As briefly discussed in this talk page ("Refactoring planned"), I've moved earlier discussion from the project page to this talk page. -- Hoary 03:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I moved OmegaWikipedia's comments here from the top section, with references to the sections he was discussing, as per his comments on the talk page. Discussion should be kept here, and the top should remain clear of discussion. -- FuriousFreddy 13:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
While much of the information is indeed helpful, the articles tend towards biased and POV editing, and then reverting/protesting when anyone else tries to fix their work. Several editors, among them OmegaWikipedia ( talk · contribs), Ultimate Star Wars Freak ( talk · contribs) and DrippingInk ( talk · contribs), would not, for quite some time, let "outside" editors near the Mariah Carey article or related articles on her songs or those of other pop artists. Such articles were therefore filled with biased POV writing. Admin Mel Etitis dedicated himself to attempting to format and clean up the articles' grammar, capitalization, and wording, only to have one of the persons in question go back and revert them. For such reasons, both parties and others have been blocked several times for violating the 3RR.
In what level of detail should a song's sales and airplay performance/charting statistics be covered? Should there be an upper limit? Is it necessary to list positions for all Billboard charts on which a song appears, or should there be a limit on the number of charts covered?
Does the Wikipedia require separate articles on different recordings of the same composition? If it does, should every major hit version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" be given Wikipedia articles, or just those of certain performers?
Re: Policies
As this is an unprecedented type of action, I'm not sure how the proper way to respond to it would be. If I've responded the wrong way, my comments can be moved. Thanks OmegaWikipedia 08:32, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Only the user be able to move his or her comments on the top page. Another user has alrady informed this user to move his comments and he should be allowed to move them himself.
I have divided the article page for this RfC into sections for a statement by the originators (first parties), a statement by the second parties (those whom the originator says are violating the MoS or introducing fancruft), and outside views. The statement by the originators should consist of the comments of Furious Freedy, Mel Etitis, or any other signers. I suggest that those responding should move their comments into the section for second party comments.
Keeping the RfC divided into sections will make it easier for third parties to understand who is saying what. It should also make these move wars and revert wars unnecessary. Robert McClenon 20:52, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I will, at some time in the next 24 hours, be refactoring these comments to move all comments by second parties to second parties, and all responses by first parties to first parties, and all unsigned comments to a sort of limbo. If I see any comments deleted, I will write them up as vandalism. Do not move any comments except to put them in their proper places. Robert McClenon 01:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I will not be refactoring the article page because the other contributors have already done that. Thank you.
I think that this discussion will proceed much better if we discuss in our own discussion sections so that it is clear what the different points of view are. Thank you to everyone for cooperating. Robert McClenon 11:59, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I guess we're still in the process of restructuring, but here is an example of some of the issues at hand as they relate to articles on songs. This example uses not a pop song, but a hip-hop song by (Lil') Bow Wow, " Let Me Hold You" (hopefully this example should show that this is not about pop music vs. R&B music--which as of current are almost the same thing anyways--or a personal vendetta gainst coverage of certain musicians)
This is the edit, primarily written by OmegaWIkipeida (and what appears to be his sockpuppet), as I found it while browsing and cleaning up articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Let_Me_Hold_You&oldid=25574639.
This is a revision I have done (linked from the revision history, because it will very likely be reverted): http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Let_Me_Hold_You&oldid=25974008.
Removed were POV analyses of the song's performance on the pop charts (the point-of-view pertains primarily to the describing a song's charting performances as being good or bad, well or not well, etc.), references to component or otherwise minor charts (no, Wikipedia is not paper, but an article on a song should not be overwhelmed by details on its chart performance, unless it broke important records--and even then, that information should be presented concisely), summarizing cutting commentary description of music video--some of which delves into original research/POV suppositions and speculation about the video, and some minor formatting and revisions in other areas. Also, removed from the infobox were the songwriter, music video director, and certifications sections. Wikipedia: WikiProject Songs only requires the items that remain i nthe infobox; adding one or so extra items is not a serious problem, but it can become one if the infobox becomes excessively long. I am not sold on the idea that songwriters ( especially in the case where there are more than two) and music video directors should be included in the infobox; single certifications are a good addition, but only in the case of singles that are actually certified (if it was not certified, it does not seem likely that saying the song was "uncertified" is neccesary). Of course, the infobox formatting is just a suggestion; the prose and tables in this case are the important items of focus.
