Talk:Bridge over Troubled Water/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Ritchie333 (talk · contribs) 22:16, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll review this. I know I've got The Madcap Laughs on my review pile as I write this, but that's about four more actions away from a pass, so my time on that will be limited. I have an original vinyl copy (though they were hardly scarce so it's not worth anything). Basic initial problems I can see is a few bits of punctuation, quite a few cns, and I'm not sure about the overall structure. Plus I'm slightly concerned about that quote from Art in the first paragraph being a bit too long and a borderline copyvio. More later.
 * While I am not reviewing, I am trying to work on the quality and integrity of this article. Much of the sourcing stems from offline publications, including one that is originally in German. There are numerous "facts" that seem dubious, including the suggestion that 800,000 people were present for the Ames, Iowa concert that Bye Bye Love came from. Such an oddball claim makes me find some of the other facts attributed to this and other offline sources dubious, to say the least. Echoedmyron (talk) 14:13, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I changed it to 80,000, as I confused it with a similar concert, my mistake. I hope to find alternative references, but this is not so easy. Also, it is not offline; perhaps you need to change the domain to .de. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 14:36, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * My mistake on that one - I just saw it was a book, and neglected to actually try the link. It is, however, in a foreign language, which makes testing the accuracy of claims sourced to that work difficult. Presumably there is an English source that could be used for this article? Echoedmyron (talk) 15:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Just a quick update - yes, one of the things I was going to mention was the 800,000 at Ames - that's about double the estimated crowd of the Woodstock Festival! I see some work has been going on, so I'll give a definitive list by tomorrow evening. It's looking like an "on hold" for the minute, though if we're still discussing what sources to use, as opposed to the right bits with them, that makes me worry a bit. I don't have any direct sources myself other than a basic familiarity with the album, so I'll be using that to judge whether the article conveys enough facts for people interested in reading about it, as well as the usual MOS / referencing issues. I'd really like to know a bit more about that Ames gig and tour, and that final post album gig, as I always thought they split before the album was released. -- Ritchie333 (talk)  (cont)   23:23, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I used the German book as it has many useful information which I could not find anywhere. Of course there are high-quality books in English, but they can not be viewed via Gbooks.--Kürbis (✔) 08:58, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Review Checklist

 * GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

Okay, I've gone through the article and what references I could get hold of, and here's the review.
 * It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
 * Lead
 * Do we need to know that three tracks were not featured in the album here? I'm not sure it's a major point of interest. Much more important to mention is that neither of them could agree on the album's twelfth track (which is mentioned in the main Simon and Garfunkel article).
 * Do we need to know that three tracks were not featured in the album here? I'm not sure it's a major point of interest. Much more important to mention is that neither of them could agree on the album's twelfth track (which is mentioned in the main Simon and Garfunkel article).


 * "the duo's most acclaimed songs" is vague - "critically and/or commercially successful" is a better term to use here, as it can be cited to something specific. That term is used in the next sentence, so maybe some shuffling around on sentences could sort that out.


 * Worth mentioning it won many things at the 1971 Grammy Awards?


 * Background


 * Is it worth just giving a very brief one sentence recap of where the duo were in their career by this point? Something like, "By 1969, Simon and Garfunkel had been making records together for over ten years, with particular commercial and critical success after The Sound of Silence (single) in 1965."


 * The quote from the interview with Art is a bit too long and might be considered a copyvio. By all means, keep the interview as a reference, but it's better written in our own words.


 * Recording


 * "Simon had not completed a song yet" should probably read "Simon had not completed any new songs at this point".


 * Chart Positions


 * I crossed check the chart positions and awards with other good and featured articles, and it appears to be consistent.


 * It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * I generally assume book references are correct, as long as they are not the sole source used for large parts of the article. However, as has been already discussed, concern has been raised over the reliability of Ebel as a source, due to it being in German and translated back, and lengthy sections of the article are cited only to this. There are a number of other non-English references later on, but they're only to assert the chart positions of the album, which are numeric and hence cross language. Three other sources are given in the bibliography, and I suspect they'd be more suitable. Some of the online sources already cited (such as BBC News or the Independent) also contain more information than the brief fact they specifically cite. Also, I'm sure the CD reissue liner notes will contain information that can be cited. More specific comments follow :
 * I generally assume book references are correct, as long as they are not the sole source used for large parts of the article. However, as has been already discussed, concern has been raised over the reliability of Ebel as a source, due to it being in German and translated back, and lengthy sections of the article are cited only to this. There are a number of other non-English references later on, but they're only to assert the chart positions of the album, which are numeric and hence cross language. Three other sources are given in the bibliography, and I suspect they'd be more suitable. Some of the online sources already cited (such as BBC News or the Independent) also contain more information than the brief fact they specifically cite. Also, I'm sure the CD reissue liner notes will contain information that can be cited. More specific comments follow :


 * Recording
 * The reference cited for the first sentence doesn't cite the filming of Catch-22 starting in January 1969. It states 1969, and an 8 month duration, but no specific month. You can probably infer it based on what else was happening, but I think that's straying into original research.


