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Woody Guthrie

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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to know where it may be deficient before submitting it to be considered for Feature Article rating.


Thanks,

Kmzundel (talk) 19:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quadell's observations

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This is great, and I'd love for this to get featured. It still needs a lot of refactoring, however. I went through and made a lot of minor changes here. I suspect those are uncontroversial, but if you disagree or don't understand any of these changes, we can discuss them. The larger changes needed I'll list here:

  • The lead is supposed to be a summary of the entire article. The first 2 paragraphs are fairly good at that (although the list of his jobs is never really mentioned in the article), but that third lead paragraph is problematic. It goes into detail about his disease, adding undue weight in the lead, and covering a lot of info not covered in the article. Instead, I would recommend the following for the 3rd paragraph of the lead:
  • I have a few citation concerns.
    • There is some speculation in the article that Guthrie's mother may have started the fires that killed her daughter and maimed her husband. This is quite dramatic, and could be disputed, so it needs a cite.
    • The article states "A fiddle or a banjo could be found in most homes in Okemah and some family members could usually play one or two songs." That's unsourced, and it's also confusing and out of place. I would personally remove the sentence entirely.
    • It says "With the outbreak of war in 1939 KFVD radio did not want Communists and sympathizers on its staff". That needs a cite.
    • In "Folk revival and Guthrie's death", it states "seeing their friend's uncontrolled movements and hearing his slurred speech made it difficult to maintain their composure". Again, this could make them look bad, so it needs a cite.
    • Also, "Ramblin Man" and "Woody Guthrie: A Life" should only be spelled out in the first reference that mentions the book. After that, the references should either say "ibid, p. Whatever", or the abbreviated title and page number only. (I just read that "ibid" is discouraged on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Footnotes#Style recommendations how to do this correctly.)
      • I'm confused on this, If I use a named refrence for the first occurance of the book how do I note page numbers when using that same refrence later in the article?--Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 15:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • I mean as ccoil described below, or as El Greco does it. The "References" section could spell out all the details (e.g. "Cray, Ed (2004). Ramblin Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393327361."), but the "Citations" section could give a minimal listing, with page numbers (e.g. "Cray, Ramblin Man, pp. 30"). Citations would be inside <ref> tags. – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the "Early life" section, it's a little confusing about how old Guthrie was when certain things were happening. When Guthrie was on his own and learning to play harmonica, was he 7 or 17? You say he didn't complete high school, but then later, after he moved to Texas, you say "Guthrie was still reluctant to attend class". What class? Was he back in high school?
  • In that same section, you mention a blues player, but don't give his name. He is later referred to as "the shoe shine man", which seems a little unprofessional. If his name is not known, the article should say that.
  • The music sample is of someone covering a Guthrie song, but the ogg box doesn't indicate that -- I expected to hear Guthrie's voice and was quite surprised. It's nice that we have a free version of the song, but it seems a bit irrelevant, like including a free image of someone dressed up like Woodie Guthrie. Instead, it should have an ogg of a sample of Woodie's singing and playing.
  • The last sentence in the "Pacific Northwest" section makes it sound like the Catholic Church granted him a divorce. I'm not sure how you want to reword it.
  • "Further Reading/Listening" is awkward. With the PBS link, should it be "Further Reading/Watching/Listening"? ;-) No, it should be "Further information" or something similar. Also, there's no need to have "Retrieved on", since they're not references.
  • It's redundant to have {{sisterlinks}} and the individual links to sister projects. Which do you prefer?
  • Why does the "Selected Discography" list albums by latest publishing date, rather than original publishing date or original recording date?
