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GA Review

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Reviewer: SilkTork *YES! 23:58, 13 July 2010 (UTC) GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria[reply]

  1. Is it reasonably well written?
    A. Prose quality:
    B. MoS compliance:
  2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
    A. References to sources:
    B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
    C. No original research:
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. Major aspects:
    B. Focused:
  4. Is it neutral?
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. Is it stable?
    No edit wars, etc:
  6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
    A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
    B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:


I'll take a look and start to give some initial impressions over the next couple of days. My views on GA and the review process are here, if interested. My aim when taking on a review is to have the article listed as a Good Article, and I'm happy to work with the nominator and other editors to ensure the article meets the GA criteria. I've had a quick glance at the article and it looks very promising. A reasonably well structured layout, a list of sources, a decent length for the lead and the article (not too short, not too long), and it seems neat and tidy with no obvious errors. Points that stuck out were:

  • a number of sections are rather short, and perhaps these could be merged more, to allow for a better flow when reading;
  • that, given their importance, both Dusty in Memphis and Son of a Preacher Man might be allowed more space in the article - Preacher Man in particular is accorded little comment at the moment;
  • there is a reliance on internet sources to the neglect of some solid print sources - [1]
  • that some of the internet sources have questionable reliability, while others, such as Allmusic, tend to be long on praise and short on accuracy.

These points may turn out not to matter, and even if they do, they can be quickly addressed. I have a feeling that this review should be pleasant and easy. SilkTork *YES! 23:58, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • Broad coverage.? I'm started to do some reading of sources to support what is said in the first section, and I come upon information about her dysfunctional family and her early tendency to self-harm which appears to have followed her through her life. I see there is a mention of it in the Personal life section - though some mention of it in the Early life section would be helpful, especially as it shows how the self-harm started, and perhaps where the roots of her alcholism came from as her family were heavy drinkers. I think the Early life section could be developed a bit more as it is useful and interesting material. SilkTork *YES! 09:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Prose quality.? The prose is clear and the article is easy to read and follow, often presenting a lot of information in a short space. There are, however, some occasional errors (north London instead of North London), and occasionally an awkwardness in expression, or use of casual language ("bogged down"). Some reviewers list the errors as they find them and get the nominator to make the changes. I tend to make the corrections as I go through, though would welcome someone to go through with an eye to copy-editing - especially toward the end of the review. The errors are slight, and if there are no other problems with the article, would not prevent this becoming a Good Article; however, they are worth attending to as part of the general improvement of the article, and - in conjunction with a number of other problems - would contribute to a fail. SilkTork *YES! 09:39, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • MoS.☒N Few articles meet all the MoS criteria when first nominated. Thankfully, it is usually not difficult to put things right. See Wikipedia:LAYOUT#Body_sections regarding the short sections used in this article. Other aspects of MoS are met (well done!), though, while the WP:Lead does pass, it could benefit from tightening up on organisation and presentation as part of the ongoing development of the article. SilkTork *YES! 09:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sources.? There are sources, and these are suitably organised in a reference section. There are a very few statements that are not sourced, and the quality of the sources needs checking, so this is not a pass yet. Some of the online sources appear to be amateur or fan articles that would have gained their information from other sources - it would be useful to cite the original reliable sources than the fan articles. For example, this source is used when this or this are more reliable and both give her age as 12 rather than the 11 of the article.
I don't think the article has any original research issues, though I tend to leave a decision on that until later when more background reading has been done and sources have been checked. SilkTork *YES! 10:09, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The quotes in the Illness and death section each need sourcing. SilkTork *YES! 10:26, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral.? The article is mainly neutral and unbiased - a difficult thing to achieve when the main writers are fans. Though there may be a slight tendency to praise, or see the good side of Springfield - such as the statement: "Her male colleagues who were unused to women taking control in the studio labelled her difficult to work with", which is putting a quite possibility inappropriate rationale to "excuse" Springfield's behaviour, and the source is a lesbian social network site rather than something more academically reliable. There appears to be a number of reasons given for her being difficult - her own insecurity and low self esteem stemming from her upbringing are those cited by reliable sources, that she was a woman in an oppressive man's world is cited by fan sites. There may be an element of truth in both views, though when selecting a source we go for the most reliable, not the one we personally agree with, otherwise a certain amount of bias enters the article. SilkTork *YES! 10:26, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On hold

