Jump to content

Talk:Nine Inch Nails/Archive 2

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

"Currently: Year Zero"

Placing this heading just after the lead is questionable for several reasons. An upcoming album and its accompanying Alternate Reality Game are not more important than the rest of the band article, however you slice it. Some people may be interested in reading about those things right now, perhaps more so than the rest of the article, but that won't be the case in five years' time (at which point it won't be "current" either). Find a better place for it lower down in the table of contents (at the end of the History section perhaps).

Also, embedding external links (eg, "IamTryingToBelieve.com") in the prose looks ugly and is generally not a good idea in an article of this scope. I spent a long time painstakingly reformatting the citations to fall in line with WP:EL and this section now sticks out like a sore thumb. If you must link to each one of the ARG sites, and if you must embed fan-made images of spectrographs taken from unofficial internet downloads, do it on the Year Zero (album) page and not smack in the middle of a GA-class article on the eighteen-year career of an internationally popular recording act.

That said, the whole business is at least verifiable now, as several different reliable sources (USA Today and MTV News, to name just two) have reported on it. Replace the Hotline and ETS citations with those, pronto. BotleySmith 19:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with moving the section down. Current events, while exciting to all NIN fans, should not take precedence over the rich history that Nine Inch Nails enjoys. Mfaith1 20:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
As you may have guessed the change was inspired by Tool (band), which really does make reading and editing more convenient in my view. Arguably the section order is not based on overall importance or chronological necessity, but these things combined with current relevance and practicality. This doesn't imply that what NIN is up to now is more important. Though I wouldn't object at all if consensus is to put Currently under History. Or would you prefer that current events fall under History? Another problem is how much information should overlap between this and Year Zero. I wanted to stub it down as much as possible, and leave only the essentials, so anyone who wants to add the latest ARG discovery can be directed to add it to Year Zero instead of here. I will get rid of the external links as the sites don't need to all be mentioned here, and I'll bring over the MTV/USAToday/RollingStone citations I made over at Year Zero. Pomte 03:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I like what you have done with the stubbing of the section. Previously it just duplicated a lot of info that could be found at Year Zero, as you indicated, and it was just growing with duplications. I think with these changes made it would be acceptable to have it remain at the top. Thanks for the effort Mfaith1 11:22, 16 February 2007


why do they wait so long after they complete their album to release it I mean its like killing me man they procrastinate big time. I cant believe they would finish it then wait so long to sell it. geez

Task force

Just set up a task force here. ChunkyStyle (talk contribs)

"My Violent Heart" leak

A song from the new album was leaked earlier today and was played first on Chicagos Q101, and there was a section in the entry talking about it, but it was very unprofessionally written and didn't seem to follow guidelines. I removed it, but I don't feel familiar enough with Wikipedia policies to re-write it, being a new user. Just thought I'd clarify. --Baron Patsy 01:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the mindset that while this whole album promotion thing happens, the wiki article should be locked. -- Leviathant 72.92.86.95 03:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree completely. --Baron Patsy 03:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Personally I don't mind when facts are initially badly written because it's a lot faster to fix that than to research and write it all from scratch. This is how I'm being updated on the latest discoveries anyway. Instead of locking/protecting the article, there can be an HTML comment directing trivia submitters to ninwiki.com, provided it stays up. Pomte 03:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
People don't read the HTML comments. There's one about not using the backwards N, I think there was one about leaving alone the Industrial Rock/Alternative Rock label... people don't really listen. Locking it down to registered users would help eliminate some of the back and forth we deal with from people who don't understand the purpose of a wikipedia article. Leviathant 22:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Enlightenment

The NIN song "Right Where It Belongs" on the With Teeth album is about reaching enlightenment. Even some of their press release photographs had this theme. I know some other songs of his have led up to this point.

75.73.201.199 00:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Which photos in particular? Unique personal enlightenment or are there references to traditional conceptions of enlightenment? Pomte 02:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Style/Jerome Dillon

I removed a large chunk of incorrect information from the style section. It had said "Up until Jerome Dillon joined the band, his drum compositions featured repetitive loops, avoiding excessive fills and relying heavily on the snare and kick drums. These simple, but catchy rhythms can be found in songs like "Big Man With a Gun," "Head Like a Hole" and "I Do Not Want This." Jerome Dillon's arrival in the band had a heavy influence on the sound of Nine Inch Nails. His strong usage of tom-tom drums can be heard in songs like "With Teeth," "Home" and during the live breakdown of "The Day the World Went Away.""

I can think of several prominent songs from Broken, The Downward Spiral, and The Fragile which feature both tom-toms and excessive fills. Nothing against Jerome, he makes some cool music, and he certainly helped out in the recording of With Teeth, but to say that NIN didn't use tom-toms or fills before Jerome played with the band is kind of ludicrous. --Leviathant 72.78.235.126 05:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

It's especially inaccurate considering that Jerome Dillon had zero influence on the production of Nine Inch Nails' songs. He was a member of the live band, whereas there is no studio band, it's just Trent and his production crew. It says this at the beginning of the article. _ Re: Though I won't try and put it back, there are several inaccuracies in your statement. I used the phrase, "avoiding excessive fills and relying heavily on snare and kick drums" not, "NIN didn't use tom-toms or fills." Note the difference between the words "avoiding" and "didn't." Regardless of whether you find fills in his work or heavy tom usage (which is few and far between), you'll find that the majority of his drum parts were covered with simple drum machine parts that emphasized the kick and snare; this is especially true for the downward spiral.

