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Talk:Folklore (Taylor Swift album)/GA1

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Reviewer: BuySomeApples (talk · contribs) 03:46, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Rate Attribute Review Comment
1. Well-written:
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. A few minor issues, which have been expanded on below. The article is well written, easy to understand and has no grammar issues. It's a great example of a Wikipedia article.
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. Article complies with MOS except for a couple of neutrality/attribution issues which are pointed out below, there were a few minor issues which have been corrected.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. The article has well-groomed "Footnotes" and "References" sections. No complaints here.
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). The sourcing on the article is mostly good, with a few issues which I will outline in a comment below.
2c. it contains no original research. The article is now well sourced and all of the sourcing issues have been fixed. Unclear, needs minor work on sourcing as pointed out in comments below.
2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism. After going over the article with the Earwig copyvio tool, I haven't found any plagiarism (only false positives like names, quotes, titles, etc). The 87ish percent copyvio calculation is misleading based on the false positives pointed out. It's technically possible that the article could plagiarize some offline source, but I think it's safe to say there's no copyvio here.
3. Broad in its coverage:
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. The page covers all aspects of the album (production, background, composition, reception, etc) fairly well. There doesn't seem to be any major omissions or lopsided focus.
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). My first reaction was that this article seemed disproportionately long and went into a lot of detail about the album's art direction and aesthetics. However after reading the sources it seems like this was a point of significant analysis and critical discussion, so not WP:UNDUE. Overall it seems very well balanced and like it covers most aspects of the album broadly and in an enjoyable way. I'm not a huge Taylor Swift fan, but I didn't find any of it incomprehensible, boring or unnecessary.
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. The article seems mostly neutral and includes verifiable information presented in a non-biased way. Some issues in the "Critical reception" section. Now that the POV issues have been sorted, it appears neutral.
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. Article seems fairly stable, with only minor changes and constructive copyediting since the time of nomination.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. All the images are properly used and copyrighted images all have valid fair use templates. The use of copyrighted content is also minimal, since the only copyrighted image is the album cover used in the infobox. The rest are fair use titles, and the logo font which "doesn't meet the threshold of originality.
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. All of the images are relevant, and they are not too numerous. The captions are similarly informative and provide needed context.
7. Overall assessment. The article is a solid GA nomination overall, and just needs some minor fixes first. Now that the requested changes have been implemented, this article appears to meet GA criteria.
  • Reviewer Comment Re: Sourcing:
  • The link to Yahoo!'s piece on folklore in "Critical reception" and "Impact and legacy" is broken and doesn't lead to the article. Either an archived or working link should be added to the reference, or it should be removed. I'm leaning towards removal from both because there are already 16(!) reviews in the "Critical reception" section alone, and Yahoo! isn't a great source to begin with. I don't think removing it will be much of a loss.
  • The "Composition" section says "featuring earthy lo-fi production" and cites the album's Apple Music page which doesn't say that (!) and isn't a great source anyway. This has to be removed (unless a different source describing it as "earthy lo-fi" is found). Otherwise this is WP:Original research.
  • The "Songs" section cites a note at the top of Apple's Today's Hits Playlist when mentioning "Cardigan"'s "a moody stripped-down instrumentals". A better source should be used (which shouldn't be difficult). Also please take out the "a", it should just say "moody stripped down instrumentals".
  • Reference #97 in the "Cover artwork" subsection is redundant and links to the Taylor Swift Store. This should be removed, the Refinery29 article referenced right before is sufficient sourcing. Reference #132 is also redundant, and links to another Apple Music Playlist, please remove.
  • Reviewer Comment Re: Copyediting and grammar:
  • The lead has a few minor grammar issues. "The album prominently featured on the 2020 year-end best albums lists from publications, ranking first on many and often referred to as the quintessential lockdown record." This is really clunky and kind of confusing. Try changing it to "The album was featured on numerous 2020 year-end best albums lists, ranking first on many. Many critics referred to it as the quintessential lockdown record."
  • In the "Conception" section, "Billboard stated that it "blindsided the pop music world", arriving as an exciting news during lockdown." Remove the "an".
  • In "Writing and recording", "Swift had previously met the National on an Saturday Night Live episode in 2014."
  • The "Writing and recording section also says "After a few weeks, when Swift and Dessner had written "six or seven" songs, she explained him her concept of Folklore". It seems like there should be a "to" in there.
  • "she did not disclose the news or play the album to her friends like she did with her previous works." should probably be "she did not disclose the news or play the album to her friends like she did unlike what she had done with her previous works." BuySomeApples (talk) 21:21, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last part of the "Songs" section describes "Hoax" as "a flawed but ever lasting relationship". This should be run together as "everlasting".
  • In "Art direction", it should be "Folklore's album art, packaging, and lyric videos were created in through a DIY approach."
