Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Pop music issues

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[edit] Statement of the dispute

All discussion belongs at the bottom of this page. Please do not edit this section.

[edit] Description

This is a request for comment covering the edits of several users and a multitude of articles based upon pop music singers, typically females such as Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Whitney Houston, although not entirely restricted to articles relating to these persons. As such, it is not a direct call for analysis on any one user's edits, but for those of an entire group as a whole, and a call for improvement/dispute resolution / guideline consensus in reference to the articles in question.

While much of the information is indeed helpful, the articles tend towards biased and POV editing, and then reverting/protesting when anyone else tries to fix their work. Several editors, among them OmegaWikipedia (talk · contribs) and Ultimate Star Wars Freak (talk · contribs), would not, for quite some time, let "outside" editors near the Mariah Carey article or related articles on her songs or those of other pop artists. Such articles were therefore filled with biased POV writing. Admin Mel Etitis dedicated himself to attempting to format and clean up the articles' grammar, capitalization, and wording, only to have one of the persons in question go back and revert them repeatedly. For such reasons, both parties and others have been blocked several times for violating the 3RR.

In addition, although the previously established precedent was to have one article per song, these persons began creating separate articles for covers of songs, and then protested the merging of both articles into one. This results in a multitude of articles on a singular pop song, which is unnecessary. This established a dangerous precedent among other inexperienced editors, and now we have separate articles for two versions each of "The Star-Spangled Banner", "I Will Always Love You", "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", and even "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town". When these (and other such articles) are listed on AfD, the editors band together and vote (regularly inactionable) keep votes to try and "save" their articles. One of them, Winnermario (talk · contribs), actually stated that "the article will be kept", with no other reasoning than that. This user has also displayed, at several times, unapologetic incivility towards other users (see her comments at Talk:Cool (song) and Wikipedia talk: Requests for comment. Other problems have involved the constant self-imposed renaming of categories to suit a user's whim.

As of current, the Mariah Carey article is part of the Wikipedia: Article Improvement Drive, and some work has been done on trying to bring it up to a higher standard of quality. Some work has been done on some of the Mariah Carey singles articles, but the albums articles are still in poor conditions. The article on the The Emancipation of Mimi album alone is 45 kilobytes, and the article on the single "We Belong Together" contains sixteen paragraphs devoted to explaining just how well the song performed in sales and airplay.

No one is certainly begrudging coverage of these artists in the Wikipedia, but that coverage has to be consistent with the coverage throughout the rest of the Wikipedia, needs to follow the Manual of Style, and does not need to resort to detailed analyses of statistical information (which is then redundantly reprinted in tables) for content. This material can be written about in an encyclopedic manner.

[edit] Issues at hand in reference to certain articles

[edit] Excessive article size/ writing quality

The article on Mariah Carey is, at 61 kilobytes, nearly twice the recommended article length, and loaded with excessive trivia, quotes, and other information that needs to be summarized and rewritten. I have begun work in several sections of the article. Similarly, the article on The Emancipation of Mimi is 45 kilobytes of information that could easily be trimmed down to a more concise length. There is no question to be posed here; the articles simply need to be reduced in length. The article on Carey herself will likely surpass the 32 K limit, but as long as the information included is concise, that should not be a problem. However, it does not appear that an article on an album that was released less than a year ago needs a Wikipedia article of this length. On a related note, separate articles exist for several characters from the film Glitter, a film which has not had a notable enough impact on popular culture to warrant having extended articles for each of its main characters. The articles on Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson also have similar legnth issues and repeated reverting/POV issues.

[edit] Amount of information/trivia included; chart performance analyses, synopses

In what level of detail should a song's sales and airplay performance/charting statistics be covered? Should there be an upper limit? Is it necessary to list positions for all Billboard charts on which a song appears, or should there be a limit on the number of charts covered? Many, nearly all, of the articles on singles by Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, and others include lengthy discussions of chart performance, with extended chart listings and extended remix listings (marked as "official" without any source). For example, It's Like That (Mariah Carey song) contains entries for twenty charts in the United States alone (some of which are component charts used to calculate the larger ones), Sweetheart (1998 song) and We Belong Together contain extended discussions about why a song did or did not succeed on a specific chart. At times these analyses venture into mild cases of point of view writing: speculation, judgment of song performance, etc., as far as referring to songs as "relative flops", "great successes", and the like. While coverage of chart performance is important, many of these articles, including the "Sweetheart" article and Love Takes Time, are comprised mostly or almost entirely of these analyses, which, in general practice in most scholarly music writing and Wikipedia editing, would be only a few short paragraphs or sentences long. Also included for each are full chart trajectories, showing where the song was on the Hot 100 during each week it charted, and, in another instance of mild point-of-view editing, "#1" positions are always bolded (I was told by one of the anon contributors that this was done to "show recognition to the achievement of the performer", which is an acknowledgement of point-of-view writing).

