Talk:H. P. Lovecraft (band)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 06:42, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

"Less acclaimed" ?
"H.P. Lovecraft was an American psychedelic rock group in the 1960s, later resurrected as Lovecraft for two less-acclaimed albums in the 1970s." Less acclaimed than what? This is clumsily written and should be edited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.158.19.152 (talk) 22:40, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair point - I've modified it. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Use of H. P. Lovecraft template
I have put back the template for H.P. Lovecraft, the author, on this page. They did not simply take his name - they were authorised to do so by his estate, and composed and performed musical interpretations of several of his writings. Hence, in my view, worthy of association with the writer through his template. Ghmyrtle (talk) 06:22, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Do we really need a separate article for Lovecraft? Surely that band is just an extension and continuation of the original H. P. Lovecraft band, with a slightly different name and different membership. A case could even be made for Lovecraft not being notable enough to warrant their own article anyway, although that's certainly debatable. If Eric Burdon & the New Animals are detailed in full within the larger The Animals article, then I don't see why Lovecraft should have their own dedicated article—especially when you consider that the original H. P. Lovecraft band are pretty darn obscure anyway. In addition, its not as if the H. P. Lovecraft article is massively long or anything, the later Lovecraft era could easily be covered within that article. I propose leaving the Lovecraft (band) page as a re-direct for those few people who might be searching for the band under its later moniker. To me, this seems like a fairly logical and uncontroversial move and so, if there are no objections I will commence with this merge in seven days. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 13:08, 15 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support merge.  SilkTork  *YES! 08:53, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. A couple of years ago I expanded this article, with a couple of refs to the later Lovecraft band.  When User:Dreadarthur split off the Lovecraft part and expanded it considerably to form a new article, I had no objection.  I don't really object very strongly in principle to it being reassimilated back into this article, but frankly I don't see the point in doing that.  Do we need a separate article? - maybe not, but there are probably millions of articles on WP which very few people need. Is WP a better place for the Lovecraft article existing?  - I would probably say yes, it's a useful article, properly ref'd (and actually in some ways better than this article) and quite interesting.  So, on balance, unless someone can point me to a very good reason for merging the articles, I'll oppose.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:22, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, well I guess I'll leave it a bit longer to see if any other editors comment. I thought that this would be a fairly straight forward suggestion but with only 2-to-1 in favour of a merge, I feel reluctant to go ahead with it just yet. Although I would say to Ghmyrtle that I don't consider the fact that the Lovecraft article is well written and well referenced to be overly relevant to its being kept as a separate article. Ideally, what I'd like to work towards is one well referenced and well written article, dealing with the band in both of its incarnations. Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting tampering with the prose & refs in the Lovecraft article overly, just relocating it to its own dedicated section within the H. P. Lovecraft article. Anyway, I'll leave the merge banners up on both of these articles a while longer and see if other editors comment. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 10:04, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose the relevant guidance is at WP:MERGE, unless anyone knows of any more detailed advice anywhere else. I know the scale of the articles is different, but in my view a relevant comparison, of one band morphing into another band, is Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, each of which have separate articles.  I've left a message at User talk:Dreadarthur to see if they have a view. