Talk:Far East Man/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: CyrockingSmiler (talk • contribs) 19:48, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please find another reviewer for this article. Unfortunately, I can't do it anymore. CyrockingSmiler (talk) 16:55, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Replies to original reviewer's comments (reviewer's comments since self-deleted)

Well, I'll do what you're saying with last then first names in Sources. But otherwise, the style I always use is fairly close to that given as an example under CITEVAR: Smith, John, Name of Book I Haven't Seen (Cambridge University Press, 2009). So, because the year appears so late in the source text, rather than straight after the author's name, it's not at all useful as an identifier in each citation. Looking at a few of the books I've used for reference in the article, I notice I'm basically following the style adopted by authors such as Peter Doggett and Gary Tillery. In their books, no year follows an author's name in a citation; instead, but only if there's more than one work by a particular writer being referenced, it seems, a book or article title appears. For example, in Doggett's book there's: Taylor, Fifty Years Adrift, p. 50. – simply because Doggett also references Taylor's other book, As Time Goes By. In other words, I don't believe it's necessary to include the year, or anything else, in this article's citations. (The only time I've needed to add a book title to differentiate between two or more works by the same author (as far as I can remember) is in the song article "Run of the Mill", where both "Doggett, You Never Give Me Your Money, p. …" and "Doggett, 'Fight to the Finish', p. ...'" appear in the Citations, corresponding with the two Doggett entries under Sources.)

Comment that's not necessarily true, otherwise there wouldn't be an "author" parameter in the cite template. LADY LOTUS • TALK 15:34, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The cite template is only relevant for Harvard style, where author name is always accompanied by a year. Unfortunately there's no template for an alternative style of formatting. JG66 (talk) 15:46, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, when it comes to details for a magazine article appearing in the citations, I don't believe the reversed surname/first name is necessary there. Reason being that, unlike in the Sources, the individual cites aren't items in a list that's alphabetised for a reader's quick reference. Again, as touched on below regarding use of present tense, I've always understood it that a consistent approach is paramount, article-wide. The approach may differ from one article to another, per CITEVAR. In fact, if I take on an article that's got any sort of a decent level of referencing in place already, and it happens to be Harvard, I won't change that style as I expand it. (I'll just wince at the number of full stops in each source!)
By the way, even if the article did use a more Harvard-like system of referencing (author + year each time in the citations), any date would appear d/m/y, consistent with article-wide style. JG66 (talk) 13:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There should be no references in the lead, per WP:LEADCITE

I'm sorry, but I don't read that at all at WP:LEADCITE. Not only that, but I've seen so many articles recently (FAs, in fact) where quotes + references do appear in the lead. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is an obvious example. JG66 (talk) 13:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment that is also untrue, whatever is in the lead that isn't sourced in the article needs to be sourced. LADY LOTUS • TALK 15:34, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What are you talking about? No one's disputing that. I'm saying it's okay to include a quote in the lead accompanied by a reference. JG66 (talk) 15:46, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He said "There should be no references in the lead" and I'm saying that's untrue? LADY LOTUS • TALK 15:49, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies. Seeing your comment below my reply, I thought you were saying my statement was "untrue". (Might be an idea to include the name of the user you're talking to, maybe – just a thought.) JG66 (talk) 15:55, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Very kind, thanks for the compliment! JG66 (talk) 13:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well thank you, but please see above about the refs/sources formatting. JG66 (talk) 13:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: WP:LEADCITE indicates that citations are not a requirement in the lead, but doesn't explicitly say that they are never allowed in lead. This is because the lead is supposed to summarize the rest of the article, and it is assumed that all details in lead are supported within article body. Snuggums (talk / edits) 13:15, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

<edit conflict> Hi CyrockingSmiler. I hadn't actually got a notification this GAN had been taken (just happened to notice from my Watchlist), so thank you for taking the review – the nomination's been gathering dust for a while(!). But I'm rather concerned about the many changes you've made. You're calling them "minor things", but you're altering a style that's applied consistently throughout this article – and every other article I've nominated for GA – regarding present tense being used for commentary and interpretation. (Ditto for not needing to set a couple of lines of song lyrics as a block quote.)