Also, Jerome played on a lot of songs on With Teeth and came up with the live drum interlude on TDTWWA (heavy tom usage) not to mention playing the drum part on the Still version of The fragile (also heavy toms). Yes, Jerome had little to do with the production of these albums, but he DID have a lot to do with the drum parts. As for the tom-tom debate, why don't you listen to with teeth and look at the credits for who plays drums on what song. The song with the frequent usage of toms like "with teeth" and "home" were the only ones he drummed on. Jerome's drumming is so distinct I knew what songs he played on just by listening, and only read the credits afterwards to confirm my guesses.

Never mind that "You Know What You Are" probably has more hits to the tom-toms than all the other songs on the album combined, and was performed by Dave Grohl. --Leviathant216.158.33.200 21:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree that most "fake drums" are very snare and kick heavy. It's the nature of the craft. Kicks and snares can be distorted heavily while still providing their basic functions of the down and up-beats in western music. Trying to distort cymbals and hats will result in noise with even modest tweaking. Fills on highly-altered drum samples sound like pure garbage. Because of this, you’ll mostly only hear fills and cymbals work on NIN songs that have live drums (like songs Jerome would play on.)

As far as toms go, they take on snare or kick qualities after too much alteration/distorting which negates their point and makes them hard to recognize in certain situations.

NIN has a lot of guest drummers on recordings which makes their drumming style really hard to pin down. "Big man with a big gun" was actually done by Tommy Lee, a lot of the broken album was done by Martin Atkins (of Pig Face "fame"), With Teeth had Grohl, and Verrenna was scattered throughout. Trent himself even plays live drums on some songs. I don't think there's any reason to pick Jerome out of the crowd and say he's shaping NIN's drumming style. In NIN you're either a guest or a puppet. Listening to Year Zero now (and marvling at the lack of live drums) I'd say Jerome hasn't changed the status quo. -Diaos --66.65.244.151 23:20, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, no single drummer has influenced NIN's style and much of what else you say is true. However the credit for Tommy Lee on BMWAG is for- er- something other than drumming. 128.100.60.126 11:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

corporate entanglements

this section is incomplete. TR won a case in manhattan this spring against malm for $10 million, which was a counter-suit to malm's suit against TR. i can also find no source on the fansite that's cited. -- Denstat 05:58, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I put in a proper source... where did you find the $10 million figure? BotleySmith 20:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm fairly certain that while he may have been pursuing a figure closer to $10 million, due to the statute of limitations, he was only able to walk away with $4 million. -- Leviathant 216.158.33.200 14:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Members

Was this already discussed and I missed it? Vorhees7 removed the current and past members section from the band template at the top, and I don't think the only person who should be listed there is Trent Reznor. --King Bee 13:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The past members list was split into its own article. BotleySmith 20:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Though isn't it kinda weird that the infobox says that there's only one person in NIN while the picture of NIN shows five people? -- Rynne 00:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Maybe add a "Nine Inch Nails: Live" link to it? -Heroicraptor 22:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Industrial Metal

This classification is on AMG, therefore we should recognize this band as originators of the genre. Discuss. BotleySmith 05:46, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Not even close. Twiin 12:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Pardon me. Followers of the genre (I won't split hairs over Pretty Hate Machine being released a month before that). BotleySmith 15:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
lol, PHM isnt an industrial metal album, ur thinking of Broken. PHM is an industrial pop album, think prince + throbbing gristle. --AlexOvShaolin 19:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
That may be your assessment, but the all music guide says PHM is one of the top Industrial Metal albums. Neither act used guitars the way "Head Like A Hole" or "Sin" does. BotleySmith 20:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
If we're playing that game, With Teeth is nu-metal, can we call it that it would be fun? No, no, its emo. Pretty Hate Machine industrial metal? considering nothing about it is metal and very little about it is truly industrial, i think its a fitting title for the average fanboi that swears their fav musician pioneered a genre of music. i really dont care, just felt like bitching. yours truly, --AlexOvShaolin 03:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, know what industrial metal is. "PHM" or "Broken" are not industrial metal; nothing from the band is industrial metal. Something with guitar distortion or "shout singing" doesn't make it metal. "Metal" is not defined by it's "heaviness" but how it's played. Nothing from NIN has a metal influences; I believe I even read in an interview a long while back that Trent Reznor said that the band isn't metal and he doesn't want it to be called metal or whatever. So please, just because a band has distortion doesn't make it metal. Industrial rock? Yes, maybe that but not metal. Even if you're arguing they're the pioneers of industrial metal, they wouldn't be. They might be the first successful band of it's kind of there have been earlier industrial prototype metal bands like Ministry (think "Psalms 69" where they broke into the metal realm when recruiting thrash metal guitarist Mike Scacia), Godflesh, Pitchshifter, and many other earlier incantations of industrial metal. Oh and a music guide may say what they want, but then again, most of the time, the media is usually wrong with catagorizing music, especially metal music. C'mon, the first Grammy Award for best metal artist of the year was given to the most unmetal of all artists, someone who plays a freaking recorder, not even a guitar!!!!!! So you're basing your argument soley on some top whatever list of most inportant metal albums?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.114.135.5 (talk • contribs)

