Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/May 2012

May 2012

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 11:03, 5 May 2012 [1].

---

Paul McCartney

Nominator(s): — GabeMc (talk) 02:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because this long neglected important article deserves our full attention. — GabeMc (talk) 02:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment. I removed the spaces around the em-dash in the lead; otherwise, I couldn't find anything to fix in the lead. Well done. - Dank (push to talk) 03:46, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Sources comments: These comments relate to the first two columns of citations, though some of the points raised are more generally applicable.

• Non-print sources, e.g. BBC, IMDB.com etc, should not be italicised. Use the publisher rather than the "work" fiels in the citation template
• Why are citations 30 and 31 formatted differently?
• Something wrong with citation 47?
• Cit. 49: Surely a citation to an online source should have a link?
• What is the format of the source in cit. 57?
• Cit. 68 page no. missing
• Cit. 81 links to a default page
• Cit. 84: What makes http://www.jpgr.co.uk/p3113001.html a reliable source?
• Cit. 86: The web address is not "mccartney.net". This looks like a tribute site rather than a high quality encyclopedic source.
• Cit. 91: What information is being cited to theis online biography? Is this really the best biographical source for McCartney?
• Cit. 110: Page ref?
• Cit. 119: There is nothing in the source to indicate where this undated interview transcript has come from or to link it to the original. It's a typed transcipt - how do we know it's accurate (compare with 121 below)?
• Cit. 122: Page ref?
• Cit. 126: page no. missing

I will check out the others shortly. Brianboulton (talk) 15:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your sourcing comments Brian, I believe I have fixed everything you mentioned above, through cite 126, with the exception of the 1984 playboy interview cites. I have an original copy of the magazine issue on order that should arrive any day now, and I'll double-check the text, and improve the sourcing when it arrives. Thanks again, I look forward to your further suggestions when time allows. — GabeMc (talk) 01:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose from Cryptic C62. I strongly suggest that the author withdraw the nomination, as there are way too many problems in this article.

For starters, I'm disappointed to find that the lead doesn't seem to summarize the article at all, but is instead a collection of superlative trivia designed to convince the reader that McCartney is the coolest person in the universe:

• "...most successful musician and composer in popular music history"
• "...most influential and successful songwriting partnerships in the history of popular music"
• "...greatest composer of the millennium"
• "...more than any other song in the history of recorded music"
• "...most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history"
• "...one of the UK's wealthiest people"

Seriously, we get the point already. The lead should, ideally, contain some information from each of the main-level sections of the body; Childhood and Contact with fellow ex-Beatles are not represented in the lead.

What's worse, the body of the article itself is also riddled with single-sentence paragraphs, unsourced statements, and meaningless trivia (often all three at the same time):

• "He is a keen football fan, supporting both Everton and Liverpool football clubs." meaningless trivia
• "On 2 June 2010, McCartney was honoured by Barack Obama with the Gershwin Prize for his contributions to popular music in a live show for the White House with performances by Stevie Wonder, Lang Lang and many others." single-sentence paragraph
• "In an interview in 2004 he stated that he no longer smoked marijuana; he also admitted to taking heroin, LSD and cocaine but said his drug use was never excessive." single-sentence paragraph
• "In 2008, he donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 Tsunami." single-sentence paragraph, citation needed
• "The day McCartney flew into the former Soviet country, he celebrated his 62nd birthday, and after the concert, according to RIA Novosti news agency, he received a phone call from a fan; then-President Vladimir Putin, who telephoned him after the concert to wish him a happy birthday." the trifecta of uselessness
• "The minor planet 4148, discovered in 1983, was named "McCartney" in his honour." Single-sentence paragraph
• "McCartney received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 9 February 2012, the last one of the Fab Four to receive the honor." Single-sentence paragraph, only instance of "Fab Four" in the article
• "McCartney received the MusiCares Person of the Year honour on 10 February 2012." Single-sentence paragraph, meaningless trivia.

I also find it rather odd that Discography and Tours don't even contain summaries of the contents of the daughter articles. Perhaps this is standard practice for larger articles, but it just looks sloppy. I think that after the bushels of meaningless trivia are scooped out of this article, there will be plenty of space to put summaries in these sections (which, ironically, are among the few that the reader might actually care about).

There are also some problems with the sourcing:

• What makes contactmusic.com (currently Ref 197) a reliable source? Also, this ref is incomplete.
• What makes everyHit.com (currently Ref 209) a reliable source?
• Why is the sidebar of this catalog page used as a source (currently Ref 51)? If she's notable enough to be mentioned in the article, surely she must be notable enough to be described in a non-self-promotional piece of writing somewhere, right?
• "Sir Paul McCartney's agent was Hubert Chesshyre, LVO, Clarenceux King of Arms" Unless I'm missing something obvious, this statement is not supported by the source (currently Ref 247):

  From the outset the most important Heralds were called Kings of Arms. The rank still exists today and on our visit Hubert Chesshyre, Clarenceux King of Arms, was our guide. He explained the history and showed us archives dating back 600 years. We saw example of arms ranging from ancient knights of old to more recent ‘clients’ such as Sir Paul McCartney.

