Wikipedia:Featured article review/Bob Dylan/archive3

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

The article was kept by User:Marskell 13:14, 28 October 2008 [1].

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Bob Dylan

Review commentary

previous FAR

WP Minnesota, WP Roots music, WP Jewish culture, WP Rock music, WP Bio, Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters, JDG, Mick gold, WP Religion notified.

This article is too long and detailed to be really useful. It violates criterion 4 at the very least, perhaps 1a or 1d. Tealwisp (talk) 19:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Please complete the notifications per the instructions at WP:FAR

At 79KB of readable prose (relative to 50KB recommendation at WP:SIZE), I believe this is second in length only to FA Ketuanan Melayu. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree that it could be trimmed as the interesting and relevant content is currently lost admist all the extraneous kb and minutiae....but not a difficult task if you are familiar with the subject. However, the standard of referencing is very inconsistent; author, publish / retrieval dates etc missing from quite a few, and thats messy, tedious and unappealing work. Ceoil ^sláinte

Article has issues : There are inconsistencies with source formatting and broken links (probably the result of the recent trimming, but who knows). Many of the web links are of poor quality, I think we need one of the professional link checkers to give this a look. There are sections that are under sourced, it might be wise for someone to run through it with fact tags so we can see what needs doing. Any voluntaries to commence the fact tagging process? As a side note, User:Indopug told me a few months ago that he was considering having this article checked. I'm trying to remember what he told me (I have too many archives), I think he thought the recent sections were too long. — Realist² 01:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll ping him. Ceoil ^sláinte 01:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I've given it a little clean through and checked every web link manually. Save to say this is going to take some work. There are still a lot of poor web links (as I've already said) but again, we really need one of the link pro's to do a stronger investigation. There are a lot more I personally would like to remove and replace with fact tags. — Realist² 02:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Please remove IMDb.com as a source from this article. I removed these myself and many of them have popped back up it seems. — Realist² 17:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

This http://www.bjorner.com/ website is used a lot in the article, I don't think it's a reliable source. — Realist² 14:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Really? www.bjorner.com has been used as a point of reference by many major Dylan books published since 2000. Michael Gray’s Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (2006) has an entry about:

Bjorner, Olof [1942 - ]. Gray begins by describing the Dylan research that Bjorner published (on paper) in the 1980s and 1990s. Gray then goes on to say:

"In 1999 he decided to make all his work available on the internet and at the same time to expand vastly his chronicling of Dylan’s work and career activity. The result is the enormous and invaluable website www.bjorner.com, which (so far) offers a detailed run-down on every Dylan year from 1958 to 2002: offering a catalogue of his recording sessions, his concert performances—listing every song performed in every concert—plus his record releases, books published by and about him, tapes newly coming into circulation, and more besides. The detail is extraordinary, and the level of accuracy phenomenal." (Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, p.50)

If you are claiming that www.Bjorner.com is not a reliable source, does that mean that Gray’s Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (much used as a reference in this article) is not a reliable source? Mick gold (talk) 15:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think he is a reliable source, looking at this http://www.bjorner.com/me.htm . He seems to be a complete nobody who happens to be an uber Dylan fan who has done a lot of his own research. We are basically just repeating his original research. His own research might be very accurate, hell I've visited Michael Jackson fan sites that are very accurate, but there is still something about it that isn't right on a featured article. It's basically a fan site run by one old guy that happens to get it's figures right, it still means nothing against sources from The New York Times, BBC etc etc. A featured article is meant to be the best of our work, I don't think it reflects well if we included those sorts of sources as our best work.

