Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ayumi Hamasaki/archive3


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 03:54, 24 September 2008.

Ayumi Hamasaki

 * Nominator(s): Ink Runner (talk)
 * previous FAC (00:15, 31 July 2008)

The major issue in the article's last FAC was prose; this was addressed with the help of Morenoodles and Lady Galaxy. Other issues included unreliable sources and minor MoS-related errors; most of these were fixed during the last FAC. Ink Runner (talk) 21:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Image comments
 * Image:Iam3.PNG- can we beef up this fair use rationale? See recent music FAs for examples of text and template-based rationales.
 * OK, done. Ink Runner (talk) 18:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The music samples: all the image pages have proper source, author, et al information, all are less than 30 seconds/10% of recording, and have full FURs. My concern here is with frequency, specifically that they significantly increase reader understanding per WP:NFCC. For example, Image:Ayumi Hamasaki - Evolution.ogg's caption is:""Evolution", a single composed by Hamasaki, made prominent use of the electric guitar." - I don't really think a music sample is needed to tell us about the guitar. Same thing goes with Image:Ayumi Hamasaki - Voyage.ogg. The other three illustrate prominent styles, and the only other borderline one is Image:Ayumi Hamasaki - M.ogg (just being a popular song does not mean it significantly increases understanding.) My recommendation is to remove the above three images unless more compelling reasons for their inclusion are offered.
 * "Evolution" and "Voyage" illustrate styles as well (rock/dance and classical, respectively); "M" illustrates the use of shifts to the parallel key, a common musical technique in her self-composed songs. Ink Runner (talk) 04:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * All other images free and have proper tags, author, and source, or else appropriate FUR. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 23:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * sound samples
 * I have never heard of this artist, so I cannot be particularally authoritive, but there seems to be a awful lot of non-free sound samples, and there may be criteria 3 issues. Fasach Nua (talk) 07:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The number of non-free media shouldn't really matter as much as whether the media is being used correctly and whether it serves a useful purpose. As stated in the article, the artist's songs span a wide variety of styles, and I think that the five samples used do a good (enough) job of representing the variety. Also, Celine Dion's article (which is featured) uses six non-free music samples. Ink Runner (talk) 18:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Support I'm not sure if I should be commenting here, because a neat little gadget for Wikipedia tells me I've had 174 edits to this particular article. But I really like this article; I feel it meets our featured article standards because it's written really clearly and really well. I've seen you take in our concerns and observations (discussed on the talk page) and totally clean this article up with sources and better wording. You started working on it since last November, so it's been almost a whole year now!


 * Honestly, looking at the versions of this article before 2008, it's like you can't even recognize the article anymore. It used to have major NPOV and references issues.

(I'll put this in numbers, because I tried to write in bullets and paragraphs and it didn't work out too well...)


 * 1) I do remember that a certain editor rejected your proposal on the last FAC, because his major concern was the whole wording of the article. Look, I'm really no English expert, but my first language isn't even English but Chinese and I've lived in Los Angeles for fifteen years. I can still understand this article completely.
 * 2) The certain editor also objected to your use of spelling the numbers out as words instead of as actual numbers. I noticed that some featured articles spell the numbers out as words as well, and they still "made it"!
 * 3) That's pretty much it. I'm not too good with images or music samples or anything else that isn't actually words or numbers, so I'll stop here.  Lady   Galaxy  00:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support as I did in the previous nomination.--Yannismarou (talk) 11:04, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments
 * You are using "Takeuchi Cullen, Lisa "Empress of Pop" Time several different times, they can be combined. (Current refs 3, 10, 24, 80, etc) Also Current ref 25 (Empress of Pop p. 5) is lacking the author.
 * Added author to ref 25. Though refs 3, 10, 24, and 80 cite the same article, they point to different pages, so as they use the cite web template, I don't think they could be combined. Ink Runner (talk) 19:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 3 and 24 don't list a page number currently, should they?
 * Fixed.
 * Same for the Takeuchi Cullen "I have very clear ideas of what I want" Time article, it's listed multiple times and could be combined
 * As above, the refs point to different pages.
 * And the Takeuchi Cullen, Lis "The Many Faces of Ayu" Time article is listed multiple times and could be combined.
 * Different pages, as above.
 * Note on these, me, I'd not cite each page individually, since the article isn't that long, but that's a personal preference. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * If I were using the print source, then yeah, I would just cite the whole article, but I only have the web version, and I'm not sure the web and the print version are exactly the same.
 * Current ref 51 (BoA indepentently achieves ...) is in a non-English language but not so noted in the footnotes.
 * Fixed.
 * What makes the following reliable sources?
 * http://www.7days.ae/
 * It's the most-circulated English-language newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, but to be on the safe side, I replaced it.
 * It would have been fine, I'm not familiar with the newspapers in the UAE, that's all! Ealdgyth - Talk 19:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * What makes http://www.yesasia.com/global/1005192840-0-0-0-en/info.html (a review) a reliable source for the statement that the statment "Most of them were dark; the ablum had a notable rock tinge,..."?
 * From the review: "the tracks in Guilty lean considerably towards rock" and "most tracks on Guilty are on the darker side" (you'll have to expand the review to see it.)
 * Is the reviewer considered a significant reviewer though? Right now, it's only reliable for the information that that is what THIS reviewer thought, not that it was necessarily so. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right; I'll use a more reliable source(s).
 * Current ref 79 (Ayumi Hamasaki news) is lacking a publisher. Also it's in a non-English language and needs to be noted as such in the footnotes.
 * Fixed
 * Otherwise sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. I was not able to check the non-English souces. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:57, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Further point - either use p. or not use it, but pick one and be consistent with your footnotes. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed

