Talk:Farther Along (The Byrds album)

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Neutral point of view
User Esszet seems to have a problem with the tone of a small section of the article lead. I have attempted to address their concern, by specifying that the statement regarding the rapidity with which the Byrds planned and recorded Farther Along, which itself resulted in yet another uneven record, is the opinion of band biographer Johnny Rogan (amongst many other critics). Esszet still seems unhappy with a sentence regarding the band's desire to address producer Terry Melcher's over-production on their previous album. As the preceding sentence states that the Byrdmaniax album featured a lot of orchestration, which was applied by Melcher, the following sentence, "As such, Farther Along can be seen as the band's answer to Melcher's over-production, as well as an attempt to prove that they could produce an album that they regarded as superior to Byrdmaniax" is sufficiently clear and of neutral pov, in my opinion. Esszet seems to want to amend the beginning of the sentence to, "As such, Farther Along can be seen as the band's answer to what they saw as Melcher's over-production", which seems an unnecessary and rather clunky addition to the sentence. As such I wanted to open up a discussion here about this. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 14:00, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Then you have to say that many critics regard it as uneven – you can't just say it is. "Melcher's over-production" is also an opinion, so it has to be qualified as such. Esszet (talk) 16:40, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * And by the way, stop reverting so many of my edits – a lot of this is borderline ownership. Esszet (talk) 17:09, 28 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Kohoutek1138, these edits are textbook POV. Drmies (talk) 18:06, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Drmies, they are POV insofar as they are the opinion of the band itself and the band's most prominent biographer, Johnny Rogan. The article hopefully makes that clear though. Nevertheless, I have edited the section in question, so that the lede first states that orchestration was added to the band's previous album, allegedly without their consent, and then states that Farther Along was the band's answer to that overproduction. Hopefully that is more neutral sounding and makes it explicit that it is the band's POV that is being expressed. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 11:11, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The “uneven” has to go as well. Esszet (talk) 12:07, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't think it does need to go; it's explicitly specified that this is Rogan's opinion, not a factual statement. However, in the interests of reaching consensus, I'll remove it by truncating the sentence a little. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 13:58, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Noted (an opinion) vs stated
(Section split from the one above) Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * When you say “noted”, it sounds like you’re stating the encyclopedia’s opinion as opposed to just his; when you say things like that, you have to use words like “stated”, “opined”, “what he saw as”, or even just “said”. Esszet (talk) 14:33, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * And there wasn't more than one LP that failed to undo the damage inflicted by Byrdmaniax, was there? Esszet (talk) 15:09, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No, it doesn't sound like the encyclopedia's opinion at all, and there is no such accepted connotation to the word "noted" in the English language -- that's something that you alone are bringing to the table (I'm wondering if perhaps English isn't your first language?). The word "noted" in this context is synonymous with "remarked" (see here), and the word "remark" means "to note" or "to say" (see here). Therefore, saying "so-and-so-critic has noted something", is the same as saying he "said something", "remarked on something" or "stated something". There's no difference. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 15:12, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Good point about "another LP", that could be read in a misleading way. I'll change that. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 15:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, but English is my first language, and no, it's something I alone am bringing to the table; it's exactly what Drmies is saying and it's exactly what this guy was saying as well. Look at the definition of "note" again; it means "to take notice of, to perceive", and when they say it's synonymous with "remark", they mean it in sense two of the word (which I'm really not familiar with) and not the much more common sense one.  To say this is a good album and to see this is a good album ("see" is also listed as a synonym of "note" in that sense) are not the same thing; "note" is therefore much too factual to be neutral when stating opinions. Esszet (talk) 12:44, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No offense meant regarding the English thing -- there are plenty of editors on here that aren't from countries where English is the first language. Sorry, if I offended.


 * The old edit you linked to here was an editor making the same mistake that you are: if you clarify that the opinions being expressed are exactly that -- just the opinions of the author/critics in the inline references -- then you don't need to specify that it's an opinion any further. Furthermore, by adding "has been called", it makes the sentence misleading because it is Ric Menck's calling the album the "most cohesive and ethereal-sounding album statement", not other critics. It can't be both. That's nonsensical.


