Talk:Sea shanty/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Jezhotwells (talk · contribs) 00:34, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

Disambiguations: three found and and fixed.[1] Jezhotwells (talk) 00:38, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Linkrot: none found. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:39, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Checking against GA criteria

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Towards standardization: can we turn this list into prose?

   Fixed. DrBaldhead (talk) 10:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

   There are a number of single sentences or short paragraphs, which would better consolidated into longer paragraphs.

   Done. Note: At a glance, there may appear to be some very short paragraphs, but these are parts of larger paragraphs which contain quotes. The only really short para. I see is the one that starts the "Etymology" section, but its topic stands alone so it doesn't make sense to connect it. DrBaldhead (talk) 10:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

   The shorter quotes shouldn't be in blockquotes, see WP:Quotations.

   Fixed. DrBaldhead (talk) 11:46, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

   A good example of a work song that was shared between several contexts, Who says this is a "good example"?

   ''including sailors from the Britain and Ireland "the Britain"?

   Established writers about shanties like William Main Doerlinger "such as" woukld be better than "like"

   Recent research, which considering a wider range of 19th century sources than had been possible by 20th century writers, shifts the period of the rise and flourishing of shanties to a bit later. Clumsy phrasing.

   Folklorists of the first decade of the 20th century, especially from Britain, "especially those" would be better.

   The sailors who sang the songs at sea passed on, and the forms of shanties that had been collected were now shaped less by oral-transmission and more by the polishing and reinforcement of written texts, giving birth to "standard" versions. Needs rephrasing.

   The whole article needs a thorough third part copy-edit.

   Examples from one of these influential writings will suffice. non encyclopaedic tone.

   More significant is the way in which he framed the songs he presented. Who says it is more significant?

   In sharp contrast to Masefield's work was the collection by Frank Thomas Bullen, Who says "in sharp contrast"?

   Response: Thanks for these detailed suggestions. I believe I've addressed all of the specific instances you've mentioned, but I still need to go through and work on copyediting and tone. Will let you know when I have done it. DrBaldhead (talk) 08:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

   The lead should fully summarise the article, see WP:LEAD

   Done. DrBaldhead (talk) 10:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   The first published use of the word comes in G.E. Clark's Seven Year's of a Sailor's Life, 1867. Have you got a citation to support this assertation?

   It would make sense that all those influenced by these works would begin to settle on "shanty" as their preferred spelling. looks like WP:OR

   The "ch" spelling has the benefits of marking off a distinct term and, perhaps, preserving its etymology. The "sh" spelling assists newcomers in correctly pronouncing the word, however it has the potential for confusion with other meanings of "shanty." Perhaps for this reason, the (arguably) redundant phrase "sea shanty" came into being though it had never been used by sailors themselves, nor was it used by knowledgeable writers on the subject; by the 1940s, a;so looks like OR

   Consistency is needed in citations, we currently have an uncomfortable mixture of Havard refs and footnotes.

   Question: Rewrote the part on "the phrase, 'sea shanty'" in effort to get rid of OR quality, however I'm stuck with the phrase about "it had never been used by sailors themselves," which I would like to try to keep in the article. The issue is that, quite simply, one sees from the sources that sailors did not use it, i.e. instances of this do not come up. I don't have a published source that says "sailors didn't use it", but I don't have a source, either, that says e.g. they didn't sing about flying to the moon. It's a fact that is "evident" from e.g. the totality of all the sources cited in this article. Is there a way to word it to make it admissible? Please advise, thanks.

   Question: re: mixture of Harvard and footnote style. My intent is to use footnote style (though incidentally I usually use Harvard). I think the hypertext context makes it a little confusing. These are the principals I am operating under:

   • Citations as footnotes. I believe this makes the main text as smooth as possible, and makes it so readers are not required to look at citations.
   • Give full citation on first appearance, abbreviated form on subsequent
   • Works mentioned within the main text are sometimes accompanied by date, which might look like Harvard style, however the date is there in main text to give context, a sense of time -- Is this one of the points of issue?
   • If I mention a book in the main text that has already been cited in a footnote, I just leave it as is, with no in-line citation. Does it need one (in which case, due to already being cited, it would just be abbreviated and rather redundant)?

   In the case of some record albums/musical pieces that have Wiki-links or are part of repertoire of an artist (who has a Wiki page), I have not made in-line citations, but, again, may give their date in parentheses for context rather than by way of Harvard style citation.

   I have made an effort to improve the ones that I think apply to your request. However, there may be others--that's what I'm not sure about, and the reason for my question. I hope it made sense. DrBaldhead (talk) 08:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

   If you mention the book again, then cite again. Multiple cites can point at the same source. Consistency in citing is the important consideration.

   OK, done.DrBaldhead (talk) 10:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

   There are rather too many external links.