Karanacs (talk) 15:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose by karanacs. I think the article is decent, but it needs more massaging to get it to FA status.  There are multiple MOS issues, unclear claims, and prose problems.  I've given a few examples, but in general someone needs to audit the whole article and make the prose as tight as possible.  It seems to meander sometimes.
 * I'm not sure what you mean by "meander". Do you mean the article strays from the subject, i.e., the section about a certain album discusses something unrelated, or that the article suffers from obfuscation (the main issue last FA candidacy), or what?
 * This sentence is a little unclear to me (from the lead): "Though she originally supported this, a 2001 event in which Avex forced her to put her greatest hits album in direct competition with Hikaru Utada's Distance made Hamasaki reconsider and eventually oppose her status as an Avex "product"." Futhermore, the lead ties these two events together, but the body of the article makes no effort to say that the two events are related.
 * You're right, I'll cite the statement.
 * "and she became a delinquent" - in the US this usually means a trouble-maker. Is that the case here, or does the article simply mean that her grades dropped?
 * Yes, she became a trouble-maker.
 * The prose needs a bit of massaging. Here are a few examples of issues that you might want to watch for:
 * Watch for repetitive wording: "Her modeling career did not last long; SOS deemed her too short to be a model and transferred her to Sun Music, a musicians' agency. " - in this sentence, is there a way to not say "model" twice?
 * Dropped the second "model" ("SOS deemed her too short and transferred...")
 * Note, this is only an example. There are similar issues to this throughout the article. Karanacs (talk) 19:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a lot of awkward wording. For example, "Of the album's three singles—“Free & Easy”, “Voyage”, and “H”—the last became the best-selling single of the year" - This makes it sound as if the best-selling single of the year had to have come from her singles.
 * Changed to "The album had three singles—“Free & Easy”, “Voyage”, and “H”; the last became the best-selling single of the year."
 * Note that this is only an example of a more pervasive problem. Overall, the prose needs work to be FA-quality. Karanacs (talk) 19:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a lot of passive voice. Please rewrite this where possible to be active voice - that usually flows better and makes the prose tighter.
 * Most of the passive voice occurs in passages discussing her releases ("'Mirrorcle World' was released..."); as the records are the focus of the sentences, I thought it would be better to make them the subject.
 * I'm not sure what exactly her need for a place to live had to do with acting in B movies. Did the television people provide a place to live? Was she out of money and needed work to pay for rent? Perhaps this could be explained a bit better in the article.
 * "Though she had entered Horikoshi Gakuen, a high school for the arts, she left shortly afterward. " - did she enter school after acting in these shows? While she was acting?
 * Yes, while she was acting; changed to "At this time, she entered Horikoshi Gakuen, a high school for the arts; however, she left shortly afterward."
 * " Dissatisfied with her job, Hamasaki soon quit her acting career as well. " - Any information on what aspects of the job she was dissatisfied with?
 * She was not very specific about it; she said was that she "didn't fit in", she didn't like the attitudes of the girls she worked with (they were "suck-ups" to the boss etc.), and that she thought some procedures felt strange to her. But she uses very vague words.
 * "When her mother moved to Tokyo, she moved in with her" - pronoun confusion - did Hamasaki move in with her mother or did the mother move in with Hamasaki?
 * Hamasaki moved in with her mother; fixed.
 * "Matsuura offered her a recording deal immediately after hearing her sing" - when did he hear her sing? did she audition?  Did the club have karaoke or another means for her to sing?
 * Changed to "After hearing Hamasaki sing karaoke, Matsuura offered her a recording deal..."
 * "until the following year," - I have lost track of dates in this article. Can you provide the actual year?
 * Fixed
 * "However, her debut album, A Song for XX (1999)," - can this really be called her debut album since she had already release Nothing from Nothing?
 * According to the Oricon (Japan's music charts), A Song for XX is her debut album. I don't know why it's that way; I'll add a footnote.
 * "made her a success." - In general, I don't like this type of vague wording. What does it actually mean?  What measure of success are we using?  Popular? rich? top of the chart? lots of airplay?
 * The following sentences explain ("it topped the Oricon charts for five weeks straight and eventually sold over a million copies. Additionally, Hamasaki earned a Japan Gold Disc Award for 'Best New Artist of the Year'.")
 * Most dates are unlinked in the article, but I see a few that are. Please either unlink manually or ask User:Tony1 to run a script to unlink the dates for the article.
 * Fixed
 * Why did she use a pseudonym for writing singles?
 * She has never explained.
 * This sentence "However, the title track had the first lyrics in which she felt she had expressed herself thoroughly" - makes me think that she wrote the song, but later it says that "M" was the first song she wrote heself
