Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/La Isla Bonita/archive2

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 16 February 2023 [1].

La Isla Bonita[edit]

Nominator(s): Christian (talk) 03:43, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about one of Madonna's most known, iconic and emblematic songs, as well as my personal favorite. I believe this article meets all the criteria required to be passes as FAC; having corrected all the comments given to me by my fellow editors, I am once again presenting this article with the intention it gets approved as a Featured article.Christian (talk)

  • Two drive-by comments. First, some of the images feel purely decorative without adding any illustrative benefit to the article. The image of Janet Jackson stands out the most, as Jackson has virtually nothing to do with this song. Second, the word "gypsy" can be interpreted as pejorative, and it might be preferable to use the otherwise equivalent term "Romani". Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:24, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Thebiguglyalien:! Thank you for your comment! Is the Janet Jackson image the only one you're talking about? Cause I believe the ones included on the article are all very appropriate for their respective sections (even the Janet one, as it specifically mentions a record shared with her); also, regarding the use of "gypsy", that's how the source mentions it. Christian (talk) 01:21, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by FrB.TG[edit]

Sad that this has continued to get little attention from reviewers. Maybe ping the reviewers from the previous nomination? I previously copy-edited this during its PR; here are my comments.

  • "During the autumn of 1985" - "autumn" is ambiguous, see MOS:SEASON.
  • "the singer and Leonard" - I would just swap these four words for "they" or "the two" as it's clear that we are talking about these two.
  • I am not convinced of the quality of the critical reception section. It lists the opinion of a reviewer after another without much organization. It would benefit from some summarization of similar opinions so we don't have the repetitive "Reviewer a praised this, reviewer b agreed". See WP:RECEPTION to get a better idea of what I'm talking about (you can also check out my recent FA Alejandro (song)#Critical reception and accolades as an example). Addendum: the "Analysis and reception" subsection of music video does an excellent job at this.
  • "In The Madonna Connection: Representational Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory (1998), authors Ramona Liera-Schwichtenberg, Deidre Pribram, David Tetzlaff and Ron Scott, argued" - no comma before "argued"
  • "Sticky & Sweet (2008―2009), Rebel Heart (2015―2016), and Madame X (2019―2020)" - wrong use of em-dash. En-dash should be used here instead.
  • "Jon Pareles, from The New York Times," - both commas unneeded here
  • Dressed in black slacks, a backless black dress, and surrounded by a "gaggle of percussionists and dancers" - avoid the repetition of "dress" in such a close proximity. And it should be "Dressed in black slacks and a backless dress, and surrounded by.." Otherwise it reads as "dressed in surrounded by a", which is grammatically incorrect.

That's it for now. FrB.TG (talk) 10:22, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments @FrB.TG:! Let me know if how I've modified it is better (I tried to divide the reviews section per theme, as you suggested). And yes it sucks that there's so little activity here 😞😢 Last time, only @ChrisTheDude: gave a support.--Christian (talk) 23:13, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll take a look at this new FAC but it's unlikely to be today, I'm afraid -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:43, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi FrB.TG, I was wondering if you felt in a position to either support or oppose this nomination? Obviously, neither is obligatory. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:09, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Things have improved but it's still not quite there IMO (at least not in the critical reception section). The first two paragraphs list the positive reviews at the time of the song's release, but it's not clear what the theme of each paragraph is. I see a lot of reviewers highlighting the song because of it sounding "exotic" (Latin American culture) and its influence on subsequent similarly-themed songs (e.g. Gaga's "Alejandro"). I would rearrange all this in one paragraph and write an introductory line that its "Latin flavor" was praised. I'm sure you can recognize similarities in other reviews. FrB.TG (talk) 18:52, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

  • "Her and Leonard would go on to work together " => "She and Leonard would go on to work together "
  • "The song starts with a musical introduction performed on Bongos," - no reason for capital B, it isn't a proper noun
  • "It reached the top five in Ireland,[72] Norway,[73] the Netherlands,[74][75] Sweden,[76] and the top ten in Spain" => "It reached the top five in Ireland,[72] Norway,[73] the Netherlands,[74][75] and Sweden,[76] and the top ten in Spain"
  • "who had previously worked with Madonna in the videos" => "who had previously worked with Madonna on the videos"
  • "At one point, she's shown" => "At one point, she is shown"
  • "The "passionate" flamenco dancer Madonna dances inside a bright red room with red candles, candelabra" => "The "passionate" flamenco dancer Madonna dances inside a bright red room with red candle and candelabra"
  • "In Europe, it was the most heavily rotated clip on television" - during its chart run? Of all time up to this point? Of all time ever?
  • "Madonna singing the track on the Rebel Heart Tour (2015–2016)." - this image caption doesn't need a full stop -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:52, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Done @ChrisTheDude: --Christian (talk) 01:37, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Where is the length in the infobox coming from? None of the entries in Formats have that length
  • Some of the details in the infobox aren't explicitly cited anywhere, eg the label
  • The lead states the work is in tribute to the beauty of Latinos, but the text states the beauty of Latin Americans - which is correct?
  • There are no citations to Broughton et al
  • FN13 is misformatted
  • Be consistent in whether you name "Staff" as an author or omit the author
  • FN36: author spelling doesn't match source. Ditto Fn38, check throughout.
  • FN40 has author backwards
  • Fn77 is missing language
  • Be consistent in when you include publishers for periodicals
  • The references to The Backlot appear to go to a site with a different name, even the archived versions - can you explain?
  • What makes Albumism a high-quality reliable source? The Tab? Cashbox?
  • Associated Press should be credited using |agency=
  • Be consistent in whether you include locations for books
  • Check alphabetization of Bibliography
  • What makes O'Donnell a high-quality source for the claim it is being used to support?
  • Be consistent in whether book titles use sentence or title case. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:16, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First-time nominator[edit]

