Wikipedia:Featured article review/Woody Guthrie/archive1

Woody Guthrie

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Fails "well-written:" This was on the front page yesterday, linked through the featured picture section. I often read Wikipedia's featured articles and they are usually quite good but I was rather shocked at this particular one's listing. The writing is slipshod, even sophomoric in many places. I left comments on the talk page regarding a missing word in one sentence. Thereafter I decided to talk about the global issue of demotion and detailed multiple problems in just the first section following the lead. Thereafter I discovered this process. I will repeat what I said on the talk page (with some modifications) and expand.

• "who lived across from Guthrie and his family in Brooklyn in the 1940s"
  • Across from him how? Across the street? Across the hall? There is an indispensable word missing in this sentence. It can say she lived "nearby to" but it can't say "lived across from Guthrie" as if "across" is a specific thing in and of itself.

A citation would clear this up. Add a citation needed flag to this paragraph.

I don't see how flagging it as needing a citation would clear up this issue, detail the issue or even speak to the issue, though as a separate issue, the paragraph probably should have an inline citations verifying it.—68.237.250.190 (talk) 21:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Two issues, (1) the statements in this paragraph are uncited. They need to be. (2) The above note, the across statement is ambigious. (I would guess they mean across the street as the mermaid avenue apartment was a walkup rather than a many unit building. This is just a guess. A citation is needed to clear up both these issues.) If it can't be cited it should be removed. --[[::User:Dannygutters|Dannygutters]] (talk · contribs) 16:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Inline citation is useful, but I think unnecessary in the case of this rather minor point. [Wikipedia:Citing_sources] says cite inline for 'likely to be challenged' items. IMO, this paragraph is kind of trivia-ish. Footnote citation should be sufficient, if one can't be found it should just be removed. --[[::User:Dannygutters|Dannygutters]] (talk · contribs) 16:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

First section problems

• "Guthrie was born in Okemah, a small town in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, to Nora Belle Sherman and Charles Edward Guthrie."
  • Needs a date in relation: "Guthrie was born ON DATE in Okemah..."
• "...judging from the circumstances surrounding his death by drowning, suffered from the same hereditary disease."
  • Why? What is it about Huntingtons that makes it likely. What were these "circumstances". Why is the mother suspected in the preceding paragraph? It's all very insinuating and muddled and unilluminating. Possibly what's needed is something like Guthrie's mother suffered from Huntington's disease which is know to cause _______. Scholar/in (NAME OF WORK), it is speculated that the multiple coincidental fires were the result of ________."

Many of these complaints are handled by the superscript citations and the convention suggested is inappropriate for wikipedia. the Huntingtons article describes huntingtons and the quote is verbatium from the bio. The circumstances of Ma Guthrie's death ARE muddy and speculatory so the attempt here was to make refrence to avaliable bio work. Um I will respond in the summary area, some of these errors and suggested updates are not addressable in terms of wikipedia convention. --[[::User:Dannygutters|Dannygutters]] (talk · contribs) 18:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• "According to one story, Guthrie made friends with an African-American blues harmonica player named "George", whom he would watch play at the man's shoe shine booth. Before long, Guthrie bought his own harmonica and began playing along. But in another interview 14 years later, Guthrie claimed that he learned how to play harmonica from a boyhood friend, John Woods, and that his earlier story was false."
  • "One story" is poor; the source of this "story" should be attributed in text; the "story" is referred to later in the paragraph by relation to "another interview", but we never knew the earlier "story" was an "interview".
• "He seemed to have a natural affinity for music and easily learned to "play by ear". He began to use his musical skills around town, playing a song for a sandwich or coins."
  • "Seemed" is waffling; "began to use" should be rethought if you aren't going to provide a time period in close proximity; "a song for a sandwich or coins" is awkward.
• "Eventually, Guthrie's father sent for his son to come to Texas where little would change for the now-aspiring musician."
  • "Eventually" sounds like a stand in for not having a date; "now-aspiring musician" should never be said without a date or age provided in close proximity; what does "now" refer to? Maybe the move to texas but that is prefaced by the vague "eventually." It doesn't work.
• Guthrie, now 18..."
  • Poor. "Now 18", like the previous sentence, invokes a specific time that has been reached after somethimg transpired; some event just told which relates to reaching "now". Here, we are provided nothing, so "now" attaches to nothing. It should say "At 18" or "By 18" or something similar.
    • It's not just these specific errors that need to be addressed. The section doesn't flow well. We aren't looking for error free prose; we're looking for compelling prose, and this section is not that.

