Talk:Avril Lavigne/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 08:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC) OK, I shall be back shortly with some comments and suggestions! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 08:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done*Okay then, I always check the peripheral things before I look at the body of the article in a GA review and one thing I notice is the inconsistency in reference formatting- for example, some are formatted as YYY-MM-DD and others are formatted as DD Month YYYY while others lack retrieval dates altogether. I would suggest sticking with the latter (or the American form: Month DD, YYY if that's more commonly used in Canda) and all those lacking retrieval dates will need them. You can use {{subst:CURRENTDAY}} {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} which will produce 27 March 2010

 Done*The lead could use a little expansion per WP:LEAD- it should summarise the main points of the article. It's probably good enough for GA, but it can't hurt, especially if you want to take the article further in future.

• The prose could do with some work, just to pick on a few bits:
  • "Lavigne's mother was the first to spot young Lavigne's talent"
  • The wording needs to be varied a bit to avoid repeated occurrences of "Lavigne"
  • "A daughter of a working-class family, Lavigne, at the age of two, began singing church songs along with her mother." (there are much better and more natural ways of phrasing that and the two facts aren't really related)
  • "During a performance with the Lennox Community Theatre, Lavigne was spotted by local folk singer Steve Medd, who invited her to contribute vocals on his song, "Touch the Sky", for his 1999 album, Quinte Spirit. She later sang on "Temple of Life" and "Two Rivers" for his follow up 2000 album, My Window to You" (that sentence is far too long)
  • Lots of sentences start with "In [year]..."
  • ""Breakaway" was later included on Clarkson's second album, Breakaway..."
  • "Lavigne had a cameo in the film Going the Distance and also..." ("and also" is one of my pet peeves)

 Done*In the final sentence above "Let Go", I suggest providing a citation for each artist or putting all of them at the end of the sentence

 Done*Since it's done roughly chronologically, it might be an idea to put years in the section headings under "music career"

 Done*Some years or dates in the "film career" section would be nice for context

 Done*Could the "publication" section be worked in somewhere else rather than given its own section since it's so short?

 Done*Try to explain the significance of "she admitted to "snagging a bite of Matt's cheeseburgers every now and again."" to someone unfamiliar with the subject

 Done*Is there a way to work those footnotes into the prose?

All in all, this is a very nice article and there are certainly no fundamental articles. It could easily be a GA if a bit of work goes into it over the next few days. Don't worry too much about the copyediting- if you fix what you can, I'll go through and give it a copyedit myself later on. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page of you need anything, I'm happy to help! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:56, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your review. So just to be sure, it would be okay if I went through the article and changed all the sources without a retrieval date so that it says they were retrieved today? Zylo1994 (talk) 19:56, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

You're more than welcome. And absolutely, but make sure the source backs up the content. The point of retrieval dates is to tell people when the information was there should the web page change in future (there are websites that will show you a previous version of web pages). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:22, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I tried adding retrieval dates to some sources but they wouldn't show. Can you add retrieval dates to magazines, books etc? If so, how? Also can we simply delete dead links or do we need to find the information they provided from another source before they're deleted? Zylo1994 (talk) 10:48, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

They all appear to have retrieval dates now. They're not required for offline sources, but they can be very useful for online sources if the link later goes dead. As for the dead links, you can use this to find them (I've set it to only show the ones you need to worry about). You should click the link to make sure it is dead. Assuming it is, check what they're being used to source and whether that information needs to stay. If it does, the best thing to do is to try and find another source. If the information is important but you can't verify it elsewhere, there are ways you can find it, but I'd have to consult someone more knowledgeable on it than myself! How's it coming on? Do you need anything else from me? I'm more than happy to help if you do. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:47, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Two weeks later, not much of anything has been done. Perhaps this should be failed now? Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 02:23, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Wrapping up

OK, this has been open for quite a while, so I'd quite like to get it closed by the end of the week if possible. All the outstanding issues are documented above and on the main talk page. Once they're fixed, I'll take another look. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:28, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been busy with my own GA and articles, but I may as well say that I have one more section of AL (the last section) to whip into shape, plus I think her Inked interview needs to be thrown into the tattoos section (if and when I can find a scan of it), and then I've tagged one or more references as unreliable or other issues. For the record, I think the GA nom was a bit premature, but the article is definitely looking better because of it, so I appreciate your and Zylo's help and input greatly. I'm hoping you can extend the deadline just a tad longer, or at least don't judge the last section until I've been through it. I don't think this page is transcluded any more (Miszabot came through a while ago), but I now have this page on watch. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 08:20, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll keep an eye on it. As long as progress is being made, I'm happy. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:24, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Work has started up again (on my end) and I realized the lead is going to need to be expanded some as well, so the article won't be ready quite yet. Thanks for your patience, HJ. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 08:41, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