    • This is because the recording catalogue was one song at a time rather than with a planned album format. Most all Guthrie releses are cobbled together from a variaty of recording sessions. This ends up being many different releases of the same 40 tracks on diffrent mediums (78s,LPs,Cassette,CD, etc), so this seems to be the most logical way to list them. Tho I will reword the into paragraph to point out that the dates are the original publishing date of these particular releases. This is the catalogue as it is avaliable today. I have created the linked discography page if anyone is interested in the recording dates of particular tracks. Does this make sense or should I try to do it another way. --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 16:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are some serious wording problems in the "Almanac Singers" section. What does this mean? "Pete Seeger handled the bookings around New York and booked so many shows that when one could not book the Almanac Singers and expect to have Seeger, Guthrie, Lampell and Hays." I'm guessing that means you couldn't expect to see the four most famous singers because the group was double-booked, but I'm not sure. What does "the group would be get a set" mean? When you say "The house too was founded on their common socialist ideals", what is the "too" signifying? Was something else founded on their ideals? Did they found the house, or just come upon it?
  • Since the article is about Woody Guthrie the person, I think the last two sentences of the "Bound for Glory" section should be combined into "A film adaptation, released in 1976, won two Academy Awards." If more should be mentioned, then it should be mentioned elsewhere -- in a "legacy" section, or on a separate article on "Bound for Glory".
  • In the last paragraph of the "Mermaid Avenue" section, it says "Elliott studied extensively with Guthrie", but is "with" correct? Was Guthrie studying anything (and if so, what?), or what Elliott just studying Guthrie?
  • And finally, my biggest problem with the article: in parts it reads like a list of people who want to be associated with Guthrie. The article should include material on Guthrie, but not a "Best Cinematographer" win for a film adaptation of his book; not every barely-notable musician who ever covered one of his tunes or wrote a song about him; and not the fact that a water tower has "Home of Woody Guthrie" painted on it. Way too much trivia. One particularly galling example is the highlighting of Jefferson Pepper (who?) in his own sentence as having covered "This Land Is Your Land", complete with album name and year, before listing the 26 other presumably-less-notable performers (such as Bruce Springstein and Bing Crosby) that also covered the song. It's obvious someone wanted to promote Pepper. Since This Land is Your Land has its own article, it's enough to say in this article that the song has been covered by many artists, and maybe name the two or three most famous. For the same reason, everything from "Musical Legacy" on is a mess. See how Woody Guthrie Folk Festival is its own article, with just a link and a summary in this article, and no tedious lists of performers cluttering it up? Do the same with The Woody Guthrie Foundation, mentioning "Mermaid Avenue" I and II in Woody Guthrie, but leaving out every other half-notable adaptation. In fact, I'd be inclined to make a Musical legacy of Woodie Guthrie article, taking lots out of this one. Any way you do it, the listy sections "Tributes" and "Songs about Woody" should really go, as should the list of topics discussed in Guthrie songs.
    • This is a result of several add ons, I didn't know if I should remove (for example) the pepper refrence just because I didn't know who he was, I'll attempt to clarify these. --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 16:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Moved the Songs about woody information to the individual artists pages that mention it, should we leave the tributes section as it doesn't really have anywhere else to go? Otherwise I guess we could remove it entirely, maybe leaving info on the Leventhal concert (post death). As for the Topics of Woody Guthrie songs, do you think this would be a good thing to make into a category? --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 16:52, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to see the "songs about woody" section go, but think the Tributes section is relevant and, since it's not as list-y, should stay. Kmzundel (talk) 14:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think Topics of Woody Guthrie songs is inherently trivial and subjective. I don't think it should be kept at all. But I like what you've done with the entire post-death part of the article. – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely agree! Hated that long list. Kmzundel (talk) 14:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Aww, I liked this part, I'd hear the song and think what the heck is the chisholm trail. Ah well I suppose they can look up these topics via the search. --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 15:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that's a lot, but hopefully it'll help get this featured. All the best, – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Quadell! Kmzundel (talk) 02:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, nice work! I think the only thing left is to add cites to those few questionable statements. – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, We should be good at this point I think? --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 14:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ceoil's observations

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I'll post more when I've read it properly, but:

Thanks, Ceoil! Kmzundel (talk) 02:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Great work so far, I forgot to say that. Ceoil (talk) 03:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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