Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ashlee Simpson on SNL

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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was MERGE. dbenbenn | talk 23:51, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The votes were 10 keep, 22 merge, 11 delete.

[edit] Ashlee Simpson on SNL

Is this really notable enough for its own article? I think the information could be merged into a couple of relevant articles and this one deleted. Worldtraveller 08:46, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep but change the title and spell out Saturday Night Live on the title. My vote is because Wikipedia has a lot of trivia on Saturday Night Live already, rather than a vote in support of anything regarding the highly explosive and controversial topic of Ashlee Simpson. --JuntungWu 09:05, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Everyking 09:21, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, renamed per JuntungWu, but merge information about the incident from Ashlee Simpson, probably ultimately displacing the "Saturday Night Live incident" section to a short paragraph with wikilink. Samaritan 09:48, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Reluctant keep. If I ask people who Ashlee Simpson is, a reference to her SNL performance is the most common response. Change to merge with Ashlee Simpson. A girl can change her mind. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:33, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • You ask people who Ashlee Simpson is? Everyking 11:35, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Absolutely! I like to gauge how well known people are whom I've heard of on Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:32, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Does anybody ever not recognize the name? Everyking 12:34, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Hardly anybody I ask in person, here in London, ever knows who she is. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:13, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Don't think I'll be voting on this, but I had no idea who Ashlee Simpson was until I got involved with Autobiography's article. Even the name of the artiste who had that scandalous lipsynch on some TV show didn't register. Johnleemk | Talk 13:41, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • To answer this: Yes; I heard about her for the first time in the english wikipedia, and this only because there is this large, intermittent discussion going on. Mind, I'm from Germany, so this does not prove your point; I'm not voting here about this, but for my part I fail to see her noticeability Lectonar 13:44, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • My interest was in whether people might still be unaware of her in whatever English speaking country Tony (presumably) lives in. I would expect recognition to be lower in Malaysia or Germany. Everyking 14:10, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
            • Perhaps we could interest you in Jeanette Biedermann :-) Lectonar 14:50, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
              • I had never heard of Ashlee Simpson other than as a result of Wikipedia articles and controversy surrounding them, and that is the honest truth. She is not so famous as to have made an impression on people who don't follow contemporary popular music, unlike, say, Britney Spears who is to popular music as Einstein is to theoretical physics: the one name that people who know nothing about the topic, know. Oh, I live in the United States. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:22, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                • Well, I wasn't saying she's as famous as Britney. I was just curious. Thanks for your feedback. Hey, maybe it's good promotion for her, huh? Have you rushed out to buy the album yet? Everyking 14:27, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                  • Tell you what. Darned if I'll buy a whole album. If you will name the one single Ashlee Simpson song that it is most important for me to hear, I'll buy it from iTunes Music Store. And listen to it. I won't spend $15 and an hour of my time, but I'm willing to spend $0.99 and three minutes. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:02, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                    • Ha, OK then, if you want to, listen to "Pieces of Me", that's her best known song. Everyking 14:09, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • I originally thought I heard of her first on WP, but then I remembered she had a relatively small article in Maxim or FHM or one of those before she was particularly famous. Unfortunately, the article mostly went into what a novelty it was that she was so different from her sister, and I don't think I (or anyone else) really got much from it. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:47, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with Ashlee Simpson, dont see how it deserves it's own article. --Boothy443 12:35, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak keep, Although it should probably be merged with the Ashlee Simpson article. Inter 13:46, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak keep Although Ashlee seems to get a rather bizarre amount of attention on WP in contrast with other artists of similar notability, I'd say that this is one incident that should be kept, since it was so focused-on by the media for most of late last year. I do think it needs expansion though... there's no mention of the whole "blaming the band" fiasco, for example. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:36, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
    • Please, don't encourage him :-)) Lectonar 14:47, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Man, I wish we could go back to the days when people were encouraged to expand articles. Everyking 16:06, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Man, I wish we could go back to the days when some people knew the difference between expand and bloat with obsessive, eye-glazing, and utter meaningless detail. (oops, forgot to sign: -Calton 05:12, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC))
