Template:Did you know nominations/Mark Olf

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:43, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Referencing issues

Mark Olf edit

  • ... that Mark Olf recorded 51 songs, most of which were unknown in the United States?
  • Comment: Over 1500 characters, an infobox, info about songs.

Created/expanded by Jmolf (talk). Nominated by Tomtomn00 (talk) at 17:51, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Just letting the reviewer know that they should take a look at the first revision (diff to cur) and its size before letting anyone give DYK credits. →Στc. 20:44, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Here, you did minor formatting, headers, and wikilinks.
  • Here, you changed a template for the <references/> tag.
  • Here, you added an infobox and a level 2 header.
  • Here, you added wikilinks.
  • Here, Nthep did minor formatting, headers, and wikilinks.
  • Here, Nthep added categories.
  • Here, Nthep filled in several infobox parameters and added persondata and an incorrectly formatted defaultsort.
  • Here, Nthep corrected the defaultsort.
  • Here, Jmolf edited infobox parameters and fixed an instance of heading-nesting.
  • The diff from the first revision to the current revision ([1], wikiEd diff tool is very helpful here) shows that there was no significant content expansion made to the article since the first revision. But, I'll take you at your word. Did Rcsprinter use your sandbox for the article, as he stated in his edit summary? →Στc. 23:03, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I have done more edits than that. Anyway, can someone just review the article? Tomtomn00 (talkcontributions) 09:52, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Can someone just review it... Tomtomn00 (talkcontributions) 18:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment: The owner of Folkways Records, the late Moses Asch, contracted artists who were making a major contribution to preserving via recordings the (otherwise) oral tradition of folklore. Hence, one many assume correctly that Olf's Folkways Records contributed significantly to the documentation and preservation of Jewish folk music, and that some (if not many) songs that he recorded had not previously been recorded in the United States. I would, therefore, argue for keeping the original wording of the article; namely, " . . . in all, fifty-one songs, some of which had not previously been heard in the United States.[1]" Original recordings pre-1951 of Yiddish folk music are no longer in print, and there are scant catalogs of such work. If one is interested in learning which of Olf's songs may or may not have been previously recorded and (therefore) available in the United States, one may begin by obtaining the names of all of Olf's recorded songs by following the first link in this Wikipedia article. --Jmolf

Logistics
Review
  • poor hook and sourcing concerns
    • The hook is incoherent and unsupported by both the article and the corresponding citation.
      I see in the article the clause "some of which had not previously been heard in the United States". "some" became "most", which is an arbitrary revision. Also, why would readers care if the songs were unfamiliar in the US? Why the Americentrism?
      The corresponding citation ([2]). I see no text there that supports the hook.
    • "Olf died without knowing that his music had become part of the nation's archives and would remain available in perpetuity." is unsourced and unnecessary.
    • Please source the other unsourced sentences in the article and ensure the article's text is faithful to the sources.

Goodvac (talk) 23:10, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Another review. The subject is notable and I don't doubt the veracity of the article, but unfortunately it appears that a substantial amount of the content is from unpublished "family papers" (one of the contributors appears to be a family member). Wikipedia articles need to be based on published content, ideally secondary sources. Unfortunately, unless additional published sources can be found and cited, we can't use this in DYK.
Google search identified some books and periodicals that mention Mark Olf and appear to discuss his work in broader context, but I do not have access to the paper copies of these books to see what they say about him and his music.
For musicians, liner notes often provide some useful information, but the online liner notes for Olf's recordings are largely lyrics. I did find this set of liner notes for his Hebrew album, which includes some biographical information and -- interestingly -- indicates that he learned the Hebrew songs from participants in the Jewish camps where he led singing sessions. (Stands to reason, since the nation of Israel, where Hebrew was being reinvented as a living language, was only 9 years old at the time of the recording.) --Orlady (talk) 15:48, 17 April 2012 (UTC)