Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Pink Floyd/1

Pink Floyd

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Result: Kept per the long discussion below. All concerns seem to have been answered or fixed. Aaron north (T/C) 00:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion the Pink Floyd article no longer meets GA criteria for the following reasons:

GAN Criteria

1) Well-written:

• Article deviates from MOS in terms of unsupported claims and peacock language throughout, the extensive use of quote boxes, music clips and pictures is distracting, text is sandwiched in places, most concerning there are many non-free use files in the article which lack useage rationale.
• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally should not repeat the title of the article.
• Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long – consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Wikipedia:Summary style.
• The script has spotted the following contractions: can't, wasn't, wasn't, can't, don't, don't, if these are outside of quotations, they should be expanded.

2) Factually accurate and verifiable:

• The article links to numerous fan sites and and uses dubious sources to support it's claims.
• Dead links in article.

6) Illustrated, if possible, by images:[5]

• Several of the pics are dubious non fair-use files.
• Several of the pics are not needed and relate little to Pink Floyd, i.e. solo performance pics of Gilmour, pic of soldier field, etc...

I would like to see this article meet GA criteria again, but I don't have the time to edit it now. — GabeMc (talk) 22:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The article certainly has problems, but nothing major, I'm about half-way through a copyedit on it. I would like clarification on the following:

What unsupported claims and peacock language?

Which headings?

The ToC is fine, considering the length of the article.

Which contractions are used in the article body, and not quotes?

There are 295 citations, but you say "numerous fan sites and dubious sources" - which ones exactly?

2 deadlinks that I can see?

Parrot of Doom 23:18, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. It's possible that PoD has already sorted the problems listed above as I just had a quick look and couldn't find problems with the images, with contractions, with sources (if there are problems with certain sources it would be helpful to point them out), with section headings (there is one acceptable use of the band's previous name of The Pink Floyd Sound). The statements in the lead are supported by the main body and reference to reliable sources. As PoD has noted, the article can be improved, though it seems to essentially meet Wikipedia:Good article criteria. GabeMc mentions WP:WIAFA which applies to Featured Articles, and I wonder if GabeMc has taken this article for a FA rather than a GA - it is quite a common thing to do. SilkTork *^YES! 08:33, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

• I think he copied and pasted a couple of points from the automated peer reviewer - it uses exactly that language about WIAFA and contraction script. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:17, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. This article quite clearly meets the GA criteria. Malleus Fatuorum 13:26, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• Why are there pics of Gilmour performing without Pink Floyd in the Pink Floyd article, shouldn't they be at David Gilmour? Why is there a pic of soldier stadium? Is the use of the poster a copywrite violation? I think the overuse of quotes does not conform to MOS. Text is sandwiched. Too many non-free use files in the article to be GA. Are these unsupported claims? "philosophical lyrics" ,"international recognition", "innovative album art". "one of the best-selling music artists of all time" This claim is not even true: "the parties reached an out-of-court settlement allowing Gilmour, Mason and Wright to continue as Pink Floyd", the settlement did not inlclude Wright, Gilmour and Mason later asked him to re-join. This is not accurate either; "Barrett was soon removed, due to his increasingly erratic behaviour." Barrett agreed to leave, he was not removed.

The lede has several issues with accuracy and verifiability. — GabeMc (talk) 22:18, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

• The first solo image of Gilmour is on his About Face tour, an album which he admitted he used to distance himself from Pink Floyd. I think it entirely appropriate that its there, although not crucial.
• The soldier stadium pic is there because it was one of the large venues they played at on the Animals tour. That tour had several notable incidents, and led directly to The Wall. Pretty important if you ask me.
• Maybe, however, if you think it is, this isn't the place to discuss it.
• You consider the quotes to be over-used, but unless you point to a specific policy that backs up your assertion then I'm afraid its only your opinion, and is largely irrelevant here.
• Where is the text sandwiched?
• What policy dictates the number of non-free audio files in a GA?
• You're seriously suggesting that Pink Floyd's early work isn't marked by the use of philosophical lyrics and quotes? That's a new one on me. What about the philosophies on life, death, time, on DSotM? The first result on a google search produced this link. I don't think its at all a contentious claim.
• Pink Floyd haven't earned International Recognition? Funny, their international sales figures would suggest otherwise.
• The band's album artworks form some of the most recognisable images in rock - I doubt you'd find anyone who would dispute that. Perhaps innovative isn't the most accurate word - what about "recognisable"?
• The settlement did allow the three to continue, in a general sense. Remember, this is the lead, not the body. Read the article, it mentions the legal problems.
• Again you're quoting sections from the lead, which is only intended as a general outline. Barrett's sidelining was pretty much a de facto removal. Parrot of Doom 22:40, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I am sure if you are correct then it will have no trouble passing the GAR. However, a Wikipedia Good Article would not rely so heavily on unreliable sources to support it's claims. Below are some dubious sources that are used throughout the article.

