Wikipedia:Peer review/The Maid Freed from the Gallows/archive1

The Maid Freed from the Gallows

The history of this song, from its time-lost roots through its recording by Led Zeppelin as Gallows Pole, is a truly fascinating trip. I'd like to know, what do folks think would be needed to bring this one up to FA quality? bd2412 T 04:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, can the external jumps be converted into footnotes? - Tutmosis 00:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Easily done, I think. bd2412 T 00:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Don't worry, I did it. Cbrown1023 01:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - And nicely done - thanks! bd2412 T 03:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, AZ _t 00:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Hmmm... some good ones, but not sure how to implement many. I don't know what I would add to the intro that doesn't really belong in the body. A free image would be good, but which one? Perhaps someone can track down a sheet of the music from an old version and post it? I'll look for such. bd2412 T 04:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some comments for you...
- Can "Child ballad" be explained, perhaps in its own sentence? ("The song is the 95th of the Child ballads, <whatever they are>".)
- The article repeatedly uses "condemned" as a noun, which seems awkward to me (maybe it's more common elsewhere?).
- Somebody (but not me, because I don't care) might complain about the non-"fair-use" of the album cover images in an article not strictly about any of those albums (although maybe the topic is close enough to be "fair use", I don't know).
- Combine the one-sentence paragraph that starts "Synopsis" with the paragraph after it.
- Since some variants are described in "Synopsis", could you combine the "Variants" section into "Synopsis"?
- The article refers to Leadbelly as "Leadbelly" and "Lead Belly".
- "The music suits the building tension in the song" is a (harmless) case of WP:OR. Oh, that's right, "there are NO harmless cases of OR!" (zombie look).

Hope that helps, –Outriggr § 07:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- - As to the first point, every Child ballad that has an article starts the same way. I thought of dropping a footnote after that reference, but the reference itself is a link already. I'll leave that one to the folks who regularly work on Child ballads to fix as they see fit.
  - I've always thought "condemned" was a common usage as a noun. I'll look for an appropriate synonym.
  - "Lead Belly" refs have all been fixed to Leadbelly.
  - The album covers are fair use for the section of the article that discusses those albums - they illustrate what the albums were for educational purposes, and without affecting their value.
  - I'll work over the "Synopsis" and OR points later. I'll see if I can track down the contributor of the 'building tension' line.
  - Thanks! bd2412 T 13:58, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. From a naive reader's perspective, whether or not every "Child ballad" article starts that way, it doesn't help me. I can't assume it isn't a way of saying (poorly) that it's a ballad for children. As for "condemned", I can't find it in online dictionaries as a noun. I know you can get away with it, but I think it's better to leave it for titles and stock phrases. –Outriggr § 04:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- There is probably a technical term for implying a noun ("the condemned", "the unfortunate", "the sick and the hungry"). When I think of such examples, they always have a plural sense to them, which isn't what you're going for in your usage. :) –Outriggr § 04:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I know this song! I didn't know this title, but as soon as I read the summary I realised that this was the song Steeleye Span sang as the Prickly Bush. :) I have added a trivial wikilink and made a comment on the talk page. I thought this was an interesting article. Would it be possible to provide translations of the titles Lunastettava neito (Finnish), Den Bortsålda (Swedish) and Die Losgekaufte (German)? And if it is possible, it would also be nice to see more about its history. In what time period did it move from one language to another? If Child considered it more corrupt in English, did he think a specific version the purest? I'm not sure the long list of alternative titles should be marked up as one gigantic list: the section is as large as some of the other sections in the article. If we need all the titles, is there any reason not to have it as a very long list of prose? Telsa (talk) 00:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm at a loss for translations. Could ask someone with the appropriate Babel Box settings. Also, I don't know where to find Child's thoughts on it, but I'll hunt around. bd2412 T 02:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]