  • Merge with Ashlee Simpson. Agree with Boothy443, it doesn't need its own article; it doesn't matter if it was originally on SNL. — Asbestos | Talk 15:33, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with both parent articles and delete. Concur with Lectonar. Barno 15:37, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with Ashlee Simpson. It's really a very minor incident that was blown out of proportion and will soon be forgotten. Yeah, it's still worth a brief mention, but not its own article. Pop stars lip-synching is hardly a phenomenon. -R. fiend 16:04, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with Ashlee Simpson as a subchapter. I don't see any reason why this should be a separate article, and odds are the information here will be duplicated in the Simpson article sooner or later, anyway. 23skidoo 16:30, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • There is simply no reason not to have quality information about this topic. It does not suit my personal POV to have this article, but nevertheless I support its existence for inclusionist reasons. It makes no sense that we have detailed articles on every Pokemon and Digimon character, associated video game and TV show, but we can't have detailed Ashlee articles. What's the problem here? Nominate an article on a Pokemon character and the people who work on those articles will furiously campaign for it to be kept—and I would too, of course. But nominate an Ashlee article, and who's going to campaign? It's really just me who works on them. Now, surely we should vote based on general principles, not based on whether a topic is popular or not among present-day Wikipedians. There is a problem when information is being removed from Wikipedia for such a reason. A very big problem, I'd say. Articles far less notable than this would be kept by nearly unanimous votes. So why can't we be consistent? Everyking 17:40, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • You may not have noticed but both 23skidoo and myself voted merge, not delete. Yes, this incident is slightly noteworthy, but it's really just a footnote in the story of Ashlee Simpson. You're right, it makes no sense that we have detailed articles on every Pokemon, but I'm not about to take it upon myself to merge every single one into a larger Pokemon article or two, though I would fully support such an action. My opposition to this as a separate artcile is not because Ashlee Simpson isn't currently popular enough, it's more because she's too popular right now, and very minor incidents like this are blown out of proportion and made into full scandals. I think it should be covered more as what it is, not "Acid-refluxgate" but as a small technical problem that occurred on a TV show. This will soon be forgotten, but Wikipedia will keep a record of it for posterity, where it belongs: in the Ashlee Simpson article. -R. fiend 18:26, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • And that record will have to be greatly abbreviated, since an article cannot continue growing forever and ever. That's why articles like this are needed: to provide the space to permit continued expansion. Everyking 18:35, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • Why can't it? The paper Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, has no problems devoting the equivalent of one megabyte to a single article. "Wikipedia is not paper" is supposed to mean more, not less. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:56, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
            • Articles aren't supposed to get beyond 32KB. The eventual options are to either summarize severely at the expense of the info, or split. I prefer the latter. Everyking 20:36, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. As I recall, this episode is already covered in one of the many Ashlee Simpson articles -- I forget which. For once, I agree with Everyking. Lets be consistent and delete most of the Pokemon, Digimon, and Ashlee Simpson articles. --BM 18:08, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep as a stand alone article and do not merge. GRider\talk 18:27, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with Saturday Night Live. The "Pokemon and Digimon characters get an article each" argument won't wash until Ashlee Simpson, whoever that is, becomes more than one character and the analogy actually holds water. Uncle G 18:42, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)
    • Hmm. So that means I can write an article about each individual song off her album, then? Everyking 18:43, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Also, on a simple Google test, "Pokemon" gets roughly 10 times the results that "Ashlee Simpson" does (and indeed it would get even more if we included Japanese-language results). Therefore they're not even in the same stratosphere as far as fame and notability go. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:55, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
      • That analogy doesn't hold water, either. Uncle G 18:46, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)
  • Keep as a stand alone article and do not merge. As the original author of this article let me have a few seconds to explain why I did this. The History_of_SNL:2000-2010 article was being co-opted by the Ashlee Simpson incident until it had started to take over. Compare the first mention of this incident (which I wrote):
In October 2004, at the start of pop singer Ashlee Simpsons's second musical performance, an error involving pre-recorded backing tracks caused the singer to walk off the stage. The network attempted to hide the flub by remixing the show's sound for the West coast audience making the pre-recorded track inaudible, which only confused West Coast viewers by making it appear as if Simpson walked off stage for no reason.