Next section:

• "Robbin, who became Guthrie's political mentor, introduced Guthrie to Socialists and Communists in Southern California" and later "Guthrie requested to write a column for the Communist newspaper"
  • Why are Socialists and Communists/Communist capitalized?
• "...with Germany in 1939 KFVD radio owners did not..."
  • There probably should be a comma after 1939 as a a natural break point, and it's "KFVD's owners" or possibly "KFVD radio's owners", though that does not really work for me because radio is not part of the name of the entity.
• "the wanderlusting Guthrie"
  • Wanderlust is a noun. I know what is meant but the construction is outré.

I'm not going to go through the whole article but it is a long way from brilliant prose.—141.155.159.210 (talk) 11:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me highlight a few more:

• Please review the numerous uses of the word "eventually" throughout, and where appropriate affix an exact time period or span of time in its place.
• I forget to mention earlier, in "1939 KFVD radio owners did not want its staff", "its" should be "they" using that construction, even if the construction should be changed as a I noted earlier.
• "Without the daily radio show, prospects for employment diminished" should read "Without the daily radio show, Guthrie's prospects for employment diminished"
• Although Mary Guthrie was happy to return to Texas, the wanderlusting Guthrie soon after accepted Will Geer's invitation to come to New York City and headed east." besides the wanderlust problem noted earlier, "headed east" is redundant, it should be "thereafter", not "after", and it should be "accepted an invitation from Will Geer to come..."
• Woody G., N.Y., N.Y., N.Y.". should not have the trailing period
• Guthrie was paid $180 a week, an impressive salary in 1940. (should be a semicolon)
• "The reunion represented Woody's desire to be a better father and husband." The reunion represented a desire? I think I know what was meant. No, upon further reflection it's just a mess. Maybe "the reunion offered an opportunity..." Not sure. Rewrite or get rid of it.
• Unfortunately for the newly relocated family, Guthrie quit after the seventh broadcast, claiming he had begun to feel the show was too restricting when he was told what to sing." (poorly constructed and passive voice; missing a hyphen after newly, "unfortunately" presents as editorial opinion). I suggest: "Guthrie chaffed under the radio show's restrictive format which dictated his song choices. Despite the recentness of his family's move, he quit Pipe Smoking Time after only seven broadcasts."
• "Disgruntled with New York..." Wrong vocabulary choice. We don't get disgruntled WITH something; we are disgruntled BY something. Consider disgusted, fed up, disenchanted...
• "The original project was projected" this would be great if you were teaching homographs and wanted a sentence example usage, but is frowned upon in formal writing.
  • Still not halfway through the article, and I want to stress that fixing these is not the real issue. Fixing every grammatical mistake, syntax problem, punctuation error, etc. and it still won't turn mediocre writing into compelling prose. What I have highlighted is just a symptom of the root problem.—141.155.159.210 (talk) 18:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

NOTE: This article appeared on the main page January 10, 2009. I do not know where the "yesterday" factors in here. --Moni3 (talk) 12:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

NOTE: It was on the main page yesterday June 2, 2009. It may be that it was on the main page AGAIN at that time—141.155.159.210 (talk) 12:22, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

NOTE: Clarification. We're both correct. It was not the featured article yesterday, it was linked through the featured picture that was of Guthrie. So it was on the main page yesterday, but not as the featured article.—141.155.159.210 (talk) 12:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I see one problem that goes towards criteria B of comprehensiveness. The article is concerned primarily with Guthrie from a biographical point of view but does not deal with him as a musician - I would suggest adding a section about his musical styles and development possibly extracting some points from the historical treatment.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

File:Woody Guthrie - This Land.ogg needs a fair-use rationale. DrKiernan (talk) 16:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

This should be provided in the ogg page, it was rationalized as 'sample' --[[::User:Dannygutters|Dannygutters]] (talk · contribs) 17:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