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This is a very decent, informative and well presented article on a significant and important topic which attracts over 1.5K readers a day. Full thanks and appreciation are given to the significant contributors to this article, in particular User:Erikupoeg, the main contributor who has worked on the article for 2 1/2 years, User:Kinkyturnip, who made a series of edits in 2007 and 2008, User:Bounti76, who made on and off contributions from 2006 to 2009, and User:Dunks58 who has worked on the article since the start of 2006.

There is some copy-editing and simple tightening and tidying to be done, along with checking and improving sources. Mostly minor, niggly things: the article could be expanded and fleshed out in places, particularly the early years; and a close edit to ensure that there is a more appropriate balance - it leans a little toward eulogy, nothing significant, but a bit of stiffening in that regard, especially as this is such a highly visible article, would be appropriate regardless of GA status.

I appreciate that I am being a little vague in what needs to be done, and giving advice on how to move forward, so here are the priorities as I see them at the moment:

  1. Improve layout per Wikipedia:LAYOUT#Body_sections by merging sections and subsections together-- Done--Diannaa (Talk) 22:22, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Upgrade sources
  3. Expand early years
  4. Copyedit to ensure flow and appropriate tone-- Done--Diannaa (Talk) 22:22, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Read through with an objective eye and rewrite carefully to ensure article is neutral and balanced. See Wikipedia:Describing points of view and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view-- Done--I think there may still be a few loose ends but this is mostly done. --Diannaa (Talk) 22:22, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Tighten WP:Lead-- Done--Diannaa (Talk) 22:22, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I will inform the major active contributors named above, as well as the WikiProjects who have been tagged on the talkpage. All assistance in improving the article, including comments and opinion are most welcome. The review is on hold for an initial seven days to see what progress is made. SilkTork *YES! 20:12, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for these highly constructive comments. I will start to work on the article in a couple of days. --Jaan Pärn (talk) 12:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The recent citing of Annie Janeiro Randall's book is very good. It would be helpful to go a bit further and mention the page or pages on which the information can be found. I have given an example for the first use of the cite. I am assuming that the information came from page 3 - as that was the nearest I could find for the sentence - though please adjust and point to the actual page (or pages) if I was incorrect. There doesn't need to be a link to the actual page (googlebooks doesn't have every page), but a note of the page number is very useful - see WP:Page numbers. SilkTork *YES! 11:19, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Could you specify which statements suffer from the lack of neutrality. --Jaan Pärn (talk) 15:10, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's an example above under "Neutral". More examples:
  • "Of all the female British pop artists of the 1960s, she made one of the biggest impressions on the American market." - this is a fluff (WP:PEACOCK) statement - there's a lot of qualification needed (female, British, 1960s, one of, American) to make what amounts to a statement without substance. What impression did she actually make? Give the facts, and steer away from opinions, unless appropriately and reliably supported by several sources, and if the opinion is important to an understanding of the subject. The body of the article details more success in Britain than America, and quite modest success in America.
  • "dashing image"--minus Removed--Diannaa (Talk) 22:22, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "luscious evening gowns"--minus Removed--Diannaa (Talk) 22:22, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Those are examples from the first paragraph. It is difficult to write in an objective and neutral style, and I do appreciate it can be tricky to make improvements when the advice is in the general rather than the specific. I will get around to looking more closely at this article and either directly making the adjustments needed, or giving more detailed advice shortly. At the moment my attention has been taken with the Covent Garden article as in Real Life I am doing an article on Covent Garden, and it makes sense to use the same research on the Wikipedia article. I should be able to give this some attention within the next few days. SilkTork *YES! 18:47, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Moving forward

