each and every row there is cited, but as-is, it needs additional sources to back it up.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Earwig has found nothing of concern. Hold for manual spot check. Checked each source and found no real violations.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	I don't know that much about Michael McStay in general, but the career section seems to check a lot of boxes about the topic, but with how short the 'Early life' and 'Personal life' sections are by comparison, I can't help but feel there's some details missing there. Especially since other GAs on actors have more lengthy 'Personal life' sections. If those two sections had more info to them, I would have given this a pass.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	It stays reasonably focused on the topic, particularly for McStay's career, but the 'Early life' and ‘Personal life' sections are very lacking of info by comparison. And as far as 'unnecessary detail' goes, I'd say that's where the list section drags this article down. It takes up little over half of the page's viewing space in general, and unless the articles are expanded upon with additional info for the sake of balancing it out, the lists feel as if they could be their own article (I.E. 'List of Michael McStay Performances and Works').
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	No biases detected here. It's mostly based on the viewpoints of the sources.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	No edit wars.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	The image used has copyright protection, but it has an appropriate rationale and is allowed to be used, under the Non-free use rationale guideline.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Only one image used, and it's of McStay in one of his television roles. If there are no other images of McStay that could be used here, I would let it slide.
	7. Overall assessment.

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