Note for coordinators - given that the nominator is yet to have their first FA, this should have spot-checks for copyvio and source-to-text integrity. FrB.TG (talk) 19:56, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note[edit]

This has been open for more than four weeks and has only picked up a single support. Unless it attracts considerable movement towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:32, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. I think Chrishm21 will correct the last points that were stated above. Great expansion and work! Vera (talk) 14:58, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from SNUGGUMS[edit]

Quite honestly, the page needs lots of revising:

  • The use of "hit" from "11th top five hit" is too informal
  • I'd add the other places it went number one into the lead; to only single out the UK feels incomplete
  • Don't link commonly recognized terms like "music critics" per WP:OVERLINK
  • Under "Background and release", the opening sentence "In 1985, Madonna started writing and recording songs for her third studio album, True Blue; she decided to bring back producer Stephen Bray, with whom she had worked on her previous album Like a Virgin (1984), and also hired a new producer, Patrick Leonard." is quite a mouthful! A helpful change would be splitting this up by turning the semi-colon into a period.
  • To use a surname in quick succession as you do by having "Leonard" at the end of your first sentence followed right by it beginning the second one feels repetitive.
  • You've also misused the semi-colon after "'La Isla Bonita' was the first song Madonna recorded that incorporated Spanish motifs and lyrics" and would be better off turning that into a period too.
  • Using "Of working with the producer" doesn't sound right, so maybe change "of" into "on".
  • The use of "cited" from "cited as possibilities" reads awkwardly. A better choice would be "named", "speculated", "surmised", or even "thought of".
  • There's something weird with File:Madonna - la isla bonita.ogg. The file reads 25 seconds within the bar next to its play button while the file source says 24. Which is it? Remember per WP:SAMPLE that you can only use 10% or less of the total duration for songs under 5 minutes (this one is 243 seconds and thus your limit would be 24 here).
  • For the "Critical reception" section, don't hide the title of Madonna: An Intimate Biography with an WP:EASTEREGG of simply "biography"
  • It's worth mentioning that Lucy O'Brien's comments are published within Madonna: Like an Icon
  • "The" is part of the title for The New York Times
  • Unless you've got a citation specifically talking about such assessments as a whole, I'd remove the "Retrospective reviews have been positive" to avoid WP:SYNTH, plus there could be some reviews from the 21st century not listed here that were mixed or negative.
  • Instead of curly quotation marks (’,”) that you have for "it’s touching, and as a personal reflection, it’s beautiful", use straight ones (',") per MOS:CURLY
  • Not convinced File:Janet Jackson 4 (cropped).jpg serves any benefit beyond decoration, but either way don't use italics for "pictured" within its caption. At least it's free of copyright.
  • The uses of "hit" in multiple instances of "top ten hit" are subpar tone for the "Commercial performance" section, and same goes for "top five hit" again.
  • Like the Janet caption, I wouldn't italicize "left" or "right" for File:La Isla Bonita (music video).jpg, which isn't backed up by the given file link and thus doesn't feel like an authentic FUR.
  • "Filming took place in downtown Los Angeles in March 1987, and lasted four days; over 500 extras of Hispanic descent, including a then-unknown Benicio Del Toro, who was paid $150, participated in the shooting."..... care to guess what's wrong here?
  • Only the first mention of Jon Pareles needs to be linked
  • Again, "pictured" shouldn't be italicized in captions of photos the way you did for File:Ricky Martin in store appearance, Sydney Australia (14672277611).jpg and File:Alizée Jacotey - Chanteuse Francaise - Paris - 3 December 2007 - DSC 1665bis.jpg
  • No commentary from critics on the covers by other artists?
  • I'm not familiar with "Gay Star News" (which isn't supposed to have italics) or "Queerty". How trustworthy are these sources?
  • "Bibliography" is frowned upon as a vague section title that could also potentially refer to works written by a subject, so let's give this a more specific name. I'd also add a subheading for the citations used beforehand within "References".

