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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 03:52, 21 April 2007.

Butthole Surfers

[edit]

Self nominated. Following a major revision, I feel that this article meets all of Wikipedia's Featured Article requirements, and compares very favorably to other FA music biography articles. It has been through Peer Review, with all concerns being addressed, and was recently re-rated as a Good Article on WikiProject Biography and Alternative music WikiProject, as well as an A rating on WikiProject Texas. This is its first FA submission. The Haiku Master 23:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose...until references are formatted properly. If the sources are from websites, please provide the url as well as the date retrieved; if they are from books, provide full bibliographic info (publisher, ISBN etc); if they are from interviews, provide the show and/or the year. A lot of work needs to be done. See Wikipedia:Citation templates for help. Good job by the way. Hope you aren't discouraged. Orane (talk • cont.) 07:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wait, I think I just noticed something. Is the 'Further Reading' section an expansion of the 'Reference' section? If that's the case, then it would be misleading to class that section as 'Further reading' insofar (God, I love that word; it always comes in handy!) as it's not supplementary/complementary, but required for the completion of the article.
  • Here's a suggestion: Try working the references in 'Further reading' into the 'Reference' section. For sources that that are used multiple times, you can try using "<refname=[insert name here]..." Am I confusing you? Orane (talk • cont.) 07:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Only slightly (confused), but I have found the "reference" process to be a bit frustrating! (No fault of your own.) It was suggested during peer review that I split the original references sections in two, with "references" becoming "notes," and a new "references" section being created, expanding on what was in "notes." Then, during its GA nomination process, the editor who cleared it for GA status changed "notes" back to "references" and "references" to "further reading"... which I took on good faith as being preferable to what had been suggested during peer review.
So to answer your question, yes, "Further Reading" expands on "Reference." And if I'm reading you correctly they should both just be as one section, which is what I had originally? Another question: I'd read up on the "<refname=[insert name here]..." method, but wasn't sure how to make that work when using different pages from one reference, re: the multiple references to Azerrad's book. Can you recommend a good example of how to work that? In the meantime, I'll poke around myself, and should be able to reformat the references by Saturday at the latest. Thanks for the advice! The Haiku Master 10:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please read WP:LAYOUT and move any entries from References that aren't used to source the article to Further reading. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Oppose article is well researched and comprehensive, but not there yet.
  • There are various formatting issues:
  • Remove low value wiki-links: - Accountant, fanzine, California, art gallery, San Francisco, studio, New York City, acoustic guitar, etc.
  • Try and merge short stubby paragraphs (eg "In 1995, the band contributed a cover of the" could be merged with "In December, the Surfers initiated") and sections (eg "Live performances" does not need three subsections).
  • I hold my hand up to the grammatical error noted below, but bear in mind that Tony was at pains to stress that he was giving examples only, and "the whole text" needs a copy edit. To take the next section:
  • "Haynes left his accounting firm and moved to Southern California" - His accounting firm? He was not a partner; and the more usual wording is "accountancy firm". Also, no need to link "California".
  • "fanzine featuring photos of disgusting medical ailments" - some humanity, please.
  • "Playing their debut show at a San Antonio art gallery in 1981, lead vocalist/saxophonist Haynes and guitarist Leary's new band performed under a number of aliases before settling on the Butthole Surfers (see “Name’’ section)." Apart from the sentence's poor construction and punctuation, (see “Name’’ section) is self referential.
  • "During a brief concert at the Tool and Die club in San Francisco, Dead Kennedys frontman and Alternative Tentacles overseer Jello Biafra witnessed their performance and became a fervent fan". Please punctuate.
  • "Biafra then invited the group to open for the Kennedys and..." - then is redundant. Also, the full sentence is a snake: "Biafra then invited the group to open for the Kennedys and T.S.O.L. at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, and soon made an offer that would launch their recording career: if they could get someone to loan them studio time, Alternative Tentacles would reimburse the studio when the album was complete." - Cut in three.
  • "headed back to California that summer" - Returned.
  • "The band then returned to San Antonio to record at BOSS Studios (a.k.a. Bob O'Neill's Sound Studios, a.k.a. the Boss)." then is redundant.
  • "However, the Matthews brothers did not enter the studio with Haynes and Leary; the two had quit following a physical altercation between Scott Matthews and Haynes" - as the two. Replace the semicolon with "because" or "due to".
  • "The bass position was taken over by Bill Jolly, who would also play on the Surfers' next two releases, and a number of drummers participated." - taken over? - filled. Replace "also" with later. "and a number of drummers participated" is misplaced and unclear.
  • "is still with the band to this day." - awkwardly phrased.

