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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/What You Waiting For?

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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 promoted 03:52, 21 April 2007.

What You Waiting For?

edit

The article was just at peer review, where the only comment was that the article was ready for FAC. ShadowHalo 23:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • ...2004 (see 2004 in music) - Just link it in "2004".
  • ...and topped the singles charts - Single charts.
  • ...in the United States and in Australia - Second "in" redundant.
  • "What You Waiting For?" was the first song - No need repeating the title.
  • The song discusses Stefani's lack of inspiration, fear of producing the album, and pressure from her record label. Its lyrics also introduced the... - Slight contradiction between the words "discusses" and "lyrics" — change former sentence or remove "also".
I've revised the lead. I might tweak it some more, but I think it's improved. WesleyDodds 07:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Overall, the article is really "quoty"... Entire paragraphs of it read "XXXX mag says "Yada yada yada"". "YYYY mag says "Blah blah blah"". "ZZZZ website says "huminah huminhah huminah". If all of the quotes are removed, we are left with very little original text.
Personally I've fine with the quotes, given they are critical comments cited mainly for the opinions they express. Unless you can make general statements like "This reviewed the song badly," or "The song received four stars" (which I feel are workmanlike yet illuminate little), I feel it's best to rely on direct quotes when citing reviews because the intention of the review can be lost or corrupted in the translation to unquoted prose. WesleyDodds 07:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Language throughout seems informal for an encyclopedia. It needs some general help. Maybe WP:LOCE.
    • References and Original Research:
      • Full bibliographic information needed. Sheet music is published by someone. Also, if this is ONLY referenced to the sheet music, then it is Original Research, since the article provides interpretation of the music, and thus must be referenced to a reliable source that contains that interpretation, not the music itself.
happy editing! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 01:57, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll see about taking care of the first three points, but I'm not sure what you mean about the sheet music. The sheet music was published in 2004 by Famous Music, as included in the reference. I can assure you that none of the interpretation in there comes from the sheet music. If there's something there that strikes you as OR, I can tell you where it comes from. For example, the part about the piano solo being emotional could appear OR, but the sheet music specifically states "with feeling". I'm also not sure what you mean by original text for the Chart performance section. Adding any decent amount of original text would just mean that the ends up being OR. ShadowHalo 02:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I guess you are right. It looks like all interpretation of the sheet music (rather than reporting what it plainly says) is referenced to reliable secondary sources besides the sheet music itself. But the rest of the stuff needs fixing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jayron32 (talk • contribs) 04:13, April 17, 2007 (UTC).
I've put in a request at WP:LOCE, but my last request (Love. Angel. Music. Baby.) never got looked at and just got moved to a longer line once the FAC was closed, so I've asked WesleyDodds if he'd be willing to help out since I saw his good work on Smells Like Teen Spirit. ShadowHalo 04:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, like any other cleanup project at WikiPedia, the backlog there is more than the active editors can handle. The members of that project are usually VERY good, and I find their work most beneficial, when they get to it. This is nothing to disparage the wonderful work they do, but there are only so many good copyeditors around, and they do a very thorough job, so it does take time to clear the backlog. Contacting individual editors is good too. I am eager to see this article improved. Yes, the Smells Like Teen Spirit article is one that you could do no worse than modelling... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've done some editing; I'll do some more tomorrow. If there's any particularly vexing items of text besides the lead, please quote the troublesome prose here and I'll take a crack at it. WesleyDodds 07:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that the article needs much copyediting. I've read it again just to make sure, and found it to be quite at the level of Smells Like Teen Spirit and Christ Illusion. Jayron, in case you're certain the article doesn't meet the current "compelling or brilliant" standards 1a requires, I urge you to provide examples taken from a random paragraph. Contacting a person unfamiliar with the text might help but isn't necessary at this point. Michaelas10 18:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The following bits all need some copyediting to bring them up to "brilliant" standard:
  • "The song is influenced by electro and New Wave music and also introduced the Harajuku Girls, Stefani's four back-up dancers, who became a major theme throughout the album." run on sentance. These are two unrelated clauses. Split them up.
  • Soon after Stefani finished the Rock Steady Tour with her band No Doubt, she received a call from her label while asleep that Perry was in a studio ready to work with her because Perry "only [had] five days out of the whole year to work with [her]." - run on sentance.
  • Stefani later stated that she was frustrated with not being able to see her husband, Bush singer Gavin Rossdale, and felt burned out from having just finished touring, so she broke down and laid in bed crying How does this relate to the song in question? Unclear importance.
  • She decided to mention them in the line "Harajuku girls, you got the wicked style," and the concept grew into a running theme on Love. Angel. Music. Baby., which went as far as to feature one song named after and dedicated to them run on sentance.
  • In the Critical reception section, there needs to be some reworking of the organization. This is the "quotiest" part of the article. Perhaps not every single review ever done needs be quoted here. The first paragraph is positive reviewes, and the second paragraph has some positive and some negative reviews. It needs to be reorganized so that there is a logical paragraph break.
  • In February 2005, the song was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America,[28] and the song was nominated for best Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2005 Grammy Awards but lost to Norah Jones' "Sunrise". run on sentance.
  • Hope that helps some. Happy editing!--Jayron32|talk|contribs 18:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm unsure what do you mean by "run on sentence". Do you mean that there is a need in commas? If so, where exactly?
