Talk:Reckoning (R.E.M. album)

'X' Side and 'Y' Side

I believe.... that we should not include R.E.M.'s charming elpee side designations, except as a note below the track listing. Fantailfan (talk) 12:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Reversion of April 10, 2008

Wesley Dodds, why did you revert the whole article? Please explain-without discussion it seems premature to have done so. -- Fantailfan (talk) 13:43, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Release history, etc

Sources and guidelines I have provided sources for the release history (Allmusic and MusicBrainz); if you want more, you can check http://www.svs.com/rem/ and File Under Water by Jon Story. Please stop reverting these, as they are required by WP:ALBUM. Also, I have no idea why the recording of "Voice of Harold" is notable, but its commercial release isn't. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The information about "Voice of Harold" is uncited, as is most of the release history. You don't need a table for the release history, or even a separate section, as all verifiable details are covered in the "Release and reception section". A "release history" section is not required at all (despite what the Album WikiProject says), as I can name quite a few FA and GA album articles past and present that don't utilize them, as in most cases you can just convey the information in prose with other sections. The prose in the Tracklisting section is redundant to the new "Packaging" and Left of Reckoning sections. WesleyDodds (talk) 06:30, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

There's so many problems with the Release hsitory section. How do you verify that Reckoning was released in Bolivia in a certain year? What should it even matter? No secondary sources discuss its importance. Albums get released in different countries all the time; in most cases, it's not notable. There's no verification that the Mobile Fidelity release is a remaster, much less notable. You're citing the R.E.M. website (a primary reference) for information on the 2009 Deluxe Edition, when I found the information reported by a reliable secondary news source, which is what should be favored in the first place (on top of that, you placed a reference right in the middle of a sentence, instead of punctuation). WesleyDodds (talk) 06:41, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Sources again I have given you plenty of sources for the release history - again, a lot of this can be resolved by looking at the links to Allmusic and MusicBrainz. The "Voice of Harold" information doesn't need to be cited; just listen to the song - it's exactly what is being described. What should I insert into the article, <ref>Listen to ''Dead Letter Office''</ref>? The release history section is required, in as much as this falls under WP:ALBUM. If you think that release histories are a bad idea, you should talk to that WikiProject. If the guidelines that they have created change, I will be happy to delete them from articles that presently have these tables. In the meantime, I have put into this article exactly what the guidelines specify. Regarding sources, if there is a problem with citing R.E.M.'s web site, then please change it; I guess I don't understand how this is problematic. I also don't immediately see anything on WP:REF that says references in the middle of a sentence are to be discouraged and at least one example of them encouraging it. If there's something I'm missing here (entirely possible, as I did not read the entire page), please let me know. I have also changed this article per WP:ELLIPSES again. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:14, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Just because something is mentioned in a Wikiproject's guidelines doesn't make it mandatory. They are simply guidelines. If the information is already presented in prose and is easily understandable, there is no need to duplicate the information in a table as well. By the way, MusicBrainz is not a reliable source as it relies on user input for its information, anyone can register and add information, that's not reliable. --JD554 (talk) 07:24, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Regarding references in the middle of sentences: you may have missed this, "Once a style is selected for an article it is inappropriate to change to another, unless there is a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style." This article already has them at the end of sentences, so it would be inappropriate to change. --JD554 (talk) 07:30, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

"The "Voice of Harold" information doesn't need to be cited; just listen to the song - it's exactly what is being described." That's not immediately apparent, and is thus original research. As for the ellipses thing, the reason it's there is because I utilized part of a quote (not the whole thing), and am indicating with the ellipses and brackets that the ellipses are not part of the original quote. See the section there on "Square brackets". I've done this quite frequently on Feature Articles, and no one at FAC has a problem with it (also, it's done more than once in the article). WesleyDodds (talk) 07:33, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

LP Sides

LP sides should be designated for albums originally released on vinyl, as per WikiProject Album style guide. Cloonmore (talk) 12:25, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Which is pretty silly considering that most copies of the album are now on CD. WesleyDodds (talk) 06:59, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

No, not silly at all. Song and side order were typically carefully considered by artists and producers. (Astral Weeks is a good example.) The fact that the original format (LP) has been replaced by CD for new pressings of an old release doesn't mean the original side designations are without meaning or interest.Cloonmore (talk) 12:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Citations