This simple paragraph was then re-edited by Everyking to prevent Simpson from "looking bad", then edited by other users to add even more details to compromise until we finally got to this:

The foibles of live television were exposed in October 2004 when at the start of singer Ashlee Simpson's second musical performance of the show, a pre-recorded backing track for the wrong song was accidentally played. Simpson's father (her manager) had decided to use a vocal guide track because her voice had been weak in rehearsal. During the performance the vocal track was shut off but the musical track continued and Simpson walked off the stage. She subsequently apologized for the error during the show's closing—the incident served to highlight the always precarious nature of live television, as noted by the night's host, Jude Law. It appeared viewers that Simpson had been lip synching and the incident received wide-spread coverage in the news. The following week the incident was the subject of several skits.
Coincidentally, a team of reporters from the CBS news program 60 Minutes led by Lesley Stahl had been taping and interviewing during the production cycle, and recorded both the rehearsals and the immediate reactions by Lorne Michaels and others. Michaels said immediately afterwords that he had never been asked about using a vocal track, and would not have allowed it. However, since then the production practices of SNL have been scrutinized by reporters and Michaels has admitted that backing tracks are sometimes used. The 60 Minutes report also revealed the intense writing frenzy that goes on during the week leading up to a show, the involvement of the guest hosts in developing and choosing their skits, and the rule that all skit dialog is performed as-written, with no improvisation allowed on camera.

Albeit the last paragraph is mostly about 60 minutes it highlights the fact as to how this incident has grown into an edit war in the SNL article.

Despite Willmcw]'s claims, I am not trying to keep either Simpson or SNL from "looking bad", I couldn't care much less. Willmcw has subsequently added it back to the SNL article and tightened it up nicely, it looks much better now HOWEVER it will only be re-edited by Everyking at the earliest opportunity and we'll be back where we were.

Furthermore there is the question of whether the details of this incident belong in the SNL article or in the Ashlee Simpson article. I think a fair compromise that can cut out a lot of unnecessary detail in both articles is to keep this one and we wiki-link to this article from both. Jeff schiller 19:55, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

That isn't a reasonable "compromise". A lot of people don't want excruciatingly long Ashlee Simpson-related articles popping up like weeds all over the damn Wikipedia. I can see why Willmcw didn't want the article on SNL to be swallowed by Ashlee Simpson, but the compromise would have been to keep the description of the incident short and refer people to the Ashlee Simpson article for the boring (I mean, uh, fascinating) details. --BM 20:58, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Concur completely. Ambi 21:29, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This isn't "all over the damn Wikipedia" this is one article about an event in pop culture. Normally I wouldn't think it warrants its own article but the excessive amount of editing by OTHER wikipedians makes me think otherwise. Jeff schiller 22:13, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)
  • Strong merge. Ambi 21:29, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with Ashlee Simpson. Before I got involved in the mess on Wikipedia, the only thing I knew about Ashlee Simpson was a vague recollection of someone getting caught lip-synching on SNL. But that doesn't make the incident noteworthy enough for a complete article. As for the Pokemon, I'd nominate the entire Wikipedia:WikiProject Pokédex for VfD if I didn't think doing so would get me lynched. I might do so anyway. --Carnildo 21:43, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with Ashlee Simpson, no redirect. This episode in her (short) history proved to be quite damaging to her credibility. Perhaps make it a subheading there. Megan1967 22:45, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Make minimal merges to both Saturday Night Live and Ashlee Simpson and delete. RickK 23:33, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, this is well-covered in Ashlee Simpson. silsor 23:46, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Okay, I can see that Jeff schiller thought cancer surgery was needed to save the SNL article, but it's at the risk of metastisizing around Wikipedia. Merge into Ashlee Simpson (or maybe Milli Vanilli), no redirect (who'd be looking for it?). and, for the record, I'd never heard of Ashlee Simpson until I stumbled over a VFD for one of the long series of Ashlee-mania articles that showed up there. --Calton 00:41, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with Ashlee Simpson --nixie 03:57, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep - This was a notable event. -- Old Right 11:42, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep the text. Somewhere. My preference is: merge into Ashlee Simpson as a section, and add a link from the Saturday Night Live article to that section. 1) The information in these detailed and well-written paragraphs should be kept because it seems to be of high quality. It's not of much importance where. 