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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 by Karanacs 18:48, 26 September 2009 [1].

The Beatles

[edit]
Nominator(s): PL290 (talk) 14:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
FFA, has been on main page
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The Beatles story is an eventful one, and it's been said, probably rightly, that the subject is pretty much inexhaustible. There is much scope for developing and rationalizing the already growing number of sub-articles to do the details of this story justice. The parent article summarizes the key moments in the story and is now offered for review. PL290 (talk) 14:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did you consult Andreasegde (talk · contribs) about this nomination? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, on the article talk page some weeks ago. PL290 (talk) 15:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Should s/he be listed as a co-nom? It's a busy talk page, and I can't locate your post; I'll ping Andreasegde. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can go back through and retrieve it from the history if necessary, but in summary, no objections were raised by any editors to FA nomination, and Andreasegde, as #1 contributor to the article, stated a personal preference not to be involved in the FA process for this or any article at the present time and gave blessing for others to nominate. I'm sure Andreasegde will agree that that's a fair summary but I can dig it out of the history if necessary. PL290 (talk) 16:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good; thanks ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The alt text that's present is very good (thanks). However, two images lack alt text. Please see the "alt text" button in the toolbox at the upper right of this review page. Also, the citations reference some dead links and some links with other problems; please see the "external links" button. Eubulides (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alt text now added. PL290 (talk) 18:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, it looks like you fixed both alt text and dead links. Also, I marked a purely decorative image. Looks good now. Eubulides (talk) 19:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem at all with this attempt at an FA. Go ahead, and God bless all who sail in the direction of fair winds, or foul.--andreasegde (talk) 19:03, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Source comments: What makes these reliable?

Sources updated; the above two removed. PL290 (talk) 11:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sources updated; the above two removed. PL290 (talk) 11:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sources updated; the above one removed. PL290 (talk) 12:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sources updated; the above one removed. PL290 (talk) 12:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sources updated; the above one removed. PL290 (talk) 12:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sources updated; the above four removed. PL290 (talk) 17:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dabs and links: http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/dablinks.py?page=The_Beatles Two need disambiguating. All fine

Done. PL290 (talk) 17:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RB88 (T) 23:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments:

  • The following refs need more citation detail as appropriate, for example author, publication, dates etc: 1, 4, 46, 73, 130
Refs 1 & 4 fixed; ref 46 removed as unnecessary double cite; ref 73 (now 72) fixed; old ref 130 removed as newer ref 2 can now be reused. PL290 (talk) 19:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pick one citation convention when citing web news and stick to it. I see a mixture of print methods (e.g. Daily Express) with web methods (e.g. guardian.co.uk) when citing websites.
Done. PL290 (talk) 08:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RB88 (T) 18:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC) Media check:[reply]

  • Eight separate audio samples seems to be a gross violation of WP:NFCC#3a.
Eight is more than some articles, but I think it's justified in this case. (It's not unprecedented; Frank Zappa, for instance, has eight.) An important theme of the article is the band's musical development and the range of different genres they explored. There are undoubtedly further samples that could also have been used but to respect WP:NFCC#3a the number has been kept as low as possible while still supporting the significant genres and events discussed in the text. PL290 (talk) 17:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd agree but for the particular scene depicted, which is one of the most significant moments in the group's history, for which there's no other free-use picture: the first live U.S. performance in 1964 televised on the Ed Sullivan Show when their international success really began. The article talks about this in the opening sections. (It might be an idea to move the image to that location.) I see the fair use rationale doesn't really reflect why it meets WP:NFCC#8 at the moment so I'll update it to make sure it does. PL290 (talk) 17:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support if/when all the above issues have been sorted. I cannot see anything wrong with the article that has not been covered above. I don't think the non-free media is a problem, however. Dendodge T\C 18:07, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose The prose needs serious work. There's too many stubby paragraphs that should be merged with other sections of text. Much of the article seems like it's strucutred to accomodate the subarticles, rather than working as a concise whole. As a result it comes off as rather piecemeal. Avoid citing press releases whenever possible, cite secondary sources that report on the information from an objective perspective. Those are just the most glaring problems. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Press releases: you were right, a lot of these were unnecessary and I've substituted books for most of them. OK now?
  • Remaining points: please provide specific examples with rationale in each case so that your objections can be understood and addressed. PL290 (talk) 13:47, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (suggest withdrawal) Sadly this is not nearly ready. A lot more effort needs to be put in before this deserves the bronze star. The following points are only representative not exhaustive:

  • insufficient weight is given to various to some very important events in the Fabs' history, but too much to trivialities. For eg: A large paragraph is devoted to the first meeting of Dylan and the Lads, while A Hard Day's Night and Beatles for Sale are reduced to a passing mention in a single sentence. Precious little is devoted to The White Album as well!
  • The structure of the article is very weird. Their history should come in a History section. Subsections can then be the various years, and what they did in those years. Also since all the "History of the Beatles" links are already next to the TOC, I'd remove all of those "see also"s them from the start of the subsections.
  • You give far too much weight to the Rolling Stone "500 Albums" list. There's no need to mention how every album fared on that one list. Better would be to include quotes from contemporary reviews (i.e., from the 60s), as well some retospective critiques as well.
  • I don't understand the purpose of the Films section; all of that can be seamlessly merged into the group's history (since you are not really analysing the films themselves, just stating facts about their release). I don't think see why there should be a subsection called "Radio" with just one sentence in it either.
  • Throughout the article, the writing suffers from proseline. There is little hint of a narrative, just a collection of "and then this happened" statements.

You might want to look at exemplary band FAs such as Radiohead and The Smashing Pumpkins for inspiration/direction on how to proceed. indopug (talk) 18:14, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - the article has not been prepared for featured status. The prose is boring and lacks logical flow—it should read as though it is the work of one author, even though it is a collaborative effort. There are Manual of Style breaches, e.g. in the Lead there is "UK", "U.S.", and at the end "United Kingdom". The are too many unsourced statements. It still needs a lot of work. Graham Colm Talk 18:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Withdraw nomination - it's clear from the comments so far that the article needs a rethink and a rework. I'm grateful to reviewers for the time spent and the constructive feedback provided. I would now like to withdraw this nomination. PL290 (talk) 08:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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