Talk:Freddie Mercury

Archive

"There Must Be More To Life Than This"

Hello everybody! While looking about more info about this song on Google I've arrived to this article... then I've managed to track down the source of this addition: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury&diff=26593416&oldid=26580681 My problem is that I was looking for information about this song because I've just listened to it on Pandora, which means that the song has been released! Moreover, while listening to it, it didn't seem that there were any other vocals besides Freddie's (Michael Jackson is however well known, so his voice can be easily recognized). Can anybody clarify this piece of information? Thanks! --Vlad|-> 17:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey Vlad, I can clear this up. The track you heard on Pandora is likely the solo Freddie version of "There Must Be More To Life Than This" off of his album Mr. Bad Guy. The Michael Jackson version has not been officially released, but the demo version has leaked onto the Web. Suigi 17:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Images (once again)

Interesting picture, the one with Freddie at colleage, never seen it before, thanks for adding that one (even if it is a bit small). Can someone please add the one with him striking that pose at Wembley? He is very much associated with his 'tache and poses/theatrics on stage, so that pic would be very representetive. Maybe also add the black and white of him in the white shirt and black tie from 1990? MatteusH 19:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Is the image "Freddie_mercury_1991.jpg" really from 1991? TheClassic (talk) 02:15, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably. It's from the video These Are the Days of Our Lives which was released in 1991. ... discospinster _talk 02:22, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Jim Hutton

I read his book a long time ago. IIRC, when it came out, the Queen Fan Club disavowed the book, stating that Jim was out to swindle as much money as he could from Freddie, and that Freddie never cared about him that much.

I was surprised to find parts of his book as references, when it's nothing more than mere tabloid gossip, not worthy of being considered on Wikipedia.

Freddie's Famous pose

at wembley stadium in 86, freddie did a pose that i think the swiss modeled after, what song/vid is that pose in?? if you know answer on my talk page please Tu-49 00:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure its during the song Another One Bites The Dust but the camera cuts to another angle just before he does this great pose on the DVD Live at Wembley. I could be wrong so I'll play the DVD again and find out. Chilkoot (talk) 21:16, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Disgusting

I object to having that grainy picture of Mercury as the main picture. You can hardly see it's him, and since most people remember him with a 'tache, it's better to have the headshot one of him with the 'tache and leather jacket, it's more fitting. No need to remove the one we have now, just place it a bit down in the article.MatteusH 19:52, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I thought a live shot of him would be better.AcidEdge76 12:50, 31 May 2007

Are the new photos i picked better?

The main picture is horrible. Go back to his Wembley shot, it's the most iconic of him. 71.195.95.203 00:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I heavily second this motion. That shot is terrible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.111.16.108 (talk) 18:47, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

Please take away this picture of Freddie. I don't understand, whoever put this picture knows that there are tons of other great pics of Freddie. The headshot of him or one of his famous poses. Why can't you use that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Parmis17 (talk • contribs) 06:46, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

The picture that is currently being used is free. If you can find a better free one then fine but all I could find on Wikipedia was Image:Queen 1984 0009.jpg and it looks worse. There are several of the statue but that's not much better either. Any fair use image will be removed. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 22:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't different rules apply to images of dead people, as no one can go and take a picture of them? --Tyrfing 16:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Then just put a pic of the statue. It's more iconic and better fitting for an immortal being like Freddie than that badly taken pic.

Seriously, the current pic is even worse. There are millions of beautiful pics out there, it surely can't be that hard to put a decent one> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.156.55.135 (talk) 00:17, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It's not about whether a picture is good looking, we could use a good picture easily, but we can't use a non-free image. FamicomJL 00:26, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Quotation section

Any objections to removing the quotations section and simply including a wikiquote link? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 07:10, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Editing Persian Hertiage

Whoever is taking out the fact that Freddie had Persian roots needs to stop. You cannot just "feel that it's akward" that the section of first Persian and Indian rock star should not be there and just take it out. Millions of people read from wikipedia and you are taking out a very important fact. If you just type in Freddie Mercury Persian in Yahoo, everything that comes up will defend that he had Persian roots, some will even say he had Persian parents. Please read this article from BBC and you cannot argue that BBC is not a reliable source.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3593532.stm

"Mercury, who died in 1991, was proud of his Iranian ancestry, and illegal bootleg albums and singles made Queen one of the most popular bands in Iran. " - BBC NEWS

Those would believed in the Zoroastrian faith were Persians that fled from Iran to Hormuz, then to India during the Arab conquest. Since you are not "deleting" the fact that he was a Zoroastrian, then you cannot delete the fact that he had Persian roots.

I have noticed that you kept the paragraph about his Indian decent, but you have taken out the one sentence stating that he mentioned in interviews that he was Persian. How can you take out a sentence that he himself has admitted to?

EDITED PARAGRAPH

Mercury kept his Indian descent a secret from most of his fans, rarely mentioning his heritage in interviews. Many friends expressed their view that Mercury felt ashamed of his ethnic origins and feared racial backlash in a country that had long been troubled by race riots and violence against Indian immigrants. On the other hand, fellow band mate Roger Taylor suggested that Mercury downplayed his Indian heritage simply because he did not feel that it would fit well with his rock musician persona.

REAL PARAGRAPH

Mercury kept his Indian descent a secret from most of his fans, rarely mentioning his heritage in interviews. He would sometimes refer to himself as "Persian," perhaps alluding to his identity as a Parsi. Many friends expressed their view that Mercury felt ashamed of his ethnic origins and feared racial backlash in a country that had long been troubled by race riots and violence against Indian immigrants. On the other hand, fellow band mate Roger Taylor suggested that Mercury downplayed his heritage simply because he did not feel that it would fit well with his rock musician persona.

http://www.westhamforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?tid=8292

This clearly shows that you are picking and choosing what you want his hertiage to be and that is extremely wrong.