2) I would have voted against a stub on this topic, but there is now enough information to make it acceptable as article. 3) Nobody is going to find it by typing in the title; it will be found by search or by following a link. Therefore if the content is merged, then the article should be deleted, as I don't think it's of any use as a redirect. 4) The event is of far more significance in relation to the career of Ashlee Simpson than to the history of Saturday Night Live. (My apologies to the sysop who has to decide how this vote should be counted. By Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping I guess, or maybe Quadratic rule. Just kidding. Really.) Dpbsmith (talk) 17:27, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with Ashlee Simpson. Jayjg (TALK)]] 20:26, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • MERGE. Are you guys fucking kidding me? Yeago 23:04, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Unfortunately, where Ashlee Simpson is concerned, this is the sort of club it takes to do anything other than add to the articles. --Carnildo 23:55, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge into Ashlee Simpson, I suppose, with a blurb at Saturday Night Live. Tuf-Kat 00:13, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with Tuf-Kat, though what he suggests is pretty much where things are at now, so just deleting this does no harm. Jgm 03:22, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect. This is, so far, the most notable thing that's happened to her, and really ought to be in her main article rather than getting shunted elsewhere. -Sean Curtin 03:18, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. (Jeff schiller has covered the main history of this matter in his comments). So long as the incident is properly covered in the relevent articles, Ashlee Simpson and History_of_SNL:2000-2010, there is absolutely no need for a separate article. There are too many Simpson and SNL articles already, IMHO -Willmcw 08:16, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete That "incident" is covered already, and this is not the SimpsonPedia, really. A completely un-noteworthy singer taking up so much of our time is ridiculous. -- AlexR 14:21, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Has Ashlee appeared as a guest character in The Simpsons yet?
  • Strong merge. —Korath (Talk) 07:04, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete this cruft on one of the Simpsons. It's already covered in sufficient detail in the main article on her. -- Hoary 09:42, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)
  • Merge and Delete. Evil Monkey∴Hello? 10:45, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge into Ashlee Simpson. Simpson's article doesn't look to be in danger of exceeding 32KB, anyway. - Vague | Rant 10:48, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
    • Where will it be in another six months or a year? Everyking 11:00, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • We can cross that bridge when we come to it. I keep getting told that 32K is almost a dead issue anyway. Does anybody know a specific list of browsers that actually had that limit? Dpbsmith (talk) 13:06, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Netscape Navigator <= 4.76 and Opera <= 6.04, according to Wikipedia:Browser page size limits. —Korath (Talk) 15:01, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
        • 32K still makes a good soft limit on article size. Much larger than that, and articles tend to becomes hard to read in one sitting. --Carnildo 21:23, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with Ashlee Simpson, and cut the Ashlee Simpson article way down. —tregoweth 18:59, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
    • Death to comprehensive detail! Long live the stub! Everyking 19:18, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge conservatively with above mentioned articles and delete. Postdlf 00:33, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and delete for reasons already stated. --Idont Havaname 01:14, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, doesn't require separate article. silsor 01:47, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
    Comment, Silsor appears to have already voted above. Not counted. dbenbenn | talk 23:45, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Stop the insanity. Gamaliel 03:30, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Insanity? It's information. What are we doing here? Everyking 04:22, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • We're building an encyclopedia, not an Ashlee scrapbook. Gamaliel 04:24, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • It isn't a scrapbook, it's an encyclopedia article. What distinguishes scrapbook information from encyclopedia information to you? Everyking 04:26, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • A scrapbook takes information from many sources and gloms it all together. An encyclopedia takes information from many sources and combines it into an overview of the subject. A scrapbook quotes primary sources. An encyclopedia summarizes them. --Carnildo 05:25, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
            • Wiki is not paper, you know. Everyking 05:27, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
