Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Only Girl (In the World)/archive1

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

The article was archived by Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 05:55, 30 March 2015 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Only Girl (In the World)

Nominator(s):  — ₳aron 19:27, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about... Rihanna's single "Only Girl (In the World)". It is one of her most successful singles, reaching either number-one or number-two in pretty much every country. It has also been certified platinum or multi-platinum everywhere too. It has broken and set multiple chart records in the U.S. and the UK. I've followed the criteria and also used other FA's for guidance and inspiration as to how to write and structure the article. Hopefully other editors will think so too. (I am aware that the link checker will say that the 7 Digital sources are dead; they aren't. I only added them two days ago. Same problem was found at Wikipedia:Peer review/Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)/archive1.)  — ₳aron 19:27, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose, sorry. The prose seems to be under-prepared for the FA level. There are simple copyediting issues ("Rihanna first performed "Only Girl (In the World)" on Saturday Night Live in the New York City" / "the songs instrumental was recorded by Eriksen and Miles" / "Rihanna has previously worked with Stargate on previous singles"). But there are also more fundamental things, such as an overuse of the passive voice, some quite clunky sentences (what does "the most in both categories" mean?) and numerous unattributed quotes (eg "frolicking in a red field and lying in a bed of flowers."). And who says that the song "garnered a generally positive response from music critics" - is this original research? I'm afraid that I just don't think this is at FA standard or is capable of being brought to that standard within the period of an FA candidature. --Mkativerata (talk) 11:01, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for your comments. I've removed 'the' from 'the New York City', apostrophised 'songs' and removed reputation of 'previously/previous'. Could you be more specific with what you mean by an overuse of passive voice? The 'the most in both categories' means that she had the most number-ones and the most debuts, which I say in the previous clause ("becoming her eighth to reach the peak and her sixth to debut atop the chart"). Not sure what you mean by 'numerous unattributed quotes', either. With regard to you saying that 'garnered a generally positive response from music critics' is original research, may I ask if you are familiar with how song articles are written? Because we don't source that; it is used as an intro as to how the majority of critics viewed the song, followed by specific examples from critics. "S&M" is an FA, and that doesn't have that line sourced, as don't other FAs. I used "S&M" as a guide for this article, so I do believe that "Only Girl (In the World)" is FA worthy. I look forward to your responses.  — ₳aron 11:11, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, to expand a bit more:
  • I don't think an FA should contain quotes that are not attributed to their source in the actual text. So when you say "frolicking in a red field and lying in a bed of flowers", it should be "According to X".
  • "garnered a generally positive response from music critics" plainly is original research and the fact that other articles do it doesn't make it better. How did you judge "generally positive"? A raw headcount of reviewers? Was the headcount weighted for reliability? How?
  • "Additional vocal recording was carried out by Inaam Haq, Dane Liska and Brad Shea." is one example of unnecessary use of the passive voice. Why not "Inaam Haq, Dane Liska and Brad Shea carried out additional vocal recording."? In this sentence, the difference is not great and is no big deal. But when you get to a sentence with multiple parts, the passive voice really screws it up. Example: "Rihanna was criticized [by whom?] for wearing a provocative outfit and for performing a suggestive dance routine on The X Factor, branded as "disgusting" [by whom? and what's disgusting? the routine or The X Factor?], before the watershed [what?], a system [the watershed?] in the United Kingdom which does not allow adult content to be broadcast before 9 pm." --Mkativerata (talk) 11:24, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • But to be honest, you're pointing out things which were deemed as acceptable for FA in another article I promoted. That's why I'm a bit confused by your comments. I'll try and work on these points a bit later, but if they are good enough for another article which was successfully promoted, I don't see why they wouldn't be here.  — ₳aron 11:36, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've made the change about the vocal recording, but I don't think bit about The X Factor and the watershed needs changing. Unless others specifically say this is not okay, then I take it as fine considering it was okay for "S&M" which is an FA. You don't have to say "According to X" for everything, and you'll be hard pushed to find an FA which has "received a generally positive response" or similar sourced; I'm yet to see it that. Apart from that, I've done everything else.  — ₳aron 18:26, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm just driving by here, not at the moment doing any formal comment on the nomination, but although this is clearly a good article, so kudos there, I personally think you should take the above points seriously in terms of it being brilliant prose and FA standard. The whole sentence "Rihanna was criticized for wearing a provocative outfit and for performing a suggestive dance routine on The X Factor, branded as "disgusting", before the watershed, a system in the United Kingdom which does not allow adult content to be broadcast before 9 pm" reads clunkily in several ways to me. There are two WP:WEASELs in there ("Rihanna was criticized" and "branded as disgusting"), and the sentence itself doesn't scan too well - it's too long, with too many short little bits of prose separated by commas, with about three levels of indirection. I don't know what the situation was in other FAs that you mention, but personally if I was doing a full review I'd probably make the same points as Mkativerata, and I suggest a full copy edit is in order. Enlist the WP:GOCE if necessary, they usually do a pretty good job! Thanks, and keep up the good work  — Amakuru (talk) 18:36, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, I understand what you're saying, but "S&M" was copyedited before FAC and no one had any issue with the phrasing exemplified above. So that is why I'm questioning it, because if it was good enough for lots of other editors in another article, why isn't it so here?  — ₳aron 18:41, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't really have an answer to that I'm afraid... I guess there are two possibilities, either my thoughts are inaccurate or overly harsh (and I'll happily admit that may be the case, as I'm not a professional writer or copyeditor!), or these issues were relevant but somehow slipped through the net when the S&M FA was going through. Out of interest, let me ping Miniapolis who kindly did the copyedit of my article recently. Miniapolis, if you have a spare moment to comment on this, as a copyeditor, what is your opinion of the sentence "Rihanna was criticized for wearing a provocative outfit and for performing a suggestive dance routine on The X Factor, branded as "disgusting", before the watershed, a system in the United Kingdom which does not allow adult content to be broadcast before 9 pm"? Is it FA standard prose, with or without the unattributed bits, or would you improve it? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 18:52, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't laugh, but "S&M" had 10 nominations and passed on its tenth, it early broke a record for most failed nominations. Tens and tens of editors got involved on nominations!  — ₳aron 21:11, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Many of the chart in the table do not use the {{singlechart}} template, hence comes across as inconsistent in their references, and many of the certifications in the {{Certification Table Entry}} template lack accessdate parameters. —Indian:BIO [ ChitChat ] 10:50, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for commenting. We don't have to use the single template, and I've only used the manual way for Canada, UK and U.S. Also, the certifications do use the template; I'm not sure if manually added an access date will cause the reference to not work properly?  — ₳aron 10:54, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose on quick scan (recusing from coord duties) -- aside from prose concerns mentioned above, this article really does need a going over to fix what appear to be careless errors, particularly the last couple I noticed:

  • If you use quotes in the lead, you should cite/attribute them there, even if you do so in the main body, and the term "heavy" (re. the bass) is not so attributed. OTOH I ask myself if it even needs to be a quote, when it's just an adjective -- can we not think of a similar term?
  • The word "simplistic" caught my eye. This is generally a pejorative term, whereas here it seems to be praise. I suspected that the word "simple" was meant, but when I checked the cited source (FN57) I found that it had nothing to do with the information it was supposedly supporting.
  • The sentence "Jason Lipshutz described the tree with flashing lights as "surreal imagery."[59]" appears twice in the same section (Music video).

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:19, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks I've done everything suggested above.  — ₳aron 20:18, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks, but I still see "simplistic" in the main body, and the ref that's supposed to support this is still incorrect. It's claimed in the text to be Tanner Stransky, but the citation links to a review by Soraya Roberts. Furthermore, these are just things I found on a cursory look at the article. Based on this, I believe it needs someone -- probably an independent editor -- to walk through it top to bottom, checking that there are no similar issues. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:49, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regretfully oppose at this time. I appreciate your careful referencing, but I see many issues with this article. In addition to the concerns from the three editors above, I notice quite a few additional prose issues (for example, "Wearing "a black-and-white bra top and boy shorts," Mawuse Ziegbe of MTV News noted that the singer "kicked up the island theme" as drummers wearing tribal outfits circled Rihanna." Who was wearing the black and white bra? The sentence indicates it was Mawuse Ziegbe of MTV, when I suspect it was actually Rianna). And a quick glance at the References section shows that a good portion of the references were last accessed in 2010/2011. Why is that?
There is also quite a bit of inconsistency with the references. Ref #92 says "Note: insert 201052 into search." Ref #151 says "Enter Only Girl (In the World) in the field Keywords. Select Title in the field Search by. Select single in the field By Format. Select Platinum in the field By Award. Click Search". Why do some of the references with notes say "Note:" while others do not? Some of the notes use punctuation, while others do not.
Also, why is the "See also" section so huge? There are 30 'see also' wikilinks. Per WP:SEEALSO, editors are advised not to link to articles already linked in the text. If these are all already linked in the text, they should not appear in the "See also" section. If they are not already linked in the text, I wonder if they're all really relevant to the article. And if they are all relevant to the article, it seems the article could use some expanding to include them in the prose.
Despite my opposition to the promotion of this article, I appreciate your efforts, Aaron. Firsfron of Ronchester 03:08, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your helpful comments Firsfron. I will apply them.  — ₳aron 11:28, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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