Nobody's picking out anything. The fact that we mention that he is a "Parsi" shows clearly that he is of Persian roots. We're taking out redundancy from the paragraph. If you look at any other article on a Parsi on wikipedia (and trust me all Parsis do call themselves Persian often), they will just call them Parsi from India or just Parsi, regardless if they called themselves "Persian" or "Indian". Also, I wrote that paragraph that you are comparing above. I agree with you it should not be edited. There I agree with you. But nobody's downplaying the fact that he's Persian by removing that. In fact, we removed half the Indian references too. I don't want this article to have too much talk on his "ethnicity" which really didn't matter to him as it matters to you guys. I'm just keeping its discussion short by calling him a person whose parents Bomi and Jer Bulsara, were Parsi-Zoroastrians from India. End of story. No more discussion of Persian or Indian, other than the paragraph you are mentioning. Also, lots of official biographies call him a Parsi, even VH1 in all of its features on Mercury call him just a plain Parsi, no Indian or Persian attached. If you type on Yahoo, you'll find thousands of more sources calling him Parsi rather than sources calling him "Persian" or "Indian'. Ciao Afghan Historian 03:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, to reply to a few more of your points. People reading wikipedia will want to know about "Freddie Mercury" not where he came from. Most real biographies of Freddie Mercury don't even go into this much depth on Freddie's ethnicity other than just to explain his childhood. The only documentary that even talks about him hiding his "Indian/Persian" background is the recent birthday anniversary special "Freddie Mercury-A Kind of Magic". Also, none of the sources you provide say he's the first "Persian rock star" they just say that he's Persian. You're interpreting the sources and thats misleading. The same goes for the "Indian rock star" edits. None of them say that he's actually the first "Indian rock star". They are all just interpretations. We could say he had Persian parents but remember that would imply to most readers that he is an Iranian from modern Iran and that would be misleading as he was a Parsi whose ancestors left that country 1000 + years ago. Likewise, calling him just an Indian would lead many readers to assume he was "Muslim" or "Hindu" or "Christian" or "Jewish" or something. The Parsis are a relatively obscure group from India and none of the average knowledge about India includes knowledge on the Parsis. Freddie had a unique Zoroastrian upbringing that his parents themselves feel is a key part of who he was before he went to England. Calling him a "Parsi" would be far more accurate as its putting his Persian and Indian backgrounds into context. We should keep it as it is, with a brief descriptor of his background as a Parsi-Zoroastrian from India and that short paragraph on his ethnicity, with a proper source. But that's where it should end. A lot of die-hard Persian and Indian fans will want to highlight his Indian and Persian backgrounds by adding in all these paragraphs on how he was Persian or Indian and his significance to either country. That's not being encylopedic. You can't just be selfish and highlight what a random source on the net says. You have to go by reliable sources. And most reliable sources say he's a Parsi, end of story. Afghan Historian 03:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

well, he was genetically form Modern day Iran! and you think you are more merit than the singer himself, he called himself a Persian and you have problem with it! Ali, Lebanon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.146.46.15 (talk) 22:46, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Another Reason: Afghans hate Persians, coz Iranian regime has kicked more than half million illegal Afghan workers as well as their families out of the country! hehe Jason.

Genetically speaking, Freddie Mercury was a mix of indian and persian blood. Modern day gujurati's are very similar to parsis, since the parsis have mingled with the local indian stock over the course of the millenia. And anyways, Indians are at times visually very similar to iranians. They do not differ by that much, imho. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.156.55.135 (talk) 23:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Lol, His own family said he was "Parsi". According to his own sister, the reason he called himself "Persian" was because nobody knew what a Parsi was, not because he actually saw himself as a "Persian". His own birth certificate says "Parsee". And btw, I'm a Pakistani, not an Afghan. The "Afghan" represents the fact that I'm a Pathan from the Frontier. User: Afghan Historian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.255.202.121 (talk) 02:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Edits

OK, some fairly major edits have been made in order to make the article read the way that an encyclopedia article should read. In the first place, there were too many random, fragmented sentences that did not fit anywhere. There were also a lot of trivial facts, such as the names of people who were in Freddie Mercury's school bands. This is trivia that does not belong in an encyclopedia article.

Another issue involves the rambling nature of what used to be the "biography" section. It went on and on before the reader had even been introduced to why Freddie Mercury is famous in the first place. Keep in mind that an encyclopedia article should be aimed toward a general audience with no previous knowledge about Freddie. At the same time, I would argue that the large number of references supplied in the article also allow the expert fan to learn something new as well here.

Freddie Mercury's love life and cause of death are less important than his contributions to rock music. For that reason, these portions of the former "biography" section were moved to a later part of the article. Let's face it, who you fuck and how you die are not things that make you deserving of an encyclopedia article. Music deserves a more prominent place here, in front of these types of topics.

Another thing is always familiarity. Remember that the average person reading this does not know what Zoroastrianism is, for instance. It is important to specifically clarify for the average person what this means, although the average Queen fan may know about it. I changed the introduction to better explain this.

Oh yeah, another thing involves ethnic descriptions. As far as I am concerned, Freddie Mercury was "British Asian" and not "British." Let's face it, Freddie Mercury was not white (although he may have wished differently!). Mercury was of full Parsi Indian descent and did not move to England until he was 17. On the other hand, "British" implies that he is some kind of a white dude. It just does not sound right. A quick glance should tip you off right away to the fact that his ancestors were not from from Britain.

Oh, and another thing is the "quotations" sections. I don't know how you feel, but I think that they look kind of shitty the ways that they are formatted differently. I don't know. A final thing involves the broken links.

67.190.44.85 02:39, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I came here from Wiki's "Lamest Edit Wars" page. And now I can certainly see why.

This article is a fine example of why no serious research takes Wikipedia seriously. The edit wars over the banal and irrelevant is bad enough - but the obvious left-leaning over-emphasis on his sexuality and his ethnicity are ludicrous. Obviously, in an actual encyclopedia, his music would be 90% of the page, with some mention of his sexuality and the cause of his death. His ethnicity would rate perhaps a sentence.

74.185.105.135 (talk) 19:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Appearance

For a while, his article featured the following: "Also the song “The Show Must Go On” also suggests his illness is progressing. “My make-up may be flaking but my smile stays on” is one part of the line. To hide the fact that he was ill, Freddy used a lot of make-up to hide his features (that came with the illness); the line “my make-up may be flaking” means that his make-up is starting to fail to hide his frail appearance. Also in the song “I’m Going Slightly Mad,” there are several indications to the video. Firstly, the reason why the video is in black and white is not only to show difference in Freddy compared to all the other videos of his being color - indicates his madness - but it also hides his appearance more, hiding all his features (from the illness). Also in the video, you see a black circle around Freddy's eyes; not all of that is make-up. To make it seem like make-up and part of the film, he put make-up along his eyes though the initial dark shade around his eyes came from his illness." Is this verifiable? --Tim, 4 July, 2007

B-class designation is dated

This article received a B-class designation over a year ago. Since then, major improvements have been made. Furthermore, I have yet to see any feedback based upon the supposed designation, so I am not sure why anyone should take this seriously. Perhaps it is time to have another evaluation. On the other hand, unless the person evaluating the article is able to provide some sort of explanation for a B-class rating, then I am not sure why we are supposed to care.67.190.44.85 06:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

If you want this article to be rated higher than B class, it needs to be submitted as a Good article candidate or for A-class review. In the mean time, please don't remove the project tags from the top of this page. --Belovedfreak 11:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Death date?

Personally, I thought Freddie Mercury died on the 15th of August in 1991. But obviously not, because Google seems to say otherwise. Oh well. R.I.P. Freddie. Metamorphosing 14:51, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Nope. He died in November of '91. Close, though! - Tim, 10 July, 2007

A better description of Zoroastrianism is needed

Simply saying that Mercury's parents were "Parsi Zoroastrians" is not helpful for many readers. Let's face it, Zoroastrianism is an obscure religion that is practiced by only 200,000 people in the world today. Furthermore, a good encyclopedia article should always ensure that everyone can follow and understand what is bwing said. It therefore makes more sense to say,

"...born to Parsi Indians who practiced the ancient Zoroastrian religion."

This is less confusing than "...born to Parsi Zoroastrians."

