Talk:Watermelon Man (composition)

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[edit] Ba-Benzele

Shouldn't there be some mention of the strong African influence on the intro of this song?

[edit] It's not a "song"

... it's a jazz composition, played without any vocals. Anybody agree, so we can move and edit this? — Mütze 12:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, good idea, it was obviously written by someone who thinks every piece of music is a song... Bochum

I have renamed the article per naming conventions to reflect this. dissolvetalk 10:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] lack of references

Whenever I'm bored and wandering wikipedia, I remove "nag boxes" talking about a lack of references if the boxes are more than a year old. I figure if they've been sitting that long without accomplishing anything, their annoyance factor outweighs any utility. (I think those nag boxes are stupid, used as a lazy replacement for editing, and should be done away with in toto, but that's a losing argument.)

This article is the first time anybody has come and replaced one of these boxes, out of several dozen I have removed!

Of course, maybe that's a reflection of what a mess the article is. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

No, wait, now that I look around - it was undone by somebody who was just going around replacing the boxes I removed on random articles. So it's not a reflection on anybody watching this article or trying to improve it, just some knee-jerk slapping down of nag boxes as an alternative to actually improving articles. Too bad. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
'twasn't knee-jerk. I noted the wrongful deletion on one article, and it was so clearly wrong that I was concerned you were just a vandal. So I checked out a number of other edits you made to see if you were. I often do this when I see suspicious edits. You aren't a vandal, of course -- most of your edits are just fine or at least justifiable -- but I did note that many (but not all) of your template deletions were unjustified, and reverted those. I did not revert any of the several deletions that appear to be justified. To the extent that one of our sets of edits are "knee-jerk," I submit that it isn't mine. TJRC (talk) 20:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough - although we obviously have different definitions of "unjustified" template deletions! The fact that you replaced the nag box but didn't do anything to respond to its concern, however, illustrates the problem with these boxes - they are ineffective as an incentive to improve wikipedia. They just clutter it up. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
One thing the template that generates the box -- as opposed to the box itself -- does is add a categorization to the article, so it shows up in a list of articles needing work. Occasionally, when I am in a gnomish mood, I'll browse such lists and see if there's a topic I know something about, and add references, do a cleanup, whatever. I've done this on articles that are law-related, about certain entertainers I'm familiar with, or geographical areas where I've lived, for example. I don't know how widespread this behavior is, but if there's a name for it, it can't be all that rare.
With respect to the boxes themselves, I acknowledge that reasonable minds can differ here, but I anecdotally see some value here, too. Many times I'll be reading an article, see a box like this, and make the necessary corrections, if I'm able to. This happens in a few different scenarios. For example, I might read an article about a subject I know well, just to look up some detail. (What year did they make copyright renewal optional, again? Oh, right, it was 1992. Okay; bad example; that's an incredibly stubby article that's on my to-do list to expand.). Or I might be reading a book that treats some subject, and will look up the wikipedia article to learn more about it. Or, I might be starting to learn about a subject, and start with a wikipedia article, and go on to read a book or other material about it. In each of these cases, I'm likely to update the article.
The boxes also serve as flags, as indicia of potential untrustworthiness. An article with references is more likely to be trustworthy than one that has no references.
It's true, I did not update this article, because I don't know much about the subject. But I would still like the flag to be available for someone else who does know about the subject who might be able to update it.
Damn, I talk too much.TJRC (talk) 21:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Those same functions (search, flags to editors) can be performed by less obtrusive means, such as "stub" notices. The huge, glaring nag boxes (IMHO) place the lets-edit role of wikipedia above the lets-inform-people role, because they get in the way of readers in order to slightly increase utility to editors.
I first took up a cudgel against them, in fact, when friends of mine who use wikipedia but don't want to edit it complained about how many there are and how annoying they are. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:29, 13 February 2008 (UTC)