  • In "Cover art", it should say "On the backside cover, she stands turned away from the camera", instead of just "turned away from camera".
  • In "Release and promotion", it should say "Starting on August 20, 2020, a limited number of autographed Folklore CDs", instead of just "Starting on August 20, 2020, limited number".
  • In "Awards and nominations", it should say "At the 2020 American Music Awards," instead of just "At 2020 American Music Awards,".
  • In "Commercial performance" (subsection United States), "On-demand first-day streams of Folklore were 72 million in the US, a record beating Thank U, Next (55.9 million)" is a bit choppy. It should be "On-demand first-day streams of Folklore were 72 million in the US, beating Thank U, Next's previously held record of 55.9 million."
  • In "Impact and legacy", it should be fixed to "In response to this mainstream attention, 'the American Folklore Society launched a "What is Folklore?" website".
  • That's all for copyediting, this article was very well-written and copyedited! BuySomeApples (talk) 21:55, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reviewer Comment Re: Neutrality:
  • Overall the article is fairly neutral but there are some minor issues in the "Critical reception". There are a lot of assessments and personal opinions that should be presented in a more neutral way, either by using less editorial language or by using quotes instead of paraphrasing/summary. Subjective assessments can't be presented as fact. See WP:Manual of Style#Point of view for more guidance.
  • "Also noting the vivid, well-crafted storytelling filled with imagination and imagery, Pitchfork's Jillian Mapes considered the album a mature step in Swift's artistry while retaining her core as a celebrated songwriter." This should be rewritten somewhat.
  • "Impressed withComplimenting the album's writing, The Daily Telegraph's Neil McCormick, i's Sarah Carson, and The Sydney Morning Herald's Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, gave the album full-score ratings.
  • "In the words of Chris Willman from Variety, Folklore is a reminder Swift is among the few pop stars who are willing to experiment with different musical styles." This is too editorialized, and also isn't actually even a quote from the review cited. For such a subjective statement, it is really important to properly cite and attribute. This should be "Chris Willman of Variety considered Folklore to be [insert actual quote here]."
  • "Laura Snapes of The Guardian complimented it for being considered it to be the most cohesive and the most experimental among Swift's releases."
  • That's everything for neutrality! I'm going to give the whole page another once over after the above changes have been made. BuySomeApples (talk) 22:21, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reviewer Comment Re: Accessibility
  • Another issue which popped up is the autocollapsed table of year-end album rankings for Folklore. As was pointed out on the talk page, this breaks MOS:DONTHIDE and the guidelines on WP:TG. There's a number of ways to approach this. The information could be incorporated into the main page (which I don't recommend given the sheer number of lists included on the table. Another option is to remove it entirely (which might be painful but ultimately best for readability). A good middleground would be summarizing the amount of lists somehow, and only mentioning the most prestigious publications. There's really no reason to have an exhaustive list of every publication which included a Taylor Swift album in their end of year albums list. BuySomeApples (talk) 04:29, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I trimmed the table to exclude small publications and much of the "N/A" rankings. Let me know if the current state of the table is alright or if more distillation is needed. Ronherry (talk) 05:06, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Amazing work! It's still a bit long (and I'm not 100% sure if it's needed). But I can see how it's important to the article given the acclaim that it's received. I think it's fine to leave it like it is for now. After looking at it on Mobile View it's perfectly fine, and its autocollapsed on desktop anyway. Thank you for fixing that @Ronherry:! BuySomeApples (talk) 07:09, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I can see that you made the rest of the requested edits. Great work @Ronherry:! I went over the article again and it looks awesome. There's only one last issue, and that's the quote in the lead. There has to be a citation at the end of every direct quotation (including the lead unfortunately per WP:CITE), so we can either add the cite there or replace the quote with paraphrasing to keep the clean, uncited lead. I'll leave that to your discretion because you've done so much work on this that it's basically your baby. Amazing work and I can't wait to get this over the finish line! BuySomeApples (talk) 07:09, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@BuySomeApples: Yes, I think I will add the citations to the lead. I believe an artist's view of their own work (Swift, in this case) should be preserved as such without paraphrasing, especially in the cases where the point they make can't be conveyed better than the original phrasing. And thank you for your encouraging comments! Much appreciated. Ronherry (talk) 08:51, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Closing Comment All of the requested changes have been made and the article appears to meet all GA criteria. It is well written, broad yet concise, well sourced, and contains no obvious copyvio. Grammar and copyediting issues have been cleaned up. The article does not make use of serial commas, which are not necessary (I looked it up). The images and audio clips used in the article are either free to use or have valid fair use templates. Overall, the article is neutral and verifiable, with properly made footnotes and reference sections. I made some final small tweaks to clean it up (but I'm not gonna be too picky because I know I can be a perfectionist). Congratulations on this one @Ronherry: it's ready for GA! BuySomeApples (talk) 21:48, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Ronherry (talk) 04:57, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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