Talk:Shields (album)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sparklism (talk · contribs) 09:32, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

This looks like a pretty solid article, but there is some work to be done to attain GA status. First thing to note is that the article has quite a few repeated links that should be removed (you might find that using the script at User:Ucucha/duplinks helps).

I'll post a detailed review here in the next couple of days. Good luck! — sparklism ^hey! 09:32, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• Hello! I've reduced the amount of repeated links throughout the page User:Egg Creations 12:00, 24 October 2014

Article structure

• The article currently has three consecutive short sections ('Artwork', 'Release' and 'Shields: Expanded and Shields: B-Sides'). The WP:MOS for layout sections (which is just a guide) states that Very short or very long sections and subsections in an article look cluttered and inhibit the flow of the prose and I would agree with this - can these three sections be merged into one? I think we should have just the one section called 'Artwork and release', with a possible subsection to talk about the Expanded/B-Sides re-release. — sparklism ^hey! 07:30, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I have now merged these sections. Unfortunately, there isn't too much information available regarding the album's artwork. Any other changes I could make, do let me know. User:Egg Creations 12:01, 24 October 2014

That's better. I've got a further concern about structure at this point though, and it's a bit of a bigger one. I think there's some stuff at the start of the 'Recording' section that belongs in the 'Background' section, and I also think that there's stuff in 'Recording' that belongs in 'Writing & Composition'. I'll detail this below. — sparklism ^hey! 04:56, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

• The first paragraph of 'Recording' seems like a natural conclusion to the 'Background' section, since it describes the return of the band from the break they took. Can this be moved to 'Background'?
• "Regarding the band's eventual return, Ed Droste noted..." → "When the band reconvened, Ed Droste noted..." or something similar
• "bassist and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor returning to his role as producer" - returning from where? The wording is not quite right here - he had produced Veckatimest, right? So maybe just "returning as producer" is simpler
• Lots of the second half of this section talks about the writing of the songs (e.g. "We just sat by the fire, Dan strumming, me singing, and it happened. Some of the best songs on the record, like "Speak in Rounds" and "Half Gate", came out of that" and "We've never sat side by side and said, 'Let's literally, out of the ether, start writing songs together"). Do these belong in the 'Writing and composition' section?
• If you do move stuff out of 'Recording' into 'Background' and 'Writing and composition', you might find the 'Recording' section is a little light. If this is the case, could 'Background' and 'Recording' be combined?
• There's not much here that describes the music. What does this album sound like? Point 3 of WP:GACR is about being broad in coverage, and addressing the main aspects of the topic - a GA for an album should talk about the music, at least for one paragraph. The article does talk a bit about production and arrangements, but what about the sound and the music? I think this should go in the 'Writing and composition' section, and I think therefore we might need to retitle that section at some point

That's it for now. More later :) — sparklism ^hey! 05:30, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Closing

It's been 19 days since I left the comments above without response from the nominator, and I've since left two messages on the nominator's talk page ([1][2]) without reply.

As detailed above, the article does not meet the GA criteria in it's present state, chiefly because it does not address the main aspects of the topic (i.e. it doesn't talk about the music in enough depth), so regretfully I will close this review as a fail at this point since these issues are not being addressed.

This is still a well-written article, and the nominator is encouraged to resubmit it for GA review should these concerns be addressed in the future. — sparklism ^hey! 11:39, 13 November 2014 (UTC)