Several of these articles also contain original research/point-of-view synopses of the songs themselves and/or their music videos, written in language that reads less like an encyclopedia article and more like a fan site. Examples include the descriptions of the videos for Crazy in Love and Let Me Hold You, at which an attempt to cleanup such writing was reverted. Instead of presenting clear, professional descriptions of the videos, such articles instead delve into colloquial writing and a shot-by-shot description of the video.

[edit] Seperate articles on different recordings of the same song

Does the Wikipedia require separate articles on different recordings of the same composition? If it does, should every major hit version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" be given Wikipedia articles, or just those of certain performers?

Several separate articles have been written on covers of songs. Some of these articles, such as I'll Be There (Mariah Carey song), The Star Spangled Banner (Whitney Houston song), and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (Mariah Carey single), were written as detailed separate articles, instead of merging and incorporating data into one article or discussing song covers on a relevant album article. Some of them, including Do You Know Where You're Going To? (Theme from Mahogany) (Mariah Carey recording) and Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, were written before and in the stead of information on the original and more notable versions of the song, which were instead given a passing mention. Attempts to merge the articles are met with resistance, and attempts to nominate them on AfD in order to get a consensus result in the editors in question banding together to add "keep" votes, sometimes without valid reasoning for the articles' retention in the encyclopedia (reasons offered have included "it's part of Mariah Carey's official discography" and the threat of "you will keep this article"). While notable covers of songs are certainly worth mentioning, separate articles for covers of songs do not seem necessary, and often could be very easily merged with another article. Note that this issue is currently directly in dispute with the separate article on These Boots Are Made for Walkin' and These Boots Are Made for Walkin' (Jessica Simpson single). A similar issue exists with the articles for Charmbracelet World Tour: An Intimate Evening With Mariah Carey and Charmbracelet.

[edit] Song notability guidelines

There is also an issue of song notability, as far as how important must a song be to warrant having a Wikipedia article about it? One side maintains that not all songs, not even all singles, are inherently notable enough for their own articles (which is shown when the articles consist almost completely of catalogue information--that is, the persons involved, the method and dates of release, and the level of success of the single--or of analyses of chart performance for songs whose chart performance was not peculiar or unusual enough to warrant extended coverage, of chart position tables, or of remix lists. This issue has already begun discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Notability and Music Guidelines/Songs, although little new discussion has occurred as of recent. This discussion needs to be carried out and followed through to establish clearly defined policy.

[edit] Infobox formatting and article formatting; Manual of Style/scholarly writing conforming

Also neccessary are consistant standards for infobox formatting (and length). Currently, all manner of different infoboxes are used, with incosistency in formatting and content provided. It would probably be best to make a compromised template for infoboxes on singles (as there is one for albums), rather than allowing broad variations in infobox use. *Some of these articles do not conform to the standards set at Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs, reguarding the colors of the infoboxes.

There was a very brief issue with the articles relating to the entertainer Madonna and the edits of User:Beautifulstranger. Beautifulstranger became angry upon being informed by several editors that his edits were against policy (reverting infobox colors, which are set to follow a certain scheme based upon the type of album being covered, to his own colors, and writing POV articles on Madonna songs), and quit the Wikipedia as a result. The articles are being cleaned up, at the hands of User:Jkelly and myself. I am not filing this RfC so that the users in question will quit the Wikipedia; there simply needs to be order brought to this whole issue.

There have also been issues with the guidelines set by the Manual of Style, and their application to the pages in question; those issues are central to the discussion at the RfC for Mel Etitis. I myself know little in-depth information on these disputes, although I have seen instances where one or more of the editors in question will revert any changes by Mel Eitits that they contested, leading to edit/revert wars.

[edit] Proposal

What I, and others, propose be done is as follows:

  1. As has been suggested several times, the Mariah Carey articles as they stand now can be moved to a Mariah Carey fan Wiki at WikiCities, so that persons who wrote them can have their work preserved in proper context. Extraordinary Machine (talk · contribs) has already put in a request to start such a Wiki there. A pop music fan wiki in general should also be started for the rest of the articles.
  2. Establish clear, defined, and agreed policies and guidelines for artisles on musicians and their works.
  3. Create a special cleanup project for all of the articles that still have issues. These articles should be labeled with a custom template, which is to be removed after the issues within them (POV writing, facts that need referencing, long discussions--more than two paragraph--of chart performance, any coverage of minor component charts--Hot 100 Airplay, Hot 100 sales, etc., long lists of "official" remixes and versions, etc.) have been removed and cleaned up.
  4. Merge any and all articles about different recordings of the same composition to one article. In the case where a song has several notable versions and the main article is already long *this primarily would only apply to covers of national anthems, Christmas songs, and the like), make a page called Notable covers of *song* or Notable recordings of *song* and over them there.
  5. Have administrators activly monitor edits to these pages to make sure that policies or guidelines are not violated. If problems with any particular user persist, then that user should be dealt with on a personal basis (up to and including blocking).

