User talk:Sarahmckem/Simon Bruce

The language of this version is still grossly biased and reeks of publicity releases. Please do not use this sort of advertising language in what is supposed to be a reference work. A good Wikipedia article should contain only information on which his biggest detractors and his own mother would agree to be neutral and verifiable. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Constructive criticism

Despite your clear conflict of interest, here are some suggestions improve your article's chances of not being speedily deleted:

1. Read Wikipedia's policies regarding biographies of living people, musicians/Bands and external links.
2. Take a look at our articles about other musicians (eg: Bob Dylan).
3. Remove the advertising language and self-congratulatory wording (eg: "Constantly compared to a young Bob Dylan in both prose, prodigy and composition").
4. Most of the external links would not be acceptable. Remove the links to youtube and myspace.
5. Add verifiable references from reliable 3rd party source to support some statements (eg: "...as youngest musician ever to play the South By Southwest Festival..", "...Heidi Talbott covered Simon's "If You Stay" on...", and the previously mentioned comparisons to Bob Dylan).
6. Don't copy verbatim, text or images from other sites - even if you own the copyright.
7. I'm pretty sure using copyrighted images (CD Covers) to illustrate the article and discography is prohibited under the policy covering fair-use images.
8. Don't immediately copy the changed article over to the article namespace - it will probably set all kinds of alarms ringing, be quickly deleted again, and you will be probably blocked from editing. Instead, invite some of the deleting editors to review the article here.

Hope this is useful. Astronaut (talk) 16:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Further comments

• Estabish notability to begin with, ie. in the opening paragraph. Eg. I could say "Winston Churchill was an English man with a big cigar". So what? If I said "Winston Churchill was Prime Minister...", aah! Notability. Australian singer is general – after all, there are many Australian singers, and you need to establish why this particular one is worthy of a Wikipedia article.
• There's a {{fact}} tag in the article. These should be avoided in living person bios, as statements can be challenged (see Wikipedia:Citation needed). Back up the statement or remove it.
• At the moment, it's got an appropriate tone, but it sounds a bit advert-like (eg. "...youngest musician ever to play...". You could add criticism of his work (see for instance Alfred Brendel).
• I'd reference the personal life bit, just for verification purposes. Otherwise it should be removed.

Good work so far! Let me know if I can be of help. PeterSymonds | talk 20:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)