Someone has clearly taken out the fact that he was Zoroastrian. I have put it back, because Parsi-Zoroastrian is considered a whole. Someone that is Parsi from India is practicing the Zoroastrian faith as well. Or as someone here mentioned, we can put in the quoted sentence above.

OK, I do not at all like the sound of "Parsi-Zoroastrianisms." For one thing, it is redundant. I mean, all Parsis supposedly practice this religion. The second problem is that it assumes too much familiarity on the part of the reader. Let's face it, there are one 200,000 Zoroastrians in the world today. Most people probably do not know that this is a religion rather than an ethnic group for instance. Therefore, the sentence should say: "...bornoto Parsis from India who practiced the ancient Zoroastrian religion." 138.67.44.175 23:05, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Would you like us to explain what the phrase "Bohemian Rhapsody" means too? Perhaps as "an enthusiastic instrumental composition of indefinite form to further self-expression"? Why stop there? Pick any technical term that appears in the article, coloratura for instance. Seriously, you don't have to explain terms that have articles behind the links. If a user doesn't understand (and is at all interested), he/she'll will follow it up. -- Fullstop 01:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

DO NOT ERASE MY WORK UNTIL I AM FINISHED

Trusliver, I was quite disturbed to see that you carelessly erased large sections of my work without any discussion with me beforehand. Among other things, I had been adding large numbers of new references to the Freddie Mercury page. As your carelessness here has cost me about 20 mintues of my time, there is no doubt that YOU are acting as the vicious “vandal” here. I recommend that you discuss major edits with others before making them. Moreover, I hope that you will refrain from making further edits until I am finished tonight.67.190.44.85 06:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Please discuss with me before simply erasing messages here

HI, Although the above message may sound very harsh, my work was seriously compromised last night by someone who simply erased large sections of what I had done without first communicating with me. It is my hope that this will not happen again. As you can see, I added many new references to this site. Although his carelessness cost me a great deal of my time, I have yet to hear any response from this individual. 138.67.44.41 16:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Please calm down. Angry messages such as those you've been leaving on User talk:Trusilver are counterproductive and more likely to make other editors consider you to be disruptive rather than an editor working in good faith to improve the article. In this case, a calm discussion here on the talk page regarding the changes you had made would likely get better, and faster, results than repeatedly posting to Trusilver's talk page in anger and edit summaries such as this. Take a deep breath, keep it cool and civil, and it's more likely that things will be resolved faster and easier than by reacting in anger. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I advised you afterward that due to your use of an anon account, it's best if you use an edit summary especially when you are deleting large blocks of text so it does not give the appearance of vandalism. You chose instead to start making personal attacks and leaving disruptive messages. You claim I cost you thirty minutes of time (untrue, all you needed to do was to revert, if you would like me to teach you how to do so, I would be more than happy to), and in making such a spectacle of it, you cost yourself 72 hours of time and it was completely unnecessary. I am sincerely hoping that when you come off of your block three days from now you will see that more can be accomplished with a polite message than a incivil rant. I wish you a good day and a relaxing weekend. Trusilver 19:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this for real?

Mercury (on right) with his college friends in 1964, after a lunchtime drink. Is there a source here? Maybe this picture is old hat to fans, but it seems a little goofy. Especially the description: "His rather conventional appearance hides his hugely extrovert nature!" --Knulclunk 21:05, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

== Yes, it is for real == Gladstone22 15:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It looks like him, but it's a stupid picture anyway. By the way, can someone get better pics to this article? All the current stink, to be honest, especially the main one. MatteusH 10:31, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Michael Jackson Removed

I do not see any reason for why we are supposed to keep the paragraph about Mercury's work with Michael Jackson. The problem is that the material was never officially released. For that reason, I do not think that it is relevant enough to warrant an entire paragraph. I do not see why we are supposed to be "honored" by the fact that they worked together. Do you see any mention of it in Michael Jackson's article? And yet HE is the one who should have been honored. If you have a differing opinion, write me back here. 138.67.44.158 16:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Name change belongs under "controversy regarding ethnicity."

The attempt to bury his name is part of the ethnic controversy. I does not deserve its own section. 138.67.44.175 22:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

As the quotation stands, that is original research. Look carefully: Where in the sentence

A close friend told journalist David Bret: "Faroukh Bulsara was a name he had buried. He never wanted to talk about any period in his life before he became Freddie Mercury, and everything about Freddie Mercury was a self-constructed thing."

do you see the word "ethnicity"? All it talkes about is him changing his name. Remember this comes *before* what Taylor had to say. You haven't told the reader yet that persona and name are related. Watch carefully what effect your sentence has.

^*Mercury has further been criticized for having kept his Indian ethnicity a secret from the public. A close friend^[?] told journalist David Bret: "Faroukh Bulsara was a name^* he had buried.^* He never wanted to talk about any period^* in his life before he became Freddie Mercury, and everything about Freddie Mercury was a self-constructed thing."^* Bandmate Roger Taylor suggested that Mercury downplayed his heritage^* simply because he did not feel that it would fit well with his public persona. ... "

Thats terrible!

Now, back to the OR: *IF* the source actually made that statement in a context which explicitely discussed ethnicity, then you should also include it as such in the article. But as it stands now, its busted. What you need to do is modify that insertion so that a) the subject of the sentence is not his name but his ethnicity. Like this:

Mercury has further been criticized for having kept his Indian ethnicity a secret from the public. Bandmate Roger Taylor suggested that Mercury downplayed his heritage simply because the singer did not feel that it would fit well with his public persona. A similar sentiment was expressed by another one of Freddie's close friends: "He never wanted to talk about any period in his life before he became Freddie Mercury."

See? You've said what you wanted to say and kept the flow going.

-- Fullstop 02:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds great. My only point here was that the "name" issue does not warrant its own one-sentence heading and should be incorporated into the "ethnicity" section. 138.67.44.175 20:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Major edits

I am making major edits. Come here to discuss anything that you disagree with. One of the major issues with the article was that it was biased in favor of the subject. I am trying to make it more neutral. 138.67.44.175 05:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

About time. Can you please change the current pics of him. The main one is really bad.MatteusH 06:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Got another free one? The only other one I could find on commons is Image:Queen 1984 0009.jpg and it looks worse or as was being used a shot of the statue. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 14:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

GA Fail

I've quick-failed the article based on the non-free dispute of Image:Bulsara.jpg. That issue should be resolved before renominating the article again. Also, taking a very quick look at the article, I'd recommend expanding the lead section dramatically (see WP:LEAD) and also putting some text in the discography sections, not just two links. Drewcifer3000 20:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

