Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Kanye West/1

Kanye West

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • 2008 GA review

Result: Delisted (t · c) buidhe 12:05, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm not convinced this up to GA standards. For the record, this is what the article looked like when first promoted in 2008. What I'm looking at now is unsurprisingly quite different. Details to follow. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 01:53, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

When going through the WP:Good article criteria, here's my assessment based on the latter diff:

• Prose: The lead fails to take into account any of Kanye's songs. Not even huge successes for him like "Gold Digger" or "Stronger" are included. Not sure why there's no mention of his 2020 Presidential campaign (even if largely perceived as a joke). Going into the article body, calling songs "hits" isn't encyclopedic language (something I see repeatedly used). Within "1996–2002: Early work and Roc-A-Fella Records", "gangsta image" from "did not portray the 'gangsta image' prominent in mainstream hip hop" should be in double-quotation marks instead of singular. I'm not sure "shooting" from "shooting to number two on the Billboard 200" under "2003–2006: The College Dropout and Late Registration" is the best tone. The use of "perhaps" in "perhaps exposed West to a wider audience" is overly speculative. I recommend splitting "However, partly because of the acclaim of The College Dropout, such sampling had been much copied by others; with that overuse, and also because West felt he had become too dependent on the technique, he decided to find a new sound" where the semi-colon is placed when this is an overly long sentence. Furthermore, "overuse" sounds like a personal opinion. Avoid using contractions unless part of a quote or title. Sections such as "2019–present: Jesus Is King and Donda: With Child", "Fashion", "Business ventures", "Architecture", "Politics", "General media", "Relationships and family", "Mother's death", and "Religious beliefs" contain overly short paragraphs that make the flow of text look choppy.

• Referencing: Not all claims are sourced, and certain references such as The Daily Beast, GigWise, Global Grind, and New York Post are subpar/questionable. Some citations also aren't formatted properly, missing publication names, authors, or dates. There should be no dead links.

• Coverage: How are things like high school grades worth including? I see no need for "industry executives' predictions that a song containing such blatant declarations of faith would never make it to radio" regarding "Jesus Walks", and also feel this goes into excessive detail on Donda's death, which doesn't warrant a separate section no matter how much it impacted the guy. Any "sales competition" between Graduation and 50 Cent's Curtis is better for those albums' individual articles.

• Neutrality: This is another big problem. Lumping controversies into one section is frowned upon within biographies (as the article currently does) because it creates undue negative weight. One would be better off interspersing controversial actions within other parts of article prose instead. Also, see my earlier comments on tone for certain bits of prose.

• Stability: Seems OK at the moment. No edit wars or major changes appear to be taking place lately.

• Media: While I don't see any copyright violations, aligning all images to the right is needlessly monotonous. It's preferable to have images of people "face" text when possible plus having some alignments towards the left helps give some diversity.

The above is not an exhaustive list of the article's problems. Given the vast amount of content present along with over 500 citations, I don't feel confident in my abilities to conduct an individual reassessment, so I opted for a community one so more sets of eyes can view the page and perhaps list other things to address. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 02:46, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

• First of all, neat about the facing text thing, I didn't know that before. I looked at the article and found a few [citation needed] as well. There may be others not tagged. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 23:39, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

• Because West is such a controversial figure, as noted in the lead and "Legacy" section of the article, I don't mind this article having a "Controversies" section. We don't have a policy or guideline on that. What we do have is the [[]] essay, and it somewhat allows for such a section. CriticismFlyer22 Frozen (talk) 19:21, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• The essay you linked says Sections within an article dedicated to negative criticisms are normally also discouraged. Topical or thematic sections are frequently superior to sections devoted to criticism. Though I do realize he's stirred up lots of controversy and there are subheadings for topics within the "Controversies" section, that doesn't ease my concerns on how such sections/subsections can easily become bloated. It's almost asking for trouble. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 20:29, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