              • What does that have to do with anything? --Carnildo 05:54, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                • Everything, as far as I can tell. Everyking 06:19, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                  • Maybe you should re-read what I wrote on the difference between a scrapbook and an encyclopedia, then. I said nothing about size. --Carnildo 06:23, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                    • If you go around removing information from articles, what does that indicate? Everyking 06:26, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                      • That there's no point in discussing this, if you're not going to read what I've written. --Carnildo 06:56, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Wikipedia is not paper. Ich bin Warm - Kronecker Delta 11:49, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • User's 13th edit. - Vague | Rant 12:35, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Unless Everyking leaves and goes away, the article's contents will be perpetually unreadable, unreliable, and laden with spin. Better to have a blank space than a cancer. -Ashley Pomeroy 22:10, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • How nice. I didn't even write the article, you know. Everyking 22:44, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Shouldn't the fact that she was caught out miming on SNL be mentioned in the lead intro paragraph in the Ashlee Simpson article? That is, after all, what she is best known for. -- Chuq 09:08, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • No, it's not that important. She's best known for being a multiplatinum selling artist with a hit reality show, anyway. Everyking 00:10, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • That's a matter of opinion. I wouldn't know her from the other Britney-clones if it wasn't for the SNL incident. Every second good looking female in California has a recording contract, but not many people have been so blantantly caught out miming on a high profile television show. -- Chuq 00:20, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Do they have triple platinum albums and hit TV shows, too? Everyking 00:26, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • Re: platinum albums - I had a quick look around Wikipedia but couldn't find a list to verify - but probably. These girls get signed up, have the hell promoted out of them for a year, sell a million records then get dumped when the "next chick" comes along. Haven't seen or heard of her TV show in Australia (I don't think) so it can't be that great (we do get the popular American shows here). It was the SNL incident that put her in the headlines. http://lipsync.us was created due to her. The cynical of us might say it was an intentional publicity scam... -- Chuq 00:57, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
              • I think the show did air in Australia; instead of this arguing, you could go research that info. Everyking 01:41, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                • A Google Groups search of aus.tv for "ashlee simpson" returns three threads - one laughing about the SNL incident, one laughing about how bad her music is, and one laughing about how commercial her music is. That proves my point exactly. -- Chuq 02:09, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
                  • The incident is available online as a 7 megabyte .wmv download at [1].
                • Chuq said he hadn't seen or heard of the show. What's that got to do with whether it aired or not? Personally, I haven't seen or heard of it either, and I'd hazard a guess that it aired on cable television, to which subscriptions are a lot less common in Australia than the U.S. Most successful cable shows eventually make it to free-to-air (and thus, a wider audience) but The Ashlee Simpson Show hasn't done that yet. - Vague | Rant 04:02, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep'. Neutralitytalk 07:07, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep - Just edit the page a little instead of deleting it. After all the lip-syncing incident was heavily talked about. It even got a little more attention than the campaign for a few days back in October. That in itself means it deserves its own article. -- Crevaner 17:43, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic but I felt like looking it up. As of late January 2005, what is Ashlee Simpson best known for? To find out, I did a search on the New York Times for the exact phrase "Ashlee Simpson" and got about twenty hits (i.e. the New York Times has mentioned her name about twenty times in the years 2000 through the present." In reverse chronological order, and omitting some utterly irrelevant ones:

  1. An article about another topic says "'It's possible," Juror No. 8 insists.' Sure. And maybe Ashlee Simpson will develop some talent this week."
  2. One is an article about voice-training software that ends with the remark "Of course, being on key is not a prerequisite for fame. Just ask Ashlee Simpson."
  3. An end-of-2004 overview says "ASHLEE SIMPSON, just a tip:/Singing's more than moving lips,/And an artist understands/It's bad form to blame the band."
  4. A long piece begins "ASHLEE SIMPSON got caught with her microphone down on 'Saturday Night Live' in October, and five weeks later, on Dec. 5, 'Good Morning America,' which had been especially gleeful in its post-mortem of the debacle, presented Lindsay Lohan in a 'live singing debut'-- lip-syncing just like Ms. Simpson." The article goes on to argue that lip-syncing goes back to 1929, there's nothing wrong with it, it's not essentially different from a singer using a microphone in the first place.
