Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hit 'Em Up/archive1

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 by SandyGeorgia 02:00, 2 November 2010 [1].

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Hit 'Em Up

Hit 'Em Up (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/Hit 'Em Up/archive1

Nominator(s): Theornamentalist (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because it is well sourced, thorough and complete. This is also my first nomination, looking forward to the process. Theornamentalist (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment No dab links, no dead external links. wackywace 20:46, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose, 1c (well-researched) for now. I did one source check, on the fairly bold claim that it "has been called the greatest diss song of all time". I'm assuming the sentence in the body meant to back this up is: "Those in the rap industry have referred to it as the best diss record."? The citation given does not appear to contain any information backing that claim. I retrieved the December 2006 issue of Spin; I was initially confused because your citation gives p. 85 and your entry in the Biblio gives p. 120. Which is it? At any rate neither of those pages contain anything written by Jennifer Tzar. --Andy Walsh (talk) 22:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
  • XXL Magazine named it number one in their list of the Greatest Diss Songs of all time. Unfortunately, I could not find a free reliable source for it, and the link I gave only reveals numbers 11-20. I will check again. Regarding the statement from Spin, [here]. I mistakenly listed the photographer as the writer, and I'm going to change what it read. I initially had another source that claimed other execs/producers viewed it as the best, but for now I will simply list exactly who said it (which I should've done at that time anyway. As for the page listing, in the bibliography I included the number of pages of the source; figured it would help. - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
    • I figured that's what happened with the page numbers; please note that your reference list should always specify which page or pages the information appears on, not how many pages are in the publication. --Andy Walsh (talk) 22:56, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Fixed. - Theornamentalist (talk) 00:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Comments. It's clear a lot of work has been done and a lot of source material found but I think there's a few issues. A lot of wikilinks should be there but aren't, e.g. East Coast hip hop, "Don't Look Any Further", Johnny "J", Bad Boy Records, "Who Shot Ya?". Should comb through and link anything that's relevant. There's a lot of redundancy in the text: "responded in kind ... diss songs of their own", "has itself been called infamous as well", "Part of the controversy surrounding ... is due in part", "entirely authentic" and "in no way an act", "threatens retaliation in "Hit 'Em Up"" - no need to mention the song here. The article also didn't mention that 2Pac's real name was Tupac Shakur and that The Notorious BIG's was also known as Biggie. I removed "who sat beside him on a stool" which seemed weird. I took the liberty of fixing some of these (but may have introduced other badness).

  I think there needs to be more info on this East Coast - West Coast rivalry and more background info. The article is hard to read for people without any knowledge. For example, the November 30, 1994 shooting should be expanded, perhaps more about Tupac and Biggie's early relationship. I think the relationship between Tupac's death and the song needs to be expanded. It's unfortunate that the lyrics touch on so much topics but without the info, it's hard to understand. Some other sections also seem small, like the music section and the final paragraph - what did the academics find, where was it used as a lesson and what does "define anger in rap music" mean?

• I'm not sure what this woman Tiffany (full name?) is doing. There's no mention of her in the rest of the article.
• "The ferocity of Shakur's raging vocals,[6] as said by long time collaborator and producer of "Hit 'Em Up" Johnny "J", was entirely authentic." - this is not a good sentence and basically duplicates the following one.
• "He explained that Shakur was initially fueled by his anger against Biggie and used this adrenaline, which he described as "superhuman", to attack the other East Coast rappers." - Not sure what this means. I take it means that he was at first primarily angry at Biggie, but in his anger, his attacks spread to other rappers.
• "The second verse is performed ..." - not sure but maybe move up to where it describes the first and third verse.
• "Biggie carelessly released" - not sure what carelessly means here.
• "particularly with his .44 Magnum" - did he threaten the children with anything else?
  • The line is "My four four make sure all your kids don't grow." so I don't think so. - Theornamentalist (talk) 01:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Also was the song released unofficially before 4 June 1996?
  • I'm not sure, I did not find anything about an unofficial release, only the release date for How Do U Want It. - Theornamentalist (talk) 01:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Some of the info seem to be in the wrong place: "The original cover for the single had Puffy's head on a snake body, and Biggie's head on a pig's" after the release of the song in Nu-Mixx Klazzics, when re-releases were talked about in the above paragraph.
  • Fixed (ha I think, but I guess you can be the judge of the reorganization) - Theornamentalist (talk) 01:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• I take it the video of "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted" used actors who impersonated Biggie and others and were again used in Hit Em Up video, but don't think the sentence is clear enough.
• "ensured that he had nothing to worry about" - did they remove him from the set?
  • Unfortunately I do not know, Google Books limits that page for me, here. I know sometimes it has to do with a certain amount of pages being viewed before the preview ends. On page 132 it cuts off right at the point where he tells that he is armed. Maybe... I can stop in a bookstore this week and see if I can find it. - Theornamentalist (talk) 03:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• "surpassing the song and video for Tha Dogg Pound's "New York, New York" in popularity" - why is this comparison being made?
  • Info added to the article. I believe the author mentioned it because it was another West Coast song against New York, so I think it was in the top spot among WC rap fans. - Theornamentalist (talk) 04:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

