Talk:Dream Theater/Archive 1

Jordan
IMO the fact that Jordan Rudess is Juilliard-trained should be put on a page about him, not on the Dream Theater page. So I've moved it there. -mhr 23:41, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Cleaned up some awkward grammar and added a blurb on the infamous Live Scenes From New York album. -Chip, 25 Mar 2004

Names in-wiki
The names of the band members are presented with in-wiki links three times in this article. On the main text, on the thumb and on the Line-up section. I am limiting that to the Line-up, since that's that general standard. Does anybody disagree? --Sn0wflake 22:03, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * The standard is also that the first occurance should be wiki'd and that text in image captions should be wiki'd too. violet/riga (t) 22:13, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * If you would stop and look at what you've done, you would see that you reverted two edits that didn't have ANYTHING to do with this. But that's beyond the point, right Mr. Admin... well, do as you please. I'm just adding the captilisation correction and thumb size modification back. --Sn0wflake 00:11, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * To be honest I see no reason for their roles to be capitalised, and the image change size doesn't make much of a difference, in my opinion. violet/riga (t) 00:25, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Neither do I, that's why it was changed - even though the edit wasn't processed - and the thumb size is intended to help people on lower resolutions see the article correctly. To me, the same instance being linked three times is clutter, but I won't start an edit war over this. --Sn0wflake 00:40, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with violetriga. In my opinion the names should be wikilinked in the text as well. However, I won't start an edit war on Symphony X over this :P --Jannex 15:03, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * You speak as if you are doing somebody a favor. You are not, since you didn't cotribute with one line of text to the article. So it's only logical that you don't insert your POV editing opinions into the article. --Sn0wflake 17:29, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Maybe my comment was too acid, so let me rephrase: people have different opinions on certain subjects. Some things which are on the manual of style have been dropped for the simple fact that they clutter the articles, and this is one of the things which are slowly heading towards that direction. I am not an editor of this article, I haven't contributed to it in a substantial manner, thus I have no saying over what is right or wrong here. But having transformed Symphony X from nothing to a reasonable article, I think that my opinion is worth somewhat more on it. --Sn0wflake 18:01, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, now I think we agree. I also have come to think that your revert was reasonable there. Keep up the good work! --Jannex 18:16, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Live reputation
I think mention should be made of the diverse things one can expect from DT live... such as the fan club gigs, song covers, Nightmare Cinema, happy birthdays, fun things like that. Perhaps this image could be utilised (of an audience member being brought on stage to sing Black Sabbath's "War Pigs"). plattopus (talk) 20:21, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, their live appearances must be told of. The lenght of the shows, variable setlists, etc. --Jannex 20:46, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actors & choir?
The section about SFAM currently reads: "Because of the nature of the album, the concerts reflected its theatrical aspect with actors hired to play the various characters from SFAM, and a full gospel choir." Now, I could be very wrong here because this was during a period of a couple of years when I didn't follow DT very closely, but I was under the impression that this was only done at the show that they filmed for the Metropolis 2000 DVD (and possibly for the rehearsal show as well). Can anyone verify either way? --Durga2112 06:19, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * This section has been cleared up and clarified. :) --plattopus (talk) 15:22, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Nightmare Cinema
I'm baaa-ack. ;)

"They usually performed covers of Deep Purple, Ozzy Osbourne or Van Halen tunes."

Really? I only ever knew of their "Perfect Strangers" cover. What were the Ozzy and VH tunes? And since NC was such a short-lived thing, perhaps it would be simpler just to list what songs they played?

--Durga2112 13:39, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, the tourography at mp.com lists 7 shows with Nightmare Cinema. 6 of the performances are of "Perfect Strangers", and just one is of "Suicide Solution".  Going to reword that section now.  --Durga2112 13:44, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Major overhaul coming
I would suggest against editing this page in the next week or so, because I am re-writing the entire thing. It has some horrendous factual errors, and due to constant editing it seems very disjointed, so I'm currently re-doing it. I would suggest against wasting your time editing anything, because I'll be including all current information in my edit.