  Chesshyre was a guide for some tour, and one example that he showed the group was the coat of arms created for McCartney. This does not in any way imply that Chesshyre was McCartney's agent. Even if that were true, there would have to be a better source for it than this non-scholarly non-peer-reviewed non-authoritative newsletter for some completely obscure guild.

And I'm sure there were plenty of others that I missed. I reiterate my advice: Withdraw the nomination. The article is simply not ready. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and suggestoins. I think I've fixed your specific concerns above. On "too much trivia", I'll trim what I can but I would like to hear others weigh-in on that issue, on, "you need summaries for "tours" and "discographies" I respectfully disagree, the info belongs there, and a redundancy is not needed in this case IMO. — GabeMc (talk) 04:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I hadn't looked at the prose when I started to review the sources. But when I read "In 1999, BBC News Online readers voted him the 'greatest composer of the millennium' I immediately thought: "Oh dear!" That kind of meaningless accolade might be worth a wry aside in the body of the article, but to parade it in the lead as though it was a considered judgement is a different matter. How did a self-selecting online poll of web page readers measure McCartney's greatness as a composer against that of every other composer who has lived in the last 1000 years, and determine that he is the tops? The statement is frankly laughable. Don't get me wrong, I think McCartney is great, but his greatness doesn't need to be puffed, in an an encyclopedia article, by this kind of absurd hyperbole. The article should focus on his achievements, rather than reflecting the over-enthusiasm of his fan clubs. Brianboulton (talk) 10:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree, I trimmed that part out of the lede. — GabeMc (talk) 10:38, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

• Quick comment: looks like there are a number of repeated wikilinks in the body (WP:REPEATLINK) and there's one dab (Steve Miller) Mark Arsten (talk) 02:19, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, I'll go on an overlink patrol tonight, and fix the dab. — GabeMc (talk) 02:26, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Does, "Avoid linking the names of major geographic features and locations" include cites, towns, neighborhoods, etcetera? — GabeMc (talk) 02:58, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Cities, towns, and neighborhoods are fine to link, countries and continents shouldn't be. Not sure about states, I've seen it both ways. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:31, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. The article is fundamentally flawed in terms of WP:WEIGHT and WP:Summary style. The amount of material given to things like drugs and football is quite excessive compared to the amount of material given to his actual musical career. This is an article that goes into considerable detail about this or that FA Cup yet never mentions "Hey Jude". (Many other of McCartney's best and most famous songs are never mentioned either, including "Eleanor Rigby", "Long and Winding Road", "Live and Let Die", "Maybe I'm Amazed", etc, and others like "Let It Be" and "Band on the Run" are only mentioned in passing when describing later performances.) It talks about his LSD trips but never mentions that he was a highly inventive and influential bass player. It talks about his ups and downs with John but never describes what it was about their songwriting that was so acclaimed and important. It talks about an asteroid named after him but never mentions Beatlemania or Paul's persona as the 'cute' one during that era. His 30-year partnership with Linda is given the same space as his first girlfriend and less space than a long quote about Everton FC. To be honest this article looks like the pieces of an article left over after the important parts were shipped off to other articles. But that's not how summary style works, you still have to summarize the important parts and the summary sections still have to be in proper balance with the rest of the article. You cannot assume that readers will look at subarticles, because in fact, they won't. Last month Paul McCartney got 267,000 views while Paul McCartney's musical career got less than 2,000 (figures for other months are comparable). What kind of understanding of McCartney did the 99% of readers who didn't click the subarticle get? Not a very good one. This article has to tell the most important things about McCartney, and right now it too often tells the least important things. If you look at the George Harrison article, it while not perfect, has a considerably better weighting. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:32, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose, re Wasted Time R. I agree with everything s/he said, and thought the exact same thing when looking at the article. Thank you for working on the page, it certainly is important, but some attention needs to be paid to the content and layout. Far more focus needs to be given to his musical career and importance, and far less given to other aspects of his life (I like personal life info, but this is a bit excessive). --Lobo (talk) 09:13, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. I am entirely in agreement with User:Wasted Time R's posting (above) -- Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 09:19, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 19:01, 4 May 2012 [2].