I'm not sure how trivial this may appear to the outside opinion; this is just my attempt to improve the quality of music coverage in the Wikipedia, and make sure that the articles all conform to the guidelines and projects that have already been laid out for them. -- FuriousFreddy 03:14, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
"Edits to make Freddy happy...." ? A rather disrespectful edit summary comment by OmegaWikipedia. This is not about making me happy; this is about trying to establish consistent guidelines and formatting. This is not a "me" thing (and I would strongly request the views of outside parties in this discussion). Doing this is not going to make me happy; but, hopefully, it's going to make the articles better. -- FuriousFreddy 04:29, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
As unfortunately expected, any attempts to clean the article up so that it reads as a scholarly encyclopedia article instead of a fan page or an entertainment magazine article have been met with resistance. Perhaps it is because I am the one doing the cleanup. I would like to ask that another editor give his view on the status of the page, and/or do a cleanup theirself. -- FuriousFreddy 16:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, I definitely want this situation to be handled right. That said, I don't think this has been handled correctly. First of all, another user's comments (Wscott) were excised completely from the page! I'm not sure if this was a total oversight as Guettarda did talk to this person on his talk page, but in his or her attempted reconstruction, did not include his/her comments for some reason. Second of all, Annittas has made a comment. Why were his commments moved without him recieving permission first? Nobody even left him any message on his talk page. Third of all, I'm not sure any comments by anyone should have been moved in the first place without contacting and getting approval of the other party as is normally the custom here for RFC comments. That includes FuriousFreddy, WScott, Guettarda, and you too Hoary. Also as is this page had gotten too far, before an attempted revision took place, the so called "discussion" doesnt read like a real discussion, but instead a very loosely constructed attempt at recreation of various snippets and comments. I understand the factors that were involved, but I think its misleading, due to the real "discussion" not actually being like this, and this being just a recreation. OmegaWikipedia 08:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree that moving comments isn't the first choice, but it's the best given the available options. An RFC isn't a talk page, it isn't primarily meant as a communication between the involved parties - instead, it's a recognition that communication has broken down and input is needed from the wider community. By breaking up the statement of the dispute with comments it has been rendered incomprehensible. Wscott went further and inserted unsigned comments in the middle of sentances. There are only two alternatives - moving the insertions or deleting the insertions. I think the fairer option was to move the comments.
As for notification - if someone posts a comment in the wrong place, you move it. There is no requirement to notify someone that you have fixed their mistake. It isn't a big deal. If I had deleted comments, I would have felt the need to inform people so that they could re-insert them in the proper place. Guettarda 12:39, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
These two points have nothing directly to do with the persons in question; it has to do with the qualities of certain articles.
There still also exists the issue with seperate articles on different recordings of the same song. Such editing is questionable, certainly in the cases of standards such as " The Star-Spangled Banner" and " Santa Claus is Comin' to Town", which could very easily result in dozens of articles on various recordings of the same song if the example here is to be followed. When said articles are nominated at AfD with the intentions of having information on the recordings moved to an appropriate album article, several of the editors band together to vote "keeps" in order to retain the articles, resulting in several "no consensus" AfDs. Often, no rationale is given for why the articles should be kept (insults for nominating them for deletion sometimes occur as well), while some users provide rationales such as "it is a part of *artist's name*'s official discography" or "the text is too long to mere". This brings up the following questions:
This was previously being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Notability and Music Guidelines/Songs, although dicussion seems to have tapered off there. -- FuriousFreddy 00:42, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
There is no question that a lot of "singles" pages are either not needed and/or need extensive cleanup. Case in point: " Last Night a DJ Saved My Life", a hugely influential dance song performed by Indeep, and also the name of a best selling book (which has become a definitive guide to the history of DJ culture and in fact, is named after the Indeep song), is another Mariah Carey page on Wikipedia... a Carey single that received almost zero airplay and sales, both in and out of nightclubs. At the very least this title needs a disambig page which leads to the song (not just Carey's version) and the book. The Carey page makes a slight reference to the Indeep original. A newer example would be the " Hung Up" page for Madonna's newest single. The article lists twenty-two different charts (most of them iTunes charts specific to different countries) and a US Dance chart trajectory... and the song just debuted this week.
