Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Dixie (song)

Dixie (song)

Self-nomination. This article is an outgrowth of my research on minstrel show, and I think it's shaped up quite nicely. The sources cover a wide variety of viewpoints on both the authorship and modern appropriateness of "Dixie", and I've hopefully summed these up neutrally. The article is over the size limit, but this is due mainly to footnotes, images, and sound samples; without these, it is 32 KB.

I requested a peer review, and no major concerns were brought up. You can read the peer review here.

Thanks! — BrianSmithson 19:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

One more note: There are still some red links (most conspicuously Snowden Family Band). I will take care of these in the next couple of days. — BrianSmithson 19:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I just pruned all the footnotes I believe could be pruned. There are two mutually exclusive schools of thought here, one of which says "document everything with a source" and another that says "footnotes hurt readability". The footnotes that remain all document the sources for direct quotations, surprising or contentious statements, and paraphrases of other authors' ideas. The notes I just removed were for simple facts that are uncontested from source to source. If anyone believes that any of the removed notes needs to be reiinstated, please let me know, and I'll be happy to comply. As for the "less notes" camp, I'm afraid this is the best I can do. If the nomination fails due to too many references, then that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. We're down to 42 kb, less without the extras. — BrianSmithson 04:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose - at 46kb I feel the writing is not concise enough. Also, an astonishing 92 entries in 'notes' is really overwhelming - it makes it look more like an academic paper than an encyclopaedia article and harms the readability of the article. A third point is that the see also section is redundant, both articles already being linked to in the text. Worldtraveller 20:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The notes are essential and should not be removed from the article. Length is not an issue for FAs. Andrew Levine 00:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Length is an issue for FAs as it as for all articles. See Wikipedia:Summary style - Articles larger than 30 KB may be getting too long to efficiently cover their topic. Worldtraveller 00:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Precedent has firmly established that the suggestion (not policy or even recommendation) of 30Kb on the Summary Style page need not be a bar to FA status. This holds true when examining the lengths of both older FAs and recent promotions. For example, last month alone we promoted TGV, Apple Macintosh, and Fred Phelps, which are all longer articles than this one. Andrew Levine 09:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The article is only 32 kb without the notes, soundclips, and images. This isn't out of line with existing FAs. I don't think that too many notes ist a valid criterion for opposition; everything I've referenced is either a) another author's interpretation or opinion which I'm summarizing, b) a direct quote, or c) a claim that may seem startling or contentious. I've axed the "See also" section, as I agree that it was redundant. — BrianSmithson 20:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I realise an increasing number of FAs are as long or longer than this, but I feel that 32kb or less is a very worthy thing to strive for, as much longer articles can easily lose the reader's interest before the end. As for notes, you have large numbers of references to the same works, which in many cases are probably not necessary. Specific quotes or controversial facts should be individually cited, but for example I don't feel the sentence "The stories had little effect; for most Americans, "Dixie" was synonymous with the South" requires a cite - many similar examples exist. In any case, even if you want to keep all the individual citations, you should probably merge the notes with the references, using the new citation markup described on Talk:FAC, to save space and bytes.

