Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Midnight Syndicate/Workshop

Possible alternatives to proposed article ban
4a) The article Midnight Syndicate is to be deleted but not protected. It can be reconstructed by unconflicted editors following Wikipedia practices regarding sourcing and neutrality.  The current talk page can be left intact.

4b) The article Midnight Syndicate is to be blanked without protection and with history intact. It can be reconstructed by unconflicted editors following Wikipedia practices regarding sourcing and neutrality.  Text and information retrieved from the article history can be be re-used in a neutral way at editorial discretion.  The current talk page can be left intact.

4a/4b proposed based on Jpgordon's comment that the article's current content appears to be mostly self-promotion. The 1-month ban proposal doesn't seem to be getting traction at /Proposed decision. I somewhat prefer 4b to 4a if the mandate of neutral reconstruction is taken seriously, but I'd actually rather have an intermediate solution that would need technical extensions to MediaWiki that I might suggest later (not for this article). Principle: Wikipedia articles' shape should not be formed through blatant self-promotion--in extreme cases, it's better to start over neutrally than to trim away the hype piecemeal. Note that 4b can in theory be done by any user per WP:BOLD, but without arbcom endorsement that would probably lead to instant reversion and/or edit wars. 67.117.130.181 23:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comments


 * I guess I don't understand how an article that basically just goes through the albums the band has released and comments on where their music has been used can be deemed as promotional. If I was writing a promotional biography for the band, it would be vastly different.  Also, since GuardianZ and I seem to pretty much be in agreement over the article content (I think there's just one sticking point left - how Vargo and Douglas came together - and we're working on that now), and since we are clearly from opposing sides, I have to believe the article is pretty balanced at this point.  I don't understand what starting over would get us. - Skinny McGee 23:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It is currently very promotional in tone. It's true that the more congratulatory passages are mostly cited to outside sources, but the selection of them, the quantity, the way they're expressed, and the weight they are given don't create the impression of a neutral article.  The writing style is more like a sales brochure or media kit than an encyclopedia article.  Basically everything in it aimed to create an impression or emotion should be removed or rephrased to present the info as neutral facts.  The italicized quote from the liner notes should be de-emphasized and shortened.  Facts should be presented in a understated way.  The article currently has a large number of details that lack encyclopedic importance even though they're cited and not too promotional; though I realize that some of that is the result of NPOV negotiations about Joseph Vargo and that situation sometimes unavoidably produces this result, some cleanup ought to still be possible even there.  That is part of why I'd rather restart the article from scratch--to get rid of the stuff that unconflicted editors don't find important and make independent new selections, rather than trying to carefully trim what's there without being unfair to somebody.  And there's excessive wordiness throughout the article. I'd say there is also too much "product placement" in the form of gratuitous references to venues, customers and their products, former affiliations of band members, etc.  That should be toned down.  I'd want to get rid of the album cover photos, or at least all but one of them (there's only one album cover photo in the Rolling Stones article, for example) but I don't know if we have an explicit guideline about this.  The infobox has a fair-use promotional photo and we are trying to eliminate those (we can use a logo instead and I think that might be stylistically preferable per our current practices, but I'm not sure of that either).  Finally I'd suggest putting all the stuff about critical reception and significance in its own section instead of interspersing it through the article, though that's just one of many formats that WP articles use, so other approaches can still work if done neutrally and tastefully (unlike what's there now, in my view).
 * I don't have the impression you and GuardianZ are on opposite sides: you're in dispute about some narrow points within the article, but you both basically see this band and its products as a good thing (or at least a former good thing).  Opposite sides means one side likes what the band is doing and the other side hates the whole genre, wants the band to shut down, and thinks the world would be a better place if all the band's members and former members had never entered music and had gone into washing machine repair or professional basketball instead.  A neutral article does not favor either of these sides.  We have a saying that we're aiming for a style where it's impossible to tell which side the writer is on, and this article currently doesn't come close to that. 67.117.130.181 06:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * That's good to know. Thanks for your insight. - Skinny McGee 15:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)