• brain-damage.co.uk
• www.metrolyrics.com
• Neptune Pink Floyd
• viewauckland.co.nz does not link to the info it cites
• robertchristgau.com
• hypergallery.com

— GabeMc (talk) 23:10, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Also, there is way too much detail per album, considering the albums themselves have individual pages. The albums should be summarized and wikilinked, not explained in detail. — GabeMc (talk) 23:17, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with brain-damage, metrolyrics, or neptune pink floyd in the context in which they're presented. There's more to determining what is and is not a reliable source than taking a quick glance at it. Viewauckland is so obviously link rot, something you could have fixed yourself by either removing the claim it supported, or adding a dead-link template in the hope that it would be archived elsewhere. (btw, I've just fixed this. Took me 2 minutes). Parrot of Doom 23:27, 5 October 2010 (UTC) Suggesting that robertchristgau's website is an unreliable source is just plain silly, and hypergallery quotes an interview from Storm Thorgerson, and sells limited edition prints of his artwork, signed by the man himself. I think that qualifies it as a reliable source.

In short, I think your claim that these sources are dubious is somewhat beyond the pale. Parrot of Doom 23:19, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Like I said, if you are correct about all that, then I am sure it will easily pass GAR. — GabeMc (talk) 02:12, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• 10 box quotes is too much, and it's decoratve which WP:MOS discourages
• File:David gilmour frankfurt 2006.jpg and the information about the tour is not appropriate for the article and should be at David Gilmour, not Pink Floyd.
• The band members section should be integrated into the article.
• There is no need to list every album in the discography section.
• The ToC is to long and the article is a good candidate for summary.
• What justifies the extensive us of non-free use audio files?

• As per Manual of Style, specifically music samples "It is better to insert the samples next to a paragraph mentioning them to justify their fair use" — GabeMc (talk) 05:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• 10 box quotes is too many in your opinion and nothing in your link discourages the "decorative" use of such quotes.

"...and especially avoid decorative quotation marks in normal use." — GabeMc (talk) 08:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Now lets quote the full sentence "Do not enclose block quotations in quotation marks (and especially avoid decorative quotation marks in normal use, such as those provided by the {{cquote}} template, which are reserved for pull quotes)", which makes it clear that what you're quoting has nothing to do with what you're complaining about. Parrot of Doom 08:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Do the ten or more box quotes include "decorative" quotation marks in the body of the text? — GabeMc (talk) 08:28, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• The section is called "Post-breakup and Live 8 reunion (since 2005)"
• How?
• Not every album is?
• What GA guideline do you refer to with regard to the ToC, and what does "good candidate for summary" mean?
• Probably the same thing that justifies such use in the FA Frank Zappa?
• Is this really the strength of your argument?

• I don't really understand why you're spending so much time on this procedure, when given your knowledge of the subject you could have just discussed it on the article's talk page, and tried to resolve these "issues" from there? Parrot of Doom 08:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• The cite for this claim, and many others, is an unreliable fansite, "After the show Gilmour confirmed that he and Waters were on "pretty amicable terms". A clear WP:MOS violation that brings into question the articles GA status. — GabeMc (talk) 08:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Just out of interest, in what way do you consider that to be a MoS violation? I'm wondering if you've actually read the GA criteria, in particular paragraph 1b, which outlines those parts of the MoS that are relevant to GAs. Malleus Fatuorum 12:12, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
    • WP:FANSITE — GabeMc (talk) 19:52, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
      • WP:FANSITE starts off by saying "This guideline does not apply to inline citations". It might be as well if you took the trouble to read it. So I ask again, where are the MoS violations? Malleus Fatuorum 19:58, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
        • The contentious claim is sourced by brain-damage.co.uk, a self published fansite that does not meet WP:RS, please see WP:BLPSPS, WP:SPS. — GabeMc (talk) 20:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
          • Please don't keep taking the piss by avoiding my very straightforward question and providing me with links to pages that I am clearly more familiar with than you are. I ask you again, where are these MoS violations? Malleus Fatuorum 20:17, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Bottom line: the article contains unreliable sources for claims, uses images with a dubious fair-use rational, and the article deviates from WP:MOS in several ways. The wiki article Pink Floyd fails three of 6 of the GA criteria as far as I can tell. — GabeMc (talk) 08:35, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The bottom line is that I've answered just about every question you've posed, and you've ignored most of those answers. I really don't care if this article passes GAR or not, but you obviously do, so why not try improving it yourself? Or is that too much to ask? Parrot of Doom 09:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - I think its fair to say that GabeMC raises several valid issues about this article. First and foremost is that it certainly does need some work, but I don't believe that presently it doesn't qualify as a GA. Its factual, well-referenced (despite GabeMC's objection to some of the sources), and generally in good condition. Could it stand to lose a few quotes, images, and audio files? Quite probably. Does it veer from the MOS? Not in my opinion. Is any of this a major problem? I think people know my view there.