Yep, that is how this site works. We have facts backed up by external sources according to our verifiability and reliability policies/guidelines. What you just said is original research and is not acceptable for inclusion in the site. Also, please sign your posts.-Localzuk(talk) 19:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

A related question: All the albums are labelled Industrial or Industrial Rock, with the exception of the Fragile-era albums, which are simply Rock. All the singles are also labelled Industrial or Industrial Rock, with the exception of "Only", which is Alternative Rock. Assuming each article's box should reflect the genre of the work itself and not simply the band as a whole, do you think they should be in a case-by-case basis? For example, list trance for "The Perfect Drug" Versions if that is what the style of its remixes are. I'm not good with genres but "Down In It" and "Only" (spoken word?) should be distinct from stuff like "Hurt" and "Happiness in Slavery". Pomte 20:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I feel that the term "Industrial rock" is broad enough to encompass all of those. Particularly since the genre's page on Wikipedia mentions the band twice, I think it (in combination with "Alternative rock") covers the band's most typical output. Of course, this page does note that the band actually straddles more genres than that. As to what genre individual releases fall under - that's a discussion for (many) other talk pages. BotleySmith 03:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
In other words: until better justification is given, stop replacing "Alternative rock" with "Industrial Metal" in the infobox. BotleySmith 18:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Nine Inch Nails should have Industrial Rock on top of the Alternative Rock in the Infobox because Nine Inch Nails is clearly Industrial. They are the poster-boys for industrial. Are you trying to tell me PHM, Broken, The Downward Spiral, and Year Zero aren't industrial? The only alt-rock NIN albums are TF and WT. Tribestros 6:39, 17 October 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.116.156.96 (talk)

Era years

What is the condition of the years listed in brackets for each era? I am thinking that an era is generally considered over when all tours supporting the album have ended and the live DVD is released. This would be 1997 for The Downward Spiral-era. AFAIK work on With Teeth began in early 2004, not 2003, and the website was updated at that time as well. I understand the article may be filling in consecutive years for flow, but having gaps when Trent did nothing may be more indicative of the actual time involved and his work ethic. Pomte 20:35, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

You are right about TDS era ending in 1997. I will change that. A search through the copyright.gov registered music works database, however, reveals that "Love Is Not Enough" (which was the first song written for With Teeth) was in progress from 2003, with a working title of "The Clamp". BotleySmith 22:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
What about putting the Broken era from 1991-1992, and extending the TDS era to 1993? Reznor was writing the latter in 1993, and the former in '91 (as well as being "influenced" by the live band). BotleySmith 23:00, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't see any problem with that. The only other case I have found is Radiohead, where they also have each starting year for when work on the album started, not the year the album was actually released. Was the Broken Movie filmed in 1992 and before 1993? Pomte 02:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Not sure about that. The last video to be filmed (aside from the live clips) would probably be "Gave Up" with Marilyn Manson. There is also the problem of when to begin the next era: 2007 seems logical, but since the With Teeth tour overlapped significantly with the new album's gestation, that's not entirely accurate. BotleySmith 03:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Maybe we should just start the next era with the release of the 1st single from it, when it comes out that is. Just seems easier. If it overlaps with the tour then maybe we just mention that in the era section "...began while still on tour..." or something --Kratos Aurion
Why have the era years been removed? 164.106.13.85 14:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I decided that their inclusion was more or less original research, as no published sources confirm when they begin or end. BotleySmith 22:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Future Releases before Corporate Entanglements

Suggest slightly shuffling the order in which these sections appear, for stylistic reasons. It's easier to read on from the end of the With Teeth section onto Future Releases than it is to jump a few pargraphs over the Corporate section. Is this cool? --Insomniak 11:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool by me. BotleySmith 17:19, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

GA on hold

  • References 34, 66 and 18 in the middle of a sentence
  • Fan site under external links, got to go
  • Heaps of external links throughout the article
  • Images need fair use rationale
  • Variously, Nine Inch Nails , remove Variously
  • The band will be releasing new material and touring internationally as of 2007., in five years the material wont be new and why is this in the lead?
  • More recently, per above
  • In the second lead paragraph, the last few sentences are poorly worded
  • (filled by stopgap collections of remixes and outtakes), what...?
  • Remove 'era' from all the titles
  • Why does the first picture list each member, yet under 'members' it doesn't?
  • Several rumors have persisted, remove 'several'
  • Popular culture is very poorly written and its trivia, remove it. The only notable thing is quake soundtrack (which needs a reference) merge that into when Quake was actually released.
  • Please make the reference list, split in two.