An editor has expressed confusion of my "quick-fail" review, so I'll explain myself a little further. Any article with images under incomplete, suspicious, or disputed non-free status can be failed on the spot without further review. It seems as if Image:Bulsara.jpg has been intentionally mistagged, so until that issue is resolved or the image is removed, the article fails to comply to the GA criteria. Although I quick-failed the article, I also tried to give a few tips to improve the article (the lead and the discography section), and I would recommend taking care of those before renominating the article, as I'm sure they will come up. If anyone has any more concerns, feel free to let me know. Drewcifer3000 23:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. Although I have no IDEA of this non-free dispute issue is all about, I am sure that we can collectively figure it out what we as a page can do here. 138.67.44.69 23:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Happy to help. Copyright issues can be pretty complicated, so I don't know how well I can explain things, but I'll try. If you go to Image:Bulsara.jpg's page, you should noticed a box towards the bottom that says the creator of the work gives permission. This basically means the creator of the work has granted Wikipedia permission to use the image of their copyrighted material. This permission has to be documented appropriately to confirm that someone didn't just make it up, and that the author actually did grant permission. The image provides no evidence uploader has authority to release image under the GFDL, so odds are they just made that up. So in other words, having that image up beaks copyright laws and so it should be taken down or, alternatively, the image should be justified for use some other way, probably fair-use. Fair use says that even though something is copyrighted, we should include it because it has some historical significance that is irreplaceable. Fair-use has alot of rules associated with it, which I won't go into, but check out WP:FUC for more info on that. As the status of the image stands, the image's inclusion means the article can't pass GA review. Drewcifer 23:28, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Time to renominate as Good Article

Now that we have done everything that Drewcifer recommended, I think that we are ready to renominate this article as a Good Article. The reason it failed had to do with the use of copyrighted photos, not with quality. Furthermore, the French version of this article was recently a featured article. Although I in no way mind, they did use a lot of the information from this page. (At the same time, I have borrowed things from some of the foreign language pages as well.) If you want to nominate it, go to this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Good_article_candidates. SInce I already nominated it, someone else should try this time. I also made a lot of edits, so I am actually not supposed to be involved at all.138.67.44.69 23:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

IMO, the citations need to be cleaned up. They are difficult to read/follow,^[n1] have no consistent citation style, and there are several that are listed more than once.

I suggest the use of {{harvnb}} referencing with the accompanying use of {{citation}} templates. Such a transition would resolve the three problems I've mentioned. It would also allow proper page numbering and proper footnotes.^[n2] See Rabindranath Tagore for examples.

-- Fullstop 23:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

^{n1) in the one case where I ran into this, a link was only provided once, even though the same source was listed multiple times, so I had to look around for the other reference to find the link.
n2) such as this one, to explain little things out-of-line.}

Thanks changing the citation method! It looks great! The only thing we need now is to fill in some of the missing page numbers and sources. 138.67.44.69 04:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Great. I will do what you are saying.67.190.44.85 23:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. I had four hours to spare. :)

Incidentally, I found that many of the web references to articles/etc are actually on a fan website. The links should be moved out of the citation itself. For example, by adding a (*copy*) tag at the end of the citation, with "*copy*" being the url/link. Otherwise, it looks like you don't actually have the original articles, and that the citation is based only on the copy. If that were so, you would have to cite the copy, and not the original.

Also, for those periodical articles with an editor instead of an author, the originals should be dug up and the names of the authors determined.

You might wish to split the Bibliography section into "Books"/"Periodicals"/"Web News"/"Fan sites" (or some such division). You could then use (for example) '; Books' to subdivide the section without the sub-section names appearing in the table-of-contents.

-- Fullstop 01:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Fullstop, Great to know. I will have to follow these rules whenever I add new references in the future. I will also work some on the missing pages over the next week or so. I wonder about how I can get it looked at for Featured Article status now, since people who work on an article are not supposed to nominate it. Whatever. That sort of implies that it may never be nominated by an outside person. 67.190.44.85 07:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Its probably a good idea to ask for "Good Article" status before you try for "Featured article" status. :)

To ask for GA status, follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Good article candidates‎. There are no restrictions on who can nominate an article.

-- Fullstop 07:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I just realized that the peer review is outdated. A new one should be requested/handled before applying for GA. -- Fullstop 08:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Time for a Peer Review!

It is now time for another peer review. In particular, I am interested to see opinions regarding whether the current article is overly biased in favor of the subject. At the same time, I think that it is necessary to establish for the reader why this particular individual is important. After all, it is quite a lot to read. Although I think that we have incorporated a good criticism section, I want to ensure that this article reads like an encyclopedia article rather than a fan page. 67.190.44.85 03:23, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Did Freddie graduate cum laude?

"The family moved into a small house in Feltham, London. Mercury enrolled at Isleworth Polytechnic (now West Thames College) in West London where he studied art. He ultimately earned a Diploma in Art and Graphic Design at Ealing Art College,"

I've seen a documentary in which they tell thar Freddie Mercury graduated cum laude. The article doesn't mention it? I think it is interesting since it shows how huge his talent was for creativity. 193.190.253.148 23:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

"cum laude" isn't a concept that's found often in British educational establishments, and so probably isn't an official designation. Also, with every possible respect to Freddie's musical genius, Ealing Art College is not exactly a prestigious organisation, and a Diploma not a very high qualification. Even if he graduated top of the class it wouldn't be real evidence of his (undisputedly huge) creative talent. 199.71.183.2 16:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Nomination

This article has been renominated for Good Article status. Many edits were made based upon the peer review. New photos and a new citation method have also helped to improve the quality of this article over the past couple of months. Boab 06:59, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I have made numerous reference fixes, along with small grammatical fixes. The article now looks like it should be able to easily pass the Good Article criteria. FamicomJL 16:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Minor grammar etc aside, the article will fail as long as people keep fiddling with it improving it. An article needs to be stable for it to meet GA. -- Fullstop 17:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Fullstop, all we're doing is helping fix the sources, which would more than likely only keep the article on hold if we hadn't done so. A day's worth of ref and citation editing isn't going to fail the article. I just noticed what you meant, just now. Looks like a few other editors were making numerous edits to the past in the manner of a few days. My apologies for adding to it. FamicomJL 18:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

You misunderstood,... :) What I was referring to was the new material that have been added since filing for GA. "Minor grammar etc" (to quote myself) are of course not an issue. And there would not have new citations that needed fixing if new material hadn't been added. :) -- Fullstop 18:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

errr. yes, thats what I meant. And no need to apologize! We're all in the same boat. -- Fullstop 18:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, my bad then. :) That's one of the things I hate, when the citations get all messed up, with awkward spacing and such. FamicomJL 19:27, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the new references that I added yesterday. I forgot about the "stability" issue. I will refrain from adding anythinbg else. I wonder when and how we will know the results. 138.67.44.69 22:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

New references are fine too -- as long as they are just new references for existing material, and not references for new material. Whats important is there are no significant changes to subject matter, "significant" being left to the discretion of the reviewer. :Incidentally, the article is tagged with "Category:All pages needing cleanup", which can be grounds for a quick fail. I don't know when that tag was added, or why, but if the issue has been resolved it should be removed asap.

-- Fullstop 00:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it has to do with the fact that there's a "page needed" citation in there. Please, someone find the book and get the right page, I don't want to see this artice failed over ONE citation...FamicomJL 04:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Kudos to whomever fixed the citation. FamicomJL 04:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Never popular with rock critics

I don't think that there is anything to be ashamed of here, although maybe we should have a vote. Remember that this is not a fan page. It is an encyclopedia article designed to show every perspective from a neutral point of view.