As long as we are speaking of article accuracy, I would like to also draw attention to the growing trend of discography/singles tables within artists' articles. Recently the Madonna discography page listed new single "Hung Up" with a number 25 peak position in the Dance chart column, which in fact that is only the song's debut position. After questioning this practice on that article's Talk page, User:Red-Blue-White willingly removed this misleading information, although a similar situation now exists on Depeche Mode's page, with current single "Precious" showing a Hot 100 peak of number 99 in the singles table when in fact the track makes its debut appearance on the Hot 100 this very week. It may sound anal-retentive to bring this up, but I believe it to be unencyclopedic and comepletely erroneous. Yet there are editors who are inserting incomplete discography tables throughout Wikipedia and updating chart postions week by week before a song has even reached its peak.
I suggest people in this community not only review the overly-detailed singles pages, but also the accuracy of singles info and chart data right in the artists' articles. Just my $.02. -- eo 03:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to point out the Wikidata project, which is a proposed Wikimedia project that I think will likely come about fairly soon. It would be a home for extremely detailed data such as sales performances, and could be displayed in any number of ways. This way, it would be easier to include only the most important data while still making it simple to link to more details. Tuf-Kat 06:11, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
The Wikipedia will never be able to sustain a standard of quality if there is no group involvement. This issue needs the attention of more than a few individuals; what it really needs is for rules to be set and established. -- FuriousFreddy 23:52, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I have posted links to the RfC article page on the user talk pages of the four Wikipedians who are alleged to be problematical editors. Are they willing to respond to the concerns expressed by the signers of the RfC?
I, like the signers of this RfC, would much prefer to see it resolved by improving the way pop music articles are edited and by improving their quality, rather than by treating it as a user conduct issue. Are the enthusiastic pop music fans willing to work with the signers of the RfC? Robert McClenon 18:53, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
OmegaWikipedia has asked me, on my user talk page, what MoS edits are being reverted and ignored. Can one of the signers of this RfC please identify a few examples? Robert McClenon 21:43, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Note that the above are purportedly User:Mel Etitis' edits. Clicking on the "older version" and "newer version" links will take the reader to edits that undo MoS edits. Also included in the above are removals of copyright infringement in the form of using "fair use" images outside of WP:FU policy, which were then reverted. This is a cut-and-paste copy from Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Mel_Etitis#Evidence_of_disputed_behavior, which User:Mel Etitis referenced under evidence in this RfC. One link has been removed because I mistakenly believed it to another user. Edits immediately before and after those listed may not always correspond with edits by involved individuals. Jkelly 22:29, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I generally agree with the RfC description, from first-hand and current experience, having even witnessed the Return of WinnerMario, who showed up yesterday to weigh in on the FAC procedure for Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl". The situation as far as song article quality on this and "Cool" (the two in this fanatic category that I've checked out) is ridiculous, the behavior is, well, kinda fascinating and kinda part of normal (Wikipedia being what it is...)... My specific concern is when all of this carries over into Featured Article, and on to the Main Page FAs.
Case in point, yesterday's Main Page feature for Stefani's "Cool". I couldn't believe it. In the summary, it explains:
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Can anything be more vague and confused? Only, perhaps, the redirect for "pop music from the 1980s"... And there is no further elaboration, really, nothing on the music itself, in the rest of the article, just lots of stuff about the lyrics and "meaning" and chart performance and plotline for the music video.
HOW CAN THAT HAVE MADE IT ONTO THE FRONT PAGE??!!!!??
So, I think that, besides rules and stuff, it's also practically important that one decent standard example for this type of article should be created, even if only to protect the Main Page from more "Cool"-grade articles. Perhaps not for a target artist, but for some other borderline consequential song that won't get raided...