This article has promise but these issues which are easy to spot need to be addressed. M3tal H3ad 09:06, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for looking the article over - I've started to address these concerns; however, the second item is I feel irrelevant since the fan site is linked because of its purpose as a major source of archived sources. Just take a look at the number of times it's linked in References. BotleySmith 18:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Also - "era" is needed to avoid confusion with the albums themselves, is it not? The lead "discography" paragraph should explain that each era contains the central album while remaining separate from it. BotleySmith 00:03, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
"era" is not needed as you have the years in brackets (1997-1999). It looks like you're going for FA status and people who review FACs object if people use fan sites as a source, sometimes. You can use it as a source but don't list it in the external links (see Charizard FAC). Anyway it's looking a lot better, goodjob. M3tal H3ad 01:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
The opening 'paragraph' is also too short. M3tal H3ad 02:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Another suggestion, merge the history into the corresponding era, as history has all years and the era parts go over it. Also move the discography section after the eras as all band articles have it near the end. M3tal H3ad 12:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Not to toot my own horn here (I oversee the 'fan site' in question), but while the NIN Hotline certainly is a fan site, it's been getting information directly from the band (and informing the band and management) pretty much since it's inception in 99. Considering the band and management check the site quite regularly, and that it is more informative and relevant to the topic than even the official website, and certainly moreso than the official MySpace page. Objecting to a link to the site for it's content or lack thereof is understandable, but objecting to it solely for being labeled a fan site is silly, and suggests that one has not visited the site in question. Maybe Wikipedia standards see it more fit to link to a MySpace publicity page than to an officially sanctioned knowledge pit like the Hotline, but I'd like to think the standards are a little higher than that. Perhaps the description of the site could be better, as the site does more than provide current news about the band. --Leviathant 72.92.86.95 16:47, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest reading the WP:WEB guideline - I'm fully aware of the source issue with some fan sites (hell, I'm a TOOL fan and I would go to toolshed.down.net before the official site any day - and know that I'm getting accurate and well-sourced info from a friend of the band) but the problem is from the point of view that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and as such, similar limits on sourcing to what an academic publication could use are enforced upon Wiki articles. Note that the WP:WEB guideline does not EXCLUDE fan sites (unless on Myspace etc) but just sets a higher bar - if you can find published magazines and newspapers that reference it non-trivially, that would definitely be a help. Orderinchaos78 14:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Does being shortlisted (in the top five) for the 2005 Digital Music Awards "People's Choice - Best Unofficial Site" category count? I couldn't find a reference to it other than here, but it happened nevertheless... BotleySmith 20:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
BotleySmith - here is a link from the BT Digital Music Awards site that confirms the shortlisting of the site. The NIN Hotline has been referenced by radio stations the world over (though mostly in the US), has been referenced in Japanese magazines. A (now defunct) subsite of the hotline, Nothing Radio, was one of the top Net radio stations according to a July 2000 issue of Spin Magazine (I think I have the month right,) and was definitely in the April 2000 issue of Shift Magazine as you can read about here. The NIN Hotline was a featured website on a broadcast of Australia's Channel V in 2000. MTV often gratuitously borrows from our exclusives - without credit. The NIN Hotline is thanked in the liner notes of the String Quartet Tribute to Nine Inch Nails. It ain't Pitchfork Media or Blabbermouth, but it's fairly significant regarding this topic, and I think meets WP:WEB criteria, as demonstrated here. I can't hotlink the radio or television broadcasts, but that covers most of the popular media the site could be mentioned in. It just seems kind of silly that the great majority of references in this article point to this site, but that it is not 'notable.' -- Leviathant 72.92.86.95 15:30, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
As per Leviathant's comment above (and WP:EL), however, the fan site in question has a symmetrical relationship with the band. I say that we either remove era or completely reorganize the History section - not both. It's too confusing to have the "discography" after the era sections since it explains why the era organization is used in the first place. BotleySmith 22:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Check Nightwish and Megadeth (both FAs), first it explains their early years then moves up with their discography at the end
  • Just found another external link, 'and three videos for it were released on the official NIN website.'
I asked a experienced wikipedian about the fan-site, i suggest you read-peer review as she left lots of comments to help improve this to FA quality. (thanks Sandy) M3tal H3ad 02:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Cool. I've addressed all of your concerns; thanks a bunch! Surely this is just about GA quality by now? The FAC stuff will take some more time to sort out. BotleySmith 18:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
With the infobox members, remove 'currently'. If a member leaves just change it. Promoted to GA goojob on getting the issues dealt with so soon. M3tal H3ad 03:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
With the split of the Discography and History sections it is now unclear which belongs in which because the information overlaps. For example, the recent tour with QOTSA etc is mentioned in History; Dissonance tour with Bowie is mentioned in Discography; APC is not mentioned at all. There's a lot of trivia that can stay in the respective subarticles, though I don't know which ones are notable enough to mention in the main article as well. Since the history section is so long it should either be condensed or split into subsections, but then the obvious problem is these subsections will be named like the Discography subsections. Discography begs the question of why it is so long when all it should do is list each major album, its singles, remixes, videos, notable awards/charts, etc. Other works talks about both NIN songs and tributes not created by NIN (does "discography" include works created by others?) Then just because the current topic is movies (e.g. TPD an original song made for Lost Highway), it goes on to talk about NIN songs that happen to be in movies (Mansell remixes YKWYA for DOOM). If In popular culture is rephrased, can it be brought back? Pomte 23:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Resetting indent

  • Yes if its re-worded with references it can be brought back. As i suggested before the information from Discography should be merged with history and split into the corresponding years. History explains their career to today then discography sets it back to the 80's... Take Nightwish (which is featured) for example, it starts of with their history and then influence and style, and lisiting their albums under discography, not writing big paragraphs which should be incorperated into history. Also alphabetize the category's. M3tal H3ad 07:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

My last edit... for a while

This is probably going to be my last edit to the article for a while, as I'm going to be really busy with other things soon.