There's lots of oddities and things being said when it's not clear how relevant it is and things not being explained. Also a lot of minor things like grammar and style but those can be sorted out easily. On the other hand I like sentences like "Shakur calls Biggie a "fat motherfucker"" and "You claim to be a player, but I fucked your wife". By the way this is my first review on FAC so forgive me if I did something wrong or said something people didn't understand. Would be good if an experienced reviewer looked over my comments to see if they're sound and not a figment of my imagination. Christopher Connor (talk) 23:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Another problem found: The next reference I checked was Jenkins. You give Vol. 19, Issue 1, which does not match up with January 2000, which is Vol. 16, Issue 1. There is no Jenkins article in that issue; I'm assuming you mean January 2003? Since I've found two errors in two tries, I'm not sure what to make of the sourcing here—it seems not to have been carefully checked before coming to FAC. --Andy Walsh (talk) 05:08, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Fixed. My mistake, it is supposed to be 2003, not 2000; the rest of the information is correct. As far as the remaining sourcing information, I checked over each twice when writing, I'm very surprised you found those errors. - Theornamentalist (talk) 10:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• More - I'm sorry but this is looking bad. I believe you put a lot of work into this and I'm assuming good faith, but I've now checked four of the sources and found four instances of incorrect citations or misrepresentations. That's enough for me to question the sourcing of the entire article, which doesn't appear to have been done carefully. It appears that you may not have a good understanding of how to cite sources. The next two:
  • Gilmore. First, what edition to you have? You gave the ISBN of an unbound, out-of-print edition? Anyway, I checked all editions for your "Shakur's raging vocals" statement that's sourced to p. 460. Well, page 460 of Gilmore is in the middle of a chapter about Frank Sinatra. In fact, there only seem to be a handful of brief mentions of Shakur in the whole book, and none of them seem to come anywhere near the statement you are citing to Gilmore.
  • Golus. Forgetting the fact that this books seems only marginal journalism (Lerner is a publisher of children's books and this seems to be a children's "fan" book about Tupac), the page number is actually correct this time but it doesn't say anything close to the statement you are sourcing to it. You write "He also felt that Biggie carelessly released the song 'Who Shot Ya?', and although it did not mention Shakur's name, he felt it was mockingly directed towards him." The only thing in that sentence that Golus supports is that the song didn't mention Shakur's name. Later, you cite this same page for a statement about the Outlawz, who are not even mentioned on this page.

Ah, I think you ought to withdraw this. --Andy Walsh (talk) 19:07, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• • • Hmm, it might be in my best interest to go over this again; I apologize, I did not realize that it had so many errors, and I'm sort of embarrassed. For the record, I believe that the first Gilmore mention may have gotten moved into the wrong position, and unfortunately Gbooks has limited the views on that edition for me, and I cannot recheck that. In fact, it's not even showing page numbers anymore.. As for Golus, p. 58. the last sentence of the same paragraph is "In response, Tupac released the single "Hit 'Em Up" with his new side project, The Outlawz". I will not be able to address these issues tonight, but I think I can improve it if given a few days. If this does not belong in FAC until then, or it can wait is in your hands. But in case, thank you all for the reviews, and I believe this will pass eventually. :) - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Ooh, now I see Outlawz—my mistake. I do think, though, that this book should not be used at all. --Andy Walsh (talk) 20:52, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose per the issues raised above. I've had a look through the sources and the comments in this FAC and it does look under-prepared. It is obvious that you have put a lot of effort into this article, but I would absolutely suggest addressing the concerns with the references, and then trying GAN before nominating it here again. Don't let the comments above put you off contributing—looking through your contributions you look like a very competent editor—but FAC is designed specifically to be a very tough process. Good luck improving the article, and if you need any help then feel free to drop me a line on my talk page. wackywace 19:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.