---

Jim Carrey

Nominator(s): Samgibbs (talk) 22:45, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that it gives a thoroughly detailed and insightful look into the career of Jim Carrey, while maintaining the high standards similar to other featured articles. The information is frequently referenced with highly reliable sources, and is well written. The article does not go into unneccessary detail, staying completely on-topic. Moreover, the article is expanded through different media including images, giving the article a balanced structure that is extremely engaging and colourful to read. Samgibbs (talk) 22:45, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

• At first glance the links need some work, there are a couple bare urls, two dabs, and two dead links. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose for now. Someone may help with the prose, but if not, it's not ready. - Dank (push to talk)

• "he has been described as one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood, a label for which he has received substantial media attention.": He hasn't gotten attention for having a label, he's gotten attention for his work.
• "with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective; which soon followed with its sequel ...": sentence fragment, and it didn't follow itself with its own sequel
• The release years for Dumb and Dumber and The Mask are ambiguous.
• "in highly popular productions The Cable Guy (1996), and Liar Liar (1997)": in the highly ..., and no comma
• "in which he earned": for which he earned
• "soon after" and "then" are a little redundant; you'd be better off without them.
• That's just in the first two paragraphs, so I'm gonna stop there. - Dank (push to talk) 00:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
• P.S. I prefer this version of the lead from about 5 days ago, before this nom started working on the article. - Dank (push to talk) 02:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose: By no means a bad article, but the prose is certainly rough in places (see above comments), and the lead needs to be more than a roll-call of Carrey's films and awards. As far as I can see this article has never been subject to formal review. It has been compiled by hundreds of different editors (3000+ edits with no single editor contributing more than 90), and looks to me to need some careful shepherding through the review processes before it is ready for FAC nomination. I suggest that peer review is an appropriate route here, and should it be nominated there I will be happy to take on the review and help prepare the article for an FAC resubmission. Brianboulton (talk) 10:03, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. Lots of problems.

• "Unfortunately, Carrey's impersonations bombed..." and "In 1984, Carrey was soon cast, surprisingly, as the lead..." are just two examples of the highly unencyclopedic language throughout the article.
• Whosdatedwho.com, currently Ref 45, is not a reliable source.
• Twitter, currently ref 50... there is literally no circumstance under which a tweet should be used in favor of something more substantial.
• The fourth paragraph of Early life contains no inline citations
• The third paragraph of Continued success also contains unsourced statements
• There is a one-sentence paragraph in the lead, and another at the end of Continued success.
• Worse, Citizenship contains a single sentence in its entirety.
• Inconsistent usage of hyphens and endashes in the Filmography table.

I agree with Brian: The nominator should have made an effort to obtain feedback on the article before coming to FAC. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose and speedy close, per above. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:00, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Ian Rose 23:37, 1 May 2012 [3].

---

Bankers' Toadies incident

Nominator(s): Steve Smith (talk) 01:49, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

This is my first time here in a while, and I'm nominating an article on which most of the work was done a couple of years ago. It's short, but I believe it's comprehensive; about the only area that could be significantly expanded from reliable secondary sources if the background to the incident, and I've deliberately kept that fairly short to avoid just repeating material found in other articles. I also happen to believe that it's interesting, which makes it a pleasant change from most of the drek I submit. It's received good article and peer reviews, both of which significantly informed the article's content.

The obvious sourcing question is about my use of the Alberta Online Encyclopedia. It was published by the Alberta Heritage Community Foundation (though it's now been taken over by the University of Alberta, the pages that I'm citing don't yet seem to be online at the U of A's version), which partners with a wide variety of academic and archival institutions. While where possible I have preferred work by named, academic sources, I believe that the AOE is suitable as a source for the purposes for which I have used it. Steve Smith (talk) 01:49, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Additional point: I note that the linkchecker claims that the link to the audio of Unwin's account of the incident is dead; I have just confirmed that it is not. Steve Smith (talk) 01:54, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done. Welcome back! Nikkimaria (talk) 16:09, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the review.

• References should be after Notes

• Done.

• Don't italicize archive dates

• That's the template - I'll raise the possibility of changing it on the template talk page.

• Check for minor glitches like doubled periods

• Fixed the one instance of that. Had a quick scan and didn't see any other issues.

• Why link Toronto twice in References but not link Edmonton at all? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:09, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

• Because Toronto is a World Class City, and Edmonton is a clapboard outhouse. Steve Smith (talk) 17:21, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Images are unproblematic, captions are fine. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:18, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Support with nitpicks. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

• Are the Social Credit Party and the Social Credit League the same thing?
• "He also recommended that he be deported following his sentence" - where to?
• Where is the Fort Saskatchewan Penitentiary?
• Did the Order in Council dismissing Gibson come from the provincial or federal government? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. The answers to your questions, in order:

• Yes.
• To the UK; I clarified this.
• Wikilinked Fort Saskatchewan.
• Provincial - clarified.

Thanks again. Steve Smith (talk) 00:00, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Support with one minor comment: (Dana boomer (talk) 14:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC))

• Aftermath, why is Criminal Code of Canada italicized?

Otherwise, a very nice little article on an intriguing incident. Good to see you back at FAC! Dana boomer (talk) 14:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Spotchecks - Everything looks fine, no concerns. These are just of web refs, as I don't have access to the book refs. Dana boomer (talk) 14:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to withdraw this, if I could; I've found some issues with the sourcing. My thanks and apologies to those who have offered their reviews so far. Steve Smith (talk) 01:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that when it seemed to be going well; hope to see you back here with it when you've resolved those concerns -- and thanks to Dana for alerting me to your request. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:28, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.