  5. A December 26th piece, "TV's Best Live Moments" of 2004 (Janet Jackson, etc.) comments that "Before Ashlee Simpson blamed the band, and the norms of contemporary live performance, she tried to save her "Saturday Night Live" blunder with a humble-pie two-step and sort of did: the pure panic in that dance is something modern choreographers should study."
  6. An article, and an earlier event calendar, list "Destiny's Child, Gwen Stefani, Good Charlotte, Kelly Clarkson and Ashlee Simpson" as performers at a radio station WHTZ-FM (Z100) concert
  7. An article on tofu at a Japanese pub says "Yuba arguably has more character than plain tofu, which is like saying that Britney Spears lip-synchs less transparently than Ashlee Simpson."
  8. A movie is mentioned with the words "Her third album, 1973's "Hard to Stop," is reissued this week: it had no breakout hits, but give her a break -- it was released when she was 20 years old, the same age Ashlee Simpson is today"
  9. A letter to the editor says "I'm sure Ashlee Simpson is a talented young woman, but the real talent behind her success lies with the writers, musicians, engineers and producers who have crafted enjoyable pop tunes for her to dance to and occasionally sing along with. My only problem with this situation is that the Ashlees of the industry are sold to the public as artists."
  10. An article on "Rockism" opens "BAD news travels fast, and an embarrassing video travels even faster. By last Sunday morning, one of the Internet's most popular downloads was the hours-old 60-second .wmv file of Ashlee Simpson on 'Saturday Night Live.' As she and her band stood onstage, her own prerecorded vocals -- from the wrong song -- came blaring through the speakers, and it was too late to start mouthing the words. So she performed a now-infamous little jig, then skulked offstage, while the band (were a few members smirking?) played on."
  11. "Ailing Singer Needed Lip-Sync, Father Says"
  12. "Saturday Night Slip-Up"
  13. "A Girl Singing Group Aims for the Stars" "The girls recorded two songs for a special Christmas CD that will be released next month at Wal-Mart and FYE stores and on which they share billing with Raven and Ashlee Simpson."
  14. "Who Wants to Be a New Simpson?" "JOE SIMPSON is suffering from a peculiar strain of empty-nest syndrome. After years of struggle, Mr. Simpson, a formerly penniless Baptist minister who these days wears a chunky diamond stud in his left ear, has guided his two daughters, Jessica and Ashlee, to success as MTV reality-show stars and platinum-selling pop singers. But now, just as he's established himself as a pop-culture Midas, Mr. Simpson is fresh out of children...."
  15. A review of the HP version of the Apple iPod says "Hewlett-Packard has also created stickers called HP Printable Tattoos that can be affixed to the iPod to personalize and protect the player's surface....But never fear: if you suddenly tire of that Ashlee Simpson wraparound, it comes off."
  16. Arts briefing: "Dropping into second place, as it had when "Now" was issued at the start of August, was Ashlee Simpson's "Autobiography," which retook first place two weeks ago."
  17. Arts briefing: "For three weeks Ashlee Simpson's "Autobiography" (Geffen), below, and Volume 16 of the pop compilation series "Now That's What I Call Music!" (Universal/EMI/Sony Music/Zomba) have occupied the top two slots"
  18. Arts briefing: "POP CHARTS: ASHLEE ON TOP -- Sales of Ashlee Simpson's debut album "Autobiography" (Geffen) rose last week after the season finale of her reality television series, "The Ashlee Simpson Show" on MTV, pushing the album back to the No. 1 slot on Billboard's pop charts"
  19. Arts briefing: "Ashlee Simpson's run atop the Billboard 200 chart of best-selling albums ended after a week when her debut, "Autobiography," with sales of 270,000 copies, slipped to second place behind the 16th installment of the compilation series "Now That's What I Call Music!," left."
  20. "Dave Chapelle, Paris Hilton, Lenny Kravitz, Ludacris, LL Cool J, Jon Stewart, Ashlee Simpson and Sean Combs have joined the lineup of celebrities who are to appear when the MTV 2004 Video Music Awards are broadcast on Aug. 29 ..."
