Talk:Queen (band)/GA1

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I have read through this article and everything seems to be in brilliant shape.

Nearly all citations are in perfect shape. Verifications and citations are sufficient.
Image licensing is immaculate.
The article appears to be stable.
No original research.
Completely neutral.
The article is well written and engaging.
Concise, relevant detail throughout.

Excellent work, listed as a good article. While I am here I have also been instructed to encourage you to review some articles yourselves, that are candidates for GAs. Thanks.

Reviewer: Kingcjc (talk) 22:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reopening this review

I am not happy with this review, so I am reopening it. I count at least five requests for citation in this article and many citations given as bare urls. That's just not good enough to meet the GA criteria. --Malleus Fatuorum 20:05, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The lead contains "Queen have been described as giving the greatest live performance ever,[2] producing the greatest song in history,[3] and being the best British band of all time", which is hardly NPOV. There are large sections that are almost entirely uncited, many items appear as factoids. Bare urls in the citations, no publisher info, unreliable sources... This article should never have been passed as a GA. Parrot of Doom 20:39, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just because it's neutral, doesn't mean you can't cite where the band has been described as amongst the best for doing something. Surely if it's neutral, you wouldn't want to try and remove such statements which fairly describe the band. All three of those claims are verified. That's like saying that listing the amount of albums sold on the page isn't neutral because it is better than some other bands. However, I concur in regards to the citations. I shall do what I can to improve such areas. TheStig 21:53, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reliably sourced opinions are of course OK, but some of the claims in the lead don't seem to be supported by the citations. I'll leave it to you though. Would you prefer this review to continue, or shall we close it and take this article to WP:GAR? As it stands, this article does not, in my opinion, meet the GA criteria, and it should not have been passed, so we need to sort that out. --Malleus Fatuorum 22:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you would be willing to re-assess this article? Naturally we'd appreciate if you could point out problems and give us some time for improvement, in order to reach the criteria. TheStig 08:22, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Here are a few things for starters:

Lead

"Queen are a British rock band that formed in 1970 and consisted of ...". Doesn't make sense to mix the present tense "are" and the past tense "consisted" like that. Either they were a rock band that consisted of, or they are a rock that consists of.

"Queen have been described as giving the greatest live performance ever,[2] producing the greatest song in history ...". That's not what the citation says. It says "all time best single", not song.

"According to the BBC, the band had sold over 300 million albums internationally by 2009, rendering them the world's second best-selling rock band, after The Beatles". The citation given does not seem to support that statement.

"... it was the release of Sheer Heart Attack (1974) and A Night at the Opera (1975) that gained the band international success, both critically and commercially". The citation given does not support that statement.

Citation #8 needs to be fixed.

Early days (1968–1974)

There are two requests for citation that need to be dealt with.

"... Tim Staffell became friends with Farrokh Bulsara, a fellow student who had assumed the English name of Freddie, and soon became a keen fan of Smile." Needs rewriting, as it is saying that Tim Staffell soon became a friend of Smile, not Freddie.

Is Queenzone.com a reliable source? Looks like a fan site to me.

"The band had a number of bass players during this period ...". What period?

What makes Queenpedia.com a reliable source?

"The album features long complex instrumental passages, fantasy-themed lyrics and musical virtuosity". The citation provided doesn't seem to support that statement.

Breakthrough era (1974–1976)

"Last half of first paragraph needs to be cited.

"... the band's manager Jim Beach successfully negotiated the band out of their Trident contract." That's the first time a Trident contract has been mentioned. In general I'm surprised to see nothing on their record contracts.

"Of the options they considered was an offer from Led Zeppelin’s manager, Peter Grant." Is there a missing word here?

"The British public voted it the 13th greatest album of all time in a 2004 Channel 4 poll And has also ranked highly in international polls ..." Needs rewriting with proper punctuation.

"which was number one in the UK for nine weeks, and is Britain’s third-best-selling single of all time; beaten only by Band Aid's Do They Know it's Christmas? and Elton John's Candle in the Wind 1997 – making it the best selling commercial single in the UK." How so? were Candle in the Wind and Do They Know it's Christmas given away free?

New sound and synthesisers (1980–1984)

There is a request for citation that needs to be dealt with.

The third, sixth, seventh, eighth and last paragraphs need to be cited.

The second paragraph is too short to stand alone and should be merged.

The first and fifth paragraphs need to be cited.

Digital realm

Perilously close to a trivia section, Is it really significant, for instance, that "The band also appeared in the video game, Lego Rock Band, as playable Lego avatars"?

Film and television

Largely a series of choppy short paragraps mostly uncited. Needs to be rewritten.

Musical theatre

First and last paragraphs need to be cited.

"The musical is touring around the UK in 2009 ...". we're now in 2010.

As almost all of the above issues remain outstanding I am closing this review as "no list". This article in fact seems to have deteriorated considerably during the course of this review, as I now count 11 requests for citation. It would be better to work out the issues raised away from the deadline of a GA review. --Malleus Fatuorum 14:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.