Talk:Collings Guitars

Article issues?

I really do not understand why the criticisms leveled at this article

• The article is factual, so I don't understand why someone thinks it's written "like an advertisement"
• Collings guitars is a highly respected instrument in the "Artisan Guitars" category. Collings guitars are sufficiently "notable" that they are sold in high-end guitar shops here in Massachusetts, roughly 1,600 miles away from where the guitars are made in Austin (i.e., there is no local, parochial, connection).

— Preceding unsigned comment added by BruceMount (talk • contribs) 11:47, September 23, 2012‎

Side note: I took the liberty to create a section title for your comments, it adds an "Edit" link on the right hand side so it's possible to edit just this section, meaning the edits aren't to the whole talk page. I also added a signature to your comment.

You bring up two very important points about this article. Both of them are to me issues that might not be apparent to those who are not familiar with how a typical article on Wikipedia should be written. The article is mostly factual, but the content makes it appear more like a brochure about the company and its guitars, than an encyclopaedic article. The majority of the content is descriptions of the various models Collings offers, which is typically not what Wikipedia articles should contain (see for instance Wikipedia is not a directory). A straightforward, although somewhat time-consuming improvement would be to gather more information about the company's history and expand the History section while also condensing the Models section. Instead of listing everything they produce it could perhaps mention the models the company is well-known for, in particular models they have that are dissimilar to ones from other companies.

When it comes the notability of Collings the issue is not that the company isn't notable, they're likely well-known to a lot of guitarists. The problem is that the article does not state why they are notable. It should have a sentence or two explaining why this company is worth writing about. I'll see if I have some time to examine some of the sources of the article to find some useful descriptions of the company so that the article can ascertain notability. You're of course welcome to do it too.

I hope that helps explain the issues. If you'd like to see an example of an article that doesn't have these issues, have a look at Suhr Guitars and how that contains mostly the company history while condensing the list of models. Let me know if something is confusing of if you have any questions. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 16:19, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Nettrom, thanks for taking the time to detail your points about the article. Once you explained them, your points mostly make sense to me. I agree that enhanced history and explaining why their guitars are notable would be useful. However, I also think that it will be hard to find corroborating information on the web about Collings Guitars, as the world of hand-made artisan guitars does not intersect with the technology world of the web very often. (For example, I could tell you why people think their guitars or notable, but it's all hearsay from conversations with musicians or guitar dealers, not anything on the web.)

I don't agree that the list of models detracts from the article, as I don't think it's that different from the list of Coca-Cola brands, Rolls-Royce cars, or the list of albums from a band, such as Big Star's discography, or even the entire wiki article devoted to Jackson Browne's discography.

Nevertheless, your overall points makes sense and I thank you for taking the time to explain them to me. If I find more information about Collings Guitars online, your points have given me a better framework on which to build. Thanks! comment added by BruceMount (talk • contribs) 11:31 AM, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

You're absolutely right about finding sources being a challenge. For a topic like this I tend to search guitar magazine websites, I find Google's "site:" keyword, which lets you restrict the results to a specific website, particularly helpful. E.g. I can search all of Guitar Player magazine's website for Collings Guitars using the search "collings guitars site:guitarplayer.com". Looking through the results and perhaps finding specific words to look for takes a while, but it's typically where I've been able to find some good sources to use in the articles I've worked on.

So far I've found a 3-page article from Acoustic guitar magazine's Nov 2008 issue, and Premier Guitar had a builder profile on Collings in July 2010, see Builder Profile: Collings Guitars. I'll give them both a close read, from the first quick glances it appears those two might be enough to add or rewrite the lead so that it properly establishes notability. Fretboard Journal also had an article about Collings in 2006 (issue 3), but that issue is sold out, so I'll be sending them an email to ask if they have the text or a PDF. I have previously found good content in Fretboard Journal for other articles, hopefully this one's good too.

Glad I could help sort out the confusion! Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 15:27, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

(Outdenting this back) I've made several edits to reduce the content that lacks good sources. Some edits also removed content that I found to be non-factual, e.g. opinions about certain guitar models. Many of the article's sources appear to need checking, particularly when it comes to the section describing the various guitar models. More content about the company's history would also be great, but please make sure the content has reliable sources. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 01:42, 24 October 2012 (UTC)