A license template is not a rationale. The file page does not include any rationale. Jay32183 (talk) 00:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Is FA status review really the way to go about intoducing copyedit changes? Shouldn't the user merely intoduce the changes they see fit and followup on the discussion page? I don't really see anything listed here of note for status changes other than copyedit/wording changes and citiation needed items (all of which i agree SHOULD be updated). Plus some of the suggestions for inline citation of source material is not in line with wikipedia's citing methods. I will inline comment on these issues and welcome updates if this review request is valid, but I think redoing FA review would be overkill. Oh well, are Anonymous users allowed to initiate FA reviews anyway? This user seems unfarmilar with the process and conventions here. One thing I do take issue with is the comment 'I'm not going to go through the whole article but it is a long way from brilliant prose.' this (aside from sounding petty) makes me wonder how we can even respond the critique of the article if the questing user can't even muster up the effort to read the whole thing. Also, usage updates are warmly welcomed, but please check the citation with the assumption that quoted material is SIC. I vote Keep. and will add citation needed tags for uncited statements in the article. --[[::User:Dannygutters|Dannygutters]] (talk · contribs) 18:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

These aren't copyedit changes. They are various type of identified problems, which includes copyedit material. I do so to show the endemic problems with the writing throughout; I use them to typify problems the article suffers from. Some of them, yes indeed, I could fix, and others I cannot fix because I didn't write the article and don't have access to the sources, but that is not the point. I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say "...suggestions for inline citation of source material is not in line with wikipedia's citing methods" I didn't call for a single citation to be added and I am very familiar with Wikipedia's citation policies and methods. You say you take issue with the comment "I'm not going to go through the whole article but it is a long way from brilliant prose", taking that to mean I did not read the article in its entirety. You misunderstand. I read the article carefully, top to bottom and inside and out—twice. I refer in this quote to going through each and every prose problem, by listing each one on this featured article review page. The reason why I am not going to do that is the same as the reason I stated earlier. The problems I identify are a symptom of a larger problem with the prose in general. You can find wonderful prose with poor punctuation and misspellings. You can have insipid prose with no such errors. Though, brilliant prose is rarely chock full of errors, and prose chock full of errors is rarely brilliant. The problem here is that the article is not very well written. I am showing that by highlighting some fundamental errors, but if it just needed a copyedit, I would have done that. I'm sorry you take offense at my characterization of the writing. I'm not sure how it's "petty" though. I can see how easily criticism of an article can be felt as a direct attack on those who participated. I do not wish to cause hurt feelings, but I think Wikipedia's image is more important, and I am quite sure I do not know how to say this fails the well written "even brilliant" prong of the featured article criteria, without saying that it does so fail to meet that standard. I think it would set a terrible example if this FAR was discounted simply because I am not a user with an account. That would be baby-bathwater territory; forest-for-trees shortsightedness. You are correct that this critique does not follow the standard entry I see for other articles. Were I to change it to say "fails criterion 1a. Not well written. Has punctuation, syntax, grammar and vocabulary errors and many of them; many passages are confused... etc."? That would be more in line with other examples, but I think less illuminating for those reading. By the way. I don't think anyone votes keep or delist yet. That process, per the instructions on this FAR page, happens after time is given for the issues identified to be addressed.—68.237.250.190 (talk) 21:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment: any changes have to be consistent with WP:MOS, which "Guthrie was born ON DATE in Okemah..." for instance, is not.--Grahame (talk) 01:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I took a look through the manual of style page and was not able to find the section stating this. I only found a section stating that the date of birth and death should be listed in the intro, but not that you shouldn't repeat the date of birth in the first section of a biography (nor the date of death at the end of a biography). It seems logical to me to include a date of birth at the start of a biography--especially when the lead of an article is supposed to summarize the body--but I can live with it. I would appreciate it, however, if you were a little more transparent, pointing me to the specific section of that many-tentacled body of pages for my own edification. I just took a look at other featured article biographies to see if they follow this convention and those I surveyed do not. James Joyce, Henry James, Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe and Edgar Allan Poe, which I clicked on at random, all disagree with this notion. You also seem to be inferring, by your use of "for instance", that many suggestions I have made transgress the style guidelines. I would also appreciate it if you stated that with more precision so that I can learn Wikipedia's style conventions better. Thanks.--141.155.159.210 (talk) 02:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)