Furthermore, it is quite clear that the critics were off here. Trust me, the guy who panned Queen II does NOT want to be reminded of this. After all, he was not able to forsee that this band would go on to spend more weeks of the UK Album Charts that The Beatles!

By the way, "Rolling Stone" continues in its attempt to ignore Queen and Freddie Mercury. For instance, look at their lists of greatest whatever and tell me how many Queen songs you see. Despite the fact that "Bohemian Rhapsody" has been voted #1 again and again and again, they refuse to acknowledge it even as one of the top 100 songs. There is something really anomalous (and maybe even sinister) here that should be pointed out. Boab 20:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

True or not, you're not citing it. And "Although Queen was never popular with rock music critics" needs a citation to be in the article. Gscshoyru 21:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Citing specific bad reviews to show he was generally badly reviewed includes your own analysis. You need to cite someone who has done the analysis and says so. Otherwise it can't be in there. Gscshoyru 21:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Do doubt that Queen "was not always popular with critics"

OK, the sentence will be changed from "never popular" to "not always popular." The three citations given make it clear that this is the case.

By the way, is it surprising but true that the addition of the criticism actually enhances the reader's appreciation for F. Mercury. In the first place, it make this one of the rare articles on Wikipedia that is actually believable. In other words, unlike all of the other pages, this is not a fan page. By the way, see my criticism of the Mariah Carey page, which I am trying to get removed from Featured Article status. In the second place, it is a great accomplishment on the part of F. Mercury and Quene that they were able to perservere in the face of criticism that in many cases is just utterly hateful (a bucket of urine?!).Boab 21:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

If you change it to "not always," then it's not in any way special. No book or singer or movie is always well reviewed by all critics, you can always find one that doesn't like it. So it's not notable enough for inclusion if you do that. Gscshoyru 21:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Although most artists have probably received some bad reviews at one time or another, Queen was picked on a lot by rock music critics. The same thing is true of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. For whatever reason, rock critics have decided that they like songs that are comprised of 3 chords and that have no melody. They also have an unfortunate tendency to want to elevate words over music. Unfortunately for their sake, these same critics probably don’t appreciate Bach of Mozart either. Whatever. At the same time, there is no reason to panic here, and this in no way diminishes Freddie Mercury’s accomplishments. I also think that the current sentence is a nice compromise here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boab (talk • contribs) 01:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

My two cents (cf. NB below):

"The critical reception given to the band's output continued to be somewhat unfavorable despite this huge popularity" (thats a direct quotation)

The appropriate ref would read:

<ref>{{harvnb|NNDB|2007|loc=para. 5}}.</ref>

The accompanying citation is:

* {{citation|author = NNDB|title = Freddy Mercury|year = 2007|publisher = Soylent Communications|location = Mountain View|accessdate = {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}-{{subst:CURRENTMONTH}}-{{subst:CURRENTDAY2}}|url = http://www.nndb.com/people/521/000044389/}}.

NB: Notwithstanding that NNDB is cited by hundreds of articles, I'm not certain whether anything by Soylent Communications counts would qualify as a reliable source. :)

-- Fullstop 18:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to change it if you want. Your choice. Boab 04:44, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved

Shouldn't there be dates in the references/bibliography for when the web pages were last retrieved? --andreasegde 00:50, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Freddie's Anime Apperance

A character who is a direct reference to Freddie Mercury appears in the anime Cromartie High School. He looks like him, he is called Freddie by the characters, there's a guitar riff whenever he appears, and several times he'll be seen with a mic, or musical instrument. I believe this should be mentioned somewhere in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.178.138.165 (talk) 12:40, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Review

1. It is well written. In this respect:

(a) the prose is clear and the grammar is correct; and b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation.

1. It is factually accurate and verifiable. In this respect, it:

(a) provides references to all sources of information, and at minimum contains a section dedicated to the attribution of those sources in accordance with the guide to layout;[2] (b) at minimum, provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons; and (c) contains no original research.

1. It is broad in its coverage. In this respect, it:

(a) addresses the major aspects of the topic; and (b) stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary details (see summary style).

1. It is neutral; that is, it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias.
2. It is stable; that is, it does not change significantly from day to day and is not the subject of an ongoing edit war. Vandalism reversions, proposals to split or merge content, and improvements based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply.[4]
3. It is illustrated, where possible and appropriate, by images. In this respect:

(a) all images used are tagged with their copyright status, and fair use rationales are provided for any non-free content; and (b) the images are appropriate to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Pass IMHO SriMesh | talk 04:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Recent Edits

After this article achieved GA, a few edits were made that I erased today. I think that "falsetto" is a better term, since the "countertenor" link says that this term generally only applies to opera singers. Although the new link to the book with F. Mercury's family looks interesting, I feel that this sentence does not belong in the Criticism and Controversy section. However, it looks like an interesting book, so I left the reference there. Feel free to add material from the book to other sections. However, I do not feel that it is appropriate to make any kind of excuses in the Controversy section, even if it seems harsh. Oh yeah, and the gay bathhouse thing is documented very well in the "Freddie's Loves" video. No doubt about that. It is important here I think, since readers would want to understand how he contracted HIV.Boab (talk) 06:58, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Zoroastrian relion should be mentioned in Early life section

Hi Fullstop, Although the footnotes are very nice, it is important to point out explicitly that Freddie Mercury's family practiced the Zoroastrian religion. This is a very crucial and insightful piece of information. Furthermore, I do not believe that it is sufficient to simply say that he was a "Parsi." Trust me, the vast majority of readers will fail to acquaint the Parsi ethnic group with the Zoroastrian religion. In fact, I did not know what either of the two terms meant myself until I looked them up. My point here is that some kind of explanation is needed here for the average reader. Perhaps you could supply a short and accurate description of Zoroastrianism here.Boab (talk) 04:33, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It may well be that the "vast majority of readers will fail to acquaint the Parsi ethnic group with the Zoroastrian religion." But this article is about Freddie, not about the religious beliefs of his parents. Unless you have a source that describes Freddie's beliefs, any allusion to it would be an extrapolation. During his lifetime, Freddie was not exactly the "apro Freddie" (Gujarati: "our Freddie") that he is today sometimes eulogized as.

It is really sufficient to have a footnote, you can move the footnate ref to be directly after Parsi if you prefer, or alternatively, put "(Indian Zoroastrian)" in parenthesis after "Parsi", and put the footnote ref after the ')'.

With respect to a "short and accurate description of Zoroastrianism": It is either not possible or not meaningful to describe a religion in a "short and accurate" fashion. If its short its going to be broken at some level. Eg, "Zoroastrianism is a belief in God." This is short and accurate, but not meaningful.

By way of intellectual excercise, take a look at the article on Catholicism and try to squeeze that definition into "short and accurate" statement. Or, more to the point, squeeze Zoroastrianism#Basic beliefs into a "short and accurate" statement. Its simply not possible to do so in a universally understood fashion, e.g. the application of western religious dialectology to an eastern religion would give false results (also: Wikipedia aims to address a universal audience, not specifically a western one).