Please stop I have citations for information and you are deleting them (e.g. Allmusic for release history and the liner notes to Dead Letter Office for "Voice of Harold".) If you want to amend the text, that's one thing. If you want to deliberately and knowingly delete relevant and sourced information (from credible and verifiable sources) under the guise of it being unsourced, that's quite another. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:47, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Release histories, etc. Your claim that release histories are not mandatory not only contradicts WP:ALBUM (which I used as a template for creating this section), but the most recent featured album article (to my knowledge), Remain in Light. Simply adding this information—which is sourced and required by the parent WikiProject—is not harmful but helpful. I think that you have confused what you think are unhelpful edits with what are clearly useful ones (e.g. wikifying "Gardening at Night"; how can this be objectionable?) While I have mutual respect for the hard work you (WesleyDodds) have put into this and many other articles, I think you are being too brash about reverting. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:03, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Release history sections are not mandatory because they can be covered in sections of prose, as this article has attempted to do. That's the version that passed the Good Article nomination. If an article doesn't need a separate release history, then don't add it. Remain in Light is an example of an article that chooses to include a release history section and adds citations to back it up. Even then, not all album articles have such sections, including FA and GA pages ranging from Blood Sugar Sex Magik to Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). Because they aren't always necessary. In particular there's no good source for the Mobile Fidelity lab reissue. Forcing such a section in does not improve the article, and you try to fill out the section by repeating information from elsewhere in the article, creating multiple redundancies and using inconsistent reference formatting. Hell, there's no reason to format the book references with templates because they are aleady formatted; those book templates are intended for use by people who don't know how to format book citations. And the "Voice of Harold" information is trival; what's important is "7 Chinese Bros.", since it's a song on this album. Wikipedia articles are not indiscriminate collections of information. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:12, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Specific flaws in your edits

• "This track would later be released on Dead Letter Office as "Voice of Harold". Why is this relevant for this article? The paragraph is about the difficulties in recording; the information about this recording appear on a compilation is an aside to that. The citation is improperly formatted, and ideally secondary sources are preferred.
• The first two paragraphs of the "Release history" section are wholly redundant to the last paragraph in the "Release and reception" section. I purposely wrote that paragraph in the "Release and reception" section to remove all the unverified/unreliable information while keeping the important release details that could be reliably verified. In particular, there is no third party verification to establish the notbaility/existence of the Mobile Sounds release, the bundling with Murmur, and the sentence "The album was released as an EP in Bolivia—catalogue number SEP 10437— with "Harborcoat" and "7 Chinese Bros." as the A-side and backed by "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" and "Second Guessing"". Without proper inline citations these need to be removed. Once again you have not properly formatted the references.
• The release history table is wholly unnecessary, incomplete, and uncited. Allmusic sure as hell doesn't back up all that information.
• You have completely altered the references section, in particular adding citation templates. Per referencing guidelines, you must utilize whatever referencing style is already established in the article; it is considered rude and highly unhelpful to change it. Additionally, the "Citation" templates for the books are wholly unnecessary for this article because all the information was already present; this is why cite templates aren't mandatory.

Three of these edits fly in the face of Wiki referencing guidelines. The last (the "Voice of Harold" information) is largely a prose issue that isn't a fatal flaw, but it's hard to justify its inclusion. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:32, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with WesleyDodds, I had not noticed the duplication of information and had I done so I would also have removed that information too. I also agree there is no need for a release history table, when this is already adequately summed up in the prose. Regarding citation formats, WP:CITE#HOW states: "There are a number of citation styles. [...] Any of these styles is acceptable on Wikipedia so long as each article is internally consistent. You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one". (my stress) --JD554 (talk) 08:26, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Edit War?

I'm seeing a slow edit war here. Hi, guys! Long time no see. Someone's acting up again? Oh, dear... Doc9871 (talk) 07:17, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, here's my 2p worth: I don't believe it is necessary (or desirable) to have the cute names that a band decides to call the different sides of an LP (or single for that matter). That information belongs in prose (as it already is here) and we need simply say "Side one" and "Side two" in the track listing - as that is what they are. To give any extra name here is simply duplication of information already presented and is unnecessary as a reader (when reading a track listing) will simply want to know what is on side one and what is on side two. --JD554 (talk) 09:32, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Consistency Why not be consistent with all of R.E.M.'s other albums? Or albums by other artists--e.g. Stadium Arcadium and To Venus and Back. This isn't (just) a "cute name"; the band actually made one side of the album into a concept film. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Surely you can come up with a better argument than WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS? Just because they made a concept film, doesn't change the fact that the sides of the album are already mentioned in the packaging section and they are actually "side one" and "side two" as mentioned in the tack listing section. --JD554 (talk) 14:17, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Other stuff Other stuff does exist and there's no reason for this article to be any different from other similar articles. For that matter, the essay you pointed out is about deletion/retention of articles, not style and it even explicitly acknowledges that "these comparisons are important as the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes" which is an argument in favor of my position. Either Wikipedia should include the names of halves of albums in the track listing or exclude them, but not choose some middle position by which there are a few half names here and there whereas they are absent in other articles. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:00, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm more than happy for the unnecessary side names to removed from the track listings at the articles you've mentioned. Consistency will therefore be met. --JD554 (talk) 20:28, 14 June 2010 (UTC)