In case you care, I maintain the DTFAQ so I can assure you it will be correct. --Plattopus 16:06, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)


 * OK kids, all done. I think it ended up a little too long, so if someone could maybe go through and weed out the unnecessary bits it would be great. But if noone else thinks it's too big, we can keep it. --Plattopus 10:21, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, and also... I'm Australian so I inadvertently use a lot of Aussie English spelling... if you see anything spelled wrong, please change it! --Plattopus 10:22, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * Great! I think nothing should be removed. Only concern I have is that some people may think that the subheaders are unencyclopedic. Nevertheless, I think they're fine. I have one question. According to Mike Portnoy, Kevin Moore left the band before Awake was mixed. Should that be corrected? --Jannex 15:39, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I didn't actually check that fact when I re-wrote the article, but I'd always thought it was after the mixing. I guess I just had it wrong! Anyway, if you think the titles are unsuitable, change them. That's what a Wiki is for ;) --Plattopus 17:46, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * I have noticed a little detail that might be wrong in the article. I have heard a demo version of A Change of Seasons, which was made during IAW sessions. That song was not 23 minutes long, it was somewhere in 17-18 minutes range. Should that be corrected? I don't have the demo, so I can't correct it myself. --Jannex 16:52, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I vaguely remember having a 17 minute long MP3 of an early ACOS on my computer, but that's hardly enough to base an article on. I'll research some more and see what I can come up with. --plattopus (talk) 17:12, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
 * Found it... the Antiquities bootleg has the original ACOS demo, which is ~16:45 in length. Good pick up! --plattopus (talk) 17:15, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
 * Another little detail what I found. Prior to the overhaul, it used to say in DTFAQ that James LaBrie joined the band in the end of 1991. Now the article says that he joined in 1992. Which one is correct? --Jannex 12:19, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

Just copyeditted the changes. Some of the subheadings may not be the best, but it adheres to the WP:MOS better now. Great work Plattopus. violet/riga (t) 17:42, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I see nothing in the MOS that discourages abbreviations (such as DT). To me, it improves the flow of a sentence to use an abbreviation every now and then. Besides, I've seen countless articles that use abbreviations, and I suppose that as long as it is clarified (Dream Theater (abbreviated as DT) is an American...) it should be fine. Any opinions? I would also say that the current titles would be better without "The release of...". Just the album name (or whatever) would be suitable. --Plattopus 18:36, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree that the abbreviation does make sentence flow better, and as you say clarifying it would be fine. I included "The release of..." to make it more obvious that it's an album title and not a flowery sentence ("Images and Words", for example, sounds like it could be discussion of the, umm, images and words portrayed by DT).  Admittedly capitalisation helps with that. violet/riga (t) 18:56, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I suggest we revert to an older version so we don't have to manually edit each instance of Dream Theater (since there were some DTs and some Dream Theaters, depending on context), and then change the titles back to what they are currently. Once we can come up with some better headings we can edit it once more. --Plattopus 19:27, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * I've copyeditted further and will look into problems or readability with this - I'll fix any that I find. Hope you like the titles more now. violet/riga (t) 22:04, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Upon reading the Bob Dylan article linked above, I don't think so many sub-headings are required. Perhaps just three or four (probably most appropriate corresponding with new members)? --plattopus (talk) 12:20, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
 * I have made those changes, and IMO it looks much better. The opening sentences of where the categories used to break might need to be cleaned up, but I think the less headings, the better. --plattopus (talk) 12:47, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
 * Hmm... I'm not convinced that abbreviating to DT makes anything more readable. If anything, it just makes the article read more like a post on a message board - yes, it's more concise and whatnot, but hardly the type of writing you would find in an encyclopedia article.  If we don't want to be reading/writing the band's full name out every single time, why not try saying "the band" or "the group" or "they", or other similar words?  Unless anyone has any major objections, I think I will change the occurrences of "DT" to something like that.  If it doesn't read well, we can always change it back.  :)  --Durga2112 19:11, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * You've convinced me... if we're wanting this article to be a candidate for FA, I think we will have to remove all references to DT. It will be very hard to use different variations of "the band", "the group" etc and not make it obvious or repetitive... but I'm sure it can be done. plattopus (talk) 19:27, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay, I went ahead and did that. It turns out that there were only a few occurrences of "DT" in there, so there wasn't much to be changed.  The important thing now is to make sure that no more DT's get inserted in there.  Another question: What about album name abbreviations?  Should SDOIT, for example, be replaced with the full album name?  --Durga2112 19:46, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * At one point it is also referred as Six Degrees. I would say that the full album name is the best option, other opinions? --Jannex 19:59, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I think with SDOIT it's probably preferable for readability's sake (rules are meant to be broken for common sense)... but for the others, probably not? plattopus (talk) 20:04, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)