Talk:Delay (audio effect)

New version

I have reverted Popcornfud's wholesale replacement of this article. While the article needs improvement and the proposed replacement is good, it is not clearly better than what exists. For example, I can't make sense of, "By recording one tape machine's record head while recording the playback to another". In my opinion, is clearly not as good as what could be achieved by combining the best of both versions. I will work on merging Popcornfud's new material into the existing article. I won't get it done immediately. Any help is appreciated. ~Kvng (talk) 16:22, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Kvng, I trust you'll be sourcing all the content that has sat there for months/years and removing any original research. Popcornfud (talk) 16:33, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Popcornfud, I have incorporated your new material. I'm sure there is weak or repetative material that can be trimmed out but I think it is a mistake to assume that uncited material of unclear origin is WP:OR. ~Kvng (talk) 15:28, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Once again, you have restored thousands of words of unsourced content. WP:BURDEN: All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. My version of this article was far from comprehensive, but it was properly sourced, and would give us a new starting position to which we can add properly sourced material. If there are things that are unclear about my wording, then we can fix them. Popcornfud (talk) 11:48, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Popcornfud, as you know from past discussions, you and I see these things differently. I'm not interested in rehashing that with you here. I would be happy to set up a WP:RFC to get input from other editors on any content dispute we have here. ~Kvng (talk) 13:47, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Please do. Popcornfud (talk) 16:44, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

RfC on alternate versions

Popcornfud invoked WP:TNT and replaced this article with new content. I reverted and then merged these contributions into the existing article. Popcornfud is not satisfied with this outcome and I offered to solicit opinions from other editors through the WP:RFC process. Further background on the dispute is above.

There are three versions of this article we could consider editing from going forward:

1. The original version of the article from before this dispute
2. The replacement article created by Popcornfud
3. The merged article which adds Popcornfud's contributions into the original version of the article

Please let us know your thoughts and preferences. ~Kvng (talk) 23:48, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• #2 – A large number of musical instrument-related articles have existed for years, despite having numerous tags for "source needed", "original research?", etc. WP:BURDEN makes it clear: "All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material ... Attribute all quotations, and any material whose verifiability is challenged or likely to be challenged, to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." [emphasis added]

Verifiability is a core WP policy, which seems to be ignored by some in this area. Sometimes the only solution is to remove all the unsourced content and replace it with properly referenced material. Some good content may be removed in the process, but with very large blocks of unsourced material, distinguishing between the fact-based and speculative is often difficult. Without citations, the reader cannot determine whether it comes from quality sources, is biased towards a particular product or manufacturer, or is some form of subtle vandalism, etc. Several instrument-related articles are rated good articles and featured articles, so using reliable sources for these topics is routine. My question is: why, after so many tags, deletions, reverts, etc. over a period of years, can't the material simply be properly referenced?

—Ojorojo (talk) 14:55, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Some good content may be removed in the process, but with very large blocks of unsourced material, distinguishing between the fact-based and speculative is often difficult. This is exactly it. Realistically, the vast amounts of unsourced material in this article will never be properly sourced because it's extremely difficult to discover where the material came from in the first place - most of the time, I think, an editor's head. By defending unsourced material at such scale, we are essentially committing to never sourcing it. Popcornfud (talk) 15:06, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

• #3. Much of the material removed by Popcornfud is verifiable even though it was presented without citations. The best version of the article, so far, is the combination of recent changes into the larger version. Binksternet (talk) 15:18, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
• #3. Honestly I don't like any of the options, but given where we are, this is the best point to continue working from. Popcornfud's version is much better sourced than the original, but neither WP:BURDEN or WP:TNT supports removing/replacing the article as a whole. The guideline in WP:BURDEN suggests that the best path forward is to start with the merged article, where Popcornfud or any other editor should feel free to remove uncited statements that fall under WP:BLP and to otherwise add citation needed tags to other uncited claims to allow other editors the chance to verify them with new citations (the policy doesn't require this, and allows removal of unsourced material, but I don't believe this best serves the interest of consensus-building at this stage). I specifically and strongly disagree that it's unduly difficult to distinguish between fact-based and speculative statements, at least inasmuch as there is a large amount of material in the original article that is very clearly properly sourced. Per WP:BATHWATER, I oppose the wholesale deletion of the previous content. I'd also like to encourage Kvng to use alternate dispute resolution options for disagreements between two editors that you can't phrase as a neutral question (see WP:RFCNEUTRAL). This may have been a good candidate for WP:THIRD. - Arathald (talk) 20:29, 9 July 2021 (UTC) Edited to strike out comments that may not be valid - see the discussion below 20:32, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  Arathald, I am going to defend my WP:TNT approach here.

