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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Open Here/archive2

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 13 April 2020 [1].

Open Here

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Nominator(s): — Hunter Kahn 19:23, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the 2018 album by the English rock band Field Music. It is currently a good article. I had previously nominated it for FA, and some changes/improvements were made to the article as part of that review, but it ultimately did not pass in part due to a lack of reviewers in the FAC process itself. I was given little actionable feedback on ways to improve upon the article in the future, except for general remarks that the prose could use some improvement, so I sought out a peer review and a copy edit request with the WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors, which was conducted by Thatoneweirdwikier. I'm hopeful that the article is ready for the FAC process this time around. — Hunter Kahn 19:23, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport by Thatoneweirdwikier

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I felt that this was an interesting read during my copyedit, so I'll add suggestions over the next few days. (Note: This is the first time I've ever been involved in FAC.) Thanks, Thatoneweirdwikier Say hi 15:42, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lede
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Background
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Musical style and composition
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Lyrics and themes
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Brexit and social privilege
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Parenthood and gender roles
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No problems that I could find.

Joy and optimism
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Recording and production
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  • "Liz Corney of The Cornshed Sisters, a band with Memphis Industries, the same label as Field Music." After "The Cornshed Sisters", the wording feels awkward. Removing it entirely may be better.
Release
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  • "they had considered shooting in parts of Sunderland either especially affluent or poor..." Change to "they had considered shooting in parts of Sunderland that were affluent or poor..." (or any other better versions of that).
  • "Sarah Hayes and saxophonist Pete Fraser..." Pete Fraser has already been introduced. The word "saxophonist" can be removed.
Critical reception
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  • "John Freeman of The Quietus called the Open House Field Music's most expansive..." Why "Open House"? I'm assuming it's meant to be "Open Here" (without the extra "the").
That's everything I could find. Once it's all sorted I'll change my vote. Thanks, Thatoneweirdwikier Say hi 03:36, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
​Nice. Changing my vote to a Support. Well done! Thanks, Thatoneweirdwikier Say hi 16:54, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Comments by Mike Christie

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Weak Oppose. The "Critical reception" section suffers from the "A said B" problem; see WP:RECEPTION for an explanation and suggestions on how to fix it. As written it's just a list of opinions quoted one after another with little attempt to form a readable narrative from it. It looks as though you've collected the negative comments into a single paragraph, which is a start, but more needs to be done to avoid this reading like a list of quotes. I haven't yet read the whole article but will do so once this is addressed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:22, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Mike Christie I'm prepared to make more changes if you think it necessary, but for starters I restructured the section a bit, organizing each paragraph to represent a thematic element, per WP:RECEPTION. As it stands now, the section includes the introductory paragraph, then includes five distinct sections based upon the reviews: 1) among the best album of the year, 2) fresh new direction for the band, 3) well-crafted, stylistically diverse album, 4) commented on the political themes, 5) too challenging or over-stuffed. And then the section ends with the year-end lists and comparisons to other bands, as before. Thoughts on this? — Hunter Kahn 12:47, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    At a quick glance that looks like a real improvement; the topic sentences for each paragraph seem like a minor point but they really help the reader. I will have a longer look when I have a chance; possibly in the morning but it might be the weekend. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:18, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've read through again, and though the topic sentences certainly help, there's still too much "A said B" -- or to put it another way, the topic sentences give the reader a narrative at the section level, but within each paragraph I think more should be done. For example, the third paragraph is structured as follows:

Topic sentence. A of B called Open Here "X", praising Y and lamenting Z. C of D praised X, writing "Y". E of D said Open Here was X, calling it "Y". F called Open Here X, and said Y and Z. G of H called a song X.

There's a little variation in rhythm, but a reader still feels like the topic sentence is just the heading for a bullet list. The examples in WP:RECEPTION try to show ways to assemble a narrative inside each paragraph by pulling together fragments of each review to support the points made. Including full names and publications for every reviewer makes it a lot harder to get the sentences to flow, so I would consider cutting them unless they're notable in some way -- e.g. a notable journalist, or a very high profile publication, might be worth mentioning; and sometimes it's useful to mention a publication or reviewer just to tie together particular comments.

