Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Freak Out!

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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 promoted 04:34, 30 March 2007.

[edit] Freak Out!

Self-nomination. I did a lot of work on this article to bring it from its original state to its current level of quality. I think that I've done a very good job with it. (Ibaranoff24 04:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC))

  • Nominate and Support. (Ibaranoff24 04:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC))
  • Support. Very well written, clearly there's enough cites, music samples, chart info, track listing are all here. This is a quality example of a FA-status album. Good job! Anthony Hit me up... 19:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There is potential for a good article here, and I enjoyed reading it, but a lot of work needed would be needed to bring it to FA standard:
  • Lead contains six short sentences (see WP:LEAD). Three is more usual, four is acceptable if topic requires a lenghty introduction.
  • Many stubby one statement sentances through out the article.
  • Block quotes squeezed between short paragraphs.
  • Audio file would benefit from a caption.
  • The section "Response" is underdeveloped and lacks insight, considering so much has been written about the album by so many. The fact that Gronening bought his copy "from the record department of a grocery store" is wholly trivial and irrelevant.
  • The inline cite in the first sentence is unnecessary.
  • Cites based on interview with Zappa should credit the interviewer as author, not the interviewee.
  • A number of statments are double cited. Why is this, are they paticularly controversial?
  • Needs a thorough copy edit:
  • "debut double album" - The word debut here is confusing, why not just 'first'.
  • "Wilson signed The Mothers...to a record deal on the pretense that they were a white blues band" - Change 'on the pretense' to 'in the belief' - have different meanings.
  • "expanded their music to a wide range of original material" - with a wide, or to include.
  • "initial guitar player Elliot Ingber" - 'initial' here is awkward, plus it is used again in the following sentence.
  • "Although the album was poorly-received when it was initially released in the United States, it was a success in Europe, and gained a cult following in America." - drop 'it was', switch 'initally' to first. Why is the order of the sentence USA, Europe, USA.
  • "The album also influenced" - 'also' is redundant.
  • Why is audio documentary in double quotes.
  • The factoid about the ale is amusing, but too trivial for the lead.
  • These are all taken from the lead, can you please check the remainder of the article for similar issues. Ceoil 22:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I've taken care of some of the issues you have brought up. Please take a look at the current revision and re-review. (Ibaranoff24 22:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC))
  • The entire text, as I've mentioned, needs revision: "The first song recorded for the album was "Any Way The Wind Blows." The second track recorded was "Who Are the Brain Police?"[2][10] ". Again, one statement sentences, double citations. A larger issue is that the current article lacks insight and context. Ceoil 00:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Took care of the sentence. (Ibaranoff24 01:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC))
Comment: Have been following edits to the article, and my openion is that it reamins outside of the criteria. Ceoil 23:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Object Not what I'd call a well written article. There are simple grammatical and spelling errors throughout the article ("attented", "It was also as one"). Please make sure to copyedit the whole article, not just fix these examples. Other things at random:
    • America as a whole Occurs twice.
    • In the early 1960s, Frank Zappa met Ray Collins, who was supporting himself by working as a carpenter, and on weekends sung with a group called the Soul Giants. Last part of that sentence is ambiguous. Was it Zappa or Collins? If the latter, use parallelism, as that makes for a much less awkward sentence ("by working as a carpenter and singing...).
    • about the Watts riots Link?
    • However, in a 1968 article written for Hit Parader magazine Not seeing the contrast that would indicate a use of "however"
    • Zappa is quoted as saying Where, when, context? Why is this huge quotation plopped down here? Quotations are good to sprinkle around to add some zest to the text, but here, the first three paragraphs of Album production are dominated by quotations.
    • Nothing in Album production about when/where they recorded the album? There's Some songs, such as "Motherly Love" and "I Ain't Got No Heart" had already been recorded. But, what does that mean? Were they recorded before the Freak Out! session or something?
    • posthumous release I'm assuming posthumous refers to Zappa?
    • "Wilson was sticking his neck out..." Who said this? Context?
    • at approximately 11 minutes and 39 seconds That doesn't seem too approximate to me...seems pretty specific.
    • "...at the time, it was, you know,..." Another quotation with no context. Who said this?
    • "it would be best to bring along a Suzy Creamcheese replica who would demonstrate once and for all the veracity of such a beast." You have this in quotations, but it's not cited. Where are you taking this from?
    • neither a commercial or Neither/nor
    • When citing books, you need to give page numbers. Gzkn 01:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • All of your concerns have been addressed. Please take a look at the current revision. (Ibaranoff24 20:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC))
  • Oppose Every image in this article is at a high resolution. Each needs to be shrunk so that the longest side is no larger than 400px and then tagged with {{subst:furd}}. ShadowHalo 04:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm afraid that this edit cannot be accomplished, as the current revisions of the images in the article are already at an appropriate low-resolution size. (Ibaranoff24 06:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC))
      • They most certainly are not low resolution. For Wikipedia's purposes, 696x683 (the size of the first image) is high resolution. To comply with fair use, our use of copyrighted material needs to be as little as possible and just enough to be used in articles. There's no way we need a 696x683 in an article. Plus, we can't be providing high resolution covers that people can use to produce illegal copies. ShadowHalo 06:46, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. Lucid, concise and well-sourced desription of one of rock history's important non-mainstream releases.--HJ 12:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. Well written article about an important album. Dan M 04:16, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment. The prose of this nomination needs scrutiny before promotion. Overall it's not badly written, but there are glitches. Here are a few examples at random.

  • "poorly-received" - no hyphens after "-ly"
  • "and on weekends sung with a group" - Wrong tense: "sAng"
  • "said to have been made circa 1965" - Please replace the Latinism with a plain English word.
  • "Freak Out! was finally released with the band's name now changed to" - spot the redundant word.
  • "Featured" twice in two lines; "got" and "get" too close together up top; "released" x 2. Repetition needs to be audited. Tony 21:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - It just doesn't do it for me. Note that this is an inactionable oppose & therefore shouldn't be counted in the end tally - just noting that the article doesn't have the X-factor needed IMHO. Thanks, Spawn Man 05:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.