Talk:Nothing More/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: HumanxAnthro (talk · contribs) 04:22, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Hello, to you from someone only five months younger than you. This was the oldest article to be nominated that currently has yet to be review, so let's do this.

A skim through without reading the sources themselves indicates this is an interesting topic, but three major questions popped in my mind instantly from it:

1. Why does the singer look like the lost child of Logan Paul and Zach Hill from Death Grips?
2. No photo in the infobox when there are full band pictures in the body plus some of these?
3. What is up with the inconsistent and improper citation formats?

In fact, let's go after that first, because I was on the verge of quickfailing this for the source formatting problems alone (along with some prose issues). It's a fucking mess!:

• Let's start with how the publication names are formatted. First of all, you cannot format names of most publications with articles on the web (or any online source) as a url. You have to present the actual name of the source itself. (i.e. Billboard instead of Billboard.com, The Guardian instead of theguardian.com, LA Music Blog instead of lamusicblog.com, Blabbermouth instead of Blabbermouth.net etc.).
• Nearly every damn citation is incomplete; I know for a few cites it's excusable since the author isn't credited in those sources, but that's not the case for most of the cites. Everything is missing credits for dates published, authors, or both.
• The inconsistencies. Geez, where do I start? Let's start with the date formatting. Since this is an American subject, all dates should be formatted the American way ([month] [day number], [year]), and yet there's some sources with the European formatting dates, then others the American method, and then some use the all-number formatting. This isn't me believing in American exceptionalism. Use the American format and stick to it per guidelines.
• Inconsistencies in the presentation of publication names are also prevalent. There'll first be a series of Blabbermouth cites that have Blabbermouth.com and italicize the word, but then in cite 45 that same source name doesn't have a ".com" at the end and remains un-italicized, as if its the name of the publisher (which it's not, it's the name of a webzine). Also, some cites present the AllMusic name unitalicized (which you actually should since it is really a publisher) and then others italicize it.
• In most sources where the author is credit, they're formatted in the correct [last name here], [first name here] way, then ref #17 says "fuck it" and refuses to follow it.
• There are publication names not italicized that need to be since they're the name of publications. For example, refs 14, 45, and 61. Check for others if I missed any.
• Why are we having the publication names in the "title" fields of the citation templates? The "title" field is only for the name of their respective articles, not what you see on a browser tab when you load up those pages. I.e. refs 1, 34, 42, 51, 57, and most of the AllMusic cites.
• The TeamRock cites need to be updated; they're not dead links, but they redirect to the same article under a different source name (LouderSound). Change this as such.
• Ref 58 is a dead link and needs to be archived.
• Ref 56 is also dead..... yes, even the Internet Archive in that cite link gives me a 404 message.

I'll say at least most of the sources being used are reliable, although there a couple that aren't so:

• What makes Distortedmag.com a reliable source? It hasn't posted shit since 2018, and when they were active before, articles in any section you'd clicked on were infrequently popped out. Additionally, the staff page lists only three people claiming themselves to be in professional positions, when (1) this is the most unprofessional, self-blog-looking website I've ever seen, and (2) it probably is a self-written blog given every post I see from this website is by "Ryan G."
• Independentclauses.com is just a self-written WordPress blog by two people with no past experience working for a legit publication. And no, someone's Twitter saying they're a journalist doesn't making them qualified as such.

I'm posting comments on the prose next. I just wanted to get this review started, and unfortunately we're not of to a good one. HumanxAnthro (talk) 04:22, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Prose comments. While I didn't any major spelling or grammar mistakes, the prose has other problems:

• Like in the citations, you have to italicize publication names in the text, so for instance in the lead, "Billboard Mainstream Rock" has to be "Billboard Mainstream Rock"
• "In 2004, the band released the more funk-influenced album Shelter." "More funk-influenced" than what? The style of the band's earliest music while they were performing live in their school years has not been established; it's fine if there isn't a source stating this, but don't confuse the reader like this.
• The article suffers from so many redundant sentences:
  • "the band pushed forward, opting to use fill-in temporary drummers for live performances moving forward." Uh, yeah, we know the band is moving forward, you don't need to see it twice.
  • "The album recorded in Hawkins' home studio, allowing the band to not be constrained money or time restraints in the studio." First, I think you forgot to include "was" somewhere. Second, "constrained" and "restraint" are nearly synonymous words, and they happen within a few words from each other.
  • "The band recruited new permanent drummer, Paul O'Brien, who reached out to the band after his prior band," Band is used three fricking times here.
  • "for three Grammy Awards for the 2018 Grammy Awards"
  • "touring in support of the album into 2019 with a headlining North American tour." Just tourin' that tour
  • "cited Nothing More as one of his favorite newer hard rock bands, citing them as one..." Let's cite the fact that this guy cited the band as one of his favorite, then cite again quickly afterwards that he cited the reason for citing the band as his favorite cited. You see why that sentence is a problem?
• "The band had written 60 song ideas, and spent an entire year filtering through the song ideas into 20 songs." This is awkward as heck. I assume this means they went through 60 concepts for songs, and ended up with a lesser amount being on the tracklisting. If this is so, "filtering through ideas into songs" doesn't mean this at all.
• Why are we using minus signs "-" that should actually be proper en dashes "–"?