Unfortunately, I must oppose the nomination, at least for now. Maybe some improvements will later change my stance. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 02:24, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

SC[edit]

  • Oppose My attention was first caught by the the unencyclopaedic phrase "academics applauded the clip" as something that needed to be changed. The relevant section doesn't clarify who the vaguely-labelled "academics" are (many are just described as "authors", rather than identifying their academic discipline). The word "applaud" is repeated in the sentence "McDanell, in her book Material Christianity (1998), applauded Madonna for giving "new meaning" to candlestands and "home shrines"". Reading the actual source, McDanell doesn't "applaud" anything: there is no praise (or condemnation), just a description of how Madonna used or marketed Catholic items. The quote "new meaning" does not appear in any description of Madonna in the source, and the only reference to "home shrines" is the description that Madonna's "characters in La Isla Bonita performed/prayed in front of home shrines, one ablaze with candles".
  • The sentence "In The Madonna Connection: Representational Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory (1998), authors Ramona Liera-Schwichtenberg, Deidre Pribram, David Tetzlaff and Ron Scott argued that although the settings suggest that both of Madonna's characters live in the barrio and may be Latina themselves, her portrayal of the flamenco dancer—which he described as "lush, flashy [and] colorful"—contrasts with the Latinos in the street, who are decked out in "sparsely worn out" clothes." says the work is from 1998, but the Source list has a 1993 edition listed. Looking at the 1993 edition (available here), neither of the two quotes are anywhere in the book and the cited page (259) contains nothing to support the sentence.
  • Fabricating a quote and misleading on what sources say are auto-opposes for me, and that's before the text problems that SNUGGUMS has identified. This shouldn't be at FAC - it should be at GAR to have the 'Good Article' status removed - SchroCat (talk) 17:08, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The amount of fabricated material is not surprising considering it was taken to GA by User:Legolas2186 who added a lot of misinformation to many Lady Gaga and Madonna articles and cited book sources and sometimes even fake offline magazine issues so that they were not easily verifiable. It's very unfortunate that his misdeeds have left their mark on articles to this day. I experienced this firsthand when I took "Bad Romance" to FA where I had to clean up a huge amount of made-up nonsense. FrB.TG (talk) 11:42, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not good - one wonders why the GAs weren't delisted when his activities were uncovered - it means the misinformation, fabricated quotes and misrepresentation has been left in place with a GA for ten years.
Chrishm21, this highlights the need for nominators to have a full grasp of all the sources used in an article and to be able to justify every bit of text and every source used. FAs need to cover all the best sources possible, to ensure that all aspects of a subject have been covered - so you should have got hold of the sources and checked to ensure they are used properly in the article. - SchroCat (talk) 15:08, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

About the claim not found by SchroCat's second suggestion, seems editor Chrishm miscited the book, as according to Google Books, it doesn't belongs to The Madonna Connection (1993; 2019) but to Madonna's Drowned Worlds (2004). Both compendiums of scholarly essays and journalist pieces on Madonna. Chrishm: if there are remaining's of Legolas' contributions, take a bit of your time for comparing, especially factual information. GA 2009 results shows it was shorter. Also reviews can be replaced as long came from perennial publications used here, or others reputable, if there exists problems with this part regarding Legolas' footprints. You have a lot of tools outside, Archive.org or Google Books to mention a few, to re-verify or even add relevant material, just putting "La Isla Bonita". Add: At the moment, I also oppose. There are points addressed by SchroCat and SNUGGUMS that needs to be solved. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 19:04, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Chrishm21: It seems that you have been WP:AGF for citations in place when you started work on this article, rather than checking each one of them. I am minded to archive this nomination to allow time for you to do a thorough source to text check. Do you have any comments on this proposed course of action or the situation more generally? Gog the Mild (talk) 14:07, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Sorry for the delay, I’ve been caught up with some personal things. Thank you for the comments and for everything that has been pointed out. I’ll try to correct/clean up what you have pointed out here this weekend.
Again, thank you both! Christian (talk) 18:09, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately it is clear that the article was not ready for FAC when nominated and is still not. It also has three open opposes. I am therefore going to archive this nomination to allow improvements to be made off-FAC, possibly at PR. I would also draw the nominator's attention to the top of the FAC page where they can find:

    Editors considering their first nomination, and any subsequent nomination before their first FA promotion, are strongly advised to seek the involvement of a mentor, to assist in the preparation and processing of the nomination. Nominators must be sufficiently familiar with the subject matter and sources to deal with objections during the featured article candidates (FAC) process.

    The usual two-week hiatus will apply.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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