I looked at some recently promoted articles and the sizes as of right now were as follows: Triumph of the Will (41k), Sheffield (39k), Guqin (62k), Gettysburg Address (36k), Malwa (38k), Gas tungsten arc welding (30k) and Saffron (68k) and I just couldn't figure out how big Short-beaked Echidna and Economy of the Iroquois are, but by comparison Dixie doesn't seem out of line. jengod 03:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Echidna is 20.5kb, Iroquois is 22.8kb. I checked my own FAs for interest, all are between 13 and 27kb except for the possibly over-long Hubble Space Telescope at 55kb. Generally, though, I believe the smaller an article can be while still being comprehensive, the better. Some articles need to be long to be comprehensive (I feel Hubble was one of these), but most topics can be thoroughly treated in less than 32kb of text and markup. I am personally becoming concerned at the number of articles of 50kb and greater which are becoming FAs, as I don't generally believe that such lengthy articles are suitably encyclopaedic. Worldtraveller 17:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Another thing I feel could do with work is the structure of the article - I'm sure there could be a better way than having 7 subsections of history and then no other section having subsections. Perhaps the 'Dixie at war' and subsequent two sections could be merged into a new 'subsequent evolution' or similarly titled section. Worldtraveller 20:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback; I'll take a look at any references I might be able to axe later tonight. As for that new referencing style, does it really save bytes? You have to retype the full reference each time. And I'm not sure I think having a single "Notes and references" section without another alphabetical bibliography is a good idea. As for the structure, I could just axe the B-head (==) "History" and make all the current C-heads (===) into B-heads. I'm not entirely adverse to your suggestion to merge "Dixie at war" and later chunks, but I think that would create an overlong section. — BrianSmithson 20:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made this change. I've also moved all the stuff on composition and copyright into its own section. I think things are more logically organized now. — BrianSmithson 22:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the organisation of the article works better now and has improved the readability. On the topic of notes and quotes, I wonder if you have a few too many direct quotations, the essence of which could simply be incorporated into the flow of the text. Fewer direct quotations would mean you don't need so many footnotes to cite them all. Worldtraveller 17:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Changed over to the new referening system, and it works great. Dropped 3 KB and 8 notes (due to duplicates not being counted separately). I'll look at possibly removing some notes later (though I'm so confused with all the banter going on here . . . :)) — BrianSmithson 03:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your work in addressing my comments - the article looks much better. I still do feel there are an overwhelming number of notes and would strongly prefer that there were fewer, but appreciate that you've at least reduced them a bit! Reading it through again just now I noticed a few spelling mistakes, and Nathan's analysis of the style is quoted twice, but I'm almost ready to support the nomination. Worldtraveller 00:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Your remaining concerns should now be dealt with (all remaining misspelled words are in direct quotes or lyrics). By "Nathan's analysis of the style", I'm guessing you meant the bit about Nathan thinking "Dixie" similar to other works by Emmett; that was mentioned twice, but is now only in there once. — BrianSmithson 02:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Clearly a lot of good work has gone into this and I'm sure it'll make to it featured status in this nomination, just one comment: I, too, feel that the footnotes are a bit excessive. Footnotes are most useful for a) direct quotes, b) surprising or controversial statements. The article uses them well in those places. But take a sentence like this:

For many white Southerners, on the other hand, "Dixie" is, like the Confederate flag, a symbol of Southern heritage, identity, and pride. [Abel 51]

This is not surprising or controversial. Nor is it a thing which you're really sourcing from one book. It's something you know about the subject from just about any work which deals with it. Citing a single source on this might make a reader completely unfamiliar with the topic think that this was something other than a generally accepted well-known fact. Maybe she'd even think that it's something this Abel guy was the first to figure out :) It's not a big deal, just thought I'd mention it. Good luck with the nomination! - Haukur 20:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the above, because (1) I think that particular quote is mildly controversial, and citation is excellent--it avoids weasel words in which the author imposes his opinion without verifiability. (2) I think it's incredibly unfair to nail an article for too many citations. I think that's strictly an aesthetic issue, not a truly fundamental concern. jengod 21:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

For its being somewhat controversial, see my comments below. I fear that lending the song cultural content today is at least troubling, as it leads to a reductive view very quickly, and I'm not sure that the song has carried those associations particularly. Geogre 14:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not nailing the article, I'm not even opposing its promotion. It's just my opinion that footnotes work best when used as I outlined above and that too many footnotes water down the usefulness of the most useful ones.

Take it as an indication of the article's high quality that we're discussing things like this :) - Haukur 21:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• Support, covers everything it needs to, high quality of writing. Andrew Levine 00:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Finally got a chance to read the whole thing, and I agree that it is "well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral, and stable." It also has a good lead, has supporting images and sounds (appropriate for an article about a piece of music), and is extensively sourced. Bravo, Brian. jengod 02:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Support: It does feel a bit long, but that may be a product of comprehensive analysis. Exceptionally thorough, careful, and meticulous, with no substantial lapses in writing, this is a fine featured article on one of the most important American cultural touchstones. My only content grousing comes with the "opposition" section, as I feel that the opposition is somewhat nebulous. My impression, as a person living through the era, was that there was no opposition to the song, per se. Rather, there was an appropriation of the song as a code for white supremacy (as the entire Confederacy became recast as an institution of slavery and slavery as an institution of Jim Crow and Jim Crow as an institution of differential rights) and an opposition to this re-use of the song. I.e. no one had a problem with "Dixie" until people like Strom Thurmond began whistling it when Black legislators got on the elevator with him to tell them that he was against them. It wasn't and isn't, in other words, the American "Horst Wessel Song" or "Deutschland Uber Alles." Geogre 03:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support if the number of notes is reduced. You have a couple of sources repeating several times. Consolidate them: add them to general reference or make in line citation. Also, the first 3 notes are not needed (they are not controversial, might seem a little pov, but no one argues that Dixie is famous). Renata3 05:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support This article is definately one to hold up as good practice. The extensive referencing is entirely appropriate in such a widely researched piece of cultural history. The differences between this article and too many entries for contemporary songs are very significant indeed, and we would do well to use this piece as a template for deciding on future FAs (or indeed AfDs) in the field of stand-alone song entries. --HasBeen 10:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Conditional support. Reduce the high number of notes and I will change my vote to a full-fledged support.SoothingR 12:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - Shouldn't the text of the song come earlier in the article? The very end seems late to introduce the lyrics, and much of the rest of the article is written with the assumption that the reader knows the lyrics. - Cuivienen 20:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • From looking at the article real quick, it does seem you could have Lyrics as the first section after the lead and then move into the history and it wouldn't screw too much up. (I think.) The only reason I suggest this is that even tho I know the song/tune, I couldn't get any of the music files to load (stoopid computer), so it might be nice to put a reminder about the sound of the song before parsing it more fully. jengod 00:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm going to play with the footnotes tonight (trying out the new system first, then maybe another template-based one), but I don't think a rearrangement will mess the article up too much. It'd mostly be a matter of the first appearance of terms changing place and the associated changes in wikilinks. — BrianSmithson 00:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
      • I've moved "Structure" and "Lyrics" to the top of the article, followed by "Composition and Copyright" and the rest of the historical stuff. This entailed explaining a few things earlier (the song's Civil War importance, for example). I also had to change wikilinks to coincide with the change in the first instances of certain terms. However, I do think that it is more logical to describe the lyrics of the song before moving on to discuss, for example, how those lyrics might hint at an African American origin. If people don't like the new setup, it's an easy revert. — BrianSmithson 17:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support; improvements may be possible, but this is already up to FA level. I totally oppose the comment about too many notes. WP:V, which is policy, says:

  Any edit lacking a source may be removed… References (sources) can be provided by linking to the source if it's online, giving a brief citation in brackets after the sentence if it isn't (called Harvard referencing), or using a footnote system.

I've been engaged on discussions on the talk page of that policy and been one of the "doves" there, in that I felt that "Any edit lacking a source may be removed" is too harsh. I was pretty much completely overruled: the only modification was to add the qualification "If you doubt the truthfulness of an unsourced statement, remove it to the talk page. Otherwise, just request a source." (That is, don't go around cutting unsourced statements willy-nilly, even when you know them to be true.) That's fine, I don't need to win every argument, but if that is policy then we cannot say the opposite here.

Also, as I understand it, the 32K "limit" was never intended to refer to physical file size, but to the length of the article. Notes, clearly marked as such, do not make the substantive article longer. If you don't want to read the notes, you don't read the notes. This is simplicity itself. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• Object Support. Interesting article, but the prose is not good enough; many, many sentences need fixing. Just one point: please consider removing the quote marks from "Dixie" every time it appears. Looks much better without, and unnecessary to mark it dozens of times.Tony 01:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the edits, Tony. I don't think removing the quotes would be acceptable, though; "Dixie" is a song title, and should thus be "quoted", n'est-ce pas? — BrianSmithson 01:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Brian, it's a matter of style, rather than a strict rule, I think. Where a title is used frequently, writers typically don't mark it after the first occurrence. It kind of leaps out at you each time with the quotes; perhaps I'm being a little fussy; I get wound up about these tiny matters coz I'm reading psychologist. <grin> Tony 02:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm equally fussy with typography, but to me every time I see a song title not enclosed in quote marks it looks a little, well, naked. If they weren't already there, I would definitely add them. Andrew Levine 06:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It's no big deal. Tony 13:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• Support: Lovely comprehensive and well written page. For what it's worth I like to see "Dixie" enclosed, may be that's old fashioned but to my eyes it looks far more correct and clear. Giano | talk 09:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music) addresses this issue: "Song titles are enclosed in quotes." jengod 18:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• Support Wonderful article! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 05:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support! This is a well-researched and well-written article well-deserving of FAC. There are not too many references - the length limit is intended to represent the prose. The stated purpose of the length limit is to match attention span - most people do not read the notes and the ones who will obviously have a long attention span for this subject anyway! Bravo, job well done! InvictaHOG 12:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support, looks excellent. Appears to be well-written, comprehensive, and I don't have a problem with the numerous references and notes. Some of the notes, could, however, be maybe consolidated without losing anything (e.g. just put one at the end of the paragraph and explain in the note which facts come from which source). Tuf-Kat 20:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: I also am disturbed to see a request to remove citations - citations are a useful way to aid users of Wikipedia content in doing factual verification - "looking like a academic paper" is missing the substance for the appearence. If you don't like the look of lots of notes, feel free to change how they are included, but don't push for them to be removed! How else can a serious user of the encyclopedia verify the claim s we make? JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. I've read it and it seems excellent. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:39, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Although I would agree that Harvard Referencing may disrupt the readibility of an article, I do not think footnotes dos so. More importantly, articles are meant to be informative, and footnotes provide important information. I do not see any excessive citations here. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:19, 9 January 2006 (UTC)