Also, finding out that ONE PERSON alone picks the FA for Main Page, with no criteria beyond FA status, a summary section, and a pic, is also somewhat alarming. Another reason to make sure FAs deserve it... -- Tsavage 07:07, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
As briefly discussed in this talk page ("Refactoring planned"), I've moved earlier discussion from the project page to this talk page. -- Hoary 03:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I moved OmegaWikipedia's comments here from the top section, with references to the sections he was discussing, as per his comments on the talk page. Discussion should be kept here, and the top should remain clear of discussion. -- FuriousFreddy 13:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
While much of the information is indeed helpful, the articles tend towards biased and POV editing, and then reverting/protesting when anyone else tries to fix their work. Several editors, among them OmegaWikipedia ( talk · contribs), Ultimate Star Wars Freak ( talk · contribs) and DrippingInk ( talk · contribs), would not, for quite some time, let "outside" editors near the Mariah Carey article or related articles on her songs or those of other pop artists. Such articles were therefore filled with biased POV writing. Admin Mel Etitis dedicated himself to attempting to format and clean up the articles' grammar, capitalization, and wording, only to have one of the persons in question go back and revert them. For such reasons, both parties and others have been blocked several times for violating the 3RR.
In what level of detail should a song's sales and airplay performance/charting statistics be covered? Should there be an upper limit? Is it necessary to list positions for all Billboard charts on which a song appears, or should there be a limit on the number of charts covered?
Does the Wikipedia require separate articles on different recordings of the same composition? If it does, should every major hit version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" be given Wikipedia articles, or just those of certain performers?
Re: Policies
As this is an unprecedented type of action, I'm not sure how the proper way to respond to it would be. If I've responded the wrong way, my comments can be moved. Thanks OmegaWikipedia 08:32, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Only the user be able to move his or her comments on the top page. Another user has alrady informed this user to move his comments and he should be allowed to move them himself.
I have divided the article page for this RfC into sections for a statement by the originators (first parties), a statement by the second parties (those whom the originator says are violating the MoS or introducing fancruft), and outside views. The statement by the originators should consist of the comments of Furious Freedy, Mel Etitis, or any other signers. I suggest that those responding should move their comments into the section for second party comments.
Keeping the RfC divided into sections will make it easier for third parties to understand who is saying what. It should also make these move wars and revert wars unnecessary. Robert McClenon 20:52, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I will, at some time in the next 24 hours, be refactoring these comments to move all comments by second parties to second parties, and all responses by first parties to first parties, and all unsigned comments to a sort of limbo. If I see any comments deleted, I will write them up as vandalism. Do not move any comments except to put them in their proper places. Robert McClenon 01:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I will not be refactoring the article page because the other contributors have already done that. Thank you.
I think that this discussion will proceed much better if we discuss in our own discussion sections so that it is clear what the different points of view are. Thank you to everyone for cooperating. Robert McClenon 11:59, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I guess we're still in the process of restructuring, but here is an example of some of the issues at hand as they relate to articles on songs. This example uses not a pop song, but a hip-hop song by (Lil') Bow Wow, " Let Me Hold You" (hopefully this example should show that this is not about pop music vs. R&B music--which as of current are almost the same thing anyways--or a personal vendetta gainst coverage of certain musicians)
This is the edit, primarily written by OmegaWIkipeida (and what appears to be his sockpuppet), as I found it while browsing and cleaning up articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Let_Me_Hold_You&oldid=25574639.
This is a revision I have done (linked from the revision history, because it will very likely be reverted): http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Let_Me_Hold_You&oldid=25974008.
Removed were POV analyses of the song's performance on the pop charts (the point-of-view pertains primarily to the describing a song's charting performances as being good or bad, well or not well, etc.), references to component or otherwise minor charts (no, Wikipedia is not paper, but an article on a song should not be overwhelmed by details on its chart performance, unless it broke important records--and even then, that information should be presented concisely), summarizing cutting commentary description of music video--some of which delves into original research/POV suppositions and speculation about the video, and some minor formatting and revisions in other areas. Also, removed from the infobox were the songwriter, music video director, and certifications sections. Wikipedia: WikiProject Songs only requires the items that remain i nthe infobox; adding one or so extra items is not a serious problem, but it can become one if the infobox becomes excessively long. I am not sold on the idea that songwriters ( especially in the case where there are more than two) and music video directors should be included in the infobox; single certifications are a good addition, but only in the case of singles that are actually certified (if it was not certified, it does not seem likely that saying the song was "uncertified" is neccesary). Of course, the infobox formatting is just a suggestion; the prose and tables in this case are the important items of focus.