  Wikipedia articles about audio equipment are pretty terrible. They see very low activity compared to other projects I frequent, and they just grow wild over time. Blowing them up (TNT) creates a kind of reset point after which it's much easier to grow articles and ensure high-quality sourcing.

  This is the approach I took at Roland TR-808. It was once a rambling mess of uncited claims. It's now FA, which would have been impossible by simply going through each uncited claim in the previous version and finding a source for it. Other articles I’ve taken this approach with include Yamaha DX7, Moog synthesizer, Minimoog, sampling (music), TR-909, TB-303 and synthesizer. I invite you to skip back to any version of those articles from, say, 2015 and tell me if there's much you miss from their pre-detonated incarnations.

  Notwithstanding whatever WP:POINTY behaviour this RFC might trigger, no one is ever going to source the claims in this article as they stand, in a year or ten years. I am, to my knowledge, the only editor who has been regularly and routinely adding sources to articles in this corner of Wikipedia for the last few years. It's a desert. Popcornfud (talk) 20:59, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks for the calm discussion and for your contributions. However, I respectfully disagree that the sourced claims need to be removed. It was pretty clear to me which claims in the previous version were sourced and which weren't. I don't support the wholesale removal of sourced material, but wholesale removal of all unsourced material still complies with WP:Verifiability (though as I previously mentioned, it also suggests the better approach - particularly in light of this RFC - is to start by tagging it). I think the merged content is clearly the right path forward: it respects your contributions so far and continues building the article in a collaborative way, while providing a clear path to continue pushing for quality sourcing. Arathald (talk) 07:59, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

  @Popcornfund: I realize my last comment was perhaps a little vague, and I came to clarify which pieces I thought were worth preserving, only to find myself needing to at least partially eat my words as when I dug deeper, all of the sources in the original article are either primary, inaccessible, or of questionable reliability (where they're secondary, they're blog posts). I do believe a large amount of the original content is verifiable, but as the sources don't meet WP:RS, I retract my statement that removing this content doesn't comply with WP:Verifiability. Given that the majority of votes below were based on my reasoning that I now need to at least in part walk back, there's still clearly a discussion to be had despite the votes leaning heavily one direction (per WP:PNSD). @Kvng: I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this in light of the fact that the vast majority of the original article is not actually properly sourced, despite citing references. I now wonder if Popcornfund's version is a better starting place, into which we can pull whatever of the original article we can actually verify. For now I've struck out my vote and relevant comments above. Arathald (talk) 20:32, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  Arathald, Popcorfud's replacement raises a WP:DEMOLISH concern for me. I tend to take a long-term and incremental approach to improving articles. Statements that are unsourced or poorly sourced should be handled as you described, start by tagging them. I am partial to a reading of WP:V that doesn't require a source for every statement. Sourcing is required for statements that are likely to be challenged. Just because one editor says, "I challenge this" shouldn't mean that the material has to be sourced under threat of removal. In this case, I believe we're dealing with uncontroversial material presented suboptimally having an encounter with perfectionism and impatience. My take as an expert on many of the article topics I work on is that the material is largely accurate. A lot of these articles are highly trafficked and have been in existence for a decade or more (this particular article was created in 2006). Anyone can edit and many of our readers are also experts so the accuracy of the information in longstanding core articles is no longer a serious problem. Wholsale removal of highly-vetted but poorly-cited material is unlikely to improve the article. ~Kvng (talk) 22:15, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  we're dealing with uncontroversial material presented suboptimally having an encounter with perfectionism and impatience.

