Talk:Madonnaland/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Icebob99 (talk · contribs) 23:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I'll be reviewing this article of GA status. I'll go through the GA criteria one by one and list any issues that need to be addressed. Icebob99 (talk) 23:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

(1a): The prose is good enough for GA. No spelling or grammar errors found.

(1b): In the lead, the second sentence starting with "the subject includes" should be rephrased to be something like "the book is about".

Furthermore, one of the most important functions of the lead is to establish notability in the first few sentences. This lead gives two sentences to a general overview and then goes into more detail, so those two sentences need to include something about publishing stats or critical reviews.

The structure of the lead is just a little clunky right now. I think splitting it into two paragraphs (or maybe even three) would serve to keep topics separate from each other and also create a little flow. I also think that the lead doesn't give due weight to the structure of the article. The development section gets about half of it, whereas the content gets little to none and the critical reception is squeezed in at the end. I suggest cutting down on the story behind the book in the lead; I would remove all of that except the sentence starting with "Simone ended up writing the book...", but I would rephrase that to be "Simone structured the book around..." or some similar wording.

Make the phrase "released on March 3, 2016..." its own sentence. It sounds too flashy right before a sentence about all the positive reviews.

I'll wait and see how you restructure the lead before I address any more issues. This article will have to go on hold for seven days anyway.
 * I have restructured the lead, not according to the above as I believe all sections should have equal weight. — I B  [ Poke ] 09:13, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

The layout looks good. About Words to watch: the Critical reception section needs to cut down on its quotes. The reader gets the idea of what reviewers are saying by one, maybe two quotes like "excellent" or "riveting". Excessive quotes produce the effect of sounding like the back of the jacket with some prose sprinkled around, which is not what an encyclopedia article should contain. I suggest paraphrasing the quotes (and remember that if there are no quotes, the prose has to comply with Wikipedia's fairly strict neutrality guidelines).
 * I have toned down the quotes, but will not remove them completely. There are certain areas where the quotes actually give an important assessment, and difficult to rephrase. Eg: when Megan Volpert talks about how Simone's "productively clear-eyed assessment of her own musical and journalistic failures" stands up against half-baked biographies about Madonna. — I B  [ Poke ] 09:13, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

(2b): the quote "it makes them happy" under the Critical reception section should extend its quotation marks to the word before, "because", to form "because it makes them happy".

The Content section, while being based on the book itself, should have at least one source coming from outside the book, just so that the reader knows that the section is not original research of the book contents.
 * Done. — I B  [ Poke ] 09:13, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

The Development section appears to be significantly sourced from the epilogue of the subject of the article. That is acceptable if the information is correct, but it would be good for the information to also come from other non-related sources.
 * No its not solely from the epilogue, there's also the NYtimes source talking about the development, and the The Santa Fe New Mexican talking about other aspects. Yes it is taken from the epilogue, but I disagree about the epilogue being a significant source. — I B  [ Poke ] 09:13, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree that the epilogue is a significant source. I asked for another source in the spirit of verifiability. Thanks for adding the ref. Icebob99 (talk) 14:12, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

(3): The article covers all the aspects of the topic that I could find in summary style.

(4): See the point above about so many glowing reviews that the Critical reception section looks like the book jacket. The fact that it does look like the book jacket (to me, at least) shows POV, because the minority viewpoint that the book goes into some odd kinds of detail (about other musicians, for instance) is only given once. Now, since it's a minority viewpoint according to the reviews, it should have a decidedly smaller presence, but right now it just seems squeezed at the end of the article. Most of these reviews highlight that one minority viewpoint at least once, so I suggest adding that in, next to the quoted material already present. If it is not incorporated, the section becomes two conflicting sides, one part being the good parts of all reviews, and the last bit the bad part of one review. That arrangement leads to the "book jacket effect" that I described above.
 * I included one portion about Santa Fe reviewer talking about how the Flying Wedge chapter turned out to be a game changer for Simone as author.

(5): The article was created less than two weeks ago, but it is stable.

(6): The images look good. The fair use rationale of the book cover provides sufficient justification.

My apologies for the day in between sections of the review, I was busy in real life. Hopefully the nominator was able to address a portion of the first part of the review during that day. Because this article does not meet criteria (1), (2), or (4), it does not pass right now, but I will put the article on hold from now, 8 January 2017, to seven days from now, 15 January 2017. If on 15 January 2017 all the issues presented above have not been addressed, I will fail the article. Good luck! Icebob99 (talk) 16:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * please take a look now. — I B  [ Poke ] 09:13, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * thanks for restructuring the lead. It looks much better. The Critical reception section also looks much more balanced; all it needed were structure rephrasements to produce a slight shift in the POV to neutral, which you did. I took the liberty of copyediting the article instead of writing down minutiae. Congratulations, this article passes as a good article. Icebob99 (talk) 14:12, 10 January 2017 (UTC)