Talk:Aqualung (album)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: SilkTork (talk · contribs) 16:54, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I'll take a look and start to leave some comments within the next few days. I am taking on board a batch of reviews, so it may be some time before I start to comment. I am also by nature a fairly slow and thorough reviewer who likes to check out sources, so this is unlikely to be quick. However, I am always willing to help out on the editing, and will make direct minor adjustments myself rather than list them. I always welcome discussion, and see the review process as entirely collaborative. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 16:54, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Tick list

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

• Lead needs developing per WP:Lead. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:18, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

  Have added some additional summary material to the lead, and have added the information you noted as needing citation (must have been an oversight on my part previously, oops). GRAPPLE X 23:33, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

• (ec)This is a significant album, and the article doesn't give sufficient space to that. It is widely regarded as Jethro Tull's major work. More attention needs to be given to its place in Progressive Rock, its status as a concept album, its elements of Heavy Metal, and the religious theme of the lyrics. There are unsourced statements in the lead. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:37, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

  The seven million statement is given a source in the first paragraph of the "Release" heading; whilst Steve Harris' comments about Tull's influence on Iron Maiden are mentioned and sourced in the "Reception" heading. I tend to avoid adding inline ctiations to the lead, would you prefer these sources were added to the lead as well? I can try to find some more information about the album's influence and heavy metal elements, but the 'concept album' thing is addressed quite a bit. What did you have in mind for additional information for that? GRAPPLE X 23:43, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, my bad regarding fact tags. I skimmed through and the different wording caught me out. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:04, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I've gone through again for material on its status as a concept album, and see only a denial rather than a summary of what sources say about it as a concept album. The first Rolling Stone review is useful as a starting point as to what the "concept" is - "the distinction between religion and God",[1] and Allmusic have recently summarised the album in the same manner - "dour musings on faith and religion (mostly how organized religion had restricted man's relationship with God)".[2] That the band themselves didn't agree with the critical appraisal is interesting, but first the reader needs to hear what the critics thought the concept was, and then they can make up their own mind. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:14, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

On hold

I'm putting this on an initial seven day hold. The article has promise, though it needs development. The article has information about the album, but doesn't get quite close enough to its importance. A bit of research should produce more material. I'd like to see more attention paid to the impact the album had on Jethro Tull's career; a reasonable summary of its status as a concept album; a section on the religious aspects of the lyrics; the music style - Progressive Rock, Folk and Heavy Metal; and then the lead section built up to provide an appropriate summary of the article. It sounds a lot, but to meet GA criteria the detail doesn't need to be comprehensive, just enough to address the main aspects of the topic - there has to be a reasonable amount of coverage. Give me a ping if the work is done before the seven days, or if you have any questions or queries. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:56, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I've made some additional changes to the article. I've still got to re-read the "Classic Rock" article again for it can offer, as it's much more recent it should be good for offering anything on the album's legacy or influence. In the interim, how are the new additions looking? GRAPPLE X 01:29, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

• Looking good. Areas I'm still uncertain, are the lead and citations. I feel the lead could be developed a little further. And the production section might benefit from some inline citations for stuff like "bass player Glenn Cornick was fired from the band". I'll put on hold for another seven days. I don't see any of these matters being significant enough to prevent the article being listed, and if they haven't been done by next week, I should have the time to sort them out myself. Good work so far! SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:21, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

  I'll go wok on the lead some more now. As for the citations, large swathes of that production section are sourced to the same source - would you prefer if I used a few consecutive instances of the same citation, or should I refer to the pages each time with shortened citations and list the article as though it were a book? GRAPPLE X 16:12, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

There are a few older Wikipedians who still feel that citations are untidy and should be used sparingly; however, they are increasingly in the minority, and consensus these days is that close inline citing is of value. The reasons for having close inline citation is that anybody can edit Wikipedia articles - as such, material may get moved around so that a sentence may be moved to a different section where it becomes divorced from the end of paragraph citation that is being used to support it. There is, certainly, an argument for not overciting - multiple cites for the same statement are rarely appropriate, though if in doubt it is better to cite than not to. While heavy use of inline citation may initially look odd to some, it is no more odd than a comma or full stop once you become used to the idea.

The first time you use a cite to an article, book or website you give the full citation information. If you need to use that same source again, you can use named reference by going back to the citation and giving it a name. All subsequent uses of that source are then simply tagged with the ref name, and will go to the same cite note at the end of the article. If the source is a book and material is being used from different pages, then you'll need a new, full citation for each instance. Some editors use short citations, in which the source is listed in a separate section, and the cite link requires a double click - one to the page number, and a second to the details of the source (if they are linked, often they are not, and a reader has to manually search through the second list for the correct details). I think this is what you are asking me about. There is no rule as to which style you may use. I am personally not in favour of the short citation method as it was devised for print books, to save page space - this is not necessary on a single Wikipedia page, and - in fact - doesn't save space, as each mention takes up a line space; moreover, it has a distinct disadvantage in that the reader has to look in two places for the full citation information as I mention above. I am in favour of all major texts being separately listed so readers can see at a glance which texts were used to build the article, but that is a different matter to identifying quickly and accurately the source for the statement being checked.

Sorry to give you a long answer to a short question, but use of citations can be a contentious area, and I wanted to cover all bases. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:09, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

• I was just putting in a coup-le of cites for the Production section, and using [books.google.co.uk/books?id=AsvpFwKVCN4C&pg=PA62 Nollen's book], and I noticed that the book contains useful information which is not present in the article. There's stuff on the origin's of the album - Jennie Anderson's photographs of homeless people on the Embankment, and some more detail on the cover image. Be useful to read through that to flesh out the article a bit more. Also, from Nollen's book it is not clear if the cover image is supposed to be definitively Aqualung - I think it is left vague, with the suggestion it could be Anderson as well. The statement in the article that the cover "features a watercolour portrait of the title character, Aqualung" may not be true. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:36, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Pass

The article meets GA criteria. There are areas for ongoing development as indicated above - a bit more research to flesh out the details; some more secure inline citation here and there, etc, but the article provides a good base of readable information about the album. Well done. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)