  As Kvng points out here, this article was created in 2006. The first version was completely uncited and comprised 7,636 characters. It's obvious at first glance that many (most? all?) of the uncited claims in that first version are still in the article now, such as the line about Surviving tape-based delay units incorporating vacuum tube-based electronics, or The availability of inexpensive digital signal processing electronics in the late 1970s and 1980s, or Thin magnetic tape was not entirely suited for continouous operation, etc. So these uncited claims have sat on Wikipedia for 15 years. Popcornfud (talk) 09:52, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

  Arathald, do you have any further comments? Not sure where we are on this now. Popcornfud (talk) 12:37, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

• #3 as per Arathald. Start with the merged article, and proceed to tag unsourced or poorly referenced material. Any material that still cannot be properly referenced in the next, let's say, year or so, should be removed as unsupported. That's just a rough period, I think it depends entirely on how "active" the article is. But I would also suggest that the editors involved collaborate to search for references to support these remaining statements. And acknowledge that when such sourcing will likely never be found, the material should be removed.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:57, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
• #3, per Arathald - Idealigic (talk) 06:15, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
• #3, let's start with the best of both worlds and move forward from there. Retswerb (talk) 04:09, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• #3, as per Arathald. Sea Ane (talk) 05:06, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
• #3, as per Arathald.Thelostone41 (talk) 03:58, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Comment. I'm revisiting this article, and this debate. I have to shake my head. Apparently we have a situation where one editor, Arathald, made their case, persuaded a batch of other editors (see the number of "per Arathald" comments above with no further observations) - then realised they misread the situation and vanished from Wikipedia. (Arathald's last edit was back in July 2021.)

I wish we could agree on what a good article ought to look like. For me, it's not simply a matter of sourcing - although, as we all know, sourcing is a critical part of Wikipedia. It's also about readability - explaining the right things in the right way. If you take a sources-first approach, that tells you what to write about, because if it isn't covered in a reliable secondary source then it probably isn't notable in the first place. Look at this uncited paragraph (to pick at random from one of many):

Many different companies marketed these devices under various names. Fender sold the Dimension IV, the Variable Delay, the Echo-Reverb I, II, and III, and included an oil can in their Special Effects box. Gibson sold the GA-4RE from 1965–7. Ray Lubow himself sold many different versions under the Tel-Ray/Morley brand, starting out in the early sixties with the Ad-n-echo, and eventually producing the Echo-ver-brato, the Electrostatic Delay Line, and many others into the eighties.

I don't know anything about anything in this paragraph. Forget the question of how I'm supposed to verify any of it - how am I supposed to know it matters? The attitude of "add first, cite later" places the burden on others to do the work of tracing every part of this paragraph to secondary reliable sources. Not only is that a lot of work, there's an excellent chance it's not even possible.

How is the reader supposed to know how to verify this? How is the reader supposed to know it's not vandalism, or just plain mistaken? How is the reader supposed to know it's important?

This article has been this way for 15 years. The accusations of "impatience" above blow my mind, as if this stuff is magically going to self-organize over the course of - what, millennia? The only way we're going to meaningfully resolve the problems on this articles is if we're willing to slash and burn. Popcornfud (talk) 23:04, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Your position is not unreasonable. My position is presumably not unreasonable. There appears, however, to be a consensus here that we're not willing to slash and burn. ~Kvng (talk) 15:24, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I have a suggestion for how we can take this article forward in a way that we will agree benefits it. Why don't you try finding reliable secondary sources for the uncited material you want to preserve? I'm not saying you do this overnight, but maybe chip away at it over a few weeks or months. Popcornfud (talk) 18:32, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I'll queue it up again in my article review project. ~Kvng (talk) 14:41, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

It has now been more than a year — am I to assume that no sources for the material you want to preserve are coming? Popcornfud (talk) 15:46, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Addendum: btw: I don't mean to propose an ultimatum or mean this as some sort of threat. I just mean I don't know what to do about this article long term. If we can't remove uncited claims and we can't get a plan together for finding sources for it then I don't see how we can, for example, ever move it into GA or FA territory. As I mentioned in the discussions above, there are claims in the article that have been uncited for more than a decade. Could we perhaps identify some of the most important things you want to keep and start finding sources for those first? Popcornfud (talk) 16:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I am actively working on a second pass through the article. I have reviewed up to but not including Delay (audio effect) § Artistic uses. What specifically is still troubling you up to that point? ~Kvng (talk) 16:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Take a guess! Large swathes of these sections are uncited. This creates two problems: 1) users can't check if the information is true; 2) we don't know if the information is notable, so it might not belong in the article at all. (Notability is demonstrated by sources.) Popcornfud (talk) 16:22, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

There have been significant changes to the article since we last discussed this. Is this headed in a good direction for you? If so does that help with your long-term concerns?