Lets say this featured article goes onto a wikipedia DVD, sent to schools. The school tries to contact the wikipedia foundation asking for more information on the sources used in the Dylan article. I bet the poor lady working for the foundation would have a hard time explaining why we are using www.Bjorner.com as a source so many times in the article. IMHO that is. Others are free to disagree with me on this. — Realist² 15:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

You haven’t answered my question. You seem to be saying that Gray’s Bob Dylan Encyclopedia cannot be trusted. My point is that when Michael Gray and Andrew Muir (whose work is used in this article as references) write their books, they do not set out to discover, from scratch, which songs Dylan and his Rolling Thunder Revue played in Montreal on December 4, 1975. They look it up on Bjorner’s website. I know this ‘cause I’ve talked to them. There is no Dylan data in print comparable to either the scale or accuracy of the info that Bjorner has compiled online.

I fail to understand the plight of “the poor lady working for the wikipedia foundation (who) would have a hard time explaining why we are using www.Bjorner.com as a source so many times in the article.” Can’t she explain www.Bjorner.com is the most authoritative data on Dylan’s recordings and performance? Because that happens to be the truth. It's a specialised website which is regarded as the most authoritative in its field. Most of the info in this article doesn’t come from The New York Times or the BBC. It comes from Michael Gray, Howard Sounes, and Clinton Heylin. They are acknowledged experts in this field, and get a lot of their Dylan info from Bjorner. I appreciate the work you've put into this WP:FAR but strongly disagree on this one.Mick gold (talk) 16:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I've begun to shorten the article, and to try to improve or fix references where there are problems.Mick gold (talk) 10:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Music blonde on blonde.jpg seems excessive (WP:NFCC#8 (FA criteria 3) Fasach Nua (talk) 12:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment

I'm for ditching that entire "Fan base" section in favour of a more well-rounded "Legacy" section that better describes his impact etc. The random list of musicians inspired by him doesn't make for interesting reading does it? Do Isis and Derek Baker really need to be mentioned here at all? indopug (talk) 13:28, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are focus (4), prose (1a), and neutrality (1d). Marskell (talk) 11:29, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Delist at the moment but can change mind: The strength of the sources seems to be better, I'm still not happy about the use of www.Bjorner.com but I can let that go. I'm saying delist on the grounds that huge paragraphs are not sourced throughout the article. That's before I've got to any other issue. — Realist² 00:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Please indicate the 'huge paragraphs' that are not sourced with and I'll try to supply references from reputable Dylan reference books, or re-write. Mick gold (talk) 07:36, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Will try later today, I'm a bit tied up with other things but will get to it. — Realist² 11:26, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I tagged it, about 15-20 tags. It wasn't as bad as original thought. That wasn't an enjoyable thing to do. — Realist² 20:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Realist, I'll dig in when I get time (& other editors too). Mick gold (talk) 21:59, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

All ref/cit issues now answered. Mick gold (talk) 18:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the article within 24 hours for you. :-) — Realist² 01:04, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure delisting is warranted anymore. — Realist² 17:34, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Bjorner.com (http://www.bjorner.com/me.htm) is a fan, hobby site, shouldn't be used for anything; surely there are reliable sources for Dylan. The article is under 10,000 words so I won't complain about the length. There are WP:DASH and WP:MOSDATE#Precise language issues in the section headings (1.11 2000—2006: Things Have Changed, 1.12 2007—present: recent activity, those should be endashes not emdashes, and avoid "to present") indicating there are likely to be MoS errors in the text, although I haven't looked yet. There are faulty dashes in the citations (Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan, p.41-42) which User:Brighterorange will fix if you ask him to run his script. A close look at MoS issues will be needed here once citations are clean and reliable sources are used; I haven't checked other sources, only happened to notice bjorner.com because Realist2 raised it above. I also saw errors in logical punctuation, WP:PUNC. SandyGeorgia (Talk)