   Done. Cut down the external links at the end (spun off that info into a new start list/article). Cut out a majority of external links in the main section. The ones that remain are important, I feel, to illustrate what is being described. These illustrations are not easily found by readers on their own.DrBaldhead (talk) 10:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

   The citations are much better, but a Works cited section is missing, see Princeton University Chapel and the references and works cited sections there. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:00, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

   It's not missing; this is as intended, and is one of the WP options. It's pure footnote style, as in Chicago Humanities Style. If I were going to create a Works Cited alphabetized list of the 100+ unique sources referenced, I would have done that in the first place and used Harvard style rather than going through the trouble to create all the detailed notes! The above exchange was addressing what you called a "mixture" of Harvard references and footnotes—an appearance that was caused by there being historiographic discussions in the article (where author-title-date info is actually pertinent to the main text). I have made sure that those are cited with notes, too, since they will not be appearing as "general" references in a works cited section. DrBaldhead (talk) 11:46, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   possibly a little too much detail

   OK, I've trimmed. Cutting the links helped. However, somewhat difficult to gauge your "too much." If you still feel this way, specific suggestions would be helpful. The one thing that I see that might go is the section on "Effects of modern contexts." I naturally feel it is an important aspect of this subject—to really contextual what one encounters at present and give a sense of "what the deal is." But I'd welcome your opinion as to whether you think it's superfluous info.

   Yes the section "Effects of modern contexts" is too essay like and mostly unreferenced, drop it. Otherwise try reading Wikipedia:Summary style Jezhotwells (talk) 15:00, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

   OK, thanks. Done. DrBaldhead (talk) 11:46, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   npov

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   stable

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   Images appear OK, but the inline links to videos and audios are likely copyright infringements, see Wikipedia:Copyright#Linking to copyrighted works. you may wish to use short samples as in the article Blues.

   The inline links that remain are safe. That is, per the guidelines, although they are linking to external sites, the uploaders of that content have done so without violating copyright. I might add, again, that such useful examples are rare and hard to locate (being one justification for having inline links). DrBaldhead (talk) 10:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

   Well the copyright lies with the performers not the uploaders, and there is no evidemce that these are public domain or GFDL. You should use short 10% sampleas as explained here and here is an example with rationale. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:43, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

   Thanks for pointing me to this method. I do appreciate your perspective, from general policy and experience. However, I have looked into it and this method will not work; further I believe it is acceptable as is or could be after another compromise. That 10% sample thing is for works that are clearly commercial, professional, and related to someone's profits, but which the author "must have" and couldn't use any other way. The examples are very rare, so these would have to be the example used. Yet stealing these from the sites, degrading quality even further, and then cutting them down to 10% videos in a weird format seems a rather silly and roundabout way of trying to "get around" an issue that I don't believe exists here—almost like "laundering" the material. (Additionally, the excerpts already are quite short; 10% wouldn't show much of anything.) External linking is fine if necessary. The flags are raised when the site linked to is suspected of serious and obvious copyright violation. Not the case here. The material comes from two sources. First is U.S. Library of Congress, which owns the recordings and has provided them on their site for public dissemination. Second are YouTube videos that I know have been uploaded without violation of copyright by two users whom I know personally (this can be verified, though I prefer to let them retain anonymity if possible). They are self-performances (by the uploader) or free public demos that were made and uploaded with the consent of the main performers. I think it is rather carrying it far to say that every informal "performance" of a traditional song done in public becomes a copyrighted work owned by them in such away that their right is being violated in linking. YouTube's policy is that material in violation of copyright may not be uploaded. We know that that policy is often not enforced, but by the same token if the material doesn't appear to be a flagrant copyright vio (e.g. low-fi non-commercial recording), we can assume good faith. Really, too-strict interpretation of these things would make very many of the external links on Wikipedia in articles on certain topics be "unacceptable," effectively creating bias towards which sorts of subjects can become "good." Hope you can appreciate the special circumstances here. Would you please consider working with me to let these links stay? Thank you. DrBaldhead (talk) 11:46, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

   Sorry there are no special considerations about copyright on Wikipedia, it has nothing to do with profit. As you seem unqwilling to address this core WP policy, i will not be listing this article at this time. Jezhotwells (talk) 10:09, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   OK, this article is interesting, but it needs a thorough copy-edit to improve the flow, present information in an encyclopadic tone and remove essay-like point of view phrasing. When this has been done, I can resume the review. On hold for seven days. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:11, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for beginning this review! I have begun to address the issues. Once I believe I have done so, and if I have any questions (I think I'll have a couple), I will note that beneath the corresponding bullet point of review criteria. DrBaldhead (talk) 07:03, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Just to cover all bases: noting here that the revisions have been made. I am assuming an itemized list is not needed, but if I am mistaken, and something like that is, please let me know. DrBaldhead (talk) 22:24, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

1. Not listed as the nominator insists on linking to copyrighted material in violation of Wikipedia policies.

   Thanks for your review. I believe you may have misunderstood my intentions and I am disappointed you jumped (in my opinion) to the decision to fail the nomination after so much effort and with just one issue remaining to resolve—but without further discussion. In the very least you could have been clear about your evident intent (or predilection?) to fail the nomination if your exact demands were not met, in which case I could have been clear about the options (i.e. do exactly as you say or do not and accept failure). I didn't appreciate your calling me "unwilling" to address the issue, which shows lack of good faith (a core WP principle) on your part, especially in light of the fact that I was clearly addressing it through discussion (another core WP principle) and I had already done everything you requested. When I challenged you on this issue, you neglected the principle of allowing a reasonable number of back-and-forths to clarify. I can only speculate, while remaining non-accusatory, that you have been frustrated by some nominators' argumentative style during reviews (especially with so many reviews in-progress at once), and it sometimes makes you doubt the value of courtesy and collegiality. Because I think it would be rather fruitless to try to continue to engage you after the decision has been made, I will leave it there and avail the option of re-nominating the article with another reviewer later on. I also hope to provide some feedback on your review process when I get a chance. Regards, DrBaldhead (talk) 03:37, 8 January 2012 (UTC)