In short: Its simply not possible nor advisable to attempt to "supply a short and accurate description of Zoroastrianism". If it were, the lead sentences of the Zoroastrianism article would already have it. :) -- Fullstop (talk) 16:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

African

Technically, he was born in Africa. Does he count as an African by birth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.63.59.128 (talk) 04:24, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

If a Brit is born in Hong Kong, is he Asian? 74.68.122.74 (talk) 03:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

HIV

I read some articles and they all say different times when Mercury got HIV/AIDS

Here's my list:

(Contracted HIV in 1984 on the Works Tour) (Contracted HIV in 1985 during Rock In Rio) (Diagnosed with AIDS in 1987) (Diagnosed with HIV in 1987) (Freddie Hid his illness for 2 years) (1989-1991)

The question is when did he first contract HIV?!?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregsynth (talk • contribs) 06:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The nature of the disease is such that it can exist symptom free for varying amounts of time, so that information is impossible to know. I don't think effective testing existed back then, so it's probably all guesswork. Pairadox (talk) 07:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Main Image

Why did we change the main image? He looked much better in the last one. 74.68.122.74 (talk) 03:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea whatsoever why someone removed the nice photograph that had been there for a month or more. I just restored it, and I hope that we refrain from putting up images that are either copyrighted or that look bad. Boab (talk) 01:59, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

You'll probably want to take a look at this IfD then; it appears the image you prefer doesn't qualify either. Just because it's been up for a while doesn't mean it's a valid image. Pairadox (talk) 02:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Then for pete's sake, can we find an image that doesn't look awful? FamicomJL (talk) 22:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Find a Freddie Mercury forum and ask if anyone has a picture they'd be willing to release under a free license (without any non commercial clauses)? Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 00:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, Let's go ahead and keep the nice photo. If it is deleted, then I would personally recommend that we refrain from putting up anything at all. The former photo does not even look like Freddie Mercury, and the resolution is terrible. 138.67.44.154 (talk) 16:29, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

No, let's keep the one we know we can use. It's not the greatest quality, but it does look like him (well, okay, it IS him) and it's better than anything else on the page. Oh, and if you're going to change the image you should also make sure you change the caption. Pairadox (talk) 16:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I am going to figure out where the nice photograph comes from. It will probably take a few days though. By the way, photographs are not actually required for a Good Article. For that reason, I say that we should not put up anything at all if we cannot have the best. Boab (talk) 16:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Only free licensed photos can be placed in the infobox. Please stop putting non free images there. Thanks Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 01:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

In fact, non-free images may be used when acceptable alternative are not available. For that reason, there is nothing wrong with the nice photo. Please read the following page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_use_rationale_guideline. By the way, I recommend that more of you join the current debate over the nice image versus the ugly one that is currently up there. Just come to this page: this IfD. Boab (talk) 18:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

No non free image can be placed in the infobox. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 20:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes it can. That is the whole point of the non-free use rationale guideline! By the way, here is an example this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notorious_big. Note that this article has Featured Article status as well. A non-free image was allowed here, since this subject is deceased. The same thing is true for Freddie Mercury.Boab (talk) 20:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Please understand that the free use rationale is very strict and constraining. As said before - it can be used if no free replacement could be found. But this is a photo of a man, there has to be a free alternative. It is not the same as with album covers - you can't use an alternative picture there. And by the way you can only use pictures of albums if you describe them in the article. You can't use them just to illustrate the artist for instance. But here you need a picture that has no copyright, or alternatively a picture that the copyright holder will let you use in this article. So you could theoretically ask someone to give permision. But that is a long shot I guess.
As said, all the images DO depict Freddie. Them being ugly to someone is not enough of an legal statement as far as I understand.
About the notorious big article - take a look at the revision that was promoted to a featured article - it has a different picture, that has a GNU public licence. I don't know when someone replaced it, but I also doubt that the man being deceased is a good reason for fair use. it's not as if that is the only existing picture of him, and that there won't be any others. Donny (talk) 23:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Donny, A quick glance at current Featured Articles indicates that the non-free use rationale is in fact quite common. In fact, large numbers of Featured Articles are currently using copyrighted images. Here are some examples that I found right away: Sex Pistols, Hector Lavoe, Pixies, The Supremes and Selena. Virtually every Featured Article about a movie shows a copyrighted poster. Click on just about any Featured Article about a movie to see this: Halloween, Gremlins, E.T. The same thing is true about albums as well. I should point out here that I did not have to have to do much work in order to find these examples from Featured Articles.

It does not follow that an inferior image must always be used in place of a non-free image. After all, that is why the non-free rationale exists in the first place! There is no doubt that somewhere in this world people have some private photographs of The Supremes, The Sex Pistols and/or Selena. But let’s face it, much like the current Freddie Mercury photo that is up there, a picture taken 30 years ago from the 10th row at concert is probably not going to be of much educational value. The non-free image rationale exists not because there are NO other alternatives out there in the world. There are. The problem is that they would have no educational purpose. In the case of the photograph of Freddie Mercury that is currently up there, it barely resembles him at all. In fact, unless we are trying to give eyesores to our readers, I see no justification for including it at all! See my non-free use rationale for an explanation for why the nice Freddie Mercury photograph has a lot of educational value both for this article and for the British Asian article. Boab (talk) 22:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Left-handed sentence

I am not aware of any documented evidence to support the left-handed sentence that is up there. If you can find something to support this in the form of an interview, a book or a newpaper article, then great. If not, it needs to be removed. Notice how carefully EVERYTHING is cited on this page. This is no exception. 138.67.44.154 (talk) 16:29, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I once saw a picture of him with Queen signing there recored contract with is left hand. Its on the net.72.9.21.87 (talk) 15:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Any real evidence for "Bomi" as a middle name?

Does anyone have a good reference for "Bomi" as a middle name? It does not say this on the birth certificate, so I took it off. Maybe someone can find something.Boab (talk) 16:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of Liam Fitzpatrick of Time Asia

There is an article somewhere which tears apart Fitzpatricks racist and patronising article about Mercury i.e. "It's time to recognize him as the great Asian artist that he was, and to bring his memory home." and "To the world he was the rock star Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen, with features and an accent that were ethnically vague but probably British, if one had to guess. (Indeed, he was listed as one of the 100 Greatest Britons in a 2002 BBC poll.) There is a statue of him in Montreux, Switzerland, but none in the Eastern hemisphere. The truth, however, is that Bulsara was the son of two Indians from Gujarat and was a member of the small religious community of Parsis, or Zoroastrians."