 * "Critics saw similarities between this song and The Beatles' "Let it Be"" - What critics exactly? These need to be cited.


 * Many facts in this section are unsourced (including one cn) or sourced from Ebel. Some things, such as the percussion in Cecilia can be cited by the BBC Arts Desk reference earlier, or the Independent reference later, so this is fairly straightforward to fix in the long term.


 * Release


 * About "Cuba Si, Nixon No" - is the AllMusic source, reviewing a bootleg, reliable?


 * Aftermath


 * There's a "Why" tag here. I agree with it - why is this here?


 * Everything here is cited by Ebel, including some stuff I didn't know about. Can you get an alternative source for some of it?


 * Personnel
 * Using this as a source, the only musicians credited are Paul Simon, Fred Carter Jr, Hal Blaine, Joe Osborn, Larry Knetchel (credited as "keyboard", not "piano"), Jimmy Haskell and Ernie Freeman. The rest are uncredited, in which case they need a citation.


 * It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * I think my biggest concern here is the duplication of the "Recording" and "Composition" sections. This is more of a gut feeling but it just doesn't seem to flow quite right.
 * I think my biggest concern here is the duplication of the "Recording" and "Composition" sections. This is more of a gut feeling but it just doesn't seem to flow quite right.


 * There are some facts about the record not here that I think should be. Where did the car noise on Baby Driver come from? Whose idea was it to do the brass on Keep The Customer Satisfied? Who played flute on So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright? Granted, we can't write about what we can't cite, but for a good article, I feel we need to have this sort of comprehensive coverage.


 * When exactly was the live recording of "Bye Bye love" in Ames recorded?


 * It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * This is mostly okay. Just a couple of comments :
 * The similarity of "The Only Living Boy in New York" and "Elton John" is a questionable opinion, attributed only to Allmusic. I don't think this is a well known opinion and probably violates WP:DUE by being there. The comment about how they did the backing vocals is attributed to a biography, so that's probably okay.


 * The reference to PopMatters, describing the album as the duo's "worst" is a bit misleading. Might be worth leaving out that bit, and just focusing on specific criticisms. If the reviewer didn't like it, why did they give the 40th anniversary reissue 8/10?


 * It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * This revert, just a few days ago, gives me cause for concern.
 * It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * There are no images other than the fair-use album art. I think there are creative way around this. For instance, you could have a picture of Ames (do we know the venue they played at?) with a caption like "On [date - see above for a problem with this], the duo played Bye Bye Love in this venue, which was recorded for the album".
 * Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * I have to be honest and say there looks like more than the standard 7 days' worth of work here for an "on hold" GA to pass, so I'm going to have to fail it at this point. Don't give up on it though, and hopefully it will be back at GA soon with a better chance of passing. -- Ritchie333 (talk)  (cont)   09:55, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't understand this decision. Ebel wrote in the introduction that she spend years to search for archives. This is surely a proof for reliability? Why do I need to search for English sources? Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 13:35, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not really anything to do with it being in German, but rather because large parts of the article were cited to it, and it only, and we've questioned whether we've transcribed parts of it correctly (eg: that 800,000 audience figure as seen above). I realise that if it's the only source you've got, there's not much to go on, but I did find other online sources, as commented above, that could have possibly been followed just to back facts up. It's only one part of the review as well - the recent reverts, and the fact that people are discussing changes on the talk page right now means I can't pass it as "stable".
 * Please don't feel disheartened about this. I know you've done a lot of work for this article, in fact several of you have, particularly in recent days, and of course it can feel upsetting to be told the review's failed. All it really means is the article isn't quite ready for GA status yet. I've left a detailed set of notes in the review that are things to work on, and a number of people are actively working on this, so hopefully we'll have a good article soon. Hope that helps. -- Ritchie333 (talk)  (cont)   15:00, 16 August 2012 (UTC)