I removed "USA" from the infobox, because it's unnecessarily repetitive next to the flag icon. If someone wants to remove the flag icon as per WP:FLAGS, go right ahead - I've given up trying to enforce it. But please, keep either the link to United States or the flag itself, not both.

Also, while I admit that "Nine Inch Nails is" sounds a bit awkward, that is the grammatically correct way of referring to the band. I have avoided it where possible; "NIN is" sounds a little better out loud but really just amounts to the same thing. Resist the temptation to use "NIN are", particularly given the ambiguous nature of this group's plurality.

Happy editing, folks. BotleySmith 17:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

For reference, see the liner notes of every Nine Inch Nails album, where it is always stated that "Nine Inch Nails is Trent Reznor." Leviathant 01:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for all your effort Botley. Pomte 20:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Interest in More of a Discography Listing

I was glancing at what a few of the "important" people said to look at (the Pixies article, the Manson Article, etc.

It seems like in both places, there are tabular discography listings. I started to create one of those, at least for the singles, but then realized i didn't know if it would be appropriate to add. What are people's thoughts on this? I'm more than willing to put in the effort if its something that would make this article better.

Additionally, if people do want that, what info should there be, if any, about bootlegs? I figure that should be low-priority at most. But i don't know if it should be left out altogether to keep the article... above board? Tlmii 16:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Given that modern bootleg trading usually entails the circulation of files via the internet, rather than collecting pressed CDs by European record labels, I'm not sure a bootleg section is really noteworthy. I think that as long as the "Landmark bootlegs" continue to only show soundboard and studio quality bootlegs, that's plenty. Perhaps a Tour History page would be nice, based on what's been collected by Aaron/The NIN Historian. Leviathant 18:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Whoops, I'm blind. I saw it on the main page of those other articles so I just assumed that if there was one, it would be on the main page of this article too. And yeah, good points about the bootlegs. Tlmii 19:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the credibility, accuracy and reliability of The NIN Hotline (www.theninhotline.net)

One of the major issues that comes up over and over again in the review of this article by Wiki folk is The NIN Hotline. In the peer review, someone links to three stories on the website, mentioning that they do not look reliable. As the guy who's been running the NIN Hotline from it's inception, I'd like to ask what I can do to make it more reliable, credible, and citeable on this article. If you go over every post we've made since our onset in 1999, you'd be lucky to find more than five news items that ended up being incorrect -- Excluding April Fools gags, of course. That's far better than medium and large circulation newspapers, magazines, and other 'reliable' sources that are okay to cite on this website.

When I started the NIN Hotline, I was working for a newspaper company while waiting to hear back on a job interview I had with Trent Reznor, John Malm and Susan Swan at Nothing Studios in New Orleans. There were other news pages out there, but they often posted rumors, watermarked images they didn't own, would incorrectly cite sources -- if cited at all. I wanted to create a site that not only maintained a level of accuracy and integrity well above what should be expected of a silly fan site, but also intended that should I ever close up shop, I'd leave it all online, because other sites had disappeared after losing hosting, or having CGI scripts break.

Regarding the archiving of copyrighted articles on our site -- Part of the reason we keep copies of newspaper and magazine and web-only articles on our web site is because other web sites were not. Sometimes publications would drastically restructure their site, and archived material would no longer be made available. Sometimes they would just fold up and disappear with so many others in the dot-com crash. In a dozen or so cases, we conducted interviews ourselves, including perhaps the first published interview with Alan Moulder (most definitely the first online interview with Alan Moulder.)

The site was one of the top five sites in British Telecom's Digital Music Awards (people's choice category), one of our offshoots (nothingradio.net) have had mention in Spin_(magazine) and Shift_(magazine). We've been mentioned on countless radio stations across the world, Channel_V in Australia, MTV rips us off without citation all the time. Our site has enjoyed a quiet relationship with band and management, and has been a source of exclusive photos from studio sessions, lyrics to songs before their release (and in the case of the track Deep, the only outlet for the official lyrics), and we often get information about releases before NIN & management hear about it.

I understand that most fan sites on the internet are tacky and awful. While there is certainly a lot of awfulness and tack to my site, it is a very accurate, well-sourced home of news and archived information about the band. Pretty handy before Wikipedia. In fact, the majority of this wiki article would not exist if it were not for the efforts put forth by the staff of theninhotline.net.