It is important if readers and other editors can verify correctness. It is even more important that the information is correct. I've tried not to leave anything that is potentially controversial or untrue in the material I've reviewed. Can you give an example of problematic content (other than content missing citations)?

I am not aware of a notability standard for the information in an article. WP:N pertains to articles as a whole and whether they should exist. I assume there is no dispute here about whether this article should exist. ~Kvng (talk) 17:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Is this headed in a good direction for you?

No. As you know, my long-term concerns are about the overwhelming lack of sources. Your response suggests we are not moving closer towards sourcing any of these claims. I asked you a year ago if you'd be willing to do that, but it seems you're not very interested in it?

Maybe I'll have another try to find sources myself. But if we're not going to delete anything, we end up with confusing patchworks where a three can have, say, three claims and one citation, but only one of the claims in the sentence is actually in the citation. IMO this is almost worse than having no citation at all, as it makes it harder for readers and editors to unpick the situation, and harder to identify when a claim is missing a source. This is why I am always arguing for WP:TNT, as it is a clean, foolproof approach to sourcing and writing articles.

You're right about notability. Notability guidelines do not apply to content within articles or lists, per WP:NOTEWORTHY. I shouldn't have used the word "notability" there. Nonetheless, sources should guide our writing. Per WP:DUE: articles should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. How can you do that if you're not basing the information on sources first? See also WP:INDISCRIMINATE, which is about placing information in context based on sources rather than piling it in for information's sake.

A large amount of editorial judgment will always be required when selecting what information goes into an article, but we can't simply base it on what we personally think is important or true. Popcornfud (talk) 17:30, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I've responded to your complaints by adding citations and removing uncited and unimportant material. To my eye these improvements directly address your criticisms then and now. You say this is not headed in the right direction. I don't understand that.

I understand you want to go about this differently but you tried that and it was reverted by a consensus of editors. ~Kvng (talk) 19:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

That "consensus" emerged from a gigantic misunderstanding that was walked back by the editor who misread the situation and never returned.

I've responded to your complaints by adding citations and removing uncited and unimportant material.

Ah, it's possible I misread the changes/diff. I'll take a more thorough look later. Popcornfud (talk) 19:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

None of the other RfC participants adjusted their comments. Go ahead and contact them if you have questions about where this consensus stands. ~Kvng (talk) 23:14, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Reviewing the diff you provided above, I am in fact seeing not a single source that has been added to any missing claim... except ones added by me.

Look, it's always possible I'm missing something. But I'm confident that whatever progress may have been made in the last 12+ months towards resolving the considerable citation problems in this article, it has been minimal. The article is also poorly laid out and structured generally.

I guess I'll set about trying to cite and rewrite things myself, again. This will often involve me rewriting things, probably extensively. Try to have an open mind as I do this. I will operate for now with a bias towards sourcing and clarifying the prose, rather than removing uncited claims. Popcornfud (talk) 19:24, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Binson Echorec and similar

The article is correct as far as the spinning disc being not unlike a hard drive, in that it's a disc and it spins but that's about as far as it goes. The disc is a solid metal platter, with a number of copper wire turns wrapped around the edge, which are then machined flat to provide a recording surface. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SamXT (talk • contribs) 22:17, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Correction: It's stainless steel wire, not copper.

The T.Rex Electronics site has a feature on their attempts to recreate the Binson Echorec. SamXT (talk) 18:31, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

It is storing information in magnetic form on a disk which is how a hard drive works. This device uses steel wire as the magnetic medium whereas a hard drives use magnetic coating. There is only one track on this device whereas hard disks have movable heads and multiple tracks. ~Kvng (talk) 17:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)