Wikipedia:Peer review/Jenny Morris (musician)/archive1

Jenny Morris (musician)

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I intend to propose this article for GA status. The article has recently undergone a major revamp in an attempt to bring it up to a decent standard and quality. As I know I'm not perfect I would appreciate it if other editors could list any potential problems with the article (format, grammar, spelling, etc) so when I nominate it for GA status there are no glaring errors/mistakes that need to be addressed.

Thanks, Dan arndt (talk) 02:54, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Crimsonfox's Comments

• Ref 69 is broken
  • Deleted.
• If you can find an image that'll always help
  • Yeah, usuable ones are difficult to obtain.
• I would group headings 1-5 under a "Life and Music Career" heading. Not really essential but I think it keeps it tidy and seems to be the norm for musician articles
  • Done.
• Lead needs expansion so it covers the main points of the article in summary.
  • Some expansion has occurred here but more may be needed (in last two paragraphs).
• There shouldn't be any refs in the lead unless they're backing up a very controversial statement.
  • I prefer to ref anything I can, even in the Lead.
    • Apart from ref 1, all the others in the lead are redundant for lead use. They're use multiple times in the articles body, not to mention 2 is used multiple times in the lead. WP:Lead

    I'm looking at the specific WP:LEADCITE section. Consider The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. [...] Contentious material about living persons must be cited every time Our discussion should arrive at such a consensus.shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 23:33, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

• • How does one determine which are contentious or "very controversial statements" for living people? I have seen article Leads challenged/changed for having someone named Jenny instead of Jennifer, or New Zealand vs New Zealand-born Australian vs Australian–even with a reliable source supplied. Your phrase "redundant for lead use" implies you're happy about all claims made in the Lead provided they are referenced later in the body of the work–what about casual readers? Not all go on to read the rest of the article, since the Lead has to be a stand-alone introduction–to me it should have its own in-line references. Does your view on WP:LEADCITE mean we trim back to just one ref for the whole Lead? I can go with that—it seems less reliable to me—if its the prevailing consensus.shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 23:33, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

    • • I can definitely see your point and I think it might be best if we had a second opinion on this. I'm not exactly having references in the leads it's just the information is pretty much repeated in the article, but then your point of casual readers kinda changes it. Though I would definitely say there's not use in repeating ref 2 twice in the first paragraph, having it at the end would be sufficient. Also the three at the end of the third paragraph seems overkill, try and pick one sufficient reliable source. CrimsonFox ^talk 23:54, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

      I've put the McF ref at end of 1st para. With the charting in 3rd para, I've split the New Zealand ref to the end of an additional sentence. It both expands the Lead and improves NPOV.shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 00:30, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• ARIA should be spelt out for it's first use with the abbreviation in brackets, then abbreviated after that
  • Done.
• The number 5 in the lead should be spelt out "five"
  • OK.
• All occurrences of "No. x" should really be written in full. eg "number five".
  • I have assumed numbers more than ten can be left as number 24 and not number twenty four.
    • Yes I believe that is fine.
• "her influences include Aretha Franklin and Dusty Springfield" - This part seems a little disjointed on to the end of the sentence, try and connect them better.
  • Separated the sentence into two and reffed each with same ref.
• Quote at the end of Early Years needs quote marks around it
  • Done.
• Solo success - "melded funk rhythms with an infectious pop hook" - Doesn't sound very encyclopedic, mainly the last few words
  • Talk to McFarlane, his exact words are "highlighted Morris's growing confidence by fusing funk rhythms with pop hooks." So I'll delete 'infectious' and put a ref at end of sentence.
• "an emotion charged lamentation of the 'haves' and 'have nots' of the world," - This isn't explained very well and sounds unencyclopedic
  • Deleted this phrase, McFarlane uses a similar expression with: "Morris crafted a cohesive, dynamic and emotion-charged third solo album," but similarity is not sufficient for this description.

• Later Years - "it was produced Andrew Farriss[29] and Moffatt," -> produced by ?
  • Done.
• Quote needs quote marks
  • Done
• Personal Life - Possible issues with tenses here. If someone were to read it in the future "they have two children"
  • have > have had
• "Shanley Del is an ARIA Award winning country music artist in 1998" - Needs rewording
  • Try: "Morris' younger sister, Shanley Del has also won an ARIA Award but as a country music artist in 1998."
• "he is also a singer-songwriter with his group Tracky Dax." -> Possible change to "he joined his group Tracky Dax as a singer-songwriter"
  • This implies he joined them later/after co-writing the song: I'm not sure of the time-line so... I went for: "he is also in the group Tracky Dax as a singer-songwriter."
• Some statements I believe are over referenced. eg "Morris began her solo career with the single, "Puberty Blues" in December 1981 on Mushroom Records" has got four references for it. One or possible two reliable references is enough. From what I've seen, 3-4 is bordering on enough/too many refs for a single statement.
  • Trimmed "Puberty Blues" refs to two. I couldn't find any other four refs. Some three refs remain, generally they support different parts of an overall claim—where possible I tried to avoid splitting these—and placed in-line refs at end of sentence.shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 00:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• "(born 29 September 1956, Tokoroa, New Zealand) is a New Zealand " - Some repetition here. I would take out birth location from the brackets and include the location somewhere else.
  • Deleted Tokoroa, New Zealand from brackets, location already included in infobox and first sentence of Early years and The Crocodiles subsection.shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 23:41, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Hope that helps, I'll put this review on temp watch until it's done. CrimsonFox ^talk 17:37, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I've commented on a couple of points and added an extra two at the bottom. CrimsonFox ^talk 09:40, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I made the earlier comments but forgot to sign (sorry). I've made some more comments on the Lead.shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 23:33, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

New information on her citizenship has been added to Lead and personal life with a reliable source cited.shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 01:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comment: User:Crimsonfox asked me to render a second opinion the question of references in the lead. I believe the guidelines allow some leeway, and whether or not to add a supporting citation to a reliable source depends on the nature of the claim. A random check of featured music articles at WP:FA#Music shows that some music FAs have no citations in the lead while others have quite a few.