In short: What can I do to call off the hounds, when other people link to the NIN Hotline? I'm not doing this for the traffic. There are four different links to The NIN Hotline & subsites on nin.com; I'm pretty well secured with an audience. I think that the journalistic efforts put forth on the site deserve a little more than to be wiped out every time they're mentioned here. It's not conducive to the diffusion of information. Leviathant 03:58, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

You could leave that person a message on their talk page. M3tal H3ad 01:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
What if I do that, and am so ambiguous in my reply that nothing comes of it? Leviathant 19:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Just an update here to point out that The NIN Hotline is thanked in the credits of both Beside You In Time as well as Year Zero, and I, as the creator of the above mentioned site, have been interviewed by the newspaper USA Today as well as by Kevin & Bean from the Los Angeles radio station KROQ. I don't know if it's still an issue, crediting The NIN Hotline, but if anyone has any other suggestions as to how to increase the credibility of the site, I'm welcome to hear 'em :) I'm not making a big fuss because I'm upset about my site, so much as I think that the NIN article would suffer greatly if it couldn't cite the Hotline. Leviathant 18:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Nothing Records catalog

Nothing Records catalog --AlexOvShaolin 01:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Table completed. If you have all the release dates, post the raw data and I'll add the column. Pomte 04:22, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there any reason we're not just linking to the Nothing Records page at discogs.com where this list was copied from? - rynne 14:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
there is additional releases not listed. furthermore the information is freely available, so it has a better home on wikipedia. --AlexOvShaolin 21:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The leaks

User:Year 0 has deleted the "speculation" about Trent being behind the Closure and the Broken movie torrents.[1] If the leaks are mentioned, then what Trent posted is very relevant information. He did post it in The Spiral, but NIN wikipedia articles cite The Spiral numerous times. It may be notable in that it is not like other leaks where the source is someone else abusing a copy, not the artist himself. Pomte 02:00, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Technically speaking, it is still speculation. Trent Reznor has not at any point come out and said he's responsible for those torrents. Certainly, it's obvious where they came from, but I think that Universal/Interscope's lawyers might throw a fit if they found out that he was giving away property that they have exclusive distribution rights to. Therefore, it's probably in everyone's best interest to keep that which seems obvious relegated to the world of speculation. Leviathant 18:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Leviathant. Just a question, doesn't it violate the terms and conditions of the Clique ID/Spiral membership to post information available only on the Spiral? Scick 12:48, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Not if standard copyright laws aren't being violated. BotleySmith 21:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

What a great torrent on PirateBay though...I just downloaded it. Not quite sure, after seeing it CLEARLY this time that it should ever be released...VERY graphic. I don't thin Universal/Interscope are turning over in their grave at the idea that leaking this would bankrupt them. <----it is cool though after all these years to FINALLY see it...and YES...it's about as disturbing on "Gave Up" as anything I've seen in a while.

Well...

like my vandalism? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.191.83.107 (talk) 19:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

Yeah, it's well thought-out. Pomte 20:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nine Inch Nails in popular culture. I am not attempting to rally !votes here. There has been a movement against related "in popular culture" articles and I knew this was going to happen sooner or later, though I was planning on improving the article with citations and the rewriting lists into paragraphs. Now I guess we can just stub it down to a section in Nine Inch Nails. Pomte 04:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Marilyn Manson

What about Manson?72.184.201.3 02:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

What about him? --NeoVampTrunks 06:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I suspect Anonymous means that the only mention of Manson in the article is Trent mocking him with Starfuckers, which lacks context. I added the fact that Manson appeared in one of the videos for "Gave Up". Trent Reznor and Nothing Records are better places to discuss their relation to Manson. Also, I have expanded the rivalry at Marilyn Manson#Fallout with Trent Reznor. –Pomte 07:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Cyrillic letter

all over the edit-page it is written not to use the "И". that's perfectly understandable, because it can get really annoying. but in my opinion it should be mentioned, that it is often used. i would say right in the beginnig, like: (abbreviated as NIN or NIИ ) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.145.77.137 (talk) 20:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

It is described in the article, both in the logo image and as part of the "Early years" description of the logo design. I have hardly ever seen it typed out in text – I think partly because it doesn't look right on most typefaces, but mostly because it's unnecessary (people know what the abbreviation refers to, regardless if the n is flipped or not). BotleySmith 02:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
The other thing, of course, is that it is not a cyrillic letter. It's a flipped N. Subtle difference, perhaps, but still. --Yamla 02:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Could it be that people who keep adding NIИ have no idea what cyrillic letter means? I sure didn't. Still, the И character could be shown once in the article, because it is genuinely useful to know that the character exists, and NIИ could be typed that way even if it is annoying. –Pomte 03:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
And if It's really that bothersome to find the "И" character every time you need it, you could just copy and paste the entire "NIИ" acronym. -70.21.58.201 20:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I use a rather novel (IMO) keyboard layout of my own design which gives rather simple access to the И character, which does resemble a mirrored N. If any body's interested I could host it on a server post a link. As far as using it in the article, I've always found that Wikipedia as a whole is not afraid to use the full extent of UTF-8 and, if necessary and proper, use the most obscure characters to provide the most correct article possible. From then on it's just a matter of determining if NIИ warrants inclusion, if only to state that some ninternet members like to type it that way as a method to imitate the logo. If we're going to look on an accessibility level, most text based browsers support UTF-8, and without a textual inclusion of the type setting these users would see no mention of the mirrored N in the article. Nonetheless, I think it's a good idea, but the consensus seems to be against it. --NeoVampTrunks 22:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
But the NIN logo does not use the letter И. It uses a flipped N. Two totally different letters. They even look different in most fonts. --Yamla 22:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