• My final point is this - would I appreciate a bit of help to do this? Most certainly. I'm a regular contributor to this encyclopaedia, but my time isn't unlimited. I think I've made fairly significant contributions to the quality of Floyd-related articles, but I can't do it all by myself. So how about it GabeMC, will you help improve this article, or are you here just to make drive-by comments? Parrot of Doom 12:51, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
• I'd probably pass this article with some minor revisions. The article is well cited (for the most part...), generally well written (certainly better than any article I have written by myself) and largely complete. It is, however, poorly organized, overlong and maybe too detailed. I don't have the knowledge base to take issue with specific sources, but I'll try and make some small improvements to the text. Gabe's comments about the images are worth noting. Protonk (talk) 19:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

PoD, I would be more helpful but I have American versions of some of the books used, and I have noticed that the pagination of some sources seems to be different. For example,

• "...they became full partners, each holding an unprecedented one-sixth share." This is found on page 30 of my Schaffner, and apparently it's on 32-33 according to your cite.
• "… was the beginning of a realisation that songs could be extended with lengthy solos." According to the Pink Floyd article this Mason quote is found on page 30 of his book, but I can't find it on that page in my book.
• "The album title was chosen by writer Douglas Adams, and Storm Thorgerson once again provided the cover artwork" is sourced by Blake page 359 according to the article, but I can't find anything about Adams or Thorgerson on page 359 of my copy of Blake. — GabeMc (talk) 21:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• I just checked the above cites and they're all correct as per my UK books. If you feel that there's information which should be added then by all means mention it (your page numbers will only be 2-3 different from mine) and we can include it. If you want to snip various bits, then lets discuss it on the article's talk page and see what we can do. Ultimately I'd like to see this article at FA, but it took a very long time to get it to GA (I re-wrote it from scratch), and I'm currently busy working my way through a bunch of 17th-century miscreants who tried to blow up Parliament. I still haven't finished getting all the Floyd studio albums to GA/FA, which is another aim of mine. Parrot of Doom 21:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Great, let's work out the pagination issue and work together on getting all the Floyd articles to FA. — GabeMc (talk) 22:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

One point now that it has been brought up. Was the 1/6th share really unprecedented or simply unusual? Protonk (talk) 22:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The source uses that term, which may suggest some quotations are in order. — GabeMc (talk) 22:40, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

• Question - Is this quote reliably sourced, and who is it quoting?

It was a very difficult period I have to say. All your childhood dreams had been sort of realised and we had the biggest selling records in the world and all the things you got into it for. The girls and the money and the fame and all that stuff it was all ... everything had sort of come our way and you had to reassess what you were in it for thereafter, and it was a pretty confusing and sort of empty time for a while ...

— GabeMc (talk) 01:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

yes, gilmour. Parrot of Doom 08:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought so, but how would the average reader know it? — GabeMc (talk) 08:10, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Originally it would have either been a named quote, or the prose would have introduced his comments. Parrot of Doom 19:36, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• The article is written like a fanzine, and it is loaded with peacock language and there are also NPOV issues. — GabeMc (talk) 23:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Image licensing issues

There are potentially some issues with image licensing. Please do not close this reassessment right now- I will be taking a closer look this evening. J Milburn (talk) 07:49, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, looking now.