  • No, I mean it should be broken into separate sentances. Where a sentance is composed of multiple clauses, the clauses should be related. Where multiple, unrelated clauses are strung together with commas and conjunctions, it is called a "run on sentance". It hasn't anything to do with length. For example, the first one I cited could read: "The song is influenced by electro and new wave music. It also introduced the Harajuku Girls, Stefani's four back-up dancers, who became a major theme throughout the album." See, the stuff about the influences on the song is entirely unrelated to the Harajuku Girls. Thus, there is no reason that the two ideas be crammed into one sentance. That is what makes it a run on sentance. In other places where I noted run on sentances, the same problem exists.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead has been reverted back to its previous form with grammatical fixes, fixing your first issue.
  • The sentence in regards to Stefani's personal life is a very important background information which had influenced the writing of the song, and I strongly disagree it should excluded.
  • I do not doubt that it is related. I am unsure HOW it is related. The idea is hanging out there, unconnected to the rest of the article. We have a cause (her personal life) and an effect (the creation of the song). What we lack is a mechanism (HOW these facts of her personal life effected the creation of the song). The section needs expansion, not necessarily removal--Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "Critical reception" is heavily based on most of the featured film and album articles. Attempting to reword in encyclopedic terms one quote or another is likely to result in point of view as opposed to reader's own understanding of the review. Michaelas10 18:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • A couple notes. "Stefani later stated that she was frustrated with not being able to see her husband, Bush singer Gavin Rossdale, and felt burned out from having just finished touring, so she broke down and laid in bed crying" has been changed so that it now explains the relevance to the song, mainly that Stefani didn't want to work with Perry since Perry's mainly a rock musician and not a dance musician. Also, the organization of the Critical reception section is implied by the lead sentences for the paragraphs. The first paragraph is general reviews about the songs and different publication's views; the second is about reviews that "highlighted the track as a highlight of Love. Angel. Music. Baby.", which are generally ones that gave the album a poor review but not the song (since a significant number of the reviews referred to it as the best or one of the best on the album, it seems a logical division). ShadowHalo 20:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The language is STILL unclear here, see my notes above on mechanism. HOW did these events influence the song. I see this sentance: "Stefani later stated that she was frustrated with not being able to see her husband, Bush singer Gavin Rossdale; was scared of collaborating with new artists, especially Perry who she did not feel would be qualified to write dance music; and felt burned out from having just finished touring.[3][4] Stefani had an emotional breakdown and laid in bed crying.[3]". How does her missing Rossdale influence the song (its creation, inspiration, organization, music, etc.)? How does her tension with working with Perry influence the the song? How does her being burned out influence the song? How does her emotional breakdown influence the song? I am not saying these factors did NOT influence the song, I am saying I don't see HOW they influenced it. And on the second point, the second paragraph needs some cleanup for language and clarity. It is unclear that this (its position as the best song on the album) is the thesis of the paragraph in question, and needs to be cleaned up so it is more clear. Also, "highlighted the track as a highlight" Really? Mr. Roget may have a better way to say that... That isn't exactly brilliant prose.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've taken a look at some other featured articles about songs/albums to see how they deal with critical reception, and from what I can tell, What You Waiting For? handles the section at least as well as they. Christ Illusion uses a very similar summary style to this one, and All You Need Is Love (The JAMs song) seems far more dependent on quotes, with large sections coming from long, several-sentence excerpts. Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Smells Like Teen Spirit both also rely just as much on quotes; they do have more text about awards such as "top x albums" by various publications, but this is because these works have been around for fifteen years and have an additional historical context/impact. I could be off after having written most of the article, but I'd say that this article does a better job at handling quotations in the sense that its sentence structure is much more varied than many of these articles. ShadowHalo 21:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah, I am not so much having a problem with the quotes the more I read it. I guess it is more the muddy, confusing language that makes it hard to understand the whole organization of the Critical Reception section. This part really needs some copyediting (see what I said above). Even if not a single quote is removed, this section really needs some work. If the paragraph started something like "Though many reviews of the album were negative in tone, many of these same reviewers found this song to be the highlight of the album. For example, though XXXX from Slate.com said "This album sucks" they also said "The song rocks". XXXX, writing in Rolling Stone, noted that "I wouldn't wipe my ass with the liner notes of the album", but then went on to say "I still can't stop listening to this one song; if only the rest of the album was as good". Musicritic.com rated the album as a C-, but gave the song an A+. The thesis sentance of the paragraph can go a long way to framing the rest of it for clarity.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Around 4:00 UTC on Wednesday, I had a kidneystone, so I haven't been able to do work on Wikipedia and probably won't be around until this weekend at the earliest. I noticed that WesleyDodds has continued making some improvements to the article, so if he wants to keep the FAC open, it's up to him. ShadowHalo 19:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Given the main objection held by other editors (and myself, once I started editing) has been addressed, I'm now going to vote to promote this well-referenced, comprehensive article. Great job, and take care, ShadowHalo. WesleyDodds 01:01, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The language has tightened up quite a bit. The two big issues, the critical reception section and the background and writing section have eliminated run-on sentances, and are also clearer on their thesis. All objections met. Full support now! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
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