Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Virtual Self (EP)/archive2

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 Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 23 August 2024 [1].

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Virtual Self (EP)

Nominator(s): Skyshiftertalk 23:39, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Following the release of Worlds, Porter Robinson felt pressured to release a follow-up album with a similar sound, but couldn't come up with anything. His idea, then, was to break expectations and change his musical style completely, just as he had done with Worlds. This resulted in the Virtual Self alias and its self-titled EP, where he used the early 2000s as his main inspiration for visuals and sound. Following the recent promotion of Worlds, here is another article of a Robinson album that I believe is ready for FAC. Thank you! I'd like to invite the last nomination's participants (LunaEclipse and Heartfox) to participate in this nomination if they wish. Skyshiftertalk 23:39, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

LunaEclipse

I still believe my source review stands up. Support. lunaeclipse ^(talk) 00:16, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Oppose from Dylan620

Prose review forthcoming, most likely in the next couple days. Dylan620 (he/him • talk • edits) 22:50, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Skyshifter, but while I have great respect for your work, I feel like this article currently falls short of meeting criterion 1a. I share some of Heartfox's concerns from the previous FAC, which I don't think have been fully addressed quite yet. There is still some clunky/unprofessional prose in the mix here, plus a number of quotations that I think should be paraphrased as a means of better incorporating the information into the article. That having been said, this is still a strong article, and I can be swayed to support if some of the quotes are reworded/truncated and the messier bits of prose are cleaned up. I have some comments below, including suggested ways of cutting down on the excessive quotation:

• had a notable impact on... – Per WP:WTW, I think "notable" should be avoided.

• Removed

• produced a hundred demos for what would be a follow-up to Worlds, which he described as... – The structure of this sentence makes it unclear whether the quote that follows refers to Worlds or the demos.

• Fixed

• a collaboration with Madeon; Robinson said that it was successful and, considering that Madeon "was making all of his new music that is unbelievably good", he decided to do something similar, while going "in this complete other direction". → a collaboration with Madeon that Robinson believed to be successful. He admired Madeon's output of the period and drew inspiration from it, while also seeking to distort that influence into something unrecognizable.

• Done

• The sentence containing the "peak obsessiveness" quote doesn't read professionally as is, and additionally seems to closely paraphrase a quote from Robinson in one of the sources. A suggested rewording:
  • Robinson felt reinvigorated from working on Virtual Self. He became highly fixated on the EP and devoted large quantities of time to making it; his passion supplanted his feeling that he should focus on projects with commercial potential, which he believed Virtual Self did not have.
• I am having a difficult time parsing the unwieldy sentence that begins with Robinson wanted to combine the idea of...

• Tried something

• separate Porter Robinson music from Virtual Self music → separate music made under his own name from that which was made under the Virtual Self alias

• Done

• he listened to "every song" from 1998 to 2003 tagged as ... he stated he "must have listened to snippets of 100,000 songs" over two years → he listened to "every" song from 1998 to 2003—a number he claimed to approach 100,000—tagged as...

• Done

• While he recognized many of them were "pretty uninspired and forgettable", he identified "trends of sound design and structure" that he could incorporate. → While he found many of them to be generic and unimpressive, he identified common sonic and structural traits that he could incorporate.

• Done

• he tried to include "twists" so that it would be a "somehow distorted" homage → he tried to include compositional turns that would not be expected in the genres and time period to which he was paying homage

• Done

• The phrase visuals-wise looks very strange to me and I suggest finding a better way to word it.

• Removed

• A.i.ngel (Become God) and A.I.ngel (Become God) are used interchangeably; which capitalization is correct?

• Fixed

• In the first sentence of §Composition_and_songs, "trance or neotrance" would read more smoothly than neotrance or just trance IMO; I'm also not sure if trance needs to be in that long list of influences when it is already mentioned upfront as a main genre.

• Fixed 1st point; for the second point, I think it's okay to differentiate sources saying that Virtual Self is trance and sources that say it is just inspired by the genre.