This present-tense approach is in keeping with the idea that art, commentary and interpretation lives on, no matter when it was written or created, so unless a statement is being locked into a past event, it's presented in the here-and-now. I know this is a quite acceptable practice – do you not think we should be discussing it here before you make/made your changes? Personally, I like to have the contrast: past tense for what Harrison and Wood did; but present tense for what latter-day commentators say about what they did, and for description of the song as we hear it now (Harrison sings; Leng interprets …). As I say, I'd applied this consistently here (I believe), and while it's led to some debate with reviewers in the past, it's never been a problem or resulted in a complete u-turn in style. Cheers, JG66 (talk) 09:00, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I would like to revert them, I'm afraid – well, most of them, from what I saw earlier. It's really down to that point about different approaches. I've honed a style from contributing for 2+ years here (and having some major rethinks along the way, I hasten to add), and for what it's worth, I also work as a book editor. Introducing a quote with a colon rather than a comma (if the quote constitutes a sentence in its own right), song or poetry lines in italics (to differentiate from other items appearing in quotation marks, such as song titles and another author's words), present tense for narrative outside of historical events/actions that are the focus of the article – they're all things that I know are correct, and I've seen plenty of examples of them on Wikipedia. That issue regarding present tense, for instance, came up at The Beatles earlier this year, because we had activities being discussed from the 1960s in chronological order, interspersed with insight and opinions from the 21st century that jarred, and were in some cases confusing, because of the way they were presented in the same, past tense. (Not only that, but it was inconsistent: 50 per cent of the time, they were in the present tense.)

I'm sure you've picked up some important errors along the way, so of course I wouldn't be looking to revert them. And thanks for the review – sorry if it seems I've been challenging pretty much everything you raise. Would you want me to make any and all reverts now? It's just that I was hoping to start a new article this evening and/or polish up a couple of others for nomination ... JG66 (talk) 13:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry to see you're withdrawing from the review, CyrockingSmiler, and I'm sorry if it's as a result of my stand on issues of editorial style. All I can say is, having got a few music-related articles through GAN and observed a number of music FACs, I think I've become fairly knowledgeable about what's acceptable and/or required, particularly when it comes to song articles. I can't help wondering, though, has your withdrawal got anything to do with Lady Lotus's arrival? Looking at their contribs history, they came here shortly after reverting something you did at Miley Cyrus; then they went straight on to do the same at Blown Away (song); then straight on to other articles, Let's All Chant and Bangerz Tour, that you'd just worked on. In between those last two, the user left a comment about you on another editor's talk page. Admittedly, perhaps I've got the situation all wrong. But while I've not come across any of the three of you before, and I'm certainly not judging you (or Lady Lotus), I am sorta confused by this outcome. (Perhaps you can appreciate how, from where I'm sitting, it's mighty weird(!). Nothing I've ever encountered before at GAN, anyway.)

I've just reinstated those style points as discussed above; the only other thing worth mentioning is that I also retained my original wording "each of whom released a recording of the song in 1974" in the first sentence, because I think mention of the year of release is always needed in a lead's opening sentence. But as far as how to proceed from here, can you reinstate the review comments you've deleted? Otherwise it appears as though I've been talking to myself here, apropos of nothing, with a couple of interjections from Lady Lotus. I'm not sure what the correct procedure is, but I think the GAR needs to be formally closed in some way; certainly, other editors or potential reviewers need to be able to see how things progressed (or not) here.

Failing that, I hope you'll reconsider and resume the review. I'd nominated the article back in March (I believe), and from my experience at least, it was in pretty good nick. So this is pretty disappointing. Perhaps I'm underestimating my own input in your decision – maybe your main reason for withdrawing was my adherence to certain style issues over your preferences? I don't know … Best, JG66 (talk) 01:18, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer gone

JG66, Cyrocking smiler hasn't edited on Wikipedia since August 22, so the best thing to do at this point is to put it back into the reviewing pool, retaining its precedence so it still appears with the same nomination date. I hope it finds a new reviewer soon. Best of luck! BlueMoonset (talk) 19:15, 14 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, BlueMoonset – yes, it seems like Cyrocking smiler got chased off the block by a couple of other editors or something. Thanks for returning it to the pool. (Actually, I thought that had already been done, three/four weeks ago!) JG66 (talk) 03:07, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]