Today's featured article...

[DanMurphy]

Is as trite and trivial as we've come to expect.

One of the Boys is an American sitcom created by Blake Hunter and Martin Cohan that aired six episodes on NBC from April 15 to May 20, 1989. It is one of only a few American primetime programs that decade to star a Latin American woman—María Conchita Alonso (pictured).

[The Blue Newt]

TFA is the the Flachspüler of the system.

[ArmasRebane]

This feels like one of those articles I would oppose at FAC because there's just not enough there. It's less than 1000 words if you take out the lead, and its claim to fame is fundamentally a bit of trivia that didn't actually result in any meaningful change in the television landscape. Some people have different standards, but I don't think the idea that some articles can never reach "featured" quality should be that crazy.

[Kraken]

Notability is not temporary, sure. But when Wikipedia editors pick a topic for greatness which no reliable source seems to have given a fuck about once it stopped being a current event, it is rather obvious.

If this show really was an important moment in American TV history, I would have expected to see some retrospective discussion as to why the woman I know as legit famous for totally killing it in Running Man, wasn't able to make this dog hunt. I'd expect to see it in the introduction. But the sources just aren't there, so they can't.

It's almost rather sad to see the one single source with any serious distance that might actually be speaking to the race angle, the 1993 book Notable Hispanic American Women, supports only one sentence.....

According to Alonso, it was not renewed because the network "didn't think it would be a long-running hit".

I fear the ball has been dropped and the cake is half baked.

[Dan of La Mancha]

Some comments from the FA nomination:

*When did filming conclude?
**I was unable to find a source.

*To avoid WP:SYNTH, I'd try to find a ref to back up the general assessment of "Critics deemed the show unremarkable".
**I could not find any overall assessments or retrospective comments.

*Is five reviews all you can find?
**That's pretty much all there is on Newspapers.com, NewspaperArchive, ProQuest, Gale, and Google News Archive.

*I don't think just saying it is an "American sitcom" gets enough information across in the opening sentence. Is it possible to use a descriptive word between them, like "American romance sitcom" or something else?
**Genres require sources and to my knowledge there were none that specified it further.

*Is there a reason the character and actress have similar names?
**There were no sources that acknowledged the similarity of their names.

*The lead mentions what the reviews referred to, but does not say whether they were favorable or negative.
**There were no retrospective/all-encompassing sources that described the reviews either way.

Good thing notability isn't one of the FA criteria.

[rnu]

Some comments from the FA nomination:

*When did filming conclude?
**I was unable to find a source.

*To avoid WP:SYNTH, I'd try to find a ref to back up the general assessment of "Critics deemed the show unremarkable".
**I could not find any overall assessments or retrospective comments.

*Is five reviews all you can find?
**That's pretty much all there is on Newspapers.com, NewspaperArchive, ProQuest, Gale, and Google News Archive.

*I don't think just saying it is an "American sitcom" gets enough information across in the opening sentence. Is it possible to use a descriptive word between them, like "American romance sitcom" or something else?
**Genres require sources and to my knowledge there were none that specified it further.

*Is there a reason the character and actress have similar names?
**There were no sources that acknowledged the similarity of their names.

*The lead mentions what the reviews referred to, but does not say whether they were favorable or negative.
**There were no retrospective/all-encompassing sources that described the reviews either way.

Good thing notability isn't one of the FA criteria.

*The description for the sixth episode is small. Maybe use the episode itself as a reference to expand a bit?
**The episode is only available at the UCLA Film and Television Archive in Los Angeles.

[Yngvadottir]

A somewhat inflated article on a "meh", barely notable topic (the series got enough reviews to pass GNG). I'd thought its being run on the main page might indicate how FA promotions are tailing off, but nope, promoted in 2021, not very recently. I wonder whether there are any FAs on TV series in languages other than English that didn't form the basis of US or UK hit TV shows; I imagine there'd be resistance even if the sources were several times what this has.

I know, TFA is an important thing to have on the main page, and the FA editors therefore are doing something extremely praiseworthy. But FA is still bling-chasing to me personally, I don't like its trickle-down effect on formatting (look at all those newspaper articles cited in short form linked to a separate Works Cited, like a 500-page doctoral dissertation) or encouragement of expansion as if it's an end in itself, and I can't help thinking how many other articles the participants could have written or improved in the time they spent on this.

[TheSpacebook]

I just put it on in the background whilst I was working, and I can quite honestly say this is the most low-rent television show I have ever watched (objective statement). Plus all the sources seem to be books. I have this ongoing theory that on Wikipedia when editors want to make information up, they just cite a book. This is because people are less likely to check/it's harder to verify.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdGowT7R_Do

[AirshipJungleman29]

I wonder whether there are any FAs on TV series in languages other than English that didn't form the basis of US or UK hit TV shows; I imagine there'd be resistance even if the sources were several times what this has.

As far as I can see, the only one is Kampung Boy (TV series) (T-H-L).

I don't like its trickle-down effect on formatting (look at all those newspaper articles cited in short form linked to a separate Works Cited, like a 500-page doctoral dissertation)

If that's a consequence of FA, I'm very glad about it.

[ArmasRebane]

References are a finicky pain in the ass in general and especially on Wikipedia. You can either have citations clutter up the main text, where they're at least marginally connected to the statement they're attributing, or you can separate them out which makes some things easier to maintain but can lead to issues if the article is overhauled.

If your article is mostly web-based citations, doing short notes and a bibliography is dumb. If you're doing primarily book/print citations, it's probably a better option.