I'm not sure how trivial this may appear to the outside opinion; this is just my attempt to improve the quality of music coverage in the Wikipedia, and make sure that the articles all conform to the guidelines and projects that have already been laid out for them. -- FuriousFreddy 03:14, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
"Edits to make Freddy happy...." ? A rather disrespectful edit summary comment by OmegaWikipedia. This is not about making me happy; this is about trying to establish consistent guidelines and formatting. This is not a "me" thing (and I would strongly request the views of outside parties in this discussion). Doing this is not going to make me happy; but, hopefully, it's going to make the articles better. -- FuriousFreddy 04:29, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
As unfortunately expected, any attempts to clean the article up so that it reads as a scholarly encyclopedia article instead of a fan page or an entertainment magazine article have been met with resistance. Perhaps it is because I am the one doing the cleanup. I would like to ask that another editor give his view on the status of the page, and/or do a cleanup theirself. -- FuriousFreddy 16:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, I definitely want this situation to be handled right. That said, I don't think this has been handled correctly. First of all, another user's comments (Wscott) were excised completely from the page! I'm not sure if this was a total oversight as Guettarda did talk to this person on his talk page, but in his or her attempted reconstruction, did not include his/her comments for some reason. Second of all, Annittas has made a comment. Why were his commments moved without him recieving permission first? Nobody even left him any message on his talk page. Third of all, I'm not sure any comments by anyone should have been moved in the first place without contacting and getting approval of the other party as is normally the custom here for RFC comments. That includes FuriousFreddy, WScott, Guettarda, and you too Hoary. Also as is this page had gotten too far, before an attempted revision took place, the so called "discussion" doesnt read like a real discussion, but instead a very loosely constructed attempt at recreation of various snippets and comments. I understand the factors that were involved, but I think its misleading, due to the real "discussion" not actually being like this, and this being just a recreation. OmegaWikipedia 08:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree that moving comments isn't the first choice, but it's the best given the available options. An RFC isn't a talk page, it isn't primarily meant as a communication between the involved parties - instead, it's a recognition that communication has broken down and input is needed from the wider community. By breaking up the statement of the dispute with comments it has been rendered incomprehensible. Wscott went further and inserted unsigned comments in the middle of sentances. There are only two alternatives - moving the insertions or deleting the insertions. I think the fairer option was to move the comments.
As for notification - if someone posts a comment in the wrong place, you move it. There is no requirement to notify someone that you have fixed their mistake. It isn't a big deal. If I had deleted comments, I would have felt the need to inform people so that they could re-insert them in the proper place. Guettarda 12:39, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
These two points have nothing directly to do with the persons in question; it has to do with the qualities of certain articles.
There still also exists the issue with seperate articles on different recordings of the same song. Such editing is questionable, certainly in the cases of standards such as " The Star-Spangled Banner" and " Santa Claus is Comin' to Town", which could very easily result in dozens of articles on various recordings of the same song if the example here is to be followed. When said articles are nominated at AfD with the intentions of having information on the recordings moved to an appropriate album article, several of the editors band together to vote "keeps" in order to retain the articles, resulting in several "no consensus" AfDs. Often, no rationale is given for why the articles should be kept (insults for nominating them for deletion sometimes occur as well), while some users provide rationales such as "it is a part of *artist's name*'s official discography" or "the text is too long to mere". This brings up the following questions:
This was previously being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Notability and Music Guidelines/Songs, although dicussion seems to have tapered off there. -- FuriousFreddy 00:42, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
There is no question that a lot of "singles" pages are either not needed and/or need extensive cleanup. Case in point: " Last Night a DJ Saved My Life", a hugely influential dance song performed by Indeep, and also the name of a best selling book (which has become a definitive guide to the history of DJ culture and in fact, is named after the Indeep song), is another Mariah Carey page on Wikipedia... a Carey single that received almost zero airplay and sales, both in and out of nightclubs. At the very least this title needs a disambig page which leads to the song (not just Carey's version) and the book. The Carey page makes a slight reference to the Indeep original. A newer example would be the " Hung Up" page for Madonna's newest single. The article lists twenty-two different charts (most of them iTunes charts specific to different countries) and a US Dance chart trajectory... and the song just debuted this week.