All this despite the fact that Mercury: 1) Spent virtually his entire life in the UK, 2) Never identified as Asian or Indian (he was not even ethnic Indian!), 3) Always, always and strongly identified as British and spoke English natively, 4) Had every right to identify as British, 5) His memory is already home, as the UK was his home! I will try to find the article that shows the Fitzpatrick article for what it is, racist crap, but if anyone else knows where to find it, please link to it. I am completely disgusted. Khorshid (talk) 08:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Disgusted or not, you can't insert your own POV into an article, and especially not in such a way that it misleads a reader into thinking a source says something that it doesn't. When you find the article, then it can be discussed how to integrate it into the article. Pairadox (talk) 12:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see how pointing out Freddy Mercury's ethnic background is racist. If someone wants to adopt him as an "Asian Hero", how are they being racist? He was born on the island of Zanzibar, so he's also African.--Conjoiner (talk) 13:26, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Khorshid, you're only making these useless accusations because of your personal bias as an Iranian and your need to selfishly portray Mercury as one of your own. The fact is, he wasn't really. He was a Parsi, and while Parsis may be ancestrally Persian, they are different from other Persians in that they settled in India over 1300 years ago! And culturally mingled with Gujaratis at that to form a ethno-cultural identity all of their own. They are part of the subcontinent historically and culturally, regardless of their foreign ancestry. Many communities in India are like that. Besides, there is ample genetic evidence to prove Parsis did initially mix with Indians, contrary to popular belief, so yes, all Parsis have a degree of Indian ancestry, such as Mercury. Also, his own sister said in an interview with Sooni Taraporevala that the only reason Mercury called himself "Persian" was because nobody knew what a Parsi was (among their circle) and that "Persian" was the closest thing. Not because they actually consider themselves "Persians". They consider themselves "Parsis". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.255.202.121 (talk) 07:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Current images

Hi guys, I in the first place, I have to say that I was disappointed that I was the only one who voted about the nice image that we previously had up there. Unfortunately, it was erased without any other votes here. At the same time, I know that a lot of you cannot stand the UGLY 1984 photo that was previously up there.

A quick glance at current Featured Articles indicates that the non-free use rationale is in fact quite common. In fact, large numbers of Featured Articles are currently using copyrighted images. Here are some examples that I found right away: Sex Pistols, Hector Lavoe, Pixies, The Supremes and Selena. Virtually every Featured Article about a movie shows a copyrighted poster. Click on just about any Featured Article about a movie to see this: Halloween, Gremlins, E.T. The same thing is true about albums as well. I should point out here that I did not have to have to do much work in order to find these examples from Featured Articles.

It does not follow that an inferior image must always be used in place of a non-free image. After all, that is why the non-free rationale exists in the first place! There is no doubt that somewhere in this world people have some private photographs of The Supremes, The Sex Pistols and/or Selena. But let’s face it, much like the 1984 Freddie Mercury photo that is up there, a picture taken 30 years ago from the 10th row at concert is probably not going to be of much educational value. The non-free image rationale exists not because there are NO other alternatives out there in the world. There are. The problem is that they would have no educational purpose. In the case of the photograph of Freddie Mercury that is currently up there, it barely resembles him at all. In fact, unless we are trying to cause eyesores, I see no justification for including the ugly one all! Good job for removing it, Winterboxblues. See my non-free use rationale for an explanation for why the nice Freddie Mercury photograph that Winterboxblues put up has a lot of educational value both for this article and for the British Asian article. Boab (talk) 19:10, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

We have said to you millions of times that Wikipedia is first and foremost the free encyclopedia. I am sure it is possible to find a better image and get someone to release it under a free license. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 19:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, Let’s compromise for the moment. As far as I am concerned, that 1984 photograph is an utter abomination. In fact, having worked on this article for some time, I can assure you many other people have expressed similar complaints about how ugly that photo is. I also cannot image Freddie wanting that thing up there at all. Furthermore, as the person who has been designated to maintain this article (I wrote most of it and added 80% of all of the references), I would personally recommend that we refrain from putting up any photographs at all until we can find something that is decent and that has some educational purpose. Remember that Good Articles are not required to have photographs at all. For that reason, I agree with the approach taken by Winterboxblues.Boab (talk) 19:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

If a free image is available then use it. If no free image is available then a fair use one can be used. It has nothing to do with the quality of the image. Boab, could you please show me where the vote was taken to appoint you as being "...designated to maintain this article..."? I suggest that you read Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 19:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Freddie Mercury MBE?

An anonymous user recently awarded Freddie Mercury an MBE. As the edit came from an anon IP, and googling Freddie Mercury MBE draws a blank, I suspect this was a test edit (or even pov), so have reverted it. Any comments Paul20070 (talk) 11:46, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The awful images in the article

There are basically zero good pictures in this article. I haven't seen change in the pictures for months. Someone PLEASE change these immediately. I can't stand them. They're blurry, far away, not informative and overall useless. Seriously, someone needs to get rid of them. I'm wikipedia-retarded, so I can't do it without getting the images deleted within a few hours but you guys seem to know what you're doing, I would expect someone to have changed them by now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Winterboxblues (talk • contribs) 02:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the images are ugly but it comes down to the fact that there are free images available which must be used before fair use ones. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 07:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Guys, I think that I summed up all of our feelings above when I referred to the ugly 1984 photo as “an utter abomination.” It is disgusting. What bother me the most about it is that it makes him look like a fat, bloated old man when Freddie was actually quite attractive (I am a female fan, so trust me here!).

One good piece of news is that there is no fundamental reason for why we should have to keep the ugly photo!! This has to do with the non-free rationale. As I discuss in detail above, these are VERY common, especially in articles that deal with people who are no longer living. I list a lot of examples of this in my post above. In fact, as you may know, some articles even feature little clips of copyrighted music. As long as you can establish that no person could conceivably generate any kind of commercial profit, then there is actually no problem with using copyrighted materials.

It does not follow that an inferior free image must always be used in place of a decent non-free image. Anyone in doubt should read the first criterion of the non-free agreement rationale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NFCC#1. According to this criterion, the real issue here is EQUIVALENCE. In this case, because the ugly 1984 photograph has very little educational value (I can't even tell whether he has a moustache in the photo!!), it is NOT EQUIVALENT to the nicer photos with regard to educational purpose. Therefore, according to this criterion, it would be totally acceptable in this case to replace it with non-free image that looks nice and that actually gives the reader a feel for what Freddie Mercury looked like. Because ethnicity is such a big part of the article, a good photograph would further serve an important educational purpose.

I really appreciate the attempts of Winterboxblues to make some pages with nice photos. I hope to see one of them used here in the future. However, perhaps we should refrain from putting up anything in the inbox for the moment in order to avoid editing wars. At the moment, we should probably not anything in the box. Boab (talk) 00:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

What about this picture? http://homepages.compuserve.de/Adatr/qk10.jpg FamicomJL (talk) 04:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Boab, you are still missing the point- articles that have fair use images do not have free images availiable. I say again, if it really bothers you that much then why don't you post on some Mercury fan forums and ask anybody if they have an image of Mercury that they own the rights to that they would be willing to release under a free license? Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 09:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, NFCC#1 is about EQUIVALENCE, not availability. In other words, it only applies when there are two images of EQUIVALENT eduational value. Since I can't even tell whether he has a moustache in the ugly 1984 photo that you insist on, it actually serves no educational purpose at all. Therefore, NFCC#1 in not applicable. By the way, I notice that you gave up really quickly in your attempt to remove the non-free image on the Selena page. They made it pretty clear over there that they are staying with a non-free image. We should do the same here. By the way, anyone who is in doubt here should also see the discussion that Gustav and I had on the non-free rationale discussion page. It is clear that they agree with me here and not Gustav.