I stand by my first impression that some basic formatting and a good copy edit would bring this to be a fine article. The hard work, ie sourcing and writing, you have already done, it just needs a little polish yet. I would be willing to help, as a fan of the band, if you forgive last night's sloppy edit. Ceoil 21:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Ceoil, I gladly accept your offer -- fresh eyes & a fresh perspective never hurt in a situation like this, and I've largely been going it alone (outside of some source info) since the revamp began. Sorry too for reverting your complete edit from last night, but after the glaring error in the lead was brought to my attention by another reviewer, and not having time to go through the entire edit at that point, I felt it was best to revert it all and go back and re-add later on. Thanks for your criticism & help! The Haiku Master 22:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Great. On the basis that there will be work here, have switched from oppose to comment. Ceoil 21:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose just on the basis of the lead. There are so many obvious errors that a thorough copy-edit of the whole text (not just the correction of these examples below) is essential if a gold star is to be awarded.
    • Overuse of additive items: At the top, we have: "They have further incorporated elements of heavy metal, noise rock, electronica, and other genres into their music, which makes extensive use of sound manipulation and, on their studio recordings, tape editing.[1] The Surfers are also known for their once-chaotic live shows ...". "Further" and "also" could be removed. So could the ugly "additionally" in the next paragraph. Audit the whole text for this tendency.
    • Woulditis, a Wikipedian disease: "which would in turn often influence"—why not just plain past tense? "which in turn often influenced"?
  • "The band has" and the start of the second para, but elsewhere they're pluralised. Be consistent.
    • En dashes are recommended for ranges by several of the major US and UK style guides; they're so much nicer for our readers, particularly when the text display is small. Using only the last two digits for the end of the range, where possible, reduces a raft of numbers that looks like computer code:
"... 1983-1985 and 1986-1989. Butthole Surfers have employed a variety of bass players, most notably Bill Jolly (1982-1984) ..."
"... 1983–85 and 1986–89. Butthole Surfers have employed a variety of bass players, most notably Bill Jolly (1982–84) ..."
  • "The Butthole Surfers had the respected by their peers, influenced future grunge stars, and attracted a devoted fan base, however, they did not enjoy any significant commercial success until 1996’s Electriclarryland, their only gold record to date." First clause is ungrammatial. "Future" is unclear; the BSs still exist, so whom and what time are you referring to? Comma after "base" is ungrammatical; try a semicolon. Remove "any" as redundant. What a bombsite. Tony 23:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ironically, the most glaring grammatical error you mentioned was added by one of the many Opposers, Ceoil, though I'm sure it wasn't intentional on his/her part (the "had the respected by their peers," etc in the lead). I'll revert that and other detrimental changes over the weekend. Thanks! The Haiku Master 23:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The music sample is peaking (too loud), doesn't seem to be relevant to any particular part of the article, and should only be 30 seconds long.-- Zleitzen(talk) 22:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'll just remove that altogether, as I wasn't the one who added it to the article to begin with (it's one of the few remaining aspects of the original article as I found it back in February or so) -- thanks for pointing that out. The Haiku Master 22:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose Certainly a well-done article, but the two major issues (prose and converting references to an acceptable format) might take an amount of effort and time to correct that an FAC might be too soon. I'll do my part to try and improve on the deficiences (although I will be rather busy during the next week), and if we are able to fix the problems in a few days I'll be glad to change my vote. WesleyDodds 18:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment from Submitter: Hi folks, just a head's up that, due to some work-related emergencies, I'm not going to have time to get to revamps until this coming weekend (4/21-22), instead of last weekend (4/14-15) as originally hoped. Just wanted to assure anyone monitoring this nomination that I haven't abandoned it.
Also, two other users (one of them being Ceoil, one of the current opposers) have volunteered to give it a thorough copy edit around the middle of this week -- Ceoil, Wesley, the fresh sympathetic eyes are very appreciated. By the time their dust has settled I should be able to tackle the dash/hyphen issue & references. Thanks for your patience! The Haiku Master 20:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
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