• Not a prose comment, but File:Virtual Self - Eon Break.ogg should be a teensy bit shorter. The full song is 3:40 in length, while the sample is 22 or 23 seconds, just barely outside of the less-than-10-percent guideline.

• 0:23 count in the article seems wrong, it should be 0:22, meeting the 10%.

• How is Technic-Angel a harbinger?

• I mean, these descriptions are just lore.

• — such as Dance Dance Revolution music[3][19] — Per MOS:DASH, em dashes should not be spaced. If you wish to keep the spaces, then you should use en dashes instead.

• Wrote it differently

• I think you should clarify that Robinson created separate Twitter/social media accounts for Pathselector and Technic-Angel as a means of establishing them as characters. The way the sentence is currently worded, it looks extraneous and had me questioning how relevant it was to the subject.

• Done

• There are instances of passive voice that should be converted to active voice (e.g. Pathselector's songs were described by Robinson as... → Robinson described Pathselector's songs as...)

• Done

• In the same sentence as the above example, being mid-tempo, having less hardcore influences and instead a strictly trance style → mid-tempo, and adhering stylistically to trance

• Done

• The phrase Philip Sherburne of Pitchfork reappears in full later in the same paragraph where it first appears; the repeat should be truncated to "Sherburne".

• Done

• peaking at 8 on Dance/Electronic Album Sales and 21 on Heatseekers Albums – The word "number" needs to appear before each chart position in the prose, ideally with non-breaking spaces (the integer 8 should probably be spelled out, as well).

• Done

• The first paragraph of §Reception_and_legacy contains a lot of quotes that could be paraphrased without losing their meaning. There are some that I think work better in the article than others—"beneath a billion-watt gleam" and "nostalgia will rehabilitate..." are quite evocative—but the "headlong plunge" quote could easily be reworded as something along the lines of "evoke the aesthetics of the turn of the millennium", and the "boundaries of taste" quote is one that I'm finding hard to parse.

• Done for the "headlong plunge" one, not sure how to paraphrase others.

• said that it was unfortunate → lamented

• Done

• For what it's worth, in response to a comment you made at the previous FAC, a recently-promoted FA made use of Sputnikmusic staff reviews as sources in multiple instances, and I suggest incorporating something from the Sputnikmusic staff review of Virtual Self into this article.

• Still unsure on this, will think about it.

• The tidbit about "Ghost Voices" "restor[ing] [Harris's] love of dance music" misattributes that quote to Harris himself when it comes from the title of the news article. At least, that's the most I can see on my end; the cited source purports to link to an interview with Harris near the bottom (where I'm guessing the news article could have gotten the quote), but I'm seeing an error message where the interview should be.

• Reworded

• consideration. He said he felt like he won "the moment it got nominated" → consideration; being nominated made him feel like he won

• Done

• Robinson reported an "overall push for hardstyle and hardcore" after the Virtual Self alias. → Robinson perceived that hardstyle and hardcore surged in popularity after the EP was released.

• Done

I know this is probably a lot of comments, but I sincerely hope they help – even if I don't think it's ready quite yet, I do think the article is in great shape and that FA status is within its reach, and I look forward to revisiting. Please ping me either when you have addressed the above feedback, or if you have any questions. Regards, Dylan620 (he/him • talk • edits) 23:50, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Will respond very soon. Skyshiftertalk 01:13, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Dylan620: done! Skyshiftertalk 12:02, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

• Three weeks in and the only general review is an oppose. As this is some way from achieving a consensus to promote I am archiving it, hopefully for improvement work to continue off FC. The usual two-week hiatus will apply. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

  Gog, speaking as the opposer, is there any way you would be willing to leave this open a bit longer? I have great respect for you, but I am dismayed that this would be archived so soon after Skyshifter responded to my comments; I just logged in to check whether she had done so. While there are a couple small things I wanted to follow up with her on, I am pleased with the progress she has made so far and would like for her to be allowed a little more time. Dylan620 (he/him • talk • edits) 21:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

  I am also surprised. Another unecessary sudden archival just like the last FAC. Skyshiftertalk 23:01, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

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