The article is 98% completed and ready to be reviewed again. Please note that there are several failed verification and unreliable source tags throughout, but these instances are mostly highly notable and I can find archived news sources for them later tomorrow. Also note the I re-wrote most of the lead section to summarize the entire article; every section is covered. ScottMHoward brought up the fact that this may be too detailed for the lead, and he may be right, but before I start trimming it, I will let you (et al.) decide its ultimate fate. Finally, I have not gone through the article for linking or overlinking, as this for some reason seems to require more brain power than researching and writing lol. So I thought I would leave that for later, and of course anyone else if free to dive in. Thanks once again for your patience. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 05:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I cleaned up the links and all overlinks in the article body should be gone. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I just crossed this page and I would say this article totally lacks a Musical Style section. --Jaan Pärn (talk) 11:38, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• I've just logged into my alternate account so I can do a proper review without the constant orange bar or the urge to press admin buttons! It'll take me a few minutes to look through the article, and when I'm done I'll probably have another list of minor things to be addressed. Whisky drinker | HJ's sock 23:25, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Cool, I didn't know you guys got an orange bar! :D – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 00:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up review

• Right then:
  • "Early years" section- I've left you a {{fact}} tag- it may well be in one of the references but that sentence will need a citation

N Not done just yet. My reasoning: the citation shown below (currently [6]) covers the information previous to it, which in this case is three sentences. The sentence in the reference reads: "But her parents supported her singing."

Although she struggled with paying attention in school, sometimes kicked out of class for misbehaving, her parents were supportive of her singing.[citation needed] Her father bought her a microphone, a drum kit, a keyboard, several guitars, and converted their basement into a studio. When Lavigne was 14, her parents would take her to karaoke sessions.[6]

I'm not an advocate for repeated citations, and in a discussion held on Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Citations_following_quotations, there was a consensus for this, as long as the information previous to the citation wasn't so great that the referenced material would be confusing to the reader or the editor. Do let me know what you think, though. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 00:50, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough- it's at the end of the next sentence, so I can live with that. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:05, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

• • You need to do something to make "invited Antonio "L.A." Reid, head of Arista Records at the time, to hear Lavigne sing for 15 minutes at producer Peter Zizzo's Manhattan studio. Lavigne so impressed Reid, he immediately signed her " sound a bit more neutral and encyclopaedic.

Y Slightly re-written. Evidently, the "so impressed" bit was directly pulled from the reference (my bad!), so I added quotation marks. If it's still too much, I'll change it up. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 02:52, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

• • • Likewise "Signed as a singer, Lavigne was pitched with songs written by others. She dismissed them, however, and insisted on writing music herself."

Y Removed entirely. This comes from the Chris Willman Entertainment Weekly source, but it's better suited to the Let Go (album) article, which handled it appropriately. The EW interview goes into the "how much of the music does Avril really write?" bit, but the whole debate is a tad apocryphal and I'm not sure there's enough evidence on either side for it to even hold water.

• • Can I suggest a subheader immediately underneath "music career"? It's just a suggestion, but it's a technique I employed while re-writing Lindsay Lohan and it seemed to work quite well.

Y Absolutely. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

• • Datespans would be good in the level 3 headers

Y Added. Datespans were in the article back in January 2010, but I recall sockpuppet Detty2.0 (talk · contribs) changing the dates and sub-headings; I will admit, I became so fed up with that editor, I removed the datespans altogether with, among a few others, this edit. Because the section Fourth studio album currently holds information from 2009, I have set the date from that point forward.

Now, I have an only slightly off-topic question: are you familiar with the "–present" phrase not being recommended in the body of an article? Long story short, I recall reading somewhere the "–present" was okay for infoboxes and summarizing tables, but in the body of an article, it should be replaced with another term; I saw an editor change it to "onward" once, and I followed suit. Huntster (talk · contribs) and ScottMHoward (talk · contribs) were kind enough to point out that my edits were possibly unreasoned (neither could find guidelines to support my changes). So, all I'm asking is, since I have you here on the subject of datespans, is "–present" okay in this case, and are you familiar with any possible guideline that I may have read (and can no longer find)? – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Good question. I swear I read somewhere that "-present" was frowned upon in the body, but I can't for the life of me remember where. My personal preference (and I'm sure it's in the MoS somewhere) would be "onwards", but I might ask at WT:MOS or somewhere. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll ask at the MOS talk page, then. I'm very curious about this. I'll change it to "onward" since we both agree on that. Onward vs. Onwards (like Toward vs Towards) is, I believe, preferential (with consistency), so either way should work. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 02:59, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I've asked the question at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#.22.E2.80.93present.22_in_article_body. We'll see what turns up! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 18:35, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

• • "Lavigne went on to sell more than 30 million copies of her albums worldwide[11] and is currently one of the top-selling artists releasing albums in the United States, with over 10.25 million copies certified by the RIAA" is the kind of summary style you can write a lead section in, but it doesn't belong in the body like that.