I went through the web links myself Sandy, removing and fact tagging all the poor ones a week or so ago. Aside the use of Bjorner I am personally happy with the other web links. I haven't checked the reliability of book sources etc as I don't have access to them. — Realist² 19:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I also asked the FAC nominator of Frank Zappa if he would pop in here to help with some of the basic cleanup. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:26, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I also corrected the glaring section headings myself, as no one had gotten to them (please note the difference between endashes and emdashes per WP:DASH and I changed the section heading that breached WP:MOSDATE#Precise language. I haven't looked into the body of the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:31, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I fixed all of the errors in logical punctuation that I could seeWarchef (talk) 21:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I fixed all the em dashes and cut the spaces before and after as in WP:DASH. Oh, now looking again I see spaced en dashes are permitted in place of unspaced em dashes, but in any case, I made it consistent. Moisejp (talk) 01:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Both Realist and Sandy have said that Bob Dylan article should not use Bjorner’s website as a ref/source. Realist wrote:

He seems to be a complete nobody who happens to be an uber Dylan fan who has done a lot of his own research. We are basically just repeating his original research. His own research might be very accurate, hell I've visited Michael Jackson fan sites that are very accurate, but there is still something about it that isn't right on a featured article. It's basically a fan site run by one old guy that happens to get it's figures right, it still means nothing against sources from The New York Times, BBC etc etc.

This raises the intriguing possibility that Bjorner’s website might fare better if Bjorner were a) female, b) young. But, joking aside, there's a strong WP warning on fan sites and self-published works. Relevant policy WP:SPS states:

===Self-published sources===

Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, knols, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable.

Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. For example, a reliable self-published source on a given subject is likely to have been cited on that subject as authoritative by a reliable source.

First point I want to make about Bjorner’s website is that he has published all his material as books. When I last looked at amazon.co.uk, it listed 14 books by Bjorner documenting Bob Dylan’s recording and performing career, all published by Hardinge Simpole Publishing: [[2]] [[3]]. I don’t have the money to buy all Bjorner’s books, but he has made his research available online.

Second point I want to make is Bjorner’s website has been cited as a reference by highly-regarded works on Dylan. Michael Gray published his 900 page study of Dylan, Song & Dance Man III, in 2000. He published his Bob Dylan Encyclopedia in 2006. This has been favorably reviewed: [[4]]. Gray write of Bjorner’s website: “The detail is extraordinary, and the level of accuracy phenomenal." (Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, p.50)

I asked Michael Gray why he considered Bjorner a reliable source in the books he has published. His reply is lengthy, but IMHO makes interesting points about the relationship between established sources (e.g. the BBC), academic publications, and the work of ‘amateur’ fans and researchers in the areas of the blues, Bob Dylan, and popular culture. He also makes clear that what Bjorner provides is verifiable, factual documentation of Dylan's work. There is no critical opinion in Bjorner's work. He has consolidated the most authoritative database of Dylan's performing and recording career (and published it in book form as well as online):

Dear Mick Gold

I am the author of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia and of the critical study of Dylan’s work that is widely acknowledged as a classic work, Song & Dance Man: The Art of Bob Dylan, the third edition of which was published by Cassell Academic in 1999 and subsequently by the New York academic publisher Continuum.

My work has also been published by Hart-Davis MacGibbon, Abacus Books, the Hamlyn Group, St.Martin’s Press (New York), the Reference Division of Henry Holt (New York), and in The Times, Literary Review, Independent, Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Independent on Sunday, Sunday Telegraph, Rolling Stone, the academic journal Canadian Folklore canadien and many other journals.

I have also delivered lectures for the Institute for Folklore Studies in Great Britain & Canada, the Northern Ireland Arts Council, at York and Exeter Universities and at Goldsmiths College, London. In 1999 I was a plenary speaker at the first annual Robert Shelton Memorial Conference at Liverpool University and the keynote speaker at the 2001 conference. In 2006 I was the closing speaker at the Bob Dylan Congress at the Institut für Sozialforschung, Goethe University, Frankfurt, and in March 2007 gave the closing address at the University of Minnesota’s three-day academic symposium on Dylan’s work, at which other speakers included Christopher Ricks and Greil Marcus.

I set all this down simply to establish that if Wikipedia’s moderators have no access to my books it is surely only reasonable, given this evidence, that my work be acknowledged as legitimately published and of widely acknowledged value, not least in terms of their research reliability.

