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Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Eminem/1

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Eminem

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: Delisted There is consensus that the various [citation needed] tags and use of questionable sources mean this article cannot be easily fixed to meet GA criteria #2. The prose and adherence to the MOS has also come under criticism. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 08:57, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried to fix this article up to be on par with GA standards, but it seems beyond repair at this point, so I am raising a community reassessment. Details to follow. Snuggums (talk / edits) 04:06, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well-written?

  • Prose quality: I've seen worse, but it needs work. There are grammar problems such as "In September 2007 Eminem called" and "In December 2008 the rapper" missing commas after the time frames. Things like "most successive" and "Eminem described the CD" right before a quote read rather awkwardly.
    • I agree the prose needs work. There is is some language that's a bit too informal for an encyclopaedia, and some ambiguities—for example: "ground-zero for the Detroit rap scene" mixes both issues. "Ground zero" is too informal, and I'm not sure if it's meant to mean "the active heart of the Detroit rap scene" or "where the the Detroit scene got its start". I have virtually zero knowledge on the subject, so I don't know how to fix it. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:23, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Manual of style: Needs work. There are references with incorrect uses (or lack of) of italics (i.e. St. Petersburg Times and Billboard should be italicized while things like BBC News and "MediaResearch.org" shouldn't), and the only song mentioned in the lead is his Oscar-winning "Lose Yourself", which isn't enough by itself when he's had other highly successful songs like "Not Afraid", "Love the Way You Lie", and "Monster".

Verifiable?

  • Reference layout: Lots of citations are malformatted (i.e. itunes.apple.com should be iTunes or iTunes Store while "Music.yahoo.com" should read Yahoo! Music), and there are also incorrect uses (or lack of) italics.
  • Reliable sources: Quite worrisome; sources like "antiMusic.com", "Uproxx", Daily Mail, and Us Weekly are dubious at best.
  • No original research: Problematic. Dead links make material hard to verify, and there should be no statements with [citation needed] tags. I've also found untagged statements missing citations such as "The Slim Shady LP has been certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA" and "The Marshall Mathers LP has been certified 11× platinum by the RIAA".
    • I've added WayBack archives for most of the problematic links, although a couple of them have been excleded from WB. Two or three already had WB links, but from the way the refs were formatted, the deadlinks checker didn't pick up on them. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:04, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Broad in coverage?

  • Major aspects: While it mentions many song lyrics and themes, the article lacks detail on how his first album Infinite was a commercial failure and levels of song commercial success (or lack thereof) for many singles (mainly before his musical hiatus).
  • Focused: The article lacks some aspects, but goes into too much detail on others. There's too much lyric and theme discussion (probably best to limit it to mainly overall album themes). The "personal life" section is also rather bloated (I'm not sure its subsection "Alleged homophobia" is even needed).

Neutral?: As far as I can tell, there isn't any bias within the article.

Stable?: Not sure. While I was in a content dispute (though not to the extent of an edit war) with another editor within the past month, they turned out to be a sockpuppet and there weren't very many edits while the discussion took place (which was basically void once I found the user was blocked for socking).

Illustrated, if possible, by images?

This is not an exhaustive list of the problems I see, and there might be some even I haven't noticed yet. As much as I love Eminem, I cannot in good conscience let this go any longer without an article review, especially since it was promoted back in 2008. Opinions on article quality from others are quite welcome. Snuggums (talk / edits) 04:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't given this article a detailed review, but think some of the points raised here–while certainly useul for article improvement–are not necessarily criteria for listing or delisting (if italics or minor punctuation errors need fixing, fix em!). Good Articles don't need to be as stellar or complete as Featured Articles (see WP:GVF). The Good Article criteria don't include citation format, just that content is cited. I see nothing wrong with highlighting "Lose Yourself" in the lead, as although Eminem has won many awards, only one of these is an Academy Award, the Grammys are already mentioned in the lead, and leads should err on the side of brevity rather than comprehensiveness. I do think the section on Legal problems can be condensed, and many quotes simply removed throughout, but personal preferences aren't the GA criteria, and Good Articles can of course always be improved. Whether sources like Us Weekly or Uproxx are acceptable is partly dependent on the claim they are supporting: if they are merely repackaging non-controversial information available from a variety of sources (i.e. daily news bites, wire feeds, etc.), they are probably harmless, although more reputable sources stating the same would be preferred. If these sources are the only ones reporting a certain fact, then skepticism should demand higher quality. antimusic.com should probably not be used as a source, as its parent company seems to lack strong or any editorial oversight. As for images, they seem acceptable to me, and quality is not a criterion; sometimes we have to work with what we have, and that's not usually not professional quality photographs from the most appropriate time period. My gut feeling is that the article could use some polishing (a ref here, a rewording there) but nothing jumps out as warranting de-listing. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:46, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm well aware that FA and GA standards are quite different. To clarify, I know that just a few misuses of italics isn't reason for concern, but the issue is MANY don't use them correctly. No personal preferences were invoked in my comments. I also never said "Lose Yourself" shouldn't be in the lead—it by all means should be there since it won him an Oscar—what I'm saying is that there should be more songs listed than only that. Snuggums (talk / edits) 01:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Retrohead comments
  • I see there are some references that don't follow the formatting style of the others. I think this is when IP users add content but forget to properly format the refs, which is a common occurrence at high-profile artists such as Eminem.
  • The awards section could at least make a bulleted list of the most important awards Eminem has won so far. I see this section also points some recognitions and accolades that aren't awards in the purest meaning of the term, such as the Rolling Stone list and few others.
  • The life and career section, as far as I know about Eminem (which is not much), is well researched, and doesn't neglect important details. There are some weaknesses in the prose, clearly some ambiguous statements (which Curly Turkey pointed), but due to my knowledge on the subject, I'm neutral on whether to keep or delist the article.--Retrohead (talk) 10:45, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Pedro's comments
  • Unfortunately I don't have enough time to go over the entire article now as I also have an extensive GAN to review, but if I may comment on the italics issue, please see MOS:T. I still don't know how Wikipedia prefers to treat online websites, if they have to be italicized or not. And, if not, using the publisher parameter to refer to a website in cite web, for example, is wrong. Pedro u | t 19:02, 13 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by SSTflyer
  • In my opinion, the MoS violations and reference styling issues with this article do not cause it to fail WP:WIAGA requirements. As far as I know, citation consistency is a WP:FA requirement, not a WP:GA requirement. The prose quality is an issue though, as pointed out by Curly Turkey. This article currently fails WP:WTW, part of the GA criteria. If these cannot be resolved in a timely manner, I would say delist. SSTflyer 05:09, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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