As long as we are speaking of article accuracy, I would like to also draw attention to the growing trend of discography/singles tables within artists' articles. Recently the Madonna discography page listed new single "Hung Up" with a number 25 peak position in the Dance chart column, which in fact that is only the song's debut position. After questioning this practice on that article's Talk page, User:Red-Blue-White willingly removed this misleading information, although a similar situation now exists on Depeche Mode's page, with current single "Precious" showing a Hot 100 peak of number 99 in the singles table when in fact the track makes its debut appearance on the Hot 100 this very week. It may sound anal-retentive to bring this up, but I believe it to be unencyclopedic and comepletely erroneous. Yet there are editors who are inserting incomplete discography tables throughout Wikipedia and updating chart postions week by week before a song has even reached its peak.
I suggest people in this community not only review the overly-detailed singles pages, but also the accuracy of singles info and chart data right in the artists' articles. Just my $.02. -- eo 03:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to point out the Wikidata project, which is a proposed Wikimedia project that I think will likely come about fairly soon. It would be a home for extremely detailed data such as sales performances, and could be displayed in any number of ways. This way, it would be easier to include only the most important data while still making it simple to link to more details. Tuf-Kat 06:11, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
The Wikipedia will never be able to sustain a standard of quality if there is no group involvement. This issue needs the attention of more than a few individuals; what it really needs is for rules to be set and established. -- FuriousFreddy 23:52, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I have posted links to the RfC article page on the user talk pages of the four Wikipedians who are alleged to be problematical editors. Are they willing to respond to the concerns expressed by the signers of the RfC?
I, like the signers of this RfC, would much prefer to see it resolved by improving the way pop music articles are edited and by improving their quality, rather than by treating it as a user conduct issue. Are the enthusiastic pop music fans willing to work with the signers of the RfC? Robert McClenon 18:53, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
OmegaWikipedia has asked me, on my user talk page, what MoS edits are being reverted and ignored. Can one of the signers of this RfC please identify a few examples? Robert McClenon 21:43, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Note that the above are purportedly User:Mel Etitis' edits. Clicking on the "older version" and "newer version" links will take the reader to edits that undo MoS edits. Also included in the above are removals of copyright infringement in the form of using "fair use" images outside of WP:FU policy, which were then reverted. This is a cut-and-paste copy from Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Mel_Etitis#Evidence_of_disputed_behavior, which User:Mel Etitis referenced under evidence in this RfC. One link has been removed because I mistakenly believed it to another user. Edits immediately before and after those listed may not always correspond with edits by involved individuals. Jkelly 22:29, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I generally agree with the RfC description, from first-hand and current experience, having even witnessed the Return of WinnerMario, who showed up yesterday to weigh in on the FAC procedure for Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl". The situation as far as song article quality on this and "Cool" (the two in this fanatic category that I've checked out) is ridiculous, the behavior is, well, kinda fascinating and kinda part of normal (Wikipedia being what it is...)... My specific concern is when all of this carries over into Featured Article, and on to the Main Page FAs.
Case in point, yesterday's Main Page feature for Stefani's "Cool". I couldn't believe it. In the summary, it explains:
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Can anything be more vague and confused? Only, perhaps, the redirect for "pop music from the 1980s"... And there is no further elaboration, really, nothing on the music itself, in the rest of the article, just lots of stuff about the lyrics and "meaning" and chart performance and plotline for the music video.
HOW CAN THAT HAVE MADE IT ONTO THE FRONT PAGE??!!!!??
So, I think that, besides rules and stuff, it's also practically important that one decent standard example for this type of article should be created, even if only to protect the Main Page from more "Cool"-grade articles. Perhaps not for a target artist, but for some other borderline consequential song that won't get raided...
Also, finding out that ONE PERSON alone picks the FA for Main Page, with no criteria beyond FA status, a summary section, and a pic, is also somewhat alarming. Another reason to make sure FAs deserve it... -- Tsavage 07:07, 25 November 2005 (UTC)