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I'm pleased to see there have been some edits which have moved the article forward, though the pace is slow and involvement of editors very low. I am keeping the article on hold for another seven days, and will pitch in where I can to help with the progress. SilkTork *YES! 11:17, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the slow progress on this article. Many editors have been busy with the Copy Edit Drive, which ended last night. --Diannaa (Talk) 22:22, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]


There's been some impressive progress on the article - well done! I've just had a quick read through, making a few edits on the way, and the tone is much more neutral. I'll take a closer look in the morning, and see how much nearer we are to GA. It's not far off, though there are a few areas that need tweaking - a bit of rewording, and a couple more cites. I'll either adjust myself, or give more details tomorrow. SilkTork *YES! 00:08, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Checking

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  • I was just reading through, checking the prose for formal, neutral language, and I came upon the phrase "Springfield's first flirtation with Motown-style music" in regard to I Only Want to be With You, which I was uncomfortable with regarding both the word "flirtation", and the association of it with Motown. I see that the original wording in the source is "Springfield's first flirtation with Motown-style soul", which is perhaps too close to the original. And in looking to see what other sources say, I get comments about Phil Spector and early RnB girl bands, and orchestrated-pop, etc, all of which appears appropriate when listening to the music, but no other mention of that song being like Motown soul. Rolling Stone is a decent source, though if they are the only ones to call it Motown-style, while several mention orchestrated pop or wall of sound (which is fully in keeping with the later careers of the singer and producer who both went on to work with The Walker Brothers - who used an orchestrated-pop "wall of sound" style) then perhaps a slight refocus is in order. This source wraps up both R n B girl bands, particularly The Shirelles and Phil Spector's production technique, so might be more appropriate. SilkTork *YES! 10:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are a series of sentences about the chart or other success of I Only Want to be With You. It would be useful to summarise all these points about the record's commercial success into one clear statement supported by a reliable source, rather than have the bitty "It was #4. It was a "sure shot". It was #48." etc. The specific detail about the song's chart appearances properly belongs in the article on the song. SilkTork *YES! 14:41, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is there so much detail on "The Look of Love" - is this song important in some way? The final sentence in that paragraph is not clear - "Springfield was not very popular in the United States in 1967,[38] so this song earned her highest place in the year's music charts at #22." SilkTork *YES! 15:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Springfield was becoming disillusioned with the show-business carousel" - source: "she was becoming disillusioned with the show business carousel..." I picked that up initially because I felt the wording was a little too flowery - then I checked the source, which is a tertiary source - of which we have rather too many already, and our article copies the wording too closely. Colin Larkin would have got the information that Springfield was tired of performing from a reliable source. What this article should be doing is referencing the same source as Larkin read. I have just ordered three Springfield biographies from my local library, and I will put the review on hold until the books arrive and I am able to both confirm this article follows her life story reasonably accurately and conveys the appropriate information, and I am able to upgrade the sources from tertiary to secondary. I am still confident this article will be listed as a GA (because the ground work has been done), though it may take a little longer than initially thought to check and upgrade the sources. SilkTork *YES! 15:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Prose is readable and clear and neutral and sober in tone. There are places where it doesn't flow easily due to a series of short choppy sentences packing in a lot of data, but this is part of the ongoing development of the article, and will not hold up the GA at the stage. SilkTork *YES! 16:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is enough supporting sources, and the presentation of the material is such that I don't see evidence of Original Research. I feel that on the whole this is largely neutral in both tone and selection of material, though will hold back a little longer on passing that while doing a bit more background reading.SilkTork *YES! 16:14, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On hold 2 weeks

