Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Melodifestivalen/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 not promoted 16:57, 28 June 2007.

[edit] Melodifestivalen

Self-nomination. Probably the largest pop music festival in Scandinavia, recently made a GA. I've been working on this article for the best part of seven months; first expanding the history section beyond the "milestones" that it was before [1], then getting completely carried away and expanding the entire article; to the point where I feel nothing is now neglected. A peer review also came in very useful. The article is very well-referenced (most of the references are in Swedish however, an unfortunate situation which could not be avoided, doing so would require the use of less reliable English-language sources or taking huge swathes of info out of the article), well-written and inclusive of both free and rationaled fair-use images. Actionable objections are — of course — welcome, but if none are present please support. Thanks :) Chwech | hum-dee-hum-hum 13:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment. Here's a few comments as I go through the article:
  • Why abbreviate Eurovision song contest to ESC? Looking through the article, you use the acronym twice; in both places, this could be replaced with Eurovision. Your call though.
  • Yeah it does seem a bit pointless. I'll change.
  • "schlager"? I wonder whether you should include a short description of the genre or not; after all, it does break flow when the viewer has to read the "schlager" article to discover what it is.
  • I'll add a bit about it mostly being orchestrated light pop songs.
  • "with varying degrees of success." Is this phrase necessary? These genres having made an appearance would suggest they were successful in some way.
  • I'll remove.
  • "Participating songs" sounds awkward; many instances of this phrase can be shortened to just "songs" or some other phrase.
  • I'm not so sure about changing it to just "songs", so I've changed it to participants/entries/contestants etc.
  • "She went on to win Eurovision in Rome later that year, after a tie with France" (from the Schlager section) I'm not sure exactly what's meant by this phrase; it implies she tied with France.
  • I've fixed that so it points out that there was a tie-break, which Sweden won.
  • "at the time" can probably be removed in several places. "at the time capital of Francoist Spain". Adding Francoist as a modifier suggests that it wasn't the Spain we know today. It's a minor point however.
  • Removed instances of "at the time" where necessary. Thanks for your new comments :).
I'll add more comments as I go through the text. Good work though!

CloudNine 12:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Support. All my comments have been addressed. All images and media have acceptable fair use rationales, and the references seem to meet WP:RS. Good work! CloudNine 09:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Chwech | hum-dee-hum-hum 12:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Support. Encyclopedic and comprehensive (well, actually I don't know but it sure looks like it). Leon math 19:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comments "References are in Swedish unless specified." Since about half of your references are in English, and since this is the English Wikipedia, this seems backwards; the Swedish sources should have a language icon, while the English references do not need an icon. Per WP:EL, WP:NOT, WP:RS, why are fan websites included in External links? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
    • You're quite right on the first point. Swedish sources are quite acceptable, but since this is the English Wikipedia, it's the Swedish sources that should be tagged with some language identifier. As for fansites, sometimes they're excellent sources for further information. Have you read any to see if they provide more than chat opportunities and pictures as most fansites do? - Mgm|(talk) 09:35, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Reply: I've added {{sv icon}} tags to Swedish references and removed tags from English ones. I've also removed the fan sites; I had originally been working based on the Eurovision Song Contest FA, but it seems fan sites were removed from there a while after it was promoted. Thanks for the comments. Chwech | hum-dee-hum-hum 12:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose—1a.
    • Opening sentence: "Melodifestivalen[a] (Swedish IPA: [mɛlʊˈdiːfɛstɪˌvɑːlɛn], literally translated as The Melody Festival) is an annual music competition organised by Sveriges Television (SVT) and Sveriges Radio (SR) to determine the song and artist that will represent Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest.[b]" Remove "literally". "The song and artist"—"that" will do for only the song; artists are people; reword.
    • Third sentence: "The competition is a considerably popular live television and radio event—it is the most popular television programme in Sweden, a title it has held since 2000, at times eclipsing even Eurovision itself." "Considerably popular" is unidiomatic. The dash is uncomfortable here; you could remove "it is", maybe. What you've got there is not a title, which would require initial caps. "Even" and "itself"? Two amplifiers unnecessary.
    • Fourth sentence: "In 2007, an estimated four million people—almost 44% of Sweden's population—watched the final, while the semifinals averaged around 3.1 million viewers." Four million is 44% of the Swedish population, but were they all Swedes? You mean "In 2007, an estimated four million Swedes—almost 44% of the population—watched the final, while the semifinals averaged around 3.1 million viewers.", don't you?

I'm not going further. There's enough evidence here that the whole thing is poorly written. Collaboration with native speakers required (good ones, at that). Tony 08:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Reply: As I said in the peer review, prose was never a particular strong point of mine. Would you suggest I take the article to the League of Copyeditors? Chwech | hum-dee-hum-hum 15:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Update: I just added it there. Thanks for your comments. Chwech | hum-dee-hum-hum 22:23, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Image:Lilla Melodifestivalen.jpg, Image:Melodifestivalen voting 2005.jpg, Image:Style at Melodifestivalen 1986.jpg, and Image:Mona Grain.jpg all lack fair use rationale for this article. Further, all four of these images are discussed only in the captions, and seem entirely decorative. There's no significance of the image to the inline text. There's nothing historically significant about any of the images, except Image:Mona Grain.jpg, being the oldest video recording known to exist...yet that's not discussed in the article either. This is all fair use overuse, and unnecessary to the article. At best, only the Image:Mona Grain.jpg should remain. --Durin 13:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply: I'm not sure I agree with you on this. I have deleted Image:Mona Grain.jpg (interesting, but if you ask me, not all that important to the article as a whole.) I've also got rid of Image:Lilla Melodifestivalen.jpg for pretty much the same reason (the content of that caption is mentioned elsewhere anyway.) I disagree with you regarding the other two. I certainly haven't seen anything in the Manual of Style (here would be the place, wouldn't it?) to suggest that information in image captions should be repeated (even in a reworded form) in the body of the article. I will make the fair use rationale for these images more specific though. Thanks for your comments, to be honest I'd rather this nomination failed than the article be left to languish at the bottom of WP:FAC with so few comments :) Chwech | hum-dee-hum-hum 16:22, 28 June 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.