Talk:A Thousand Leaves

Latest comment: 8 years ago by Greg Fasolino in topic Ongoing sales figures
Good articleA Thousand Leaves has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
December 2, 2015Good article nomineeListed

Title

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"Mille Feuille" is not just a random phrase, it's a type of dessert; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mille-feuille 84.198.246.199 (talk) 06:04, 20 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Orphaned references in A Thousand Leaves

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I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of A Thousand Leaves's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "AM":

  • From AllMusic: "AllMusic". Retrieved July 20, 2012.
  • From Daydream Nation: "Daydream Nation". Acclaimed Music. Retrieved October 1, 2015.
  • From Sister (Sonic Youth album): "Sister". Acclaimed Music. Retrieved October 1, 2015.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT 03:25, 2 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

GA Review

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Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:A Thousand Leaves/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Famous Hobo (talk · contribs) 20:43, 24 November 2015 (UTC)Reply


Alright, I'll take up this review. Seems like an interesting article. Should have a review out soon. Famous Hobo (talk) 20:43, 24 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Update So my apologies for not getting this review out yet. I hate to keep using the "outside stuff is holding me back" excuse, but, well, outside stuff is holding me back. But I'll have the review done by tomorrow. Thanks for being patient   Famous Hobo (talk) 03:29, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

No worries. Take your time. I'm aware that we all have a life outside this site. Cheers --Niwi3 (talk) 19:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Alright, almost done with the review. I'm going to be out for the next few hours, so I'll leave you with a few comments.

I like to work backwards with my reviews. Don't ask why, I'm just weird like that. If I comment on something that was explained earlier in the article, I'll fix it once I reach that point. Hopefully this isn't disorienting.

Release

  • According to Moore, the image is a reference to the Unlimited Edition compilation album by German experimental rock band Can. Could you explain a little more about what the album cover depicts. The next sentence describes what the cover was going to look like, so I think it's important to mention what it currently looks like.
Added some new info which I found in Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • The band also supported the album with a tour across the US and Canada in May and June 1998. US should be United States. I may be wrong in saying this, but I don't think May and June 1998 in grammatically correct (or something like that. If it is correct, please explain why). It should be changed to "from May to June in 1998".
Fixed. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Critical Reception

  • praised its quiet guitars and unpredictable twists, which help keep the lengthy songs captivating. Should be changed to "kept the lengthy songs captivating" to keep with past tense in the sentence.
Done. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • Brent DiCrescenzo cited "Hits of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)" as the album's centerpiece, highlighting the jamming, improvising, and guitar interplay between Moore and Ranaldo. The review states the guitar interplay was for the album as a whole, not the song.
Clarified. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • Not all reviews were positive, though. It might just be me, but the though at the end seems a little informal.
Reworded. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • commenting that the album "really does sound like a demo — eleven songs waiting for better organization and cliché removal." Wikilink demo, and put the quotation mark before the period.
Fixed. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • Stephen Thompson of The A.V. Club felt that the album rarely contains fully formed songs Again, contains should be in past tense.
Fixed. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Track listing

  • All good here.

Personnel

  • All good here.

Charts

  • The way both charts are right now is fine, but may I introduce you to Albumchart and Singlechart? They'll make this part easier and more uniform with the majority of charts sections from other articles. If you're confused about it, feel free to use Endgame as an example.
I'm not sure if you can properly archive the URLs with these templates. Also, I like to keep the URLs consistent in their corresponding section at the bottom of the page. Is it really an issue? Thanks. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

References

  • For the authors of each ref, the name should go last, then first. For example, instead of Chris Morris, it's Morris, Chris. Use last= and first= for the citation.
Will fix that tomorrow as I will have more time. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
Done. --Niwi3 (talk) 20:46, 1 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
Done. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply


Thank you for your review, really appreciated. I've fixed several issues and will continue tomorrow as I will have more free time. Cheers. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

I fixed the issues you brought up and left some comments above. Please let me know if there are more issues that need to be addressed. Thanks. --Niwi3 (talk) 20:46, 1 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Almost there, just a few more things I noticed:

Music and lyrics

  • while "Hoarfrost", which was originally titled "Woodland Ode", was inspired when... Is it really necessary to include the info on the original title? It doesn't add to the article in any way.
I personally think the original title helps describe what the song is about. --Niwi3 (talk) 20:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Background

  • After Washing Machine, the band started writing new songs from extended improvisations in rehearsal Change started to began.
I agree. It sounds much better now. --Niwi3 (talk) 20:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • Several instrumental jams were released in a series of EPs through the band's own record label Write out extended plays and wikilink it. Same goes for the other mention of EP's in the lead and background, but don't wikilink that one.
Done. --Niwi3 (talk) 20:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Lead

  • Everything looks good.

