Talk:Doug Stone/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ritchie333 (talk · contribs) 12:58, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give this a go.

Lead

The article is 14K prose, so two paragraphs is about right
I'll revisit the lead after doing the rest of the article.
The infobox mentions "years active" as "1990 - present", but the prose says he signed with Epic a year earler, and really you could argue that his career started when he built his studio in the 1970s.

Most music BLPs seem to start with the date that things really got going. For instance, Joe Diffie and Clay Walker both start with when the major-label things started happening.

Biography

I'd expect a section on "Biography" to cover his entire life. Maybe "Early life" would be a better description for this section.

Changed.

The Allmusic source has the wrong URL - it should be http://www.allmusic.com/artist/doug-stone-mn0000198649/biography

Changed.

The oldies.com source is actually a reprint of material from The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, which would be worth attributing in the source. It's important, as it greatly increases the reliability of this source, which talks about his broken home and commercial failure, both facets that need to be tied to good references to pass WP:BLP

Changed.

"His mother and father later divorced, and after the divorce" - repetition, "after this" or "afterwards" should suffice

Changed.

Two sentences in succession start "By" - could you reword one of them for variation?

Changed.

The Times Herald source talks a bit more about how Doug Johnson helped kick start his career, such as playing tracks in front of Bob Montgomery, who signed Stone without seeing him live - a unique event. This information is worth adding to the article.

Added.

Musical career

As above, the preceding section also contains some elements of his musical career (albeit before commercial success)

1990 - 1991 : Doug Stone

Why is it important to mention that Johnson became head of A&R at Epic Nashville.
Chart position of I'd Be Better Off (In a Pine Box) needs a citation (the linked article has it so this is trivial to fix)
Can you confirm Whitburn's book cites the chart positions of all three subsequent singles.

The Whitburn book verifies every chart position on Hot Country Songs, and the #81 Hot 100 peak for "I Never Knew Love".

There doesn't seem to be much about how the debut album was recorded, other than Johnson producing. Do we know where it was recorded, how long it took, and if any notable session players appeared on it?

I couldn't find much info on the recording process, but I did add a couple notes on the session players and songwriters involved.

1991 - 1992 : I Thought It Was You, From the Heart, and The First Christmas

"A Jukebox with a Country Song" spent two weeks at number 1, the only single of his career to do so. But the previous section says that "In a Different Light" also reached number one.

Rephrased to make it clearer that my intention was that "Jukebox" was his only #1 that spent more than one week at the top.

As above, this section seems to mostly concentrate on reviews and chart positions, whereas I think a bit more about the recording and live performances needs to be added to balance things out a bit. The heart bypass surgery is glossed over a bit too.

Again, I couldn't find much on the recording of the album. There might be some kind of info in old issues of Billboard, but Google Books' archives are very scant before about 1993.

The article cites the Allmusic biography for From the Heart selling 500,000 copies, but that doesn't appear to be cited in the article in question

It says "Like From the Heart, More Love went gold" in the last paragraph.

"The latter had originally been recorded by Dan Seals and Clinton Gregory." - why is this relevant for Stone's article?

Because it gives history on the song?

1993-1995: More Love and Greatest Hits, Vol. 1

The AllMusic source doesn't say More Love was released in November 1993, just 1993

Added another source that verifies the November date.

"The Greatest Hits album also achieved a gold certification" - this short sentence is probably redundant. The claim for gold certification can probably be integrated into preceding sentences

Fixed.

What makes the citation to IMDB (the final citation in this section) a reliable source?

Replaced with a link to Allmusic.

1995-1999: Faith in Me, Faith in You and Make Up in Love

The 1999 plane crash is glossed over a bit. While I wouldn't want a morbid minute by minute examination of the crash a la Pan Am Flight 103, the current single sentence implies to me he got out of the plane and walked away unhurt, in a manner not dissimilar to The A Team. I suspect the reality is somewhere between these two extremes, and another sentence describing it (Allmusic says he was "nearly killed") should sort that out. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There appear to have been two plane crashes. This source mentions an "experimental plane" that he crashed in 1997, which matches the date Allmusic gives. But this source makes no mention of the 1997 crash, and says that he was aboard a plane in O'Hare that skidded off a snowy runway and resulted in no injuries. I couldn't find any other mention of the 1997 crash.

Personal life

"Cohen filed for divorce two months later, accusing Stone of excessive drinking and infidelity". Per WP:BLP, it would be nice if this contentious claim was backed up by a second source.

Why does it need two sources?

It doesn't per se, but for contentious stuff, I like to see if I can attribute it to two sources. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 15:55, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Who is Dustin Stone's mother? It's not clear from the prose

I couldn't deduce this. None of the other articles that mention his relationships say anything about him having a son named Dustin.

Personal life

Do we know anything about his first wife, other than it was the one before Carie Cohen? Any dates?

Not that I could find. I searched all over and couldn't find even a name for the first wife. Even finding Carie Cohen was a chore.

Musical styles

"Stone is known primarily for his honky-tonk sound". I don't understand, I thought "honky-tonk" was a type of bar or instrument sound. How does it apply to a singer?

Changed to "neotraditionalist country".

This section is a single paragraph - perhaps it could be split into two?

Done.

Images

File:Doug stone.jpg has a watermark (date) on it - is there any way we can get rid of this?

I asked at Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Illustration workshop since I'm not good with graphics.

You could probably just crop the left 2/3rds of the photo - that would remove the date but not chop out anything of Stone himself. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Someone already edited out the watermark.

More later. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:58, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Overall, I think the main issues are just fleshing out the prose in certain areas. I appreciate it's a bit difficult to get sources, but I'm just trying to avoid an article that's mainly "In 1992, Stone did 'x'. In 1993, he did 'y'. In 1994, he did 'z'." We should know a bit more about the man himself and what makes him tick rather than just a list of his records. From checking up on some of the sources, I had to go back to the lead to check he was still alive! Anyway, for now I'm putting the review on hold pending completion of the remainder of the issues. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I've had a look through and cross compared it with Reba McEntire (as the most suitable example) and things seem to be close to passing, but I'm still a little uncomfortable about the lack of detail about the plane crash and the family. I'll go and grab a second opinion on whether that's a problem or not. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 15:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For the plane "crash", it sounds like it must be this: "On April 1, 1999, an Air China Boeing 747, Flight 9018, taxied onto an active runway at O'Hare during the takeoff of Korean Air Flight 36, another 747. Flight 36 averted a collision by taking off early and missing the Air China aircraft by 75 feet. There were 8 people on the Air China cargo plane and 379 on the Korean Air flight" --which isn't really a crash, more of an incident. So probably no more detail is needed but this might be clarified. I wouldn't worry too much about the family stuff unless it's what he's most known for (in the manner of a tabloid celebrity or some such). Just my two cents. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:14, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, rereading this, is he a pilot himself? I suppose if he crashed his own plane it wouldn't be in the bigger list of incidents. I wouldn't say more info is needed in that case. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Khazar2:@Ritchie333: I added information verifying that he briefly took up piloting airplanes as a hobby, and that he quit after that crash. I also clarified the source on the O'Hare incident to show that he was not injured then. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 21:53, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I think that, plus Khazar2's comments, have resolved my concerns, so I can now pass the review as meeting the GA criteria. Well done. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:25, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]