Wikipedia:Peer review/Thriller (album)/archive4

Thriller (album)

Previous peer review

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for June 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… since its last FA failer this will be its third peer review. After this review closes I think we'll be ready to take it to FA. Im really open to all suggestions as Im a little out of ideas. I have a feeling that source formatting needs some fine tuning but I could be wrong. Hopefully others can help.

Thanks, — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 17:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Kakofonous: I also fixed some problems while doing the review, but this is what I've got:

• "The album itself also received overwhelmingly positive reviews, with All Music Guide giving it a perfect score." This construction—using "with" and then a gerund—has been labeled by Tony1 (talk · contribs) as a "virus" (or something to that effect), and I tend to agree with him. I would suggest changing this sentence to "The album itself also received overwhelmingly positive reviews; All Music Guide gave it a perfect score." Other sentences with this construction should be changed to eliminate the usage, when possible.
• Not sure if the "XXXX in music" links are necessary; keep them if you want, but I don't see any particular use.
• Pick either the serial comma or the other version—I see inconsistency with this. See this example sentence: "Jackson wrote four of Thriller's songs: 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', 'The Girl Is Mine' (with Paul McCartney), 'Beat It', [comma here] and 'Billie Jean'." Compare with: "The album was the first to use music videos as successful promotional tools, with the videos for 'Thriller', 'Billie Jean' [no comma here] and 'Beat It' all receiving regular rotation on MTV." Oh, and the preceding sentence also uses the construction I mentioned above...
• "When he was satisfied with a song he would call it 'Smelly Jelly' and never cursed, instead he would call something 'smelly'." Shouldn't "satisfied" be "dissatisfied"? Also, is it really necessary to hear about MJ's lack of cursing in order to fully understand the album and article? I would personally remove it, but it's your call.
  • DONE - Removed, I couldn't make heads or tails of what the source what actually saying anyway. — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 18:05, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
• Lots of unnecessary commas and some typos in the "Themes and genres" section. Inconsistent capitalisation as well. Also, why does "The Girl Is Mine" give the album a "suburban" or "calm" take? The word "suburban" really makes no sense here, in particular. In short, this section needs going over, especially in the first paragraph. Another sentence, this one in the second paragraph: "It is a typical Temperton song, being melodic, having a strong bass line and hook; the song ends with a rap by Vincent Price." Another instance of the "virus", and I don't really understand how ending with a rap by Vincent Price relates to having a strong bass line and hook. However, using a semicolon implies a relationship between the two.
• It's "The Girl Is Mine", not "The Girl is Mine". I've seen this error quite a few times.
• There's an issue with logical punctuation here: "He commented that it was an improvement on Jackson's last album, as it showcased harder funk and rock while remaining 'undeniably fun.'" The period should go after the quoted phrase if the phrase is not a complete sentence. Please check for this issue throughout.
• The sentence after this one calls "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" "Wanna Be Startin' Something". The song's article gives the name as "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"; please fix this.
• Be consistent with whether you put a comma after starting a sentence with "On xxxx date" or "In xxxx year" or leave it out. As far as I know, both are acceptable, but you should pick one.

Hope these are useful! --Kakofonous (talk) 17:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, it shouldnt be too hard to get through all that, thanx very much. — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 18:00, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think ive done your points, based on my understanding of what your saying. Cheers — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 21:00, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

• You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
  • What makes http://www.artistdirect.com/frontdoor a reliable source?
  • Per WP:MOS, all capitals are frowned on. (the title of current refs 29 and 45)
  • What makes http://www.citypages.com/2007-01-24/music/man-in-the-mirror a reliable source?

Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 22:35, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, ive resolved your points to date, thanx for your input. Regards. — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 19:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Giggy comments

• "It quickly became the best-selling album of all time, with sales between 45 and 108 million copies worldwide" - it quickly reached the #1 spot? Or did it take a while to get there? And how could you be that unsure on how many copies were sold?
  • OK, I added the details about it reaching #1. As for the album sales, it caused edit wars. I have been blocked twice for edit warring over this issue (the second block was removed because the admin made a mistake). Archived talk page consensus said we shoul put the mix of sales in and let the reader decide for themselves. Happy to say there are no more edit wars on this issue and I would like to keep it that way. — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:02, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "In 2008, the album was reissued again" - no need to wlink the year
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "at a production budget of $750,000 along with several members of the band Toto" - reads like the Toto members were part of the budget... needs reword.
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "It was the second Jackson album" - switch the placement of Jackson and album
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:10, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "Unlike many artists, Jackson did not write his songs on paper, instead dictating them into a sound recorder and when recording, singing from memory rather than reading words off paper" - check the commas here
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• Second paragraph of the Recording section has some awkward out of place "however"s.
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "Jones and Rod Temperton," - who's he?
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:23, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "who had never informed his band mates about the collaboration until the album was released." --> "who didn't inform..."?
  • DONE - Clarified. — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "With Thriller Jackson would being" - being --> begin?
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "While in "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" he argues..." - don't start a sentence with "while". Perhaps merge with previous?
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "successful rock cross over" - I think crossover is one word.
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "The album won a record-breaking..." - can this short paragraph be merged/expanded?
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic" - in the infobox you call it All Music Guide - be consistent.
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 17:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "to compliment "Billie Jean" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"" - I'm sure this has been wlinked before.
  • DONE - Removed a few other cases of repeat wikilinking — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 18:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "Slant Magazine also gave the album a full five stars" - italics?
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 18:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• Considering the massiveness of the album, I'm disappointed you only quote four reviews. What about Christgau? Did NME cover it? New York Times? Check Metacritic, see if you can find more reviews there.
  • DONE - Added comments by Christgau and The New York Times. NME and Metacritics do not have reviews, I have done a lot of research into this issue for my work on the Michael Jackson article. — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 18:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "Thriller is one of only three albums to remain in the top ten of the Billboard 200 for a full year, spending 37 weeks at number one out of the 80 consecutive weeks it was on in the top ten." - wacky tense... should all be past tense.
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 19:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• This ref totally doesn't cite anything. Type "Thriller" into the search box at the top of http://australian-charts.com, find the album's page, and you'll get a stack of chart peaks in a variety of countries.
  • OK, Ive sorted this issue.
• I don't like the Highly publicized events section title, though I'm not sure what a better one could be.
  • OK, the title does indeed recieve mixed reviews. A lot of people have suggested calling it "Promotion". I object to this, although these events helped the album sell a lot of copies, it isn't promotion as such. When his hair court on fire he wasn't holding a copy of Thriller lol. If anything these events are "accidential promotion". Maybe the title should reflect what they did for Thriller - eg boost the sales significantly? — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 19:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "with J. Randy Taraborrelli explaining" - who's he?
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 19:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller sold over 350,000 copies in a few months of sales." - what's that? Say more about it.
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 19:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• You don't need to use language=English on refs, this is assumed. (check all refs)
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 19:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "Time summed up..." - last paragraph it was in all caps; be consistent
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 19:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "Before the success of Thriller, Jackson had struggled to get MTV airing because he was African American" - please ensure the ref SPECFICALLY states this... (done offline so I can't check)
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 19:35, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• "Audio samples:" - there's only one, don't use plural. It also needs a better caption that describes the sample itself.
  • DONE — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 19:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
• Is the one external link necessary? Could be used as a ref? This should help you get through FAC next time around, I hope. giggy _(:O) 08:39, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
  • It already is used multiple times in the article, I have therefore removed the external section. — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 19:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Cheers Giggy, I will go through these points. — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 16:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

OK Ive done everything I can do Giggy, what do you think? Hope its good. :-) — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 19:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)