Alright, that's everything. Once those small issues are addressed, then I'll have no problem promoting this article. It's obvious this ain't your first go around with album articles, given your work with Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star and Washing Machine, so I knew it wasn't going to be too difficult to promote. BTW, would you mind repaying the favor and review my GAN?

Thank you for your time and review. I'll try to have a look at your GAN this weekend as I'm quite busy right now. However, one thing that concerns me a bit is its notability. Most of the sources are about the album and not about the actual song. This means that the song is covered in the frames of its parent article (the album). Wouldn't it be better to have a Music and Lyrics section in the Endgame article where you can talk about the songs of the album? Cheers. --Niwi3 (talk) 20:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Alright, everything has now been addressed. Thanks for the explanations for each issue not addressed. I now can safely call this a GA. Congrats. In terms of my GA, I won't go into too much detail since this page should be dedicated to this review, but I do believe it meets the notability standards (barley), because the band chose it to be a single, and it charted so highly on the Rock Songs chart.

Ongoing sales figures

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Niwi3: was wondering why you objected to my edit on this part, in which I removed the first sales figures: "As of July 1999, the album had sold 54,000 copies in the U.S. according to Nielsen SoundScan.[22] And as of 2005, the album had sold 66,000 copies.[23]" Why is it necessary or desirable to list ongoing sales figures at random points in time in an album article? This seems to me to be a great example of redundant, non-encyclopedic data for data's sake. Is it relevant to the article, at all, what the sales figures were in 1999 compared to 2005? The only relevant information any reader would want to know, as far as seems reasonable, is what the most recent sales figures are. Otherwise, why not find figures and sources to post the sales figures of every year since the album's release? My edit ("As of 2005, the album had sold 66,000 copies in the U.S. according to Nielsen SoundScan") was a reasonable one. Can you comment please?

@Greg Fasolino: you should explain your edits in the summary box; you removed the reference from the release section, yet kept the actual link in the references section??? It's confusing. Summary boxes are there for a reason, and you should use them, especially when removing propely cited content. In any case, I don't think it's redundant to have ongoing sales figures at certain points in time because they illustrate the album's commercial performance; other articles include sales figures at multiple points. Also, please don't delete wikilinks when terms are properly wikilinked: remember that the body is independent of the lead (which is essentially a summary of the body). Thank you. --Niwi3 (talk) 23:52, 20 March 2016 (UTC)Reply
@Niwi3: On the sales figures, the examples you cited are not comparable, as they deal with huge and noteworthy jumps in sales by millions of copies. This is a random update from six years, that did not nudge the sales figures by any noteworthy amount. Is selling 12,000 copies in six years a noteworthy or encyclopedic fact? I am not going to argue it further here, as to me the answer would be no, it's not very relevant (unless you were using these figures to make another referenced point), but if no other editors besides me think it's fluffy and extraneous, then I will decline. You say "remember that the body is independent of the lead (which is essentially a summary of the body)"...can you please point me to a place in MOS where it definitively states that? I see "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents" but no claim that they are independent. In MOS:DUPLINK, I see "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article". I am not disputing that it's quite possible you are correct, but for my own editing use, as well as this article, I would like to know what your assertion is based on, and why duplicate Wikilinks appearing in both the lead and body should not be rectified.Greg Fasolino (talk) 15:19, 21 March 2016 (UTC)Reply
@Greg Fasolino: Well, it's common sense: the fact that the lead is a summary of the body implies that the body is independent and self-contained, otherwise the lead would contain extra info and wouldn't be a proper summary. In other words, the body should say what the lead says and more (that includes wikilinks, which help readers understand the body text). I'm aware of WP:OTHER, but you can see that pretty much any GA or FA has duplicate wikilinks, so it's you alone against thousands of articles. As for the ongoing sales figures, you have a point, although I still think that removing/keeping them won't make the article any better (or worse). I won't reverse your edit if you decide to remove them, but please explain your edits in the summary box (and don't forget to remove the actual link from the references section). Thank you. --Niwi3 (talk) 21:04, 21 March 2016 (UTC)Reply
@Niwi3: Thank you for clarifying. I see what you are saying. I think I am used to journalism-style leads (being a professional writer) where the lead is just the first paragraph, structurally, that I forget it's looked at differently here. I will keep it in mind. On the sales figures, it's not a huge deal to me either so I will thus leave it be; it just looked somewhat random and unpruned to my eye.Greg Fasolino (talk) 21:52, 21 March 2016 (UTC)Reply