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge rationales like "two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap" and "[an] article requires the background material or context from a broader article in order for readers to understand it" in the WP:MERGE guidelines certainly seem to support a merge in my view. As for the Jefferson Airplane/Starship analogy, the big difference with H. P. Lovecraft/Lovecraft is that the Airplane and Starship are both notable enough to warrant their own articles, whereas it could be argued that Lovecraft aren't. In addition, the Airplane and the Starship were two very different bands: one playing psychedelic rock and the other playing hard rock or arena rock.  Yes, Lovecraft were certainly less psychedelic than H. P. Lovecraft, but personally I don't feel that the two line-ups produced music as significantly different as the Airplane and the Starship did. I still think that an Eric Burdon & the New Animals/The Animals, or perhaps a Status Quo/The Status Quo, comparison is more fitting in this case. Anyway, let's wait and see what Dreadarthur's views on the matter are. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 14:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Copied from User talk:Ghmyrtle:

Thank you for bringing my attention to the discussion in relation to merging these two articles. I started the Lovecraft (band) page because it seemed to me that the originator of the H.P. Lovecraft (band) page regarded the successor band as completely separate in terms of musical style and historical significance; hence the successor band was treated almost like a footnote on the H.P. Lovecraft page. In terms of the history of Lovecraft, the successor band, particularly as related to their final album (which bore little relationship to their first, in terms of either personnel or musical style), the sentiments would appear to have some merit. In other words, H.P. Lovecraft was truly distinct as a band; those following that band do not necessarily follow or have an interest in Lovecraft, the successor band. This would seem to be a bit different from the Electric Prunes situation, where a later band used the name and recorded under it, in circumstances where the band name was owned by management. The history of the Electric Prunes seems to incorporate both bands, without apparent objection, perhaps because the band was not strongly associated with particular personalities. Many thanks for making me aware of this debate. I have now gone to the discussion pages and agree with you that an appropriate analogy is that of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, which have separate pages. Dreadarthur (talk) 14:52, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for re-posting here Ghmyrtle. Well, unsurprisingly it seems that we're at a bit of a stalemate. To just briefly address Dreadarthur's comments, I reject the notion that there may be fans of Lovecraft with no interest in the original group...come on, let's face it, the only reason that fans of obscure, vintage U.S. rock have ever heard of Lovecraft is due to the high regard that the original 1960s band are held in. If Valley of the Moon had been released in 1970 by a brand new band and achived the same total lack of commercial success, none of us here would've ever heard of it.


 * I also feel that Dreadarthur's comments regarding the Airplane/Starship analogy fail to take into consideration Wikipedia notability guidelines for articles about bands. If you look at the twelve notability criteria listed at Notability (music), the only one that Lovecraft is able to meet is #5 - "they have released two or more albums on a major label." Lovecraft fail to meet every single one of the remaining eleven criteria! I'd especially like to focus on criteria #1 - "Has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent from the musician or ensemble itself and reliable." I've just had a proper look at the inline refs used in the article and I'm afriad to say that not a single reference used in the article meets Verifiability standards. In my humble opinion, this is a poorly sourced article about a largely non-notable spin-off band that should be absorbed back into the main H. P. Lovecraft article as soon as possible. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 17:40, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Given the strength of your sentiments, Kohoutek1138, (as well as admitting that Lovecraft never achieved the comparable level of success in relation to H.P. Lovecraft as did Jefferson Starship in relation to Jefferson Airplane), it seems to me that merger may be the way to go here. At what point is the debate closed? Following closure of the debate, are you inclined to do the merger?

