Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/U2/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 18:43, 15 May 2007.

U2

 * previous FAC

I think the page is well citited and has good content. 11:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Sushant gupta, are you aware of the previous FAC's for the U2 article? Have you looked at the discussion page and archives to see the work done? 'probably a good idea. :) --Merbabu 12:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Erm, there appear to b serious ref formatting problems. Most of the last refs appear to be bunched together without properly forming. --Lenin and McCarthy |  (Complain here) 14:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * $&$#$^@#$ - you are right, and it was not doubt my editing. I will try to fix it now. --Merbabu 15:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed - at least it would appear. thanks. Merbabu 15:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment - I am not sure, but should the plain 'McCormack 2006' references etc. be replaced with Template:Harvnb?-- Wolf  talk 17:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * reply The use of any citation templates is never required. They are always optional.  If the information is typed out plainly, and it is all there, there is no reason to summarily go back and add the templates.  The referencing is consistant and adequate and that is all that is needed.--Jayron32| talk | contribs  00:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If so, support.-- Wolf  talk 15:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * A few fixes needed. :
 * There is an unresolved tag near the bottom that needs fixing.
 * The "solo work" section is titled more as if it were solo musical work. Really, it could be folded into the activisim section without being its own section.  Flows better that way.
 * First paragraph of "Other projects..." is unreferenced.
 * In the live aid commentary: during "Bad" Bono leapt down off the stage to embrace and dance with a fan. Say "the song "Bad," or something. It needs a comma too to help make the sentance easier to parse.
 * The fair use rationale for Image:Zoo stage.jpg needs to be expanded some. One needs to indicate why it meets the rationale, specifically, why the image is "unrepeatable", and that it is being used for more than simple identification purposes, that the use of the image is vital to the "critical commentary" it accompanies.
 * These are all relatively minor fixes. As a whole, the article is fantastic, and if these fixes can be made, you can expect my full support.--Jayron32| talk | contribs  00:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * reply. All done - except for the image. I've never really worked with fair use and it's way past my 'bed time' now - i'll look at it tomorrow. But surely it would be 'unrepeatable' given that it was a tour in the past. As for critical commentary, Zoo TV was arguably one of the highest of U2 career high points and its visual overload was a defining characteristic (well - it was groundbreaking at the time). Thanks for the tips. :) Merbabu 14:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I added a fair use rationale to the picture. Hope it's ok now. --Kristbg 19:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * One more thing: The "Achtung Baby, Zoo TV, Zooropa (1990–1993)" section is squeezed between a picture and a quote box and a media file box. The result makes the text VERY chopped up.  On my 1024 x 768 monitor, the first 15 lines are all 5-6 words long.  The other sections do a much better job of avoiding this problem by proper spacing of these ancillary boxes; where there is overlap of alternating images it is small (2-3 lines at most) and not a huge issue.  This section is really hard to read however.  Fix that somehow, and I will support this.--Jayron32| talk | contribs  05:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, yes that could probably be improved. My screen is on 1440 x 900 but I've moved it down to your 1024 x 768. UNfortunately, the pic, the music sample, and the quotation are arguably the best and most apt in the whole article. It was suggested once before that the quotation box goes, but it is so apt. But if it was smaller it would be better - I did remove a little of the text that didn't seem so good. The real problem I see is the sample box - they are overly large and intrusive. I've also rearranged the items - it's improved a fair bit i think. it does look better in higher resolutions. I'd like some assistance on this one. Merbabu 06:32, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Further - i shrank the text, in the hope of shrinking the quotation box. If one knows the Achtung baby album and U2 history at the time, one would recognise how clever this quotation is. The quotation boxes were added to address a previous (and valid) FAC criticism of this article that it was full of facts, awards, chart success, and dates - but had no 'colour' or description of themesa and context. (the text boxes were not the only major changes to address these issues). Of course, trying to add this can lead to POV thus text boxes were a good way to incorporate this into a factually-based article without breaking up the flow or introducing accusations of POV. Just some background to the thinking behind it. Merbabu 06:37, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Another option: how about removing the sound smaple? DO people actually listen to them? Perhaps we could in it's place add one of Mofo (song) to the following 'Pop' section - people knowing U2 might agree that is a good swap. Merbabu 06:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * A few different versions (i did these with a lower res):
 * I think this is the best (note, i removed the box aroud the sound sample - which doesn't seem to squash the text).
 * Has box around sound sample - which shifts it to the right and squashes surrounding text.
 * not so good? note large pic.
 * Merbabu 07:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I like removing the sample from the section all together. Hey, maybe a gallery of soundsamples (like is usually done with pictures) at the end of the article may be appropriate? --Jayron32| talk | contribs  05:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Jayron32, please see the first FA nom discussion for the request to put the fair use media files throughout the article (they were at the end of the article before that nomination) Wikipedia brown 13:37, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was what i was about to mention. I can see both points of view here. While it does make more sense to put the media files (which incidently were carefully chosen for relevance to the story told in the article) alongside the relevant text, it is apparently causing issues for people with lower res screens - and I can see that that section is tight. It's a shame because as I've said before, both the quote box and the music file are arguably the most apt of all - in fact, the sample and the box actually complement each other quite well here. Merbabu 13:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * OK. Alternate solution: Expand the section so that all 3 media boxes fit.  The issue is that there is either a) too many boxes or b) too little text.  If solution a) is unacceptable, try solution b).  This was commercially and critically one of the most significant periods of U2's history.  Finding source material to expand the section should not be difficult.--Jayron32| talk | contribs  00:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh good. I thought about that for the same reasoning you provide but didn't think it'd go down to well. I have quite a lot of good info on that period. Merbabu 01:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose. In need of a copy edit. The lead section alone is in no way concise. MrPrada 16:29, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Comprehensive is good, but this article goes way beyond that and goes into an awful lot of unnecessary detail and is not very well organized.  The lead is too long as well.  I also noticed several points in the text that need sourcing (for instance, about the importance of the MTV heavy rotation of the New Years Day video, and a lot of the stuff in the origins of the band section).  The organization of the article leads to its current bloated state: by covering the band's history album by album, it is implied that we need significant coverage of every album in this article which really isn't the case.  A lot of summarizing needs to go on in this article before it's ready for featured status.  However, I do think the article is in better shape than it was last time.  Mango juice talk 17:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I have spent the last few days culling sections - maybe a harsher approach is needed. But, the extra info was in response to the last FAC's request for more context and themes, rather than lists of singles, dates and grammy awards. Merbabu 05:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, looking through the article, most sections handle two albums. Perhaps the last two album sections can be combined. And the War album be moved into the Boy and October sections. If that was the case, then the sectioning would represent well-established categorisations of U2's history. Merbabu 05:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * For an article this long, the length of the lead is satisfactory and actually could be a bit longer in order to properly summarize the article per WP:LEAD. I'll try to tidy it up, though. WesleyDodds 07:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose per above, the quality of writing in the lead is horrendous. -- Phoenix  05:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * How can the lead be improved? Merbabu 05:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I've done this much, but this is mostly culling rather than re-write. I'd like to see the listing of band members moved back from the second sentence to the second paragraph where it was initially, however, this is contested by another ed. Merbabu 05:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.