  21. LONG INTERVIEW: "Ashlee Simpson: Platinum Brunette." It opens "HOW quickly they grow up. Ashlee Simpson was an ingenue three weeks ago; now she's a superstar. A million copies of 'Autobiography,' her charming debut album, have been shipped since its release on July 20. Her reality series on MTV, "The Ashlee Simpson Show," has become a 3.4 million-viewer-a-week hit.... VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN -- You just shipped a million albums. How do you feel? ASHLEE SIMPSON -- Amazing. Oh my gosh. I'm freaking out. Everything is so exciting. Oh it's so cool. It's got the album cover on it and it says one million! I was like, this is insane. When I saw it, I started crying. Isn't that insane? Just to have an album in stores. It's the coolest."
  22. Arts briefing: "SISTER ACT -- Ashlee Simpson, the kid sister of Jessica Simpson, is standing tall atop the Billboard Top 200 chart today."
  23. Article on Simpson: "Raunchy or Sweet Reflections Of Adolescent Self-Esteem" "There is some actual talent as well as show-business ambition in the Simpson family. Ashlee Simpson, 19, is the younger sister of the famously ditsy pop singer Jessica Simpson, and she has her own television acting career (as a character in 'Seventh Heaven') as well as her own MTV reality show, 'The Ashlee Simpson Show,' which followed the making of her debut album, 'Autobiography' With songs by Ms. Simpson and some very experienced collaborators, the album is a thoroughly calculated package..."

Remember, these are in reverse chronological order. In my judgement, and by my count, as of late January 2005, Ashlee Simpson is about equally well known as a highly successful pop wunderkind with, it is acknowledged, "some actual talent as well as show-business ambition," and as the subject of the embarrassing incident on SNL. But notice that after the SNL incident, all references seem to treat her as a joke. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:32, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Man, that's a lot of research you did. Why don't you see what you can contribute to some of the articles? They've been made desperately emaciated of late and could use some more info added to them. Everyking 04:42, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree. Dpbsmith should put his findings on the Ashlee Simpson page in a paragraph on her declining reputation. 68.118.61.219 10:34, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I probably will, but I'm certainly not going to rush into it. So much of what would need to be said would involve reporting contemporary value judgements in an NPOV way. How much of the animus against her following the SNL incident was really related to lip-syncing, and how much was that this nineteen-year-old revealed herself to be "not a trooper," i.e. an inexperienced performer who was not able to handle a bad situation gracefully? Other questions that puzzle me: has she been pushed to sing too many public performances, with inadequate voice training, to the detriment of her vocal health? The whole story of the SNL incident at least raises this question. I haven't yet found any handy on-line video of her Orange Bowl performance, but if she sang far worse in public than in recordings, this suggests either lack of attention to her vocal health, or flattering studio enhancement of her recorded performances. The latter wouldn't bother me at all; nobody complains that Bing Crosby (or Whispering Jack Smith!) couldn't project like an opera singer and needed to use a mike. The former would be disturbing. Speaking of wunderkinds suddenly projected into the spotlight whose welfare I wonder about... how's Charlotte Church doing these days? Dpbsmith (talk) 13:49, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
You must certainly NOT put your material into the existing A.S. articles. It is a well-established Wikipedia policy that each bit of information about A.S. goes into a separate article. Your material is sufficient for three or four articles, at least. --BM 18:42, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Look, an article gets long, you break out some content. It's perfectly reasonable. Everyking 18:46, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Or, you could say, "This article is already long enough for the subject. Lets find something to remove or condense so there is room for this new information". What a concept! You seem to think that A.S. is a great artist; since she is only 20 or so, she has many years of her career ahead of her. What are you planning -- that by the time she is 40, Wikipedia should have a few hundred articles on Ashlee Simpson? --BM 20:41, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ashlee Simpson does dinner theater, Ashlee Simpson on the state fair circuit, Ashlee Simpson on the International Space Station, Ashlee Simpson in Playboy, Ashlee Simpson saves Christmas... the possibilities are endless.... Gamaliel 20:55, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Logically, I think there should as many articles as necessary to contain the info. One should not remove notable information from Wikipedia. Everyking 21:22, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
To fit me in your 32K bed of Procrustes, you would have to cut off Pieces of Me! Ashlee 21:24, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Oh, that seems like a bit of a stretch. Procrustes

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