As it stands, the original research quota on this article is approaching nil; I challenge anyone to find a source that mentions Cyrillic letters and the logo at all let alone its preferred status on fans' keyboards. BotleySmith 03:52, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I can dig up a source that says Trent wanted the second N reversed to in order to make it look cool, if you find that relevant to this discussion. Regardless, it seems a useful tool for conveying the image logo textually using UTF-8 so that those not graphically inclined have access. It could simply say, often abbreviated by fans as NIИ. It just seems to warrant at least one position of inclusion on the page seeing as the logo is by far the most prevelant image of NIИ in the public eye. --NeoVampTrunks 06:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I think it could be said that NIN often typographically sets the character "N" backward in the text of their releases, and that'd be fine. But the fact remains that the Cyrillic "И" is not the same as a backwards "N". Using it as such doesn't convey correctness in the article; if anything it makes the article look uninformed because it misuses foreign characters. -- rynne 15:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
In addition, describing the logo in prose text can be done without the cyrillic letter; in fact, it is misleading to use it in certain browsers, as it looks nothing like the actual logo. BotleySmith 16:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Carr's book on Pretty Hate Machine

This belongs on Pretty Hate Machine, not this article. BotleySmith 16:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Live band

Okay, NIN is a BAND!!! It's not just Trent. Why aren't the band member mentioned? The System 3000 01:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

They are mentioned in the caption to the image. There was a long debate earlier about how "Trent Reznor is Nine Inch Nails", so only Trent was in the list. The live band link is a compromise. –Pomte 01:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
They aren't even in the infobox! Nor are the former members. Okay if Trent is NIN, then why is his band pictured? There should just be a picture of him. The System 3000 13:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
This article is about Nine Inch Nails as a recording act, which is simply TR plus whoever happens to be around him at the time. For a more detailed look at the separate live entity, see the Nine Inch Nails: Live article. BotleySmith 03:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
No, They're are a BAND! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by The System 3000 (talk • contribs) 13:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

Pretty Hate Machine

User:Blaxthos moved it to pretty hate machine, citing the album cover. I think this should be reverted because to the best of my knowledge, PHM is not known to be lowercase so there's no need to deviate from the naming convention. From Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Album titles and band names: "Do not replicate stylized typography in logos and album art, though a redirect may be appropriate (for example, KoЯn redirects to Korn (band))." I can't find a more specific guideline that refers to cases like this, but NIN often refers to itself in all uppercase, all lowercase, and sometimes with underscores [WITH_TEETH], and we don't take those names by their design. What does everyone else think? –Pomte 03:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Why not just ask on the appropriate talk page, or just ask me directly. I have AWB and changed it originally -- it's not hard for me to change it back, and I don't take these sorts of things personally? Also, does anyone have a primary source for proper PHM nomenclature -- something of print from the band that referrs to Pretty Hate Machine (or pretty hate machine)? /Blaxthos 17:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

FA considerations

We at Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative music think this article is pretty close to FA standard and that this article could be worthy of a second nomination at Featured Article Candidates soon. Are there any major suggestion or concerns regarding this page that you think should be addressed before we move to another FAC nom?

I have a few suggestions for the page: move details about the band's music videos into a "Music videos" section (see The Smashing Pumpkins for an example), clarify at the start of the History section how exactly Nine Inch Nails came about, and discuss the importance of the remixes in the context of the musical style section (I mean, Reznor has released albums full of nothing but remixes). WesleyDodds 12:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Music videos section under Discography? I've been meaning to go through Musical characteristics because it looks like it really could be better sourced. Some of the album sections could lose some detail. There are some sources I can bring over from Nine Inch Nails: Live to improve the Band members section. The fair use infobox image should be replaced, right? None of the images at commons:Nine Inch Nails are totally representative, though personally I would go for the Line Begins to Blur (1st row 3rd column) or March of the Pigs (2nd row last column). And lastly I hope to re-incorporate a very very brief and concise In popular culture summary, but that's idealistic. –Pomte 15:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Really, all you need for infobox is a free picture of Trent Reznor; we don't need to know what the current band looks like although it would be nice. Put the sections in this order: "History", "Musical Characteristics", "Music videos", and then "Discography". As for pop culture, the main thing that seems notable to me is the Quake thing; most everything else is some small reference, like that mention on The Simpsons. Just list a few of those examples. WesleyDodds 16:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
The references need fact-checking and possibly other cleanup (see SG's comments from the last peer review), since I added most of them myself, and somebody else should really go through and verify them impartially. Dunno about the infobox image - Jkelly suggested looking through Flickr for images tagged with the band name and a Creative Commons license, and after doing so recently this one caught my eye. BotleySmith 16:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Expansion/Revision of Corporate Entanglements section

Given Reznor's latest corporate entaglement ([2] [3] [4]) the section is beginning to become a bit unwieldy. I propose splitting the section into a number of sub-sections, such as TVT/Nothing Records, 2005 MTV Music Awards, Fox News, Universal Music Group (the latest), etc. I just thought I'd suggest it here to get some opinions before going all willy nilly. Drewcifer3000 21:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

