Wikipedia:Peer review/The Breeders Tour 2014/archive1

This is a GA article that I hope to take to FAC. It's not extremely long but I believe it covers the small subject well. I would appreciate any feedback for improving the article.

Thank you, Moisejp (talk) 04:23, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Aoba47
  • In this sentence (Last Splash went silver in the United Kingdom, gold in Canada, and platinum in the United States, and the group toured extensively, including participating in Lollapalooza 1994.), I think you can split it in two. The first half is about the commercial performance of the album and the second half is about the Lollapalooza tour so I think it makes more sense to have these ideas presented separately.
  • For this part (and in 1995 Wiggs decided to pursue other musical projects), I would add a comma after “1995”.
  • I would include the year in which the Safari EP was released in the “Performances and reception” section.
  • I am not sure if the "everything [was] perfect" quote is entirely necessary and I think you can paraphrase this part.
  • Hollywood Bowl is linked a few times in the body of the article. It should only be linked once (in the “Background” section). It is also linked in the “Performances and reception” section.

Everything else looks really good. Great work with this. I am looking forward to seeing it up for FAC in the future. Aoba47 (talk) 17:11, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • I am glad that I could help out. Good luck with this. Aoba47 (talk) 15:41, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Aoba47. About your first comment above, I at first took it, but in my latest version I've tried merging the two sentences back into one for flow. However, the first part now is much shorter, as I have put the specific certifications (platinum, gold, silver) in a footnote. Let me know if my edit doesn't work for you and you still feel strongly that it should be two sentences. Thanks. Moisejp (talk) 05:59, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • By the way, my idea that the two ideas can be naturally joined is because the good sales of the album would have contributed to ticket sales, and to the demand for them to play lots of concerts. Moisejp (talk) 06:01, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from FrB.TG

Lead

  • The 2014 tour by American alternative rock group the Breeders comprised a series of thirteen concerts - I wonder if a series of is necessary here. Also shouldn't band be more preferable than group?
  • The band's line-up for their successful 1993 album Last Splash - do we really need successful here? I mean it is pretty standard to start a tour for an album that was hit.
  • I would suggest scrapping the however's, which is generally disliked by FAC. See also WP:HOWEVER. I, however, don't see why it could not be used.

Background

  • In 1993, the Breeders released their second album, Last Splash.[1][2] - why do we need two references just for the release of the album?
  • but quit the band in 1997.[8] The Breeders’ - we don't use that kind of apostrophe in Wikipedia. ' is more preferable.
  • The group began practicing new material in Kim Deal’s - same point as above.
  • include/including used four times in the section and 10 times overall, which is few too many.
  • Titles included “Skinhead Number 2”, “Simone”, “All Nerve”, and “Launched”. - same here; " is more preferable.
  • The latter group decided to go on a tour leading up to this show and to perform - I would remove group. Also, if they did do those things, I would scrap decide. I generally dislike its usage in good writing and think it is sometimes quite meaningless.

More soon. --Fankie talk 17:46, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Frankie, thank you very much for your feedback so far. I've taken most of your suggestions. A couple of notes:

  • I've reduced the instances of "include" by six (plus one in the alt text). I believe there are four left in the article as a whole.
  • I've removed "decided" from the lead but haven't managed from the main text (the place you mentioned) yet. I see your point that "decided to" could sometimes be meaningless, but I'm not convinced it is here. I want to convey cause and effect, and I think "decided" helps with that here. In this case, Neutral Milk Hotel's invitation prompted the Breeders to plan a tour; the Breeders wouldn't have planned the tour otherwise. So "decided" conveys that there was a start to this decision (sometime after they learned of the invitation) and it wasn't something they were planning to do all along. If you're strongly against "decided" here, there could be other ways to express this. One would be "The invitation prompted the latter to go on a tour leading up to this show and to perform some new compositions in preparation for their eventual recording" but this would be very wordy. So I'm open to suggestions, and am still thinking for good ideas myself... unless I may have convinced you that "decided" is valid here?
  • I'm afraid don't understand why or how I would get rid of the two instances of "however" in the article. This is a necessary transition between two contrasting ideas, and removing the word doesn't make the need for a transition go away. I also feel the link you gave me isn't really related at all. It talks about how it's not good to put multiple instances in a row, but that's the case for the two isolated cases I have. And if I understand correctly, I think you're saying that you personally don't mind the use of "however", and I don't actually remember ever have been told by other reviewers that they don't like it. I would lean towards not changing these for now, and see if anybody else says anything. But I appreciate and respect your advice, so I'm happy to reconsider if you still think I should get rid of them and have a good suggestion for how to do so.

Thank you again for your comments so far, and I'm looking forward to your next batch! Moisejp (talk) 07:41, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm very happy to reduce the number of wiki-links, but I'd like some consistency in what gets linked. If I link the smaller cities they went to, it might be good for consistency to keep links to all cities. I'll start with removing the links to the cities and countries in the Dates section and leave the cities in the lead and main body. Let me know if you think that doesn't go far enough and I'm happy to discuss more. Moisejp (talk) 17:40, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Wehwalt

edit
  • "The group's line-up for their 1993 album Last Splash consisted of" I might stick a "had" before "consisted". I think I would say "lineup" rather than "line-up", throughout.
  • "The latter decided to go on a tour leading up to this show" I might strike "a"
  • "These were followed by the inland cities Las Vegas and Phoenix," I might cut "the inland cities", people probably know where these places are.
  • Did they travel on a band bus? The venues are about the right distance apart, other than LA to Chicago,and they could have flown to that.
  • I might list Garden City to include the state name. I assumed Kansas was meant when I first read it, not Idaho.
  • "List of concert dates, cities, venues, and support groups" I might say "support bands" or "opening acts".
  • Are any setlists available?
  • " it became uncertain whether the musical part of this festival might be canceled" this could probably be phrased more directly. "it because uncertain whether the musical part of this festival would go on" or some such.
  • Not too much to say, it's short as you said. There's a certain turn of phrase that feels vaguely British. I guess my main concern is that material is so limited on the tour. Not much you can do about that.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:37, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wehwalt, thank you so much for your comments. Notes:

  • I have taken all your suggestions for the easy-to-fix ones.
  • I've added info about the set lists; let me know whether you think this is a good amount of detail or otherwise have suggestions about the new content.
  • Unfortunately, I've found no info about whether they may have traveled by bus. (Incidentally, two nights ago I saw them in Seattle—fantastic show!—on their 2017 tour whose American leg is similar in length to the 2014 tour, and I did see a tour bus outside the venue. I expect they would have traveled by bus in 2014 but, yeah, no sources saying so.)
  • About the vaguely British turn of phrase, I'm Canadian. I wouldn't have expected that would make my writing noticeably different from American, but I guess it could.
  • I appreciate your concern that the material is limited on the tour. It's not much, but I've added one sentence about Carrie Bradley (plus the set list info). When I originally wrote this, I scoured the Internet quite thoroughly looking for information. I'm going to have another look over the next few days. I don't have high hopes I'll be able to find really a lot more, but who knows? Thanks again for looking at this. Regards, Moisejp (talk) 06:33, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]