Although under-sourcing is a bigger problem over the whole encyclopedia than over-sourcing, it's possible to over-source. Readers may find repetitive or unnecessary citations distracting. Readers who read only the lead are unlikely, I think, to bother checking the citations. On the other hand, readers who read the whole article are more likely to want to know more. If something is sourced in the main text sections, that should usually be sufficient for those readers who want to know more. My personal rule of thumb is to provide a source for direct quotations in the lead and anything else that is so controversial that it seems bound to be challenged. This normally means that my leads for long articles have very few citations and often none.

Looking at the Jenny Morris (musician) lead, I see no reason for citation 1, which seems merely to support the claim that Jenny Morris is a real person and a musician. None of the claims in the lead is a direct quotation, and none seems highly controversial. Since the lead is to be a summary of the main text sections, all of the claims made in the lead are or should appear elsewhere and can be supported there with citations. My rule of thumb for claims made in the main text sections is to include citations for direct quotations, statistics, and anything that has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, and to support each paragraph with at least one citation.

I don't think it's necessary to support a claim such as "She began working as a Home Economics teacher for two years at a high school near Wellington" with more than one source. This is a claim that is not common knowledge and thus needs a citation to a reliable source, but it's not a claim that is likely to be challenged. In cases like this, I would suggest choosing what seems to be the most reliable source for the claim and simply using it rather than two or three. WP:RS has details about what kinds of sources are likely to be reliable, more reliable, less reliable, or unreliable.

In many places in this article, one citation could cover more than one clause or one sentence, especially when several clauses or sentences in a sequence all depend on the same source. For example, "In 1979 they released the track, "Some Day" for the compilation album, Home Grown Volume One.[17] "Some Day" was cowritten with Tony Backhouse, guitarist of fellow Wellington band, The Spats, which also had a track, "Young Ladies in Hot Cars", on the compilation.[17]" This set of claims doesn't need two citation 17s. One would be plenty. On the whole, I find this article to be over-sourced. (This is separate from the question of whether or not the sources are reliable.) I hope this helps. Finetooth (talk) 03:26, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, essentially you're saying less is more when it comes to the Lead and to numbers of refs per claim provided the refs are good sources. I can go along with this but I would like further clarification:

Citation 1 in the Lead, gives her full name and is not currently cited any where else in the article.

Since the lead is to be a summary of the whole article, it shouldn't include important information that does not appear in the main text sections. If you think her full name is important and not well-known or likely to be challenged, it should appear in one of the main text sections and could be sourced there. Finetooth (talk) 19:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

You've given examples of over reffing in the body text (thanks by the way) but I may need further help in identifying other instances where the number of refs per claim can be reduced. Finetooth (talk) 19:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC) Actually one of my comments not Finetooth's.shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 07:11, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I hope my general suggestions will be enough. You know far more about the content than I and are in a better position to make a judgment about whether each reference is truly necessary or not. There is no universal rule that can replace that kind of judgment. Finetooth (talk) 19:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Your example of "She began working as a Home Economics teacher for two years at a high school near Wellington" is problematic. Ref 4 states "Jenny Morris began her career as a schoolteacher in Wellington", ref 14 has "former New Zealand home economics teacher Jenny Morris" while ref 12 (a 28 minute audio source) has Morris herself saying she taught (subject not specified) for two years in a school near Wellington and impressed her students by saying she was in an all-girl group (amongst other statements). The single sentence in the article is a summary of all this information—no one source covers it all. There are other sentences with three refs where similar coalescence of information has occurred.shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 04:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

This is a writing problem that occurs in all articles. There's no universal rule for what needs to be included and what needs to be left out or exactly how to arrange and source the elements. Sometimes it's necessary to make complex claims within a single paragraph or even within a single sentence and to cite multiple sources. However, with something like the teacher claim above, I'd look for a way to reduce the complications. It's a matter of judgment. Do readers need to know that the subject was home economics? Is it important that she taught in a high school rather than an elementary school? Does it matter whether she taught for two years or three or some other number? Are any of these claims controversial? The answers to questions like this depend to a degree on the essence of the rest of the article. Although the article's claims need to be verifiable, they might in at least some cases be selected and structured in a way that reduces the number of required citations. Finetooth (talk) 19:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to CrimsonFox and Finetooth for the comments above. I am going to attempt to remove all refs from the Lead.

As best as possible I will also trim multiple refs where only one or two would cover available claims.shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 07:11, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Done?shaidar cuebiyar ( talk | contribs ) 08:22, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:MOSQUOTE#Quotations I removed the quote marks from the block quotes, sorry about that, I was wrong. CrimsonFox ^talk 00:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)