 * Per WP:MOSQUOTE, don't use callout quotes (the curly quotes). Use blockquote instead.
 * Done.
 * "a move interpreted by some as the beginning of a campaign prompted by a sluggish Japanese market" - interpreted by whom? Can we be more specific?
 * The source, TIME magazine, doesn't cite anyone in particular.
 * "A short movie, Tsuki ni Shizumu, was used as the video for "Voyage" - does this mean that they took an existing movie or that they actually created the movie for the video? Did she star in the movie?  What was it about?
 * Yes, Hamasaki starred in it, and yes, it was created to be the video. As to the plot, including it might be off-topic for the paragraph; besides, it's wiki-linked.
 * Any information on why she chose to include English lyrics? Is this a trend in Japanese pop?
 * She wanted to convey her message to a wider audience. (Yes, it was a trend, but she didn't use English because she thought she could best express herself in Japanese.) I'll include that in the Image section.
 * "Although she did not compose as much as on I am..., she was still heavily involved in the production" - we were never told exactly how much she composed on I am...a few examples, but it's possible she composed everything on that one and we just aren't told that. I'd like a more explicit example here - how much did she compose on Rainbow?
 * On I am..., she composed all but two songs; on Rainbow, she only composed a little more than half. Edited the I am... and Rainbow paragraphs to reflect that.
 * I'm not quite seeing the connection between the two clauses here: "Along with her dissatisfaction with her last two studio albums (which she thought had been rushed), this led her to begin work on My Story (2004) early"
 * I don't quite see the connection either, but that's the reason Hamasaki gave.
 * Can you quote the source that you are using (here is okay)? Karanacs (talk) 19:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * "Last year’s was a mini-album, so I feel like fans who were expecting a full length album were thinking, ‘Is this all?’. I’m sure they wanted to hear more. So this year I wanted to take my time making this record. Also, with ‘Rainbow’, part of me was confused about my priorities, and I felt like I had barely made the album. I didn’t want to feel that way again, and I didn’t want to follow that method of creating and giving to my fans. So last year, all I could produce was a mini-album. But I didn’t want to feel pressed for time this year, and I didn’t want to have a deadline, so I asked to start working on it early."
 * "In contrast with her previous albums, My Story had no set theme" - we are never really told that the other albums had themes (except for I am...). That seems like something important to focus on.
 * Hamasaki never revealed the themes behind her earlier albums (except for Duty), but in the article cited, stated that she did plan the albums around a theme.
 * I see several instances in the article where a phrase is in quotation marks but there is not citation at the end of the sentence. The cite needs to be at the sentence the quotes are in, even if that means it is duplicated in subsequent sentences
 * " making Hamasaki the only artist to have her first eight studio albums do this" - how can this be the case if she released Nothing from Nothing and it did not top the charts?
 * This is according to Oricon; I don't know what their reasoning behind that is. I've added a footnote.
 * "As a result, the concerts became highly anticipated" - as a result of what?
 * "Hamasaki began commissioning remixes of her songs early in her career; this also influenced the diversity of her music" - did this really influence the diversity or was this an example of the diversity?
 * According to the source, it was an influence.
 * Then this needs to be better explained. Perhaps include a quote from the source? Karanacs (talk) 19:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * "[the remix albums], which followed two months later, started pulling her unassuming pop-rock into house, trance, reggae, and grand symphonic orchestration."
 * ", who praise them for expressing "independence, rebellion, and conflict juxtaposed with [...] innocence" and for being "like the contents of [...] a diary" and "reflecting [their own] changing emotions" - I think this sentence needs to explicitly attribute the quotes to someone.
 * I quote a magazine there, and those are the author's words, not a quote.
 * I meant that you need to attribute it to whoever wrote those lines - in this case that would be the magazine or the magazine article author. Karanacs (talk) 19:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * There's a citation given for it (#31).
 * Quotations of less than four lines should not be offset (they should be a part of the paragraph) per WP:MOSQUOTE.
 * Fixed.
 * minor nitpick - please make sure that references are numbered consecutively. For example, in the Image and artistry section there are sentences with two or more references, and the numbers are not in order.
 * Are there any examples of specific fashion trends that she has inspired? The article mentions that she has inspired some, but no details.
 * The articles cited only say that she started trends/influenced styles in hair, nails, etc. It doesn't give specific trends.
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.