 * As for the word noted, you're misunderstanding; note has many different uses in English and in this context it does not mean "to take notice of, to perceive" -- that would only be the case if someone was saying "please note the location of the exits on the aircraft." Noted in this case is used as a synonym for "remark". I'm really not that adverse to changing the word noted to "stated" or "opined" or "remarked" or whatever, but I just don't think it's necessary. I don't believe it effects the neutral point of view of the article at all. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 14:02, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I’m not really familiar with “note” in the sense of just “say” (it appears that a lot of other people aren’t, either), and because, as you said, “note” has a number of different uses, it would be best to change it, it’s ambiguous at best. Esszet (talk) 15:44, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I really don't think there's any need to change it and there's certainly no evidence to suggest that the majority of people don't understand "noted" in this context. A quick search of wikipedia for "noted that" (including the quotation marks) will show you that noted is used in this manner all over the English Wikipedia and, although I realise that just because other stuff exists is no reason to include it in an article, it does at least demonstrate that use of the word "noted" in this way is quite commonplace and therefore presumably widely understood. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 11:51, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

? Esszet (talk) 12:40, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
 * When I hear that someone noted X, it implies to me that X is a fact (i.e. something generally accepted as true). So there are better wordings for this case.  There's no practical issue because it's perfectly obvious to any reader that X is not factual; it's just awkward and harder to read.  Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 19:37, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

What the hell? This makes it sound as though it isn’t perfectly fine. Esszet (talk) 18:45, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * What makes it sound fine? If you're referring to Giraffedata's above comment, his opinion is that it's harder to read (I disagree with that, BTW), but since it's perfectly obvious to any reader that the statement is not factual, there's no practical issue. Again, I direct you to the fact that the word "noted" is used in this manner all over the English Wikipedia, demonstrating that use of the word in this way is quite commonplace and therefore widely understood. There really is no consensus here or across Wikipedia to change "noted" for "stated". --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 18:59, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I haven't been able to find any evidence of that, and if Giraffedata said there are better wordings for it and I agree, why not? You think there would be consensus for something like that? I'd like to make a minor edit here, and even you said you wouldn't be that opposed to it. Esszet (talk) 19:10, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "Better wording" is simply an opinion, and even Giraffedata has said that there's really no problem with using the word "noted" in that way, since its meaning is perfectly clear. Here's your evidence of the widespread use of "noted" being used in this way on the English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22noted+that%22&title=Special:Search&go=Go&searchToken=2zfdzasb26zlqsmlk6s8jwhho
 * Many of these examples are opinions being expressed by experts on their respective subjects, just like the critics and biographers opining on aspects of the Byrds careers. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 19:44, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Thinking that isn't better wording is an opinion as well 2) He said it's "awkward and harder to read", and that sounds like he does have a problem with it 3) Most of the uses of "noted" in that search seem to be purely factual (or at least not expressing taste, which is what this is all about) 4) Why do you revert so much on these articles? It's Wikipedia, calm down. Esszet (talk) 21:17, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Yes, exactly! Both are opinions that are equally irrelevant to this discussion; the onus is on you to justify that changing "noted" for "stated" is an improvement, since you're the one who wants to do so, and you haven't justified that. 2) No, I really don't think he has a big problem with it, as he clearly stated. 3) No they're not, often the person in question is theorising or putting forward an opinion based on the evidence available to them, in exactly the same way as experts on the Byrds are. 4) I revert edits that are factually inaccurate, unsourced, of no benefit to the articles, or are against Wiki policy. If other users make edits that improve articles, then that's brilliant and I do frequently see that in articles I've worked on and would never revert those edits. But obviously not all edits are improvements.


 * Now, let me ask you a question: why don't you spend more of your time making a substantial contribution to Wikipedia and write a new article or something? I mean, the amount you've written on this talk page alone is enough to make up a decent stub! Redirect some of the energy. Creating a new article or expanding a stub would be a much better use of your time than wikihounding me and trying to make these little, nit-picky edits for which there is no consensus or need. I hope that doesn't sound too harsh, because I genuinely mean it as good advice -- I really do think that there are better uses of your time on Wikipedia.


