Wikipedia:Peer review/Timeline of music in the United States (1850–1879)/archive1

Timeline of music in the United States (1850–1879)
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I think it's ready for FLC. Its maybe a bit over-cited and over-detailed, but I thought I'd err on the side of including stuff, so speak up if something seems too minor to include in the timeline. I only just created the lead section, but I'm still not really sure if what's there is useful.

Thanks, Tuf-Kat (talk) 01:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Comments from This is a well done list. I don't have much to offer by way of content, but here are some comments about formatting, prose and other things that will make the FL process smoother.
 * "This timeline of music in the United States covers the period from 1850 to 1879." Featured lists no longer begin with self-referential sentences such as this. See recently promoted lists, particularly List of pre-1920 jazz standards, for examples of more engaging starts.
 * The lead needs to be expanded. Add a paragraph or two summarizing the list (trends, notable events, etc.)
 * I don't suppose you have more specific dates for the events than the years.
 * "Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home" is published; it will become his most popular and remains perhaps his best-known composition." Not sure why the future tense is used here.
 * When you append "mid" to a decade, such as "Mid 1850s", you need to add a hyphen ("Mid-1850s"), because "mid" is a prefix and not a word.
 * "It also uses special effects that will not become common elements in such pieces" "also" is unnecessary, and try rephrasing so that the word "It" doesn't begin two consecutive sentences.
 * "# Virtuoso Norwegian violinist Ole Bull attracts an unprecedented 10,000 people to a concert in Memphis, Tennessee." Doesn't have a reference.
 * The images need alternative text. See WP:ALT for more information.
 * "Patrick Gilmore, an Irish American bandleader, debuts his band in New York; the ensemble's professional and grandiose performances will make it one of the most popular of the Civil War era." Another strange usage of the future tense; check throughout for this.
 * Image captions that are not complete senteces should not have periods at the end. (Example: "Clara Louise Kellogg, a prominent American vocalist.")
 * "featuring more than 11,000 performers - soloists, a choir, an orchestra" Don't use spaced hyphens for breaks within sentences; use a spaced en dash (–) or an unspaced em dash (&mdash;). Check for this throughout the article.
 * The notation used for multiple pages inconsistent; sometimes "pgs." is used while other times "pp." is used. I suggest using "pgs." to be consistent with the "pg." used for single pages. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:03, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments. I'll look them over more fully, but I thought I'd explain the future tense. The entries are written in present tense, describing what occurred in which year. The examples you mention (and there are more) are all describing the relevance of the event based on things that will happen in the future from the point of view of the year on the timeline. WRT the Stephen Foster example, changing "will become" would imply that, in that year, "Old Folks at Home" was published and became his most popular composition - in a time of slow commerce and communication, that's doubtful, as it would take quite a while for the masses to acquire new sheet music, and in any case, I don't have a source that makes that claim. I do have a source that says that song is the most popular and best known of Foster's now (or, well, when the source was published, so in the modern era at least). The Gilmore example is an entry from 1859, well before the Civil War. In other words, the entry is marking an event that will not become notable until later, thus the entry is in the future tense. At one point, I was working on these timelines in the past tense, but that made things even more complicated and awkward; since some entries depend on things that occured prior to, or are notable based on things that do not occur until afterward, using the present tense is the only way to explain all the entries without resorting to awkward circumlocutions. Tuf-Kat (talk) 00:51, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. I still think the future is a bit awkward for an encyclopedic article. Perhaps you can rephrase to something like ""Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home" is published; it went on to become his most popular and remains perhaps his best-known composition". Dabomb87 (talk) 14:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)