Not sure I agree; I moved it down from the lead during a copyedit. If I move it back up to the lead, the information won't necessarily specifically be repeated anywhere else in the article. Can I therefore keep the citations with the phrase? – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:23, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Y I moved two phrases up into the lead and kept the citations.

Fair enough. It's probably the best place for it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, works for me too. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 02:59, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

• • I suggest you have a thorough read through the material between "music career" and the first subheader and give it a more thorough copyedit than I just did

Y Agreed 100%. Actually, it was kind of a pathetic one-paragraph section with a second paragraph as filler. I merged the first paragraph into Let Go, which is an obvious part of its history.

• • I've put a tag on "Lavigne is therefore not easily defined by only a few genres" because that sound like OR or synth to me unless it's directly attributable to a source

Y Removed through attrition. The whole list of genres was originally created to keep genre warriors at bay, but it's absolutely unnecessary. It's was nothing more than a list of sub-genres within alternative rock and pop genres that did nothing to advance the article or meaning.

• • I'm wondering about the necessity of the great long list of musical influences- could that be trimmed to maybe the few that have had the most affect on her style?

Y I actually questioned its purpose entirely. In 2004, she listed Janis Joplin and Courtney Love as her influences... but not why or how. In 2004, she listed her favorite albums. That doesn't really mean much on its own. I thought I would save the Joplin/Love bit, but it really doesn't fit anywhere in the Under My Skin section, and I don't want a widowed sentence floating around on its own. Someone suggested a Musical style section, and maybe then those can be fit in there, but that section would require a lot of research and writing to work well. For example, in interviews I've read, the media will call her punk, but Avril will deny it vehemently. Sort of a lose-lose situation, which is why I'm not up for tackling it. So: I've removed all genres and favorite albums.

• There'll be more to come in a minute, but I want to be in my admin account for the 00:00 UTC switchover on the Main Page. Whisky drinker | HJ's sock 23:57, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Well that's excellent progress (yes, I'm back in my regular account now, I just felt like editing without the admin buttons!) made very quickly and the article certainly looks a lot more professional from just a few relatively minor cosmetic changes. I'll get back to this at a more sociable hour, but it's gone 3am, so I'm retiring for the night. Good work, though, if we can keep at it, there shouldn't be more than a day or two of work left. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Right, just a few final points. I have concerns about the reliability of some of the sources, including:

• 12- overused for a crappy tabloid

Y (Now [13]) I'll trust this because the tabloid is British and you're probably more familiar with it than I am (I think you're in the UK). The Wiki article doesn't make it sound like a gossip/exploitive tabloid though, so rather than remove it entirely: I replaced two citations with a new reference and added a supporting citation to the quote. The Sunday Mirror quote (Lavigne stating she put a lot of work into getting where she had and now was going to drop out of school) adds an extra line, which I decided to keep. But if I drop the last sentence, the supporting citation covers the quote just fine. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

• 27 (imdb)

Y (Now [29]) Replaced citation entirely with MTV article on that specific show. Showtime given at bottom of article. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

• 39

 Not done (Now [41]) I don't know the reliability of the website, Girl.com.au, but Gaynor Flynn is both the author and the interviewer. Her interviews have included an Over the Hedge interview with Bruce Willis and other interviews, like Ethan Hawke, Anne Hathaway, etc., and her name and interviews seem to show up quite a bit on Google. Though not presented in a fancy two-column format, I feel the need to defend her interview as legitimate, whether or not the website is (I'm not familiar with the website at all). In addition, removing Flynn's interview would result in the loss of an incredible amount of detail in the Film career section. I'm at a loss as to what to do. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:18, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

• 48

Y (Now [50]) Replaced entirely with accurate {{cite journal}} for Maxim issue. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

• 54- work should be The Guardian, publisher is Guardian Media Group

Y (Now [56]) Good catch, fixed. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

• 101

Y Removed entirely. Two citations were removed, one was a supporting citation that wasn't necessary otherwise, and a phrase was removed that used this reference ("dark" and "forbidding"), which isn't all that necessary either. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Once those are addressed, I can't see any good reason not to promote this. Whisky drinker | HJ's sock 00:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I am indeed in the UK and, frankly, I wouldn't trust The Mirror as far as I can throw it, but you're not so dependant on it now, so that's fine. Now that all the others have been addressed or fixed, all that's left to say is congratualtions. you just got yourself a GA! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:03, 8 June 2010 (UTC)