 * I'm done with this discussion now and won't be responding to you again unless it's on a different subject. I'm sorry, but we've been over this time and time again. Please refrain from changing "noted" to "stated", or rewording articles when it's clear it's a critic's opinion that is being referred to. Thank you. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 00:30, 17 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Am I missing something here? Am I being totally unreasonable? Esszet (talk) 02:57, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * And by the way, this all seems to be an example of ownership: "An editor reverts a change simply because the editor finds it "unnecessary" without claiming that the change is detrimental. This has the effect of assigning priority, between two equivalent versions, to an owner's version." Esszet (talk) 03:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No, you're not missing anything; Kohoutek1138 is mistaking how a community-edited encyclopedia works. I've seen this before.  The standard for a permissible edit to a Wikipedia article is not that the original text be wrong or even bad.  It is that the editor believe in good faith that the new text is better - even by a little bit (and not be aware of any consensus of the community to the contrary).  The later editor has the same right and duty to choose the wording of the article as the prior one.
 * I did say there is no practical problem with "noted", but not having a practical problem is not the same as perfect. I pointed out two areas where improvement is possible.  All in my opinion, of course.  Opinions are what drive all the fine adjustments to writing on Wikipedia, and all of our opinions as editors have equal weight.
 * A reversion is an edit and the standard above applies: one is not allowed to change "stated" to "noted" unless one believes in good faith that "noted" is superior (WP:Revert only when necessary). It doesn't matter what was there first.  Wikipedia does not favor the status quo.
 * Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I get what you're saying Giraffedata, but just as one editor can believe, in good faith, that their new text is better, clearly the previous editor can disagree. For example, if a new edit compromises the syntaxical or grammatical integrity of a sentence, or is factually inaccurate, or isn't supported by the inline citations present, then clearly the original editor is right to revert it. That essay you linked to says "revert only when necessary", but what is "necessary" is rather subjective. I'd also like to point out that WP:Revert only when necessary is NOT a Wikipedia policy or guideline -- it is simply an essay by a small group of Wikipedians.
 * On a related note, I just want to say to Esszet that his recent edits to The Notorious Byrd Brothers article were really useful. He formatted a couple of book titles and removed a statement that was redundant. That's great! That's what I was talking about when I said above, "if other users make edits that improve articles, then that's brilliant and I would never revert those edits." There is no "ownership" going on here on my part. Just a desire to see articles that I and other Wikipedians have worked hard on to get up to Good Article status remain at that high standard. That's all. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 13:48, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm gonna get the opinions of some of those that work closely with WikiProject Albums to weigh in on this. Hey,, , , and , am I wrong here or being unreasonable about this?

As detailed in the lengthy conversation above, I believe that using the word "noted" or phrase "noted that", in relation to a critic's opinion (as in, "Author Ric Menck has noted that in spite of these changes in personnel, the album is the band's most cohesive and ethereal-sounding album statement."), is perfectly valid. If you clarify that the opinions being expressed are exactly that -- just the opinions of the author/critics in the inline references -- then you don't need to specify that it's an opinion any further. It in no way sounds like it's the encyclopedia's opinion, which I believe is Esszet's concern with using "noted" in this way. It's obvious to any reader that it is the critic's opinion.

Although the word "note" has many different uses in English, in this context, "noted" is synonymous with "remarked" (see here), and the word "remark" means "to note" or "to say" (see here). Therefore, saying "so-and-so-critic has noted something", is the same as saying he "said something", "remarked on something" or "stated something". There's no difference. Since there is no difference and, in fact, replacing "noted" with words like "stated", "opined", "what he saw as", or even "said" can sometimes have the effect of making a sentence sound syntaxically clunkier -- depending on the sentence in question, obviously -- I don't believe there's any need for "noted" to be replaced with "stated" or "said" in every album article. To me, all this discussion just seems utterly unnecessary. There is no problem with the use of the word "noted" being used like this in album articles. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong about that though. What do you think? --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 14:36, 19 May 2018 (UTC)


 * "Stated" is preferable, in my view. "Noted" does carry an implication that the editor agrees with the statement, so is inherently a less neutral wording.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:41, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * A lot of people would prefer”stated” or something similar, Kohoutek. Is that really too much to ask? Esszet (talk) 15:56, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

That another editor may disagree that some change is an improvement is not a valid reason for that editor to revert the change. The point I'm trying to make is that the standard for a valid reversion is that the reverting editor believe in good faith that the article is better after the reversion than before. Whether "noted" is perfectly valid is irrelevant unless "stated" is not perfectly valid. So far, nobody has stated, much less argued, that "noted" is better than "stated" or that "stated" is not perfectly valid. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 17:48, 19 May 2018 (UTC)


 * It's not really a major issue--either way fine, but perhaps "stated" would be preferable for the reasons the other editors have mentioned. I think that 's shares that sentiment, but I think he may may fault me for my own choice of words.  If words were like chemicals, then I do believe "stated" would be comprised of a more neutral "verbal ph balance" than "noted"... Garagepunk66 (talk) 03:49, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I meant to say "would consist of..."! Garagepunk66 (talk) 03:53, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input everybody. While I think that noted is still perfectly fine, I can see that consensus here appears to favour some alternative word. Well OK, I bow to editor consensus. I'll start removing the word noted in these articles and replace it with something else. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 12:29, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delay in replying to the ping. I agree that "says"/"writes"/"states" is preferable to "notes" in this context – i.e. when what's being "noted" is really a personal opinion. I do use the word in its "remarks/comments on" sense, too, but not often. "Note" is a bit like "posit", for me, in that I always think there's something slightly pompous or affected about the term. (That view more than likely doesn't stand up to any scrutiny, I know …) Anyway, the issue appears to be sorted now, which is good. JG66 (talk) 06:18, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "Opined" is even more pompous or affected, in my.... view.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:05, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I kind of know what you mean - I've removed it and replaced it with something else. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 13:41, 22 May 2018 (UTC)