Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Yes (band)/1
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Lots of uncited statements, including entire paragraphs. At over 10,000 words long, this article is WP:TOOBIG and has too much detail. Z1720 (talk) 15:01, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
- There are indeed several unsourced statements within the article. Are there any sections in particular that you believe are too detailed? If you can identify some areas for improvement, I can try to scale it back a bit. In terms of references, I do not possess any Yes books, so any sources I add will likely be limited to websites, newspapers, magazines, and online texts that are available through the Internet Archive. Dobbyelf62 (talk) 16:37, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
- Hi all - I have access to the Yes books (at least the main ones we rely on in the article), so happy to help out I have time or if you want me to look up a citation! Thanks, Caleb Stanford (talk) 19:58, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
- The "WP:TOOBIG" policy mentions "though the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material." This article concerns the history and ongoing activity of a band that has so far spanned 56 years, 20+ members, numerous other collaborators, 24 studio albums, cultural impact, etc. Numerous pages on bands with similarly long histories have similarly long word counts. OP - do you have an example of an article of parallel topic complexity that should be a model for the level of brevity you believe is appropriate? ` —Op\Shada\nG (talk | contribs) 15:12, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- @Shubopshadangalang: AC/DC was promoted in 2023 and might be a good model for a band (although their achivements might be a bit bloated, but I haven't taken a thorough look). Beyonce is about 9,300 words and I would argue that she has a lot more information that needs to be included in her article: this article is getting ready for an WP:FAC. Z1720 (talk) 15:25, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- Based on those examples, which have shorter, less complex histories (with fewer lineup changes, and fewer album releases, for example), are only slightly shorter than this article. If anything, these examples tell me that this article could easily justify being longer. —Op\Shada\nG (talk | contribs) 15:31, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- We could always skip huge sections of the band history for the sake of brevity, and employ the very well-received Star Wars sequel trilogy method, and open a section of the article with "Somehow, Rick Wakeman returned." —Op\Shada\nG (talk | contribs) 15:33, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- I just tested this, and we can reduce the article length by nearly 3000 words by removing the 15 years of history between Tormato and Keys to Ascension. I recommend making this change and seeing whether there's any negative feedback from other editors. —Op\Shada\nG (talk | contribs) 15:41, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- Skipping 15 years of history is probably not to solution. However, there is information that can be removed such as what individual band members did during the band's hiatus (these can be moved to the person's biography). I went through the first paragraph of the article and made lots of edits to reduce the prose. This included WP:TMI about rehearsal space, their last performance, a quote with no context that did not influence actions, and some word redundancies. I think with a copyedit of the whole article lots of this information can be spun out or removed as WP:TMI. Please note that none of this resolves the uncited text that is in the article, which I can highlight with "citation needed" templates if asked. Z1720 (talk) 16:07, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not entirely convinced such removals are warranted, based on previous editors' consensus, but as a good faith experiment, I've made edits to the haitus section based on your suggestion, removing all side/non-Yes projects from that period. Curious to see how this is viewed by other editors. —Op\Shada\nG (talk | contribs) 19:22, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not entirely sure about the removals, either - for instance, some of the info removed in this diff provides context on the formation of the band that could be considered important, and it's not obvious that removing it is doing the article any favors. Would it be better to trim down some of the later sections (1995 to present), perhaps forking some of it off to a separate article, and to keep these important details about the early history? The edits to the Hiatus section look good to me. Caleb Stanford (talk) 06:39, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
- P.S. The cn templates would be helpful! Though I assume you are just looking for all uncited sentences to be cited? I.e. we could aim to cite throughout at the sentence level (I generally prefer this style anyway). Thanks! Caleb Stanford (talk) 06:41, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not entirely convinced such removals are warranted, based on previous editors' consensus, but as a good faith experiment, I've made edits to the haitus section based on your suggestion, removing all side/non-Yes projects from that period. Curious to see how this is viewed by other editors. —Op\Shada\nG (talk | contribs) 19:22, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- Skipping 15 years of history is probably not to solution. However, there is information that can be removed such as what individual band members did during the band's hiatus (these can be moved to the person's biography). I went through the first paragraph of the article and made lots of edits to reduce the prose. This included WP:TMI about rehearsal space, their last performance, a quote with no context that did not influence actions, and some word redundancies. I think with a copyedit of the whole article lots of this information can be spun out or removed as WP:TMI. Please note that none of this resolves the uncited text that is in the article, which I can highlight with "citation needed" templates if asked. Z1720 (talk) 16:07, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- LOL! :) Caleb Stanford (talk) 06:39, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
- I just tested this, and we can reduce the article length by nearly 3000 words by removing the 15 years of history between Tormato and Keys to Ascension. I recommend making this change and seeing whether there's any negative feedback from other editors. —Op\Shada\nG (talk | contribs) 15:41, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- We could always skip huge sections of the band history for the sake of brevity, and employ the very well-received Star Wars sequel trilogy method, and open a section of the article with "Somehow, Rick Wakeman returned." —Op\Shada\nG (talk | contribs) 15:33, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- Based on those examples, which have shorter, less complex histories (with fewer lineup changes, and fewer album releases, for example), are only slightly shorter than this article. If anything, these examples tell me that this article could easily justify being longer. —Op\Shada\nG (talk | contribs) 15:31, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- @Shubopshadangalang: AC/DC was promoted in 2023 and might be a good model for a band (although their achivements might be a bit bloated, but I haven't taken a thorough look). Beyonce is about 9,300 words and I would argue that she has a lot more information that needs to be included in her article: this article is getting ready for an WP:FAC. Z1720 (talk) 15:25, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- The "WP:TOOBIG" policy mentions "though the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material." This article concerns the history and ongoing activity of a band that has so far spanned 56 years, 20+ members, numerous other collaborators, 24 studio albums, cultural impact, etc. Numerous pages on bands with similarly long histories have similarly long word counts. OP - do you have an example of an article of parallel topic complexity that should be a model for the level of brevity you believe is appropriate? ` —Op\Shada\nG (talk | contribs) 15:12, 23 June 2025 (UTC)
- Hi all - I have access to the Yes books (at least the main ones we rely on in the article), so happy to help out I have time or if you want me to look up a citation! Thanks, Caleb Stanford (talk) 19:58, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
Caleb Stanford and other interested editors: I have added citation needed tags to the article. I am happy for any of my deleted prose to be returned to the article, but please note here if something is put back so there can be a discussion if necessary. As someone who does not know this band, I my goal was to remove information that I thought was more trivia or not needed to understand who this band was and their accomplishments. Z1720 (talk) 13:17, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for your help. The citation needed tags will help users identify areas of improvement. In terms of trimming the article, it is my opinion that the band's 50+ year history necessitates a relatively long article to accommodate for the band's numerous personnel changes, releases, tours, and any other notable event worth mentioning. Of course, if anyone would like to flag certain passages for removal, I am receptive to assessing the merits of the contested content.
- Upon looking at the article again, I have also identified another issue: On no less than 21 occasions, AllMusic is used as a reference to cite chart positions in the United States. While AllMusic used to provide chart histories for bands and solo artists, this feature is no longer present. As such, it would be advisable to swap out the AllMusic references with information from Billboard. Dobbyelf62 (talk) 16:40, 24 June 2025 (UTC)