Wikipedia:Peer review/Phil Collins/archive1

Phil Collins

This is a self-nomination. About two weeks ago, a newbie to Wikipedia nominated this for featured article prior to any peer reviews, references, etc., and the article rightly failed. (A bit of that discussion can be found here [[1]]). As Collins is my favorite singer, I didn't like having that fail mark appear at the top of the talk page and spent the weekend fixing it up, listening to the suggestions made during the original nomination, adding references and deleting questionable material. As such, I would like to submit it for peer review.

The original article had no references and over half the page was a long list of albums, band members, etc. (See here [[2]] for the article at time of the original nomination). Now that it is clean and referenced, I would appreciate any suggestions on how to improve the article further. As well, I would like another pair of eyes to review it for any spelling/grammar mistakes as well as to ensure NPOV.

Thanks in advance.

--Ataricodfish 16:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I also enjoy Phil Collins. I like what you;ve done to the article--its really an article now. When i first viewed the page the picture was surprising. I think that the info on the page could be ordered differently, like start out with Child Hood, which you did, but then put all of his music career in one place, rather than jumping around. I think that it should be cleaned up a bit, its filled with a bunch of paragraphs. Furtheremore, there is a gap between his childhood and music career, might wanna fill it in. Other than that great job on the article! I'll see if i can fix any grammar, spelling. Nominaladversary 23:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Nominal, thanks so much for the suggestions. I was torn with how to set up the music section, and had kept with the original theme of Intro, Genesis, Solo, but I see your point with making it chronological. Do you think it would work best if the category was "Music" and put into years, i.e. 1970-75, 1975-1980, etc.? That probably would work, as I've seen it done on other pages, and I might try some samples of that. I played with the whole childhood thing, and if you compare prior edits, you can see I've moved his time in the band Flaming Youth all over the place trying to find a more appropriate location. I might switch childhood to "Childhood and Early Career", considering he was 18-19 in Flaming Youth and 19-20 when he joined Genesis. Finally, I removed the South Park information you mentioned on the Talk: Phil Collins page. I didn't like it either, and was waiting for someone to comment before I deleted it. Thanks again for your suggestions! I'll play with the article some more to make it more chronological. --Ataricodfish 03:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Nominal, I tried playing with the years idea, and it doesn't work well. As Collins never left Genesis, it's difficult to make both chronological (it's not like John Lennon and The Beatles, or just about any other music group whose lead singer has a solo career, where there are two distinct periods of time). However, I have dissolved the "Other Projects" section into the rest of the article, so that part doesn't jump around any more (That had gone from 1969 to 1996 in a few paragraphs, but now it flows better).--Ataricodfish 07:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• According to the criteria I've come up with here, this article fails:

Lead: 2, 4

Comprehensiveness: 3, 4

Sales: 2 (something outside US/UK?)

Pictures: 1, 2

Audio: 1, 2, 3, 4

References: 1, 3, 4

Discography: Appears to meet them all, though consider adding at least some singles (maybe Top Ten only)

Format/Style: 4 (basically good, but needs copyedit, further reading section ought to be a list, consider doing something about "urban legend" section)

• Tuf-Kat 21:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Tuf, Thank you for your review. This list has been most helpful. I will try to note my changes here, and request your advice in regards to pictures.

LEAD: I considerably expanded the lead to include major awards, brief history, etc., while keeping it within 5 paragraphs. I haven't changed the photo yet, which I will address below.

Looks good.

Cool, thank you.

COMPREHENSIVENESS: I think I have a great deal in the article except for the critical/praise section. Critics seem to hate him, yet he still wins awards. It's a paradox which I don't know if I could write without a musical background and without showing point of view.

Try searching for reviews and such that characterize his style (negatively and positively). Consider consolidating a number of opinions, cited to those who believe them, and putting them in a section or two near the top. The section can include style, influences, critical reception and the like.

I will begin some work on this, finding reviews in Rolling Stone, etc. This will take a little more work, and will update as I move along with this.

SALES: I found a press release, and referenced this, as to his total solo sales. The discography, in an older edition, originally included unsourced sales information which contradicted the article, so I got rid of it all. I did find RIAA information for the single sales and sourced that in the discography.

Looks adequate now, though he's mainstream enough, you ought to at least make a good effort to find some more countries' charts to represent. Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, etc -- not a requirement, but worth looking at.

I'm going to put this on the backburner for now, as I am satisfied with how the page currently looks for sales information, but I hope to add other countries as I obtain the information.

