Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Wake Me Up When September Ends/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 3 October 2024 [1].

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Nominator(s): λ NegativeMP1 07:04, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about "Wake Me Up When September Ends", a song by Green Day from their critically acclaimed album American Idiot. Initially written as a song about the death of the bands front mans father in 1982, it has been interpreted as a song about the September 11 attacks, and was given a sort of third-life after an edit went viral pairing it with footage of Hurricane Katrina. It's probably the second most popular song off the album, as well as my personal favorite song, which motivated me to start working on the article for it about two months ago. Since then, all worthwhile sourcing and relevant available information that I could find as been added to the article, and it became a GA in late August. I now firmly believe that this article has little in the way of the star. This is also my first FAC on a music article, and my third FAC overall. I look forward to addressing any comments. λ NegativeMP1 07:04, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I really appreciate the comments that y'all left below Graham, Marano and SNUGGUMS. I agree that I should've let this article cook longer, and I think the improvements needed cannot feasibly been done within the time span of an FAC given my current inconsistent schedule. I'll keep these comments in mind for the future. @FAC coordinators: I would like to withdraw this nomination if possible, and maybe in a few months I'll renominate. Thanks. λ NegativeMP1 03:47, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't shoot the messenger, but the prose needs more work. Here are some issues:

• "with some viewing it" This a fused participle that good writers try to avoid. (See WP:PLUSING).
• "It charted in several countries, reaching number one in countries such as the Czech Republic and Croatia, while reaching number six on the US Billboard Hot 100" The second "in countries" is redundant
• "with critics highlighting" this is another fused participle
• "It depicts a young couple (played by Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood) that is split up" Here "couple" is a discretionary plural and should take the plural verb "are".
• "Bayer stated that" The word "stated" is overused in Wikipedia articles, (particularly by writers from the US), most often they simply "said" something.
• "band's concerts and tours" I think the "and tours" is redundant padding.
• "form into" This sounds odd to my ears
• "with Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone considering" Thus is another fused participle.
• "and his life since that day" Here, "that day" is redundant padding
• "Armstrong emphasizes the time that had occurred since then" Does time really occur?
• "a weekly segment of the youth radio station Triple J" This sounds awkward and the meaning is not clear (at least to me).
• "Another version of the song, covered by Australian pop-punk band" Why "another" and not just "a"?
• "though believed that some of the songs lyrics" is there a word missing here?
• "Consequentially, the band sees increased profits during those days" I think a better word is "revenue" and does the money come in on the days or later?

I think other reviewers might find other issues, so please treat these as examples. Graham Beards (talk) 09:52, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate you taking the time to bring these issues up, and I've fixed them and conducted more copyedits with some of the advice you gave. I'm still trying to get the grasp of FA-level writing to some extent. λ NegativeMP1 15:59, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Putting down a placeholder, since, you know, September is ending...--NØ 14:22, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Ballad is not a genre and should not be in the genre field in the infobox. If a source has referred to it as a rock ballad, though, rock can still be included there.
• I think the short version video link could be dropped from the infobox since usually only the most notable video of a song is included, and it has a significantly lower viewcount.
• Given the readable prose size of around 16k characters, the lead should have no more than three paragraphs according to the old MOS:LEADLENGTH guideline, although I see they have made it less specific recently.
• "The song" is used in three consecutive sentences in the first paragraph of the lead so you could introduce some variation there.
• "The song's lyrics have also been interpreted in other ways" - Would benefit from being converted to active voice, i.e. "Critics have interpreted ..."
• "The song is a rock ballad, starting with an acoustic guitar and later introducing an electric guitar and bells." - This reads like the song is doing the introducing. Maybe "later includes"?
• "reaching number one in the Czech Republic and Croatia, while reaching number six on" - Close repetition of "reaching" could be avoided
• The RIAA abbreviation could be omitted from the lead since it is not used again.
• "While initial reactions to the song were mixed, it has been since praised for its lyrics and is now considered one of Green Day's best." - It is not clear who considers it their best
• "It received the Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Song award at the 2006 Kids' Choice Awards" - Repetition could be avoided by saying something like "It received the Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Song award at the 2006 ceremony", and I am not sure Green Day's nomination for Favorite Music Group is relevant in the song article
• "It depicts a young couple (played by Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood) that are split up after the boyfriend joins the United States Marine Corps during the Iraq War, and leaves the fate of him and his division uncertain." - This should be rewritten for better flow
• The whole lead could benefit from being converted to active voice.

The comments so far are focused on the lead. Let me know if you find these doable within the time constraints of the FAC process. I don't think there would be any shame if the article went through the peer review process first since quite a bit of work is required. The article seems well-researched, though, and it is just the prose that needs revision.--NØ 16:25, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I second all of the points MaranoFan listed above on the lead's prose, and would like to add these:

• Try to avoid one-sentence paragraphs like you did with the Hurricane Katrina association
• The use of "several" from "charted in several countries" is a vast understatement. To arbitrarily cherry-pick only three of them raises eyebrows, and I'd minimally implement where it made the top 20: Australia, Austria, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland (yes that has its own chart), and the United Kingdom. If you'd like to also include primary charts where this went to the top 30, then that would be fine.

Now for the body:

• Cut the detail on Warning as well as Cigarettes and Valentines; they're better suited for the American Idiot album page instead of here. Same goes for the exact release date of parent album.
• What benefit does File:Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends.ogg provide besides giving fans an ear treat? Its caption doesn't help justify inclusion per criterion#8 of WP:Non-free content criteria. Furthermore, I can't tell whether this is supposed to be 28 or 29 seconds long (there's a discrepancy between file data and what gets shown on the Wiki page). Remember that for songs shorter than 5 minutes (equaling 300 seconds), you can only have 10% or less of the total duration, so 28 is the most allowed for a 285-second track.
• You'll need an in-text citation to support the assessment "Initial reception towards 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' was mixed."
• The "Commercial performance" section is missing most nations it charted in, and you should spell out the RIAA acronym here like you did in the lead. My same recommendation for which charts to add applies here.
• "Music video" is a commonly recognized term that doesn't need linking per WP:OVERLINK, and only 4 reviews doesn't seem like nearly enough for a famous one (I'm counting video rankings towards this)
• "Live performances and other versions" looks incomplete without any details on performances (besides tour/location) or critics' comments
• Contractions should be avoided unless part of a quote or title, so change the "didn't" contained within "some of the lyrics didn't make sense" to "did not"

Getting into citations:

• Don't use italics for MTV News, El portal de Música, or the video names of refs #8 or #53. You also neglected to put YouTube in a "via" field for both linked videos.
• "EW.com" → Entertainment Weekly
• Remember to use access dates for all URLs
• In general, remember to have authors whenever known
• Not sure whether Diffuser or Mixdown are trustworthy (I'm unfamiliar with these publications)

I'm going to oppose for now because of prose issues, some incorrect formatting with references (plus two of uncertain reliability but that could just be my own ignorance), and not being comprehensive enough in coverage. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 03:06, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been withdrawn, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 09:51, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.