Wikipedia:Peer review/David Berman (musician)/archive1

David Berman (musician)

He wrote sad songs and got paid by the tear. They’re motel masterpieces about dream attacks and beer drinking robots. His mother named him after a king and he was the son of “possibly the most evil man in America”.

In 2003, he was hospitalised for approaching death; shined out in the wild kindness; and left this world behind on the back of a black camel. Here's hoping he gets that Pulitzer for the "frontline series "Iowa Jima" published in the 2022 A.D. Pittsburgh Daily Humanoid," his words.

Hoping to get this article to FAC; would like to get some preemptive insight. Particularly interested in thoughts on the in-line citations. There's a particular issue I have with the in-line citations; there's more blue than a Massachusetts polling station. I reckon a citation change is best. Thanks, DMT Biscuit (talk) 20:35, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi DMT Biscuit. I've started reading through this. I think I'll mostly likely read it through a couple of times or so to digest it all before I begin making comments. Cheers, Moisejp (talk) 01:37, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Update: I'm still actively working through reading this—I know, it's only been six days since my last update, but this page just seems so lonesome and bare with so few comments. ;-) Moisejp (talk) 03:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Update: I've had some distractions but I'm definitely going to get back into continuing my second read-through, tonight or in the very near future. Moisejp (talk) 01:50, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Cool, Moisejp. I implicitly understood that the FAC for I'm Goin' Down took up your time - also boring real-life stuff, blah. DMT Biscuit (talk) 10:56, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Comments

OK, I think I need to make comments as I'm reading through, otherwise I will never make traction on this. :-)

Lead:

• I would paraphrase "perhaps the finest lyricist of his generation" in the lead, otherwise I believe you need a citation, which personally I find distracting in the lead. It could be an easy paraphrase like "possibly the best lyrics writer of his generation". OK, that was just off the top of my head and may or may not be clunky, but it's just an example.
• "His lyrics were his creative priority, labouring over them for extended periods of time." I'm not sure this works grammatically. The subject seems to change from "lyrics" to "him"?
• Not sure "They were abstract in nature and had become autobiographical in his later career, sung in a deep and monotone manner" works really well either, in terms of how the ideas of lyrics and singing style are meshed together.
• I don't have a strong opinion, but I think the convention on Wikipedia would be for an article about an American to be written in American English, in which case I think "labouring" would be "laboring".

Paraphased the quote in the lede to "revered lyricist". Added a line about his following and influence, two surprising blindspots before. Feel free to look it over. The other qualms were resolved by the copyedit currently underway - which is handy timing. DMT Biscuit (talk) 23:13, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

All right, it's just a brief start, but I think the action of having started will now break my inertia on this, and I'll be able to produce more comments soon. Cheers, Moisejp (talk) 05:18, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Early life:

• "whom he said were neither religious, literary nor artistic". I talked about this in the PR for A Crow Looked at Me as well. I recommend you to think in terms of two different timelines: 1. What happened at the time; 2. What people have said about these events after the fact. The simplest and, I'd argue, most elegant way to make this distinction is to use the present perfect for the after-the-fact instances. So here it would be "whom he has said". If overuse of the present perfect makes the text too heavy, sometimes other strategies can be used, such as "later said". So my suggestion would be for you to go through the article and identify whether there are any "after-the-fact" instances and consider changing all or most of them to the present perfect. Moisejp (talk) 15:36, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@Moisejp: Totally willing to do this throughout but would appreciate a head's up. I've taken a stab with this edit:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Berman_(musician)&diff=1049601388&oldid=1049516506. Am I on the right track or not? Thanks, all the same. DMT Biscuit (talk) 19:34, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

• Hi DMT,

• "whom he had said were neither religious": normally this should be "whom he has said"
• "Berman described his childhood as "grindingly painful" and later asserted that he was "mostly independent of family things"": Here you need something like "Berman has described his childhood as "grindingly painful" " (because this describing is already after the fact) and then since it is already in the present perfect the "has" can be implicitly carried over with being repeated: "and asserted that he was "mostly independent of family things""
• For your third change, I think what you had before ("To Berman, Dallas was a source") works better than what you changed it to.

• I guess the change I'm suggesting is less intuitive than I thought, sorry. I have a bit of a background in grammar so this kind of thing is sort of second nature for me, I guess. Anyways, I'll tell you what. If you like, as I'm going through the article, I can point out every instance that if it were me, I would change, and what I would change it to. (Of course, you're free to reject any of my suggestions, just like any other suggestion.) Or maybe I'll just copy-edit some of them myself to save time, but of course you're free to revert. Moisejp (talk) 06:10, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

• I'd be more than happy with you doing copy-edits when you see fit. Best to have the one with the most understanding do it. DMT Biscuit (talk) 11:11, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi DMT Biscuit, I hate to do this to you, but something has come up in real life, and Wikipedia is the thing I've got to put on hold for now. I really appreciate the time you put into reviewing my article, and I sincerely wanted to repay the favour. It's even worse that I'm doing this now after "leading you on" for the last bit that my full review was just around the corner. I agree with what you wrote on my talk page that the article has a lot of potential, and that it just needs a few solid reviews to bring it to the next level. I wanted to be one of those reviews. I know it's not always easy getting reviewers at PR, and that this PR has been open 5 or 6 weeks without any real biters. Maybe try cold-calling some editors that you've seen reviewing music articles, even if you haven't had much prior interaction with them? Who knows, you could get lucky? Or possibly do what some people do, which is in your FAC or PR reviews mention "by the way, I have a PR going on if you're interested." I'm sure I'll be back on Wikipedia at some point in the medium-term. If you're FAC isn't done by then, maybe I'll have a chance to jump in and give some comments yet. Sorry, DMT. Wishing you sincere good luck on the article is the best I can do right now. Moisejp (talk) 00:26, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

@Moisejp: Appreciate the notice. All's good: these things happen. Will look forward for you to come back. DMT Biscuit (talk) 06:20, 18 October 2021 (UTC)