[edit] List of persons central to matter

These are the primary persons whose behavior, edits, and/or contributions are in dispute:

  1. OmegaWikipedia (talk · contribs)
  2. Winnermario (talk · contribs)
  3. Anittas (talk · contribs)
  4. Ultimate Star Wars Freak (talk · contribs)
  5. Street walker (talk · contribs)

Editors involved with the issue from the other side include FuriousFreddy (talk · contribs), Mel Etitis (talk · contribs), Volatile (talk · contribs), Hoary (talk · contribs), Extraordinary Machine (talk · contribs)

[edit] Articles central to matter

[edit] Evidence of disputed behavior of users

(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)

  1. Two reverts of cleanups to I'll Be There (Mariah Carey song) by OmegaWikipedia: [1] [2] done for no other reason but to keep the article at his preferred version.
  2. Reversion of cleanup to Let Me Hold You to reinclude speculation, original research, point of view, and unencyclopediaic writing: original, cleanup, current version as of this writing.
  3. Repeatedly changed the name of Category:Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles to Category:Billboard Hot 100 number one singles at OmegaWikipedia's own will, undoing Mel Etitis' work.
  4. Talk:Rhythm and blues - OmegaWikipedia insisted upon adding unverified and unfactual information to article on music genre, including an entire paragraph dedicated to summarizing the careers of Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez. Only through moderator assistance was a sense of credibility restored.
  5. Talk:Cool (song) Winnermario declared the article "her baby", and proceeded to inform Mel Etitis that he should leave the article alone and allow her to fix it up, essentially telling him that he was "not welcome" at "her" article.
  6. Talk:We Belong Together - following an attempt to trim and clean up the article, OmegaWikipedia reverts most of the edits (including basic spelling and grammar fixes), declares "the article is fine", and says "dont ruin the article".
  7. Talk:Shake It Off - similar to the above. OmegaWikipedia reverts attempts made to introduce a single infobox to the article, trim a ten paragraph long section describing two live performances of the song, remove U.S.-centric POV, fan-gush, unsourced weasel terms and speculation, correct spelling, grammar, wikilinks etc. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]. Comments of his on the relevant talk page include "Your edit has bastardized the chart performance section" and "EXCUSE ME?! Can you not read?". The dispute was listed at Wikipedia:Third opinion [11], to no avail.
  8. OmegaWikipedia undid similar edits made by the same editor to other articles such as Vision of Love [12], Hero (Mariah Carey song) [13], Someday (Mariah Carey song) [14] [15], I Don't Wanna Cry [16], Love Takes Time [17], Emotions (Mariah Carey song) [18], Can't Let Go [19], I'll Be There (Mariah Carey song) [20].
  9. WP:AFD subpages for Do You Know Where You're Going To? (Theme from Mahogany) (Mariah Carey song), The Star Spangled Banner (Whitney Houston song), The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) (Christina Aguilera song), O Holy Night (Mariah Carey song), Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (Mariah Carey song), Joy to the World (Mariah Carey song), Pump It, Sylk, Rafael (Glitter character), Timothy Walker, Julian "Dice" Black, Billie Frank, I Want You (Madonna song). With the exception of "The Christmas Song" and "Pump It", all resulted in "no consensus" (default keep) partly due to the same aforementioned group of editors voting "keep" on all of them, often without justifying their vote.
  10. OmegaWikipedia attempts to alter the guidelines at Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs, without justifying his contributions on the project's talk page [21] [22].
  11. Extreme inciviilty, homophobic attacks, over a disagreement in chart placements: [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]
  12. Responding personal attacks from user whose talk page had been vandalised [29] [30]

[edit] Applicable policies towards article content and user conduct

{list the policies that apply to the disputed articles)