At the moment, we should comporomise. At one extreme, we could put up the nice photos that Winterboxblues and Pearinc added the other day. At the other extreme, we could put up the old 1984 image that no one can stand. I say that the best compromise involves taking all of the images out of the infobox for a month or so. At that point, we can make a better decision here that will not turn into the sort of editing war that has taken place here over the past week. It is also a shame to see Winterboxblues and Pearinc put so much time into making new images only to see them removed in editing wars. Boab (talk) 17:18, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The image of Freddie Mercury provides an adequate representation of Mercury as stated in the policy. Although the resolution is low, you can still see that it is Freddie Mercury and that he is posing in his signature stage pose, therefore it will stay until you can find a better image. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 20:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Winterboxblues and Pearinc did not put a lot of time into the images. The 1984 phot looks like Freddie Mercury so there is no reason to replace it with a non-free image. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 21:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I really disagree that the photo up looks like him. Tell me, if you had never heard of Freddie Mercury, came to this page, and looked at the picture, what would be your first impression? I'm guessing not one that's very good. It's a bad picture, end of story. I really can't understand photo rights or anything, so I'm basically lost when it comes to putting up photos, but please, can someone change this? I've tried, and failed, and I don't see why wikipedia is doing this to this particular page. Almost every page of a celebrity I see, there's always a picture that I've seen floating around the internet, it's definitely not one that belongs to the person who uploaded it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Winterboxblues (talk • contribs) 02:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Free image from Flickr!

Hu Guys, I put up a nice free image from Flickr. Boab (talk) 00:22, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Image:Freddie1985.jpg is a fair-use image not a free one and according to you it came from http://www.selenaforever.com/ and http://www.starpulse.com/Music/Selena/Pictures/ not flicker. So it's removed again. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 00:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Cambridge, Because Flickr images are free in the first place, there is no problem here. By the way, the reason for the Selena thing is due to the fact that I took it directly off their site! Boab (talk) 01:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Wrong. See Wikipedia:Images#Finding images on the Internet and see the sentence "Flickr has a Creative Commons section at http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons." Only some images on Flicker are free. Take a look at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jayredtheredjay/2249685348/ or http://www.flickr.com/photos/js229/2249695974/ which both have a valid "Some rights reserved" on them but http://www.flickr.com/photos/19171480@N00/398217471/ says "All rights reserved". So no that image is not free and it doesn't even fall under fair use. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 01:05, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, You are right here. I did not see the copyright symbol. Boab (talk) 01:53, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Is this page too far to the left?

Hi guys, I was reading through this page, I found a comment from one of our readers above in the section called "Edits." Talking about the article, he says that "the left-leaning over-emphasis on his sexuality and his ethnicity are ludicrous." There may be some truth to this. Since I was the one who wrote the Ethnicity section, I would be willing to take down the second paragraph. However, I wonder about how other people feel here. I also have to disgree that the article is no good. In fact, it is listed as a Good Article and currently receives 50,000 views each day.Boab (talk) 00:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Latest image

Assuming that we are trying to use a free image over a better non-free one (there is no fundamental reason why we have to do this), then I recommend that we try one that does not hurt your eyes. FamicomJL (who has made a lot of important contributions to this page) suggested this one to me. I have to agree.Boab (talk) 01:53, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

New Image

I am asserting my fair use rights here. The use of my image is in full compliance with Wikipedia's Non-free content criteria. The key concept in NFCC #1 is educational “equivalence.” In other words, when two photos of equivalent educational value both exist, there is no doubt that the free image must be used in place of the non-free image. On the other hand, shades of gray begin to emerge when the free image in question is lacking in educational purpose. In these cases, NFCC #1 applies.

Freddiecropped.jpg

In comparing the non-free image (click on the image above to see it) to the free image (to the right), there is no doubt that the two are not equivalent with regard to educational value. In the words of NFCC #1, the free image to the right does not have “the same encyclopedic purpose” as the non-free image to the left. Furthermore, large numbers of our readers have come to the talk page over the past few months in order to complain about the low quality of the current free image.

There are several reasons for why the free photograph above is generally lacking in educational value. Among other things, it is difficult to tell whether or not Freddie Mercury even has a moustache (discussed in the article) in this photo. The photo is so bad that the reader further cannot see his face. Due to the fact that ethnicity is an important aspect of the article, a photograph with decent resolution would be of much educational value. After all, many of our readers have wondered about how Freddie Mercury could have kept his Indian ethnicity a secret from fans for so long. The close-up photo to the left speaks a thousand words.

I want to point out here that I reduced the resolution of this uploaded image and that I cropped it in order to remove about 40% of the original area. A non-free rationale and a copyright tag have been added as well.

A quick glance at current Featured Articles indicates that non-free images are quite common in articles dealing with deceased subjects. In fact, large numbers of Featured Articles are currently using copyrighted images. Here are some examples that I found right away: Sex Pistols, Notorious BIG, Hector Lavoe, Pixies, The Supremes and Selena. I further challenge anyone to find a photo in any Featured Article infobox that is as educationally uninformative (and ugly!) as the one here. From my experience, I would say that the dreadful Freddie Mercury photo above is a real impediment to this article ever achieving Featured Article status.Boab (talk) 16:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

The non-free image can't be used on this page either. You can only provide a link to it. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Cambridge,Provided that readers are able to click on the link in order to make comparisons, I do not have any issues with simply showing the link. Nevertheless, it is important for the sake of fair use rights that people have a chance to see what I am saying here. I look forward to any responses over the next month or so. My hope is that we can resolve this issue on this page.Boab (talk) 16:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

THere is a link to the image. It's just that a fair-use image can't be displayed here. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 22:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Eight Octave Range?!? I think not!!!

Sory folks, that line about him having an eight octave range has to go!!

I was reading the article there and almost exploded with laughter at the idea of it! Apart from the fact that from a physical point of view this is simply impossible (we are talking the same range as a piano), the references are dodgy to say the least.

The first reference for this point leads to an article that isn't there any more, and the other refernece leads to an article (http://f-mercury.com.ar/eng_characteristics.htm) which, remarkably, begins by explaining that freddie had a range of three octaves and a major sixth.

I will remove this point in a day or two, unless, unless there are objections

--78.137.134.56 (talk) 21:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)Dermot

This USA Today article suggests he had a four-octave range. I've heard mostly four and a half. I'm no expert, so I can't say. faithless (^speak) 21:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Exaggeration was added 20:01, 7 March 2008 by Guitarpower16. Editor must have dreaming of Sarah Vaughan. :) Removed. -- Fullstop (talk) 22:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi faithless, Yeah, I was looking into it and it seems the current guinness world record holding male voice only has a range of 6 octaves. So I think you're right, 4 to 4 and a half is more in line with reality. Trouble is though, we really can't say anything conclusive unless someone goes and documents it by listening to all of his recordings, which is pretty unlikely to happen. So, should we simply let it say that he had a wide vocal range and avoid alluding to any particular number of octaves? What do people think?

--78.137.134.56 (talk) 00:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)Dermot