Wikipedia:Peer review/Bad (album)/archive1

Bad (album)

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because the GA nominee log has a long waiting period, so I think that it would be better if the article has a peer review to correct its current problems so the GA review could go faster, when its reviewed. I'd be very grateful if any users could list problems with the page so that I could correct them. Thanks, Crystal Clear x3 [talk] 00:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Please find a copy-editor. The article's prose is quite poor and needs a lot of sprucing up. Also, make sure you have the information well-organised too. For example, the lead mentions in two different places that 5 of the 10 singles hit number one in the US.—indopug (talk) 18:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I fixed the redundancy you mentioned about the albums lead. I do not know of any copy editors on wikipedia, could you list one of them. Thanks, Crystal Clear x3 [talk] 06:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I copy edited 'Background and production'. Can you use this sample to copy edit the rest of your article? I didn't read the entire article (I'm not a fan of Jackson); it looks well researched.Bettymnz4 (talk) 04:02, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: A lot of work has gone into this article, which is broad in coverage, verifiable, neutral, and stable. However, it needs careful proofreading and copyediting to have a chance at GA. At least one of the images (the gold-plated jacket) has a licensing problem that may be insurmountable. I also have doubts that a fair-use rationale for a second album cover will stand up; the two cover images are nearly identical.

Background and production

• "Following Jackson's career as a solo artist, while still a member of the band, he received more creative freedom on his studio albums Off the Wall (1979) and Thriller (1982); both albums were commercial successes." - This doesn't seem logical. It seems to say that Jackson's solo career and his career with the band were simultaneous and that after they were over, he had more creative freedom. But his solo career wasn't over.

 Done I reworded the sentence to "When Jackson began work on solo music projects, while still a member of the band, he received more creative freedom on his studio albums Off the Wall (1979) and Thriller (1982); both albums were commercial successes. Bad echoed the same option of Jackson being given creative freedom on the albums music.[1]" Crystal Clear x3 [talk] 06:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

• "Bad echoed the same option." - I'm not sure what "option" refers to.

I re-worded the sentence to "Bad echoed the same option of Jackson being given creative freedom on the albums music.[1]" Crystal Clear x3 [talk] 06:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

• "Jackson began recording demos for the anticipated follow-up to Thriller few months after the 1984 Victory Tour with The Jacksons." - Missing word?

 Done Crystal Clear x3 [talk] 06:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Composition

• ""Dirty Diana" was viewed by critics as a "misogynistic", and its lyrics pertaining to a sexual predator, do not aim for the "darkness" of "Billie Jean"; but instead, sounds equally intrigued by an apprehensive of a sexual challenge, while having the opportunity to accept or resist it." - This makes little sense as written. A reader who does not know what "Billie Jean" is about will not be able to compare the two. Furthermore, "apprehensive" means "fearful", and is not a noun although it is being used like a noun.

Release and marketing

• "The album stayed at the top position for eleven consecutive weeks, before be succeeded by Stevie Wonders album Characters on the issue date December 19, 1987... ". - "Before be"? Wonder's, not Wonders.

 Done Crystal Clear x3 [talk] 06:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Copyediting

• I've just noted a few of the small errors in grammar, logic, and syntax in the article. I agree with User:indopug that it would be helpful to find a copyeditor. That's sometimes a tall order, because there's almost always a shortage of copyeditors and reviewers. You might try asking people on the copyediting list at WP:PRV, or someone from WP:ALBUMS might take an interest, or you might ask a writer or editor friend on or off Wikipedia to go over the whole article looking for small errors. If you want to ask someone who is off-line, you can print a copy for proofing.

Images

• The gold-plated jacket is a nice image, but its license won't pass close inspection. Its source is a Flickr image that is marked "all rights reserved". Thus the uploader had no right to re-license it as CC-by-SA 2.0. This is not your fault, but the image should not have been posted to the Commons.

Nitpicks

• In the lead, numbers like twenty million are written as words, while in '"Background and production" they are written as digits. Generally, numbers bigger than nine are written as digits, although there are some exceptions listed in the Manual of Style. In any case, you should be consistent throughout the article. This "words or digits" question is a sort of nit-picky thing to point out, but I see other nit-picky things in the article that begin to add up after a while. WP:ORDINAL has details about numbers.
• Another nitpick is that the date formatting in the "Reference" section needs to be consistent. Since you are pretty much stuck with m-d-y format in the Billboard.com citations, probably switching to m-d-y throughout is the only sensible way to achieve consistency.
• The "Reference" section is overlinked. A large fraction of it is blue and linked, which makes the links not special. I would not, for example, link billboard.com or Nielsen Business Media more than once. You can probably justify linking them and similar things on first use, but no purpose is served by linking the same things over and over.
• In the "Reference" section, the author's last name should come first. For example, citation 60 should start with "Silverman, Stephen M.

This is not a complete line-by-line review, but I hope these few suggestions prove helpful. Finetooth (talk) 02:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)