Wikipedia talk:WikiProject The Beatles/The Beatles history

Discussion originally from Talk:The Beatles

I really wish we could do something about the History of the Beatles article. We have a very long History section here, and then a slightly longer, rather unloved 'main article'. The obvious solutions would be to trim the History section here mercilessly, or to merge. That would have size issues of course. --kingboyk 12:33, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The "History of The Beatles" article is very poorly written, IMO, and has a (usually unsubstantiated) POV - but one that seems to roam considerably. Perhaps if there is any good info missing from the "History" section in the main article it could be added there and this entire piece deleted? Otherwise the merged article could be moved there and only the pre recording History be retained in the main article, and a precis of one or two paragraphs?LessHeard vanU 20:39, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Those are the two solutions I favour also (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_The_Beatles/Article_Classification#H and Wikipedia:WikiProject_The_Beatles/Article_Classification#The_big_ones). It's possible we could actually merge multiple articles as there's a lot of cruft knocking about (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_The_Beatles/Article_Classification#The_big_ones and Talk:The_Beatles#Cruft).

I think your suggested approach is pretty much spot on. Here's how I see it: 1) Remove cruft and rubbish from the History section in this article 2) Salvage anything usable from History of the Beatles and merge it here (or into a sandbox article). 3a) If the resulting History section is too long, move the new version back out to History of the Beatles and leave a brief summary here OR 3b) Replace History of the Beatles with a redirect. It's a mighty job - if you're wo/man enough to do it then go right ahead; or you'll have to wait for the WikiProject to get round to it which will be a while yet. (Of course, with jobs like this if someone makes a start others usually can't resist chipping in :-)) --kingboyk 21:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Please move the thread as suggested. I'm not tech proficient enough for merges and stuff so I am not going to start it, but I think your "3B" option is the way to go given the likely end result. ps. I have now read the "History of The Beatles" in full; it really does need a lot of work.LessHeard vanU 21:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I didn't wait for the notice to expire before pasting the above, as I am about to go to bed for the night!LessHeard vanU 22:02, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Reposting to hopefully stimulate debate:

I really wish we could do something about the History of the Beatles article. We have a very long History section here, and then a slightly longer, rather unloved 'main article'. The obvious solutions would be to trim the History section here mercilessly, or to merge. That would have size issues of course. --kingboyk 03:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Well sure, it's a good idea. A lot of work though. Hottest fish to fry on our worklist? Dunno. As to which alternative, I'd rather not merge, but rather trim this one way way back and point people there. (or is history so intertwined that you can't tell the Beatles' story without delving into history all along the way?) ++Lar: t/c 16:50, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's the big one. I say leave all options open - including a major razor job. We could consider merging history in, and splitting other stuff out. Just one of many options and not a statement of opinion just yet :-) --kingboyk 22:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

In many ways The Beatles is all history. Two out of the four (and three of six) are dead and their major influence was to a past era. Most people using Wikipedia as a source will be so young as to not have been born before the bands demise (older readers will likely just be reading to check up on the "accuracy" of the article). In these circumstances the article is in itself historical. I think that is why the two History articles/sections are so large, as every other aspect of the article serves the historical function.

I am not in favour, but perhaps it should be considered editing the main article as a history with an introduction - using subheadings to signpost the more important developments and events - and link to every other relevant article?LessHeard vanU 21:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Discussion about cruft in The Beatles from Talk:The Beatles which has some relevance

Another problem we have here is that new editors think that every single bit of trivia, rumour, gossip and innuendo about anything remotely connected to The Beatles should go into this article. I wish we had some way of alerting these people that we have some 300 or more Beatles articles and that in the vast majority of cases info missing from this article is missing for a reason - that it belongs elsewhere, or doesn't belong in an encyclopedia at all. </rant> --kingboyk 17:07, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This article is top-heavy with cruft. I'd hate to see it be de-featured, but we really need to get it up to par where the FA standards are concerned. To me, the article is spending way too much time on the Beatles' musical influences and the like, when all that should be going to its own subarticle. We are overloading the reader with information. The song catalogue is out of place. The references should list each webpage (not website) cited, and give the dat it was retrieved so future fact-checkers can find exactly what was cited as a source. (This would also be a good first step towards the conversion towards footnoting.) This article isn't exactly up to featured standard, I'd say. Johnleemk | Talk 17:22, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Note: Some of the less focused material was shipped out to The Beatles trivia. That article recently survived at AFD. --kingboyk 16:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)