Dreadarthur (talk) 17:47, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, as far as I’m aware there won't be an official closing of the debate...a merger would be undertaken if there was a clear consensus one way or the other between editors concerned with the article. At the moment it's two against two, so we're at a stalemate. As such, I won't be performing a merger until such time as other editors have spoken up in favor of such a move. If the four editors who've so far been involved in this discussion are the only people who bother to comment, then things will just stay as they are. That's not the end of the world because as Ghmyrtle pointed out earlier, having two separate articles isn't hurting anybody. I do feel that the two articles should be merged but that's only my opinion, and it's not an opinion that is shared by everyone as we can see...and that's fine. That is why I canvassed opinions rather than just going ahead with the merge myself. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 18:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * In light of Dreadarthur's comments, I've no objection to a merger going ahead. We could do with improving the refs in this article (and maybe the format) at the same time. Ghmyrtle (talk) 06:15, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, as long as we're all sure. I don't want to browbeat anyone into a merge. If there are no objections, I'll perform the merge in a day or two and also see about sourcing some beter inline citations. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 11:20, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Gross plagiarism in this article
OK, so I've just settled down to start adding suitable inline refs to this article and one of the books I'm using is Peter Buckley's Rough Guide to Rock. Well, it turns out that the first four paragraphs of the H. P. Lovecraft "History" section are copied verbatim from Buckley's book. Literally word for word the same. Everything from "H. P. Lovecraft fashioned a hybrid of acid-folk-rock..." down to "...baroque harpsichord passages and the chiming of a genuine 1811 ship’s bell." Obviously I'll be rewording this text considerably to avoid copyright violation issues but I just though I'd mention it because this kind of thing just blows my mind! How could anyone think that copying directly from a published book would be acceptable for Wikipedia??? --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 12:55, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I've just had a look back through the edit summary to find out who the culprit was and actually, it seems as if this non-original text was innocently imported by Nareek on July 23, 2006 from the article about the author H. P. Lovecraft. A look back at the edit summary of that article shows that this copied text was first added by an annoymous IP editor on July 18, 2006. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 13:06, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm very surprised if that is the case, because some of the text in that section is text I added here, some 4 years ago, and in a number of later edits, and I don't own, nor have I ever knowingly seen or read, the Buckley book. Is there a possibility of reverse plagiarism - that they copied us?  Having said that, I can't recall checking to see where the text that I began my edits from originated, so there could be a copyvio issue there predating my edits.  I'm also conscious that, 4 years ago, I was less than punctilious about adding refs, and I'd be happy to see this article improved in that direction. This article is very good, reliable and thorough, and I hope we don't get too hung up on whether or not the fact that it is self-published makes it unreliable.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:39, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * PS: Does the book mention WP as a source, by any chance? If not, and if they have got text from here (which, from my point of view, looks highly possible), they could be in trouble per WP:REUSE.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:51, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The Rough Guide to Rock was published in 2003, long before the Wikipedia article existed, so it can't be a case of reverse-plagiarism. You're absolutely right that your additions are not plagiarized, but the text that you were adding to (as shown in the diff link you provided) is what has been copied. I'm not accusing any regular contributor to this article of plagiarism, the culprit was an IP user who added this text to the H. P. Lovecraft article on July 18, 2006 (see here). User:Nareek then innocently relocated the text here, obviously unaware that it was copied. The Rough Guide to Rock is available on Google Books, check out page 510 here and tell me that the text from "H. P. Lovecraft fashioned a hybrid of acid-folk-rock" through to "chiming of a genuine 1811 ship's bell" hasn't been copied verbatim. As for refs, yes, I'll be adding plenty in the coming days and of course re-writing the plagiarized text. I think the thing with the nickwarburton.com blog entry is that it'll be OK to use it sparingly if we can't find a more  relialble ref to support a given statement. Regardless, it should probably be added as an external link though. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 14:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * All good - well done for spotting the copyvio. I'll let you get on with it, and take a look at a later stage. I probably have some offline sources if necessary (including the original albums, purchased circa 1970 - may be worth a few quid now!)  Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Good catch with the bogus URL! When I added the "External links" section I just copied and pasted from another article and I remember thinking to myself "now, don't forget to change that url before you save the page". D'oh! :-D By the way, I'm truly envious of your original vinyl issues of the H. P. Lovecraft LPs. I'm a bit of a vinyl freak myself and yes, they are worth good money if they're in good condition. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 18:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * With regards to your earlier comment about using the Nick Warburton article and not getting too hung up about whether its self-published Ghmyrtle, I've just learned that Warburton actually wrote the sleeve notes for the H. P. Lovecraft compilation Dreams in the Witch House: The Complete Philips Recordings. I reckon that it's a fairly safe bet that this blog article is nothing more than an extended and unedited version of those sleeve notes (I don't have this particular comp so I can't confirm this, I'm afraid). I was using the Warburton article as an inline ref anyway, but this new info certainly strengthens my confidence in it. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 10:47, 31 July 2010 (UTC)