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  • My two remaining quibbles are the quality of the sources - as there are decent secondary sources I feel it appropriate to use those in place of the tertiary sources. Tertiary sources are good for general overviews, and for when starting an article. By the time an article is at the stage of a GA, it should be using the better quality secondary sources if available. The other quibble is coverage. I'd just like to check that the article does give a fair representation of her life and career. Essentially we are almost there, and it shouldn't take long now. I'll put this on hold for two weeks to get the books and do the background reading. In the meantime people can work on replacing tertiary sources with secondary sources as appropriate, and doing some copyediting to make the article flow better. The second paragraph of the Years without commercial success section might be a good place to start. SilkTork *YES! 16:14, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have collected the first Springfield book, and will be reading it over the next few days. It's Dusty, Queen of the Postmods - which appears to be a collection of essays by a musicology academic rather than the usual biography. Looks interesting! SilkTork *YES! 18:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two more books have arrived. I'll attend to reading them over the next few days. Extending hold for at least another week to give me to chance to look over these sources. SilkTork *YES! 21:46, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Updating. The three books are supplying some interesting information, and I will be updating the article shortly. I will be briefly building on the family background, as it does seem to have impacted on Springfield's character/personality which then feeds into her image which all the books regard as important - almost as important as her music. This article does make mention of her image, though largely through lesser quality sources so it would be good to switch those for more reliable ones. Sorry for continued delay - the amount of editing to be done on the article is not much - what is taking the time is reading the sources and then deciding what information to use. This shouldn't be too long now. SilkTork *YES! 11:18, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'm plodding through it - hopefully shouldn't take more than a week now. SilkTork *YES! 13:26, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully the review's nearing its end soon. Found an extra thing that needs addressing on a skim: there's several bare URLs in the references that need to have titles/dates/etc. added in. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 23:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I hope the same thing! Sometimes I come here, look at the work and then walk away! I am going to bear down on this in the next couple of days, get it done, and return the books to the library. SilkTork *YES! 11:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Final comments

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I'm working through and trying to find sources for the remaining unsourced (or poorly sourced) statements that may be challenged. There is little readily available information on the Faithful sessions. The main source appears to be the Paul Howes book which I've not been able to obtain from my library, and which is not on Google Books. If someone is able to check the Howes book - The Complete Dusty Springfield, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd. 2001, ISBN 1903111242 - and put in the relevant page numbers that would be useful. SilkTork *YES! 19:14, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • The sources I have read say that the Jeff Barry sessions were for an intended third Atlantic album, and that some of the songs end up on See All Her Faces and one of the extended releases of ...in Memphis, so the view that the sessions resulted in an unreleased album is inappropriate, and comes from only one source. There was no cover, no album name, and the sessions were not complete enough for an album's worth of material. No discography lists the recording sessions as an album. And even if it were an unreleased album, such as the Beach Boys' Smile, then it doesn't get listed as a dated album on a discography. I have made the appropriate adjustments. SilkTork *YES! 13:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article appears reasonably neutral - always a difficult thing to get right when writing about a topic one likes. I don't think there are any aspects or sections which go into too much detail - I think the article mentions fashion, music, her major album, personal life, and icon status without dwelling on any of these for too long. SilkTork *YES! 13:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reliable sources. I have been working through this and have cited where needed and/or upgraded the source from an unreliable website to a published biography. There are however still some statements which are poorly or not at all sourced - ashes scattered in Ireland, "in apparent good health, Springfield set about promoting the album", "During this period of psychological and professional instability, Springfield's involvement in some intimate relationships influenced by addiction resulted in episodes of personal injury", "the chart-peaking Bacharach-David partnership was foundering", etc. SilkTork *YES! 13:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Major aspects. This is the main area that needs development. There is much of her personal life, and her relationships which are not dealt with here, but appear in the biographies. Her behaviour during recording sessions is a significant aspect of her life, and something that I think people who know little about Springfield would be aware of, and there is not quite enough information about that in the article, though it is there in the biographies. Her live performances and tours need more coverage. Her relationship with the people around her - her managers, and her collaborators - need more information. A better overview of the different aspects of her career would be helpful. Much of the article tends to be - album released and sold well or was well received, then album released, then album released, etc. There are summaries available in the biographies which would be useful. The bulk of the seventies she was not recording well so compilation albums were released instead, and she withdrew from the hotel tour circuit that she didn't enjoy so she faded from view a bit. Putting everything in context, and summing up what was happening. I have tried to help with this, but it is taking too long, and while I really wanted to take this all the way to GA status, I feel I have to now draw this review to a close as a fail. When I have time I will pop back here and help out in building the article so that the reader gets a helpful overview of Springfield's life and career. SilkTork *YES! 13:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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