  1. Guidelines at Wikipedia:WikiProject Music, particularly the point about "don't get too gushy when writing about your favorite band".
  2. Wikipedia:Fancruft/Wikipedia:Trivia, in the bulking of articles with extended coverage of chart performance and synopses
  3. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view: although encyclopedic articles can be written on most of the persons, songs, and albums in question, many of the articles contain subjective terms, slang, a poit-of-view towards (or against) the performer in question, or show the point of view of the writer.
  4. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not: Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information
  5. Wikipedia:Verifiability. At times, these articles contain unverified speculation. Some of the editors in question have at times insisted upon adding innacurate information to articles (for example, what hapened with the Rhythm and blues article); the information is proven to be innacurate when the user cannot provide reliable references to use.
  6. Wikipedia:Fiction: in reference to articles on Glitter characters. Glitter being a minor work, all of its characters are to be covered in the main article.
  7. Wikipedia:Ownership of articles: several of these editors have, as shown above, repeatedly reverted changes by certain editors to their preferred versions of the articles. When articles are listed on AfD, they band together to add "keep" votes to the AfD tally. Winnermario explicitly stated that Cool (song) was to be "[her] baby", and that she wanted Mel Etitis out of "her" article.
  8. Wikipedia:Three-revert rule: several of these editors have repeatedly broken the 3RR in working to retain their preferred versions of pages.
  9. Wikipedia:No original research: many of the articles' text venture into speculation on why certain events happened, on goings-on in songs and music videos, on why a song was or was not a hit, and more.
  10. Wikipedia: No personal attacks and Wikipedia:Wikiquette, relating to Winnermario and unapoligetic comments she has made on several occasions and continues to make.
  11. Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point: relating to OmegaWikipedia's attempts to edit the guidelines at Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs.
  12. Wikipedia:Harassment: relating to OmegaWikipedia's decision to follow a single editor across eight articles and undo most of his edits to them.

[edit] Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links)

  1. User talk:FuriousFreddy/Archive1 and
  2. User talk:FuriousFreddy/Archive2
  3. User talk:FuriousFreddy/Archive3
  4. User talk:FuriousFreddy/Archive1a
  5. User talk:FuriousFreddy and User talk:OmegaWikipedia
  6. Talk:Rhythm and blues
  7. Talk:Mariah Carey
  8. Talk:Cool (song)
  9. Talk:Charmbracelet
  10. User talk:Extraordinary Machine
  11. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts

--FuriousFreddy 05:16, 19 October 2005 (UTC), revised --FuriousFreddy 03:27, 21 October 2005 (UTC), revised --Extraordinary Machine 22:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Endorsements

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

  1. FuriousFreddy 05:16, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
  2. Extraordinary Machine 22:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
  3. Jkelly 22:24, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
  4. Volatile 14:13, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
  5. Calton | Talk 00:47, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  6. eo 18:52, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  7. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:15, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  8. keepsleeping say what 20:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  9. Ann Heneghan (talk) 20:29, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  10. Qirex 10:20, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  11. Monicasdude 02:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  12. The "respondents" were notified of this RfC five days ago and have not responded. I have no reason to think that they are trying to resolve this dispute. Robert McClenon 01:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative Statement of the Dispute

[edit] Responses

[edit] Outside views

[edit] Outside View by McClenon

I see that this RfC was posted about two weeks ago and there has been no response. Have the endorsers placed proper notice on the talk pages of the editors who are charged with conduct violations?

I have not researched the details. I see three main issues. The first is an issue of the amount of material. That is basically a sort of inclusionist-deletionist dispute. As a moderate inclusionist, I can see the philosophical argument in favor of providing more information rather than less. At the same time, I don't think that the authors and defenders of the articles have made a case for inclusion, or for retention of their full length, but have simply been reverting. I see a disregard for discussion and so for the consensus process by a few editors who want to preserve the large amount of material that appears to be fancruft.

The second issue is an issue of standards. Manual of Style edits by FuriousFreddy and Mel Etitis have been systematically reverted and ignored. If the authors and defenders of the articles think that the standards should be revised, they should use the policy process rather than ignoring the standards.

The third issue is an issue of proprietary interest in articles. This may be the real reason why the authors of the articles in question are stubborn and revert them rather than discussing them.

In general, I would prefer to see more material in Wikipedia, even if much of it is trivia. After all, one of the virtues of encyclopedias is to be repositories of interesting trivia. However, I think that the underlying issue is proprietary interest in articles.

Editors who endorse this outside view should sign below:

  1. Robert McClenon 17:00, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Jkelly 17:12, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. Jacqui ★ 18:09, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  4. Wikipedia can and should provide as much information as is relevant to a subject. If enough information can be written about a subject, then it is worthy of an article. However, the quality is most important in my view, and the focus should not be on the notability of an article's subject, but rather on the quality of the writing contained within it. Terrafire 15:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.