That WP:CSECTION uses the word "normally" and the part specifically about controversies states "Sections or article titles should generally not include the word 'controversies'." It uses the word "generally." The "Approaches to presenting criticism" section includes "Controversy section" as one approach that may be used. So, again, WP:Criticism somewhat allows for such a section. Wikipedia has exceptions in a number of cases, and I see West, given his controversial nature -- which is a part of his notability/legacy -- as an exception when it comes to having a "Controversies" section. I'm certain that some people come to this article to read about a controversy West was involved in. I'm not keen on controversy sections and they can be a pain to maintain because of the bloating you mentioned. West, though, doesn't have many notable controversies. So minor stuff should be excluded per WP:Due. And if sources don't label a matter a controversy, we shouldn't either. We can also trim what is already there. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 20:55, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

• Trimming this article's section would probably help. In the meantime, feel free to point out anything else in the page you feel could be improved upon. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 21:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, where is the consensus for delisting this article? Because I'm not seeing it. What we have above is criticism by one editor and two comments by two others that don't state, "Yeah, delist." So this might as well have not even been a community review. I'm thinking of taking this to WP:Close review. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 23:26, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

• Flyer22 Frozen I am judging the policy-based rationales for keeping versus delisting the article. Neither you nor User:Zeke, the Mad Horrorist state that the article meets all of the GA criteria, that it should not be delisted, or counter all of SNUGGUMS' points regarding deficiencies vis-a-vis the criteria. Before closing I checked the article and noted that it still contains non-cited content, which means SNUGGUMS' points about verifiability still apply regardless of disputes about one section of the article. Since it has been open more than a month and there is no indication that anyone is working to bring it up to standard, it is entirely appropriate to close. (t · c) buidhe 23:37, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, I do not see where the article fails Wikipedia:Good article criteria#The six good article criteria. Certainly not all six. If I did, I would have stated so. Wikipedia:Good article reassessment states that "Unless an article's issues are extensive, consider taking the following steps before initiating a reassessment." It then lists steps that should have been followed, including by the nominator. And that nominator stated to me above, "Trimming this article's section would probably help. In the meantime, feel free to point out anything else in the page you feel could be improved upon." No time limit was given. And, again, it's not only up to others besides the nominator to fix things that are easily fixable. This reassessment was pretty much a single-person reassessment. And I really cannot stand those types of reassessments since they are based on the opinion of one person.

No need to ping me if you reply. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 23:47, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

The article doesn't need to fail all six criteria to be delisted. Instead, it must be shown to meet all criteria to remain listed. That has not been shown in this case. I believe SNUGGUMS has indicated that in their opinion, the issues with the article are indeed extensive, so the "before" steps would not apply. (t · c) buidhe 23:52, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I did not state that it must fail all six. What I did state is that Wikipedia:Good article reassessment lists steps that should have been followed. It is very clear that reassessment is supposed to be about fixing. It focuses on that explicitly. A few things are unsourced? So. Source them. As for prose, SNUGGUMS is very particular about the prose SNUGGUMS prefers. Not everyone agrees with SNUGGUMS's views on prose. You stated, "I believe SNUGGUMS has indicated that in their opinion, the issues with the article are indeed extensive, so the 'before' steps would not apply." Yeah, that's the problem -- one editor's opinion. There is nothing in that article that could not have been fixed by SNUGGUMS and in a timely fashion. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 00:04, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I just wanted to add that I do often trust SNUGGUMS's views on what makes a good article. And I think SNUGGUMS knows that. It's just that, like I stated, I don't think that there was enough input to delist the article like that, and I think it would have been better to put more editors on notice about improving the article, and it doesn't seem to me that the issues were so extensive and something that couldn't be fixed within a day, two, or a few, that the article needed delisting. But I'll likely let this go. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 00:41, 12 November 2020 (UTC) Tweaked post. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 00:42, 12 November 2020 (UTC)