PICTURES: I'm confused with what to do here. I had pictures and someone took them off recently citing me with copyright violations. However, I used official promotional photographs from Collins official website and provided more copyright information than the photos that were left on. Although I can understand that the childhood picture might have questionable copyright (although its one of the few photos his biography does not supply copyright information) and won't argue that, I don't understand why [[3]] and [[4]] were taken off since they're marked as promotional on the website and, especially the first photo, is used regularly on Allmusic.com, Billboard.com, etc. without references. I would like to use [[5]] and, if the BBC photo can't be used, then one of the other promotional photographs on the site. I obtained the promotional photos from [official site], and they're marked promotional. I properly sourced the photographs, which I learned from similiar photographs on The Beatles featured article; [[6]] & [[7]] are two examples. Am I doing something wrong using promotional photographs and providing the source?

I really don't know much about the details of copyright law, but as I understand it, "promo photo" as a fair use justification only applies to photos that actually come from a press kit. In any case, Collins is famous enough that it might be possible to find a fansite with a photo or two the webmaster would be willing to freely license. If he's ever performed at a USO show or other wise for the American military, you can try a .gov or .mil search and maybe find a public domain photo. The photos you've got now are probably justifiable as fair use, but they need a rationale, specific to their use on the article Phil Collins, explaining why they qualify as fair use.

Hmm, that probably won't work. I don't believe Collins ever performed for the US military/gov't (at least, my search couldn't find anything), and some photos I found on British .gov sites have copyright notices and links to the holders on them, so they're no good. As for contacting a webmaster for photos, that won't work well, either. I used to run a website, and I obtained my photos by going to the official websites and obtaining promo ones, much like I did here before being marked for copyright violation. I might use photographs from the albums themselves as a temp solution until another solution can be found.

Still no luck obtaining photographs. I'm currently writing to both the official website and the record label to see if I could obtain any official photographs for the site. Hopefully, in the meantime, someone else could upload a photograph which falls within standards.--Ataricodfish 21:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

AUDIO: I'm trying to avoid personally adding audio to the site, after all those RIAA lawsuits across the US. But I agree that Audio would be a nice addition.

Well, I wouldn't support it as a FA without some sound samples, but maybe someone else would be willing to upload them if you make the rest of the article excellent.

Reviewing the Wiki policy, and having seen 30 second samples on tons of websites, I have uploaded 30 second samples which I believe would be appropriate into the main article. The songs range from his first as lead singer of Genesis through his most recent solo single, five songs in total, modeled after the format in the Marilyn Manson featured article. I believe the audio requirement should be satisfied now.--Ataricodfish 21:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

REFERENCES: I've cleaned this section up MAJORLY. The references are now in order and were modeled after the references on the site you provided [[8]].

Try making a separate "references" section with each source listed once, and then a distinct notes section for page numbers and the like. A couple print sources that are not biographies would be very nice as well, such as general treatments of rock or pop or British music or whathaveyou -- I might be able to help with that.

I will work on this next.

DISCOGRAPHY: I was confused with this comment, as you said I should add singles information, but this was already there. I have recently added RIAA cert information for the singles, also.

The singles are in Phil Collins discography, but since he's a pop artist whose most famous recordings are probably more singles than albums, there ought to be some kind of list of his most well-known songs in the Phil Collins article. I suggest just those singles which charted in the Top Ten or something similar (aim for about a dozen or so of his most famous songs, selected along an objective criterion).

Ah, I understand now. I have put Collins UK and US #1 songs on the main page. The problem with Top 10, 20, 40, etc. is that Collins had a large number of hit singles, and I'm trying to avoid the "list" feel which the article previously had.

FORMAT/STYLE: I changed the "further reading" section to a list, as recommended, and cleaned up the "urban legend" section a little bit. I'm doing proofreading here and there as I find it, but I think my eyes have begun to grow used to my writing and I'll probably need more independent eyes.

The "Other Projects" section makes the layout confusing, since it jumps around. I suggesting integrating into it into a single biography section. And I really think the whole urban legend section should be merged into the article on the song, and a link with a sentence or two description in this article. The "Band" suggestion ought not be a list, I think, since there's a separate article anyway. Either write a couple paragraphs about his bandmates have changed over time, and how that has affected his sound, or just work a link somewhere into the lead. On copyediting, see the specific suggestions on the Featured Music Project page, I note some passive voice ("Collins was asked by", "songs have largely been forgotten"), movies not in quotes, sentences overly long ("Still, it appeared that Collins’ grasp on the pop charts had begun to weaken"). Try looking at each sentence and trying to make each one more concise. Tuf-Kat 06:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I got rid of much of the passive voice in my most recent review, and tried eliminating redundent words (I saw I used "also" a lot), so I think the article is much "tighter" now. I moved the "Other Projects" into other sections, as Nominal above also commented on this, and deleted the "Urban Legend" part as much of it overlapped the In the Air Tonight article. The format is much better now, and once the comprehensive part is completed, I think the article will be ready.--Ataricodfish 06:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again so much for the review, and I hope you could answer my questions in regards to the pictures! --Ataricodfish 05:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)