I've changed to weak oppose as this is definitely more readable now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:52, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Mike Christie I've made some additional edits based upon your feedback, so please let me know if this is a step in the right direction. I tried to follow some of the advice in WP:RECEPTION, so in addition to organizing the section by thematic element as I did before, I tried to vary the sentence rhythms slightly, cut the names of reviewers on occasion (which was difficult for me because I usually default to including such attribution), cut back on direct quotations, and tried to consolidate details. The paragraphs do still weave thoughts from various reviews, but I think the flow and readability has improved... — Hunter Kahn 13:54, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's moving in the right direction. Looking at the first two paragraphs, here's what I see:

  • Album of the year, best pop music, intelligent, recommended -- Record Collector, AllMusic, Junkee, Drowned in Sound
  • Praise for mixing and compositions -- Record Collector
  • Expansive and bright, positive, exciting -- The Quietus, Pitchfork
  • Fresh, different, new direction, milestone -- Drowned in Sound, Pitchfork, Sentireascoltare, AllMusic

What would you think of moving the Record Collector comments ("apposite openness of sound" not just in the mixing of the songs, but in the original compositions themselves) to the third paragraph, about specific compliments? Then I think the remaining material could be combined into a single paragraph. Perhaps something like this would work:

The album was praised by several reviewers, with Record Collector suggesting it might be the album of the year, and AllMusic arguing that it stood with Field Music's best work. The album was included on Junkee's list of "2018 Albums That Deserved More Love", where it was described as the band's most ambitious effort to date due to its art-rock compositions and new-wave grooves. Drowned in Sound writer Paul Brown singled out "Count It Up" as one of the best songs released in recent years, and complimented the Brewis brothers for constantly creating fresh material. Other reviews agreed that it was a milestone for the band, with intelligent songs that went in unexpected directions, and Pitchfork suggested that it was the influence of David and Peter Brewis' children that gave the album a new sense of earnest direction. The Quietus was also positive, calling it Field Music's most expansive and brightest album to date, adding: "Amongst the carnage, Field Music have created a magical musical bubble. Anger has rarely sounded so positive."

I don't mean this is better than what you have, or that you have to drop the reviewer names as I've done (in some cases I've dropped the publication name too); I'm just trying to indicate the direction I think the writing needs to go in. This version starts with a topic sentence, or half a sentence, and gives two immediate examples, followed by the Junkee listing. Paul Brown's mention of "Count It Up' is for a single song, so that has to come after the comments about the overall album, and that allows a segue to Brown's other comment which in turn lets us introduce the "freshness" theme. Then a couple more illustrations, finishing with "expansive and bright". I probably cut a bit more than necessary, but that's the basic approach I'm suggesting. What do you think? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:20, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Mike Christie I think I begin to more clearly see where you're coming from here. I've made another effort to condense this section a bit, cutting a bit more than my instincts would tell me to otherwise, but I think this gets closer to the kind of direction you are suggesting, without eliminating any major themes or overarching points that the section had been conveying before. What do you think? — Hunter Kahn 20:54, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Much better. Thank you! I do still have some comments on this section, below, but I've struck the oppose. I hope you agree that this is an improvement -- and if you don't, please say why; I'd like WP:RECEPTION to reflect consensus, not just the viewpoint of a couple of editors. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A couple more points:

  • Can you confirm that the citations are all still in the right place? When you move fragments of sentences around, it's easy for them to get disconnected. The particular fragment that caught my eye was "intelligent", which in this version was cited to AllMusic, but is now cited to Pitchfork.
  • Some reviewers noted the complexity of particular songs; Uproxx called the song "Time in Joy" a "six minute explosion of unbridled pop perfection".. A couple of things here. First, "noted" tends to imply that something is not an opinion, so it's worth avoiding it except for factual statements. Second, does the quote really represent an example of complexity? It's straightforward praise. Or is there more to the source than this quote?

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Mike Christie I agree with you about the use of the word "noted" and I've changed it to "highlighted". As for your other question, if you look at the full paragraph in that review, the writer talks about the various complex elements that go into that song, and I felt the statement that I quoted spoke to those complexities, and so was appropriate to quote in the context of the sentence as I used it. That being said, if you'd like me to cut that bit altogether and just leave in the general part about reviewing highlighting the complexity of particular songs, I'm OK with that. — Hunter Kahn 03:54, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I've struck both points; I'm not sure I fully agree with you on the second one but I think different readers could read it in different ways so I'm striking it. If I get a chance I'll read the whole article and comment, but that may not happen. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:27, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

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Hi, I appreciate you've tried to drum up some interest in this review, and of could it's not a great time for that anyway, but there's been no interest after almost three weeks and I don't know that that's going to change soon. Let's put this to bed for now and try again some time later. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:03, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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