References cleanup desperately needed

Is there any reason half the references have either the title or publication in bold? Template:Cite web style does not specify that either should be, as far as I can tell. Drewcifer3000 08:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It was done in this edit. I'm for removing the bold, as it doesn't seem to be an official or prevalent style. –Pomte 09:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Cool, done. But now that I've gotten my hands dirty with the references, I've noticed how completely sloppy they are all done. The weird bolding is only the begginning of it really. Inconsistencies in style, overuse of the Template:Cite journal tag (versus the usually more appropriate Template:Cite web tag), unnecessary linking of dates, links to Redirect pages, etc, etc. It's kind of a mess really. Check it out for yourself. (PS, I changed the discussion topic's title, as I realized it was more of an issue than just the crazy bolding) Drewcifer3000 09:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Since no one offered to help before now, nearly every citation on this article was added over the course of several months by myself alone. This is the first page I did Wiki references on, ever, so I apologize for variations in formatting — I learnt more as I progressed, initially going on only what I had seen from other articles. The "crazy bolding" was only added for better readability, as I was basically going insane checking everything by eye to make sure it was displaying correctly (though I am aware not all browsers display it the same and it might look ugly to other users). Full dates are linked, where they exist, so that the viewer may see them in their preferred date format. As far as I know, that's not verboten for reference lists (though feel free to remove it if so desired). The journal style tag was used only where I had most of the relevant details from the original publication, though an online archive of the source was usually provided. Could give an example of a redirect link? BotleySmith 16:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Forgive me, I meant an example of a "link to Redirect pages" in this article's reference list... (ack, forgot to sign in) BotleySmith 22:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Hey BotleySmith. First off, great job in referencing the article. I'm sure that must have been a TON of work, so I don't intend my critique of the style to belittle the great job you've done. And I completely understand about learning along the way: I think we've all been there. That said, I think the references continue to be one of a few issues for the article which is holding it back from being a Featured Article. If you look at the many sources of critique on the article you'll see what I mean. So, the few issues I've noticed are the following:
  • Some of the sources of information are questionable. Wikipedia discourages sourcing from Blogs (like Reznor's "TR" section of the NIN website) and fan sites (which NIN Hotline could be called). Where possible it's definitely best to avoid using those as sources. A possible exception might be citation #70 (which I put in myself), since the NIN Hotline source is basically just a list of other more reliable sources on a single topic.=
  • If it's a TNH archive of say a Grand Rapids Press article, then shouldn't work=Grand Rapids Press, archived at the NIN Hotline? This would not mislead the reader into thinking the link goes to the actual article. To make it extra clear, can set format=transcription. –Pomte 21:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The US-centric dates of the reference tags are definitely of concern, but I think that's an issue best suited to the template itself rather than being solved one reference at a time. Most importantly, however, linked dates are not consistent throughout the page. Ideally, it should be one or the other, and since I would say that the date issue is better served on the template itself, I'd err on the side of de-linking everything.
  • As long as it follows WP:DATE, I don't think there's a problem. How are they US-centric? [[YYYY-MM-DD]] is the most universal format that appears differently based on user preferences. If there's no date, use June 2007. If there's no month, use 2007. –Pomte 21:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Inconsistencies across references. For example, citations #63 and #65 give The NIN Hotline as a source (notice the external link and the way it is named), but #66 and #69 give "theninhotline.net" (not linked, all lower case, etc). #38 give Billboard.com, but #43 and #67 give Billboard.
  • I don't think the site should be linked because the article url already links there. If there's a Wikipedia article on the source, then link it. –Pomte 21:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Some links go to a redirect page. For example, citation #44 links to Billboard, which is actually a redirect to Billboard (magazine). Minor, but these can be easily fixed.
  • Fact checking! I'm not exactly sure how this works, but I think it's necessary for consideration of Featured status.
  • Lastly (and this is my own personal opinion and I believe I am in the minority here), I much prefer the vertical format of reference tags rather than the horizontal formats. As the article is, it makes it very difficult to edit, especially for a novice user who doesn't understand templates or template attributes. Just take a look at the code of any heavily-referenced section in this article versus any similarly referenced section in the Year Zero (alternate reality game) article or sub-articles. But like I said this is just my opinion.
  • Some people oppose this for whatever odd reason, but I agree with you. There are tools to highlight the <ref> tags to make editing easier. –Pomte 21:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  • And yes, Gravee is correct, something should only be bolded if it is a link to the page it is on. (This is done automatically)
That's all I can think of at the moment. Most of these things aren't earth-shatteringly important, but they're definately important to work on if this article is ever going to make it to Featured status. Drewcifer3000 20:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
  • There's some confusion about publisher vs. work (see two sections at Template talk:Cite news). Most if not all of the newspapers currently set as publisher should actually be set as work, and work automatically italicizes the value, so no need to add surrounding ''s. –Pomte 21:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Date-linking

Is it really necessary to hot-link pieces of various dates in this article? It's doubtful that someone reading this article would suddenly become compellingly interested in the year 2003 and want to conveniently visit it with a single mouse-click. These should be removed. 74.114.219.5 14:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, it comes across as sloppy editing. Drewcifer3000 18:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
It is wide practice to link full dates so they appear differently depending on user preferences if you have an account, e.g. July 10, 2007 appears as 10 July 2007 for the British. Do not link July 2007 by itself, and do not link 2007 by itself. –Pomte 18:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Nine_Inch_Nails/Archive_2&oldid=1137047050"