Talk:Anoraknophobia/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Daniel Case (talk · contribs) 20:13, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I am printing out a hard copy for review purposes. Expect to be back with comments within a couple of days. Daniel Case (talk) 20:13, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

OK ... I did my usual copy edit, and in fact went a little further than I usually do in amending some of the facts in the article per my review. It appeared that the GA nomination was based on a single large addition, probably from some user's userspace, which filled in the album's backstory and production history. That had signs of being written by a non-native English speaker (the author's apparent failure to realize the title was, its other meanings aside, a pun, which I believe to be so obvious I put it in myself and don't think it needs a source, was a pretty big giveaway); as such it took the bulk of my attention during the copy edit.

I am putting this one on hold. It has issues, but I believe they can be fixed ... if someone wants to do this (more on this below). Most of the outstanding issues relate to the article's references.

• There were enough paragraphs ending without footnotes that I not only tagged them with {{fact}}, I tagged the whole article as needing references.
  • There is one sentence within a paragraph that, if it does not come from the same source as the rest of the graf, needs to be separately cited: the claim that the inclusion of a gift, even one the purchaser was not aware of until after opening the album, made it ineligible to chart in the UK. This is an exceptional claim to me; I'm not saying that I don't believe it but although it does seem plausible I've never heard it before. I want to see where this came from, preferably the official rules or policies for the British album chart as they were ca. 2001.
• Even more exceptional is the article's main claim: that this was the first-ever crowdfunded album. Browsing through other entries in Category:Crowdfunded albums, it certainly seems true since many of them are less than a decade old, none of them coming anywhere near 2001. But ... the only two sources we have to support this in the article are a press release from the band and its website. Per WP:SELFSOURCE I have amended the article to state merely that the band says this is so. We cannot state this as objective undisputed fact unless and until we find an independent reliable source that says so.
• At the end is a "notes" subsection to which a considerable amount of information is sourced. The entries there are all alphanumeric strings; I assume because I am familiar with this subject that those are catalog numbers for the recordings in question.

  This is unacceptable. I shouldn't have to assume this; in fact it is hardly going to be obvious to many readers what those strings are. We have {{cite AV media}} and {{cite AV media notes}} for the purposes that seem to have been intended; the references should be put into that format and treated as regular references rather than "nb" notes—because that's what they are.

• Lastly is the issue of the images and quotebox in the "recording" and "background" sections. As nominated they were a formatting nightmare; I have attended to that but I am still less than satisfied with how it has turned out because there are still issues with them that I think go beyond the scope of changes I feel are within my discretion to make as a reviewer, changes that are beyond copyediting.

  To wit: there is an awful lot of text in both image cutlines. Does the Hogarth quote really need to be in the image cutline? As it is it results in the image box taking up a lot of space. I have this informal rule that editors, myself included, should endeavor to make sure that cutlines rarely take up more than three lines (preferably two), without a very good reason, because it just looks wrong when the text purportedly explaining the image takes up as much space, if not more, than the image itself.

  Frankly, the quote isn't necessary to help us understand the image. It's just a picture of the guy mentioned in the accompanying text. That quote is useful, and ought instead to be worked into the accompanying text. All the cutline need say is "Lead singer Steve Hogarth wrote the band's email appeal". Done.

  The picture of the anorak (which I replaced with a more modern one) also has the same size problems plus another one: Not only is this claim that "anorak" is British slang for, say, "geek" or "nerd" over a particular subject, unsourced (I got this from the linked article; again I shouldn't have had to), its connection to the album title isn't well established. So that's what the band's fans are called? OK ... how is this connected to the British slang term? If no source can be found establishing the connection I suggest this whole bit (including the picture) be deleted from the article as indiscriminate and irrelevant.

I am not sure that just putting this review here will constitute due notice to the nominator. After about five years of editing on mostly prog-rock topics, Vlattenham abruptly stopped a few weeks ago and hasn't apparently resumed. So, I will not only be emailing him but contacting Rodericksilly, who did some work on the article after it was nominated, to see if s/he would be inclined to take on the task. Daniel Case (talk) 18:17, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Update: Vlattenham responded to my email; he says he will be available to make changes in mid-May (at the end of the academic year, I presume). I will wait. Daniel Case (talk) 21:39, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Four weeks later: There has been nothing done on this article. I would suggest we message Vlattenham again and if one more week goes by without any action, close the review. Does that sound good, Daniel Case? dannymusiceditor ^{Speak up!} 23:41, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

@DannyMusicEditor: Yes, I have been thinking the same thing myself; to call this time of the month "mid-May" is stretching it more every day.

I have been thinking of failing it on procedural grounds, but, should he make the requested changes and then renominate the article, I would review it immediately upon notification. Daniel Case (talk) 01:08, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I have not heard back from him and it is now June. I will be failing this article just to get it off the list of pending noms. Daniel Case (talk) 05:12, 7 June 2017 (UTC)