Wikipedia:Peer review/Flood (They Might Be Giants album)/archive1

Flood (They Might Be Giants album)

This peer review discussion has been closed.
Hi! I'd really like someone with more experience than me to have a look at this article I've been working on. This is the first article of this length/thoroughness I've written for Wikipedia. I'm not sure how to move forward so I would appreciate any advice. Unfortunately, I can't get much more specific since this process isn't very familiar to me. One thing is, though, I'm not sure exactly which date format to use. I realized that my usual convention of dd-m-yyy for publication dates and yyyy-mm-dd for access dates might not actually follow MOS and I'm not sure whether I should be using an American convention or whether non-US is okay. My other concern is that, since I am fond of the band and the album, there could be lapses in NPOV, so any commentary on that would also help. I might want to nominate it for GA at some point, but that's another thing I know very little about, so any advice specifically toward that end would be great.

Thanks, ~ Boomur [☎] 23:48, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments from Richard3120:

Great album and the article is looking in decent shape too. I would probably look at splitting off 'Artwork' and 'Style and composition' into separate sections from the 'Recording and production' section (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Album article style guide), and place 'Influence' after 'Critical reception' as it's more logical chronologically (I might also be tempted to rename 'Influence' as 'Legacy'). Regarding date formats, I'm British but I've always been of the opinion of using British date format for British articles ("9 April 2014") and American format for American articles ("April 9, 2014"). So I would choose either the "April 9, 2014" format or "2014-04-09" format, but keep it consistent throughout the references and don't mix the two (I prefer the first option myself, I think it looks tidier).

Regarding POV I don't think it's too bad: I think the pun on "flood" in the 'Influence' section may have to go, and to me the phrase "the quality of the album was augmented under the direction of..." in the lead section seems a little awkward.

Are you American or Canadian, or British? As is obvious from the chart performance section, the album and "Birdhouse in Your Soul" were sizeable hits in the UK. "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" also made the UK charts, and I'm damn sure the album would have gone at least gold in the UK. I'll try and edit the article accordingly when I find the information tomorrow. If the GA nomination can wait a few months, I'll be back in the UK over the summer and will be able get a proper reference for the Q review and to dig out reviews from the UK's other major music magazines of the time (NME, Melody Maker, Record Mirror and Sounds) which can then be added to the critical reception section. Richard3120 (talk) 22:34, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

@Richard3120: thank you for your input! I've made preliminary attempts toward the changes you suggested, including changing "influence" to "legacy" (I think the latter clears up any confusion over whether the section refers to influences upon the album). I reorganized the sections somewhat, including merging style and composition, but I think that section might benefit from employing a subheading somewhere. I think I'm going to use the "April 9, 2014" format, as you suggested; even though I think 2014-04-09 is more logical, it's not as readable.

I am American, but the album came out before I was even born, so I don't have a great background for how it was received anywhere! I did find that "Istanbul" charted at #61 on the UK singles chart, according to TMBW. I'm guessing this is a reliable figure; however, obviously, other wikis are not RS. I think I remember that when I was writing the article, I couldn't find any online sources that listed weekly UK singles charts beyond the top 40. If you could add more info about UK charting and reception, or even just sources, that would be great. I'm in no rush to nominate for GA, in any case. Thanks for your comments! ~ Boomur [☎] 23:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, you see, Flood came out during my first year at university, so I remember well just how much of a surprise hit "Birdhouse" was, reaching the UK top ten (I suspect that by now it's sold somewhere around a quarter of a million copies in the UK, which I'm sure few Americans, least of all the two Johns, can believe) – it's still fondly remembered and it gets played frequently on "oldies" radio stations. I've added citations for its position on the Irish charts and for "Istanbul" on the UK charts (both of these are "official" sources so they're Wikipedia approved), and also a certifications table: I was right, the album did go gold in the UK.

I should also mention that as far as I can tell, "Twisting" only ever came out as a single in the US, nowhere else in the world – perhaps you might want to mention this somewhere in the article. Richard3120 (talk) 04:56, 10 April 2014 (UTC)