HumanxAnthro (talk) 16:30, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Also found more ref problems. Ref 2 is a dead link and I doubt the name of ref 18 is "Archive copy."

Actually, given the abundance of cite formatting problems, dead links, prose issues, the fact that there's no picture in the infobox, and the fact that the nominator's only substantial edit was adding a short sentence about a single (Sergecross73 is the one responsible for expansion) and clearly hasn't fixed obvious problems before nominating in any way, this is a quickfail due to a substantial failure to comply with 1a of the WP:Good article criteria. Please re-nominate if the problems have actually been fixed, but for now, this is a fail. HumanxAnthro (talk) 16:30, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• I don't really care about the GA process or trivial things like reference formatting or hyphen types or other stuff that 99% of readers don't care about, so that's why you may see things like that on there. But the nominator asked for my permission to nominate, and I have him my blessings, so don't hold his lack of contributions against him. A bunch of people do that to my work, because I often bring my rewrites to a solid B level that they can easily boost to GA. Sergecross73 msg me 19:09, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Thank you for your replay, and I'm sorry I had to fail the nomination. Reference formatting and hyphens are not "trivial." It is per 1b of the GA criteria that the "manual of style" guidelines are followed, and that includes way the sources and prose are formatted. Whether it's what "99% of readers don't care about" is irrelevant for nominations of both GA and FA criteria. HumanxAnthro (talk) 19:55, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
    • No need to apologize, I don't care if it passes or fails, I'm just giving you some background information on the history of things here. Sergecross73 msg me 20:08, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

@HumanxAnthro: Are you serious? Ref formatting? That's not part of the GA criteria unless they're literally bare. 1b does not cover this; please read the note next to 1b at WP:GACR - nor is it at 2a. I quote 2a:

Dead links are considered verifiable only if the link is not a bare url. Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied that the reviewer is able to identify the source.

Sure, I should get it fixed if I want to go further, but that's not something worth failing this on. We have a machine that fixes dead links for us. I nominated this eight months ago - it would not surprise me at all if a few died since then. The infobox image got deleted a few weeks ago - someone found it on Facebook and I never found a hit for it before, but it also wasn't me who uploaded it; unfortunately, we simply don't have a free one of the full band at present. The rest would have been easily fixable.

I would be angrier, but I'm actually too busy to be editing Wikipedia right now. This is all fixable within seven days, normally, but not for me right now. I'd have actually asked you to fail it in light of that. I just wish you'd have been more considerate. dannymusiceditor ^oops 05:17, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

(1.) 1a requires following the manual of style for various things, such as WP:MOS/Layout which includes notes and references. Also, you just admitted 2a required "enough information" for "the reviewer is able to identify the source," which guess what, every source is at least missing something that makes these cites unidentifiable. Proper citations and formatting are a part of meeting the GA criteria (2.) "No full band photo"? There's one on Commons right here. (3.) I didn't fail the article on a few dead links. I actually would've passed this if these were the only problems. However, so many other prose and sourcing issues led me to fail it. It's OK to be mad (fuck, I don't like taking shit from others, either), but please present other people's arguments correctly. HumanxAnthro (talk) 13:54, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

That's not what I'm mad about. I'm upset that you are grasping at straws of little consequence that should in no way make them "unidentifiable". If there is, in fact, a violation of WP:FNNR here, we have an apparent contradiction between this and the note on 2a of the GA criteria. Next, I'm going to have to plead ignorance to that image, it seems a great fit, I will put that image there. I'll make your prose change suggestions eventually when I'm really available and at the very least add authors, but when I nominate other articles in the future (If I do), I would a) kindly ask that you let someone else review it, because we seem to have an irreconcilable difference of opinion on the references, and b) don't throw the book at others for doing the same - if you buckle down and do it, especially on a page that only has around 60 references like this one, it could only take a few hours, consider putting it on hold instead. dannymusiceditor ^oops 01:16, 15 February 2021 (UTC)