• File:Pink Floyd - all members.jpg is a non-free image used to illustrate Pink Floyd as a whole. We have free images of the band, one of them should be used instead.
• File:Hapshash-UFO.jpg- it's not clear what this image is adding- it seems very decorative.
• File:Astoria (Péniche).jpg- the sourcing is all over the place
• The majority of the ogg files lack even an attempt at the rationale, and the very high number of them rings alarm bells.

Unless these issues are resolved, this article should be delisted. J Milburn (talk) 19:16, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It's worth looking closely at File:Pink Floyd - all members.jpg and reading the summary. The picture contains all significant members - and is the only known image to contain all of them. It is historically significant for that reason, and is irreplaceable. The other two images are not "essential" to the article, but are "relevant" and so meet GA criteria. Their use can be discussed on the article talkpage, but they do not impact on the GA status of the article. The ogg files are not considered as part of GA criteria, and so discussion of their use and the rationale for each are not appropriate here, but can be discussed elsewhere.

As has been pointed out several times in this GAR, there are concerns about the article, but the concerns are not related to GA criteria. People do misunderstand the criteria and feel that GA covers rather more than it actually does. It's worth looking at the criteria - Wikipedia:Good article criteria. There is also an essay which goes into detail explaining what the Good article criteria are not. SilkTork *^YES! 10:47, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Dear God. The lead image has to be of Pink Floyd. We have free images of Pink Floyd, so we should not be using a non-free one. Simple. The second image is "relevant", yes, but it's a non-free image- non-free images must meet our non-free content criteria. As you say, this one is not essential, so must go. The third image I am not challenging on NFC grounds, I am challenging on licensing grounds; until the licensing is more clear, it cannot be used. As for the sound files, of course they're part of the GA criteria. You can't have non-free content lying around that does not meet the non-free content criteria. Your attitude towards non-free content/licensing is not at all useful. J Milburn (talk) 12:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

All of my concerns, if you want to play the lawyer game, are related to WIAGA#6a. A file can not be considered "tagged with its copyright status" unless sourcing concerns are met, the sound files (which are non-free, whether you like it or not) do not have "fair use rationales ... provided", and you'll note that word there- valid. You can't just claim any old non-free content and have it promoted to GA status. We are Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Our policies on licensing and non-free content are some of our most important. We cannot go around giving accolades to articles that play fast and loose with them. J Milburn (talk) 12:31, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying that you don't have good points, but you are bringing your concerns to the wrong place. If you feel that there are aspects of the GA criteria that are inappropriate, then raise them here. If you feel that there are concerns with some of the images or sound files in relation to the article, then raise them here or if your concerns are about the files in themselves, then raise them here. What I am saying is that as regards GA criteria the files are acceptable, and this discussion is about if the article meets GA criteria. SilkTork *^YES! 01:38, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Keep IF the intersteller overdrive audio file is fixed or removed. There are some minor issues with the article, but I would not delist the article if one minor audio issue is fixed. I did not see the peacock language mentioned earlier, and I'm fine with the sources. Coverage is clearly not a problem. Regarding criteria 6, I am fine with all 3 images mentioned above. The lead image including Barrett is a historic moment for the band, irreplacable, and a very significant improvement over any alternative free image. I do not believe criteria 6 requires us to just arbitrarily discard the fair use rationale of the best image available when the alternative free image is far less meaningful. The UFO Club picture is not decorative, and I don't understand what the fair-use problem is with Astoria. All that said, audio files most certainly do fall under criteria 6 as well per footnote 5 (Other media, such as video and sound clips, are also covered by this criterion.). So, evaluating the audio files, the intersteller overdrive file appears to be broken, and I am not completely certain that we have a good reason to include the pigs audio file. The text isn't exactly clear about the meaning of "pigs", and I did not hear how the audio file did anything to convey what the caption claims as the reason for the audio file. It isn't like a noteworthy anti-war lyric or an exceptional solo like some of the other files, nor does it demonstrate a change in how the band sounds from era to era, so I don't see how that pigs audio file adds anything. Regardless, I am not certain that the file is merely decorative because I may have missed some significance, so I wouldn't delist based merely on that issue. Aaron north (T/C) 00:59, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and commented out the broken music file. Aaron north (T/C) 17:42, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment This GAR has been up for a month and a half, and it seems every concern was adequately addressed. The GAR was recently prolonged a bit by a discussion on criteria 6 concerns, but to me it seems that has been resolved as well, and there has been no meaningful discussion for about a couple weeks. If there is no further debate within the next few days, I'll close this as a keep. Aaron north (T/C) 05:23, 15 November 2010 (UTC)