That said, I hope they won’t mind my suggesting that their very understandably motivated policy of only using self-published books, newsletters, personal websites and similar sources in exceptional circumstances is in some areas impractical as well as misguided. My reasons are these:

I accept that mainstream publication usually suggests that a process of verification has been involved, and for works that rest upon skills such as critical evaluation I would expect that if no mainstream publisher would take such a work it may well be not worth reading. Certainly in the world of Bob Dylan studies, I never read the relevant online discussion forums, believing most of what’s posted there to be careless and thoughtless and of no value whatever. I would certainly never seek to use opinions or evaluations from any such non-professional source.

But where facts are concerned, the situation is different - and the study of subjects like rock’n’roll, pre-war blues musicians, or the life and work of Bob Dylan has always been pioneered by enthusiasts outside the mainstream - because this music itself was outside the mainstream: was part of, and emerged from, subcultures that were not considered legitimate areas of serious interest for many, many years. The earliest and best photograph of Blind Willie McTell (Georgia’s pre-eminent blues artist) is known to us only because a part-time volunteer working for self-published bohemian arts magazine Jubilee in Manhattan at the end of the 1950s rescued it from a garbage pile awaiting disposal outside the magazine’s office - a magazine financed as a hobby by one of J. Paul Getty II’s ex-wives, Ann Light. It was recognized and authenticated as McTell by other enthusiasts and non-professionals. It was their “unprofessional” knowledge and work that made possible the later use of this photograph by journals like The New York Times.

An exactly similar process has brought into the light of the mainstream large tracts of our now-accepted knowledge and understanding of the blues - and indeed of the largely oral culture that created it. The world’s first English-language blues magazine only came into existence in 1963. This was the British monthly Blues Unlimited, edited by Simon Napier and Mike Leadbitter from a room above the family furniture shop Napier was running in Bexhill on Sea, Sussex. Leadbitter was a civil servant. Both would play a part in showing mainstream record companies that their archives included material these companies knew nothing about yet which, subsequently released, has been widely judged to be of historical significance and artistic worth. The first blues magazine ever published in the United States, Living Blues, began as late as 1970. The founding editors were students who put it together at a cheap apartment on West Dakin Street, Chicago. No academic folklore journal ever devoted an issue to the blues until a Southern Folklore Quarterly of 1978. In every case, amateur enthusiasts were there first, and made formative contributions to the field which are recognized as such by the professionals who came along later.

I also question the claim that “anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field”. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, yes - but unless this anyone actually does have some expertise in a particular field, they are very unlikely to be accepted as an expert or drawn upon for trustworthy information. In the case of Olof Björner and his website www.bjorner.com, the information which is so very detailed, and so very usefully drawn together by this source, is all of a straightforward factual nature, such that there are literally many thousands of people who follow the topic of Bob Dylan to an almost obsessive degree and who would have abandoned any reliance upon, or respect for, the website and work of Mr. Björner had they detected, as they would, more than a morsel of inaccuracy within it. There has been an impressive total absence of even minor carping from those who would be swift to scorn unreliable information in this way. For myself, I found in the course of researching the 800+ entries within The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia that Mr. Björner’s work was both extraordinarily useful as an assembling together of otherwise widely dispersed facts and figures and phenomenally accurate. All his listings are of verifiable facts - which musicians played behind Dylan at what concerts, what songs were performed on different individual nights of a concert tour, etc. - and it seems to me demonstrable that www.bjorner.com is an invaluable source, built up with great care by someone who knows and disseminates freely a vastly greater amount on his topic than any mainstream publication such as The Times or any mainstream media organization such as the BBC.

It’s also true that these newspapers and broadcasting companies themselves commonly rely upon the expertise of non-professionals. The BBC’s online material on Dylan, for instance, includes a so-called Timeline.[[5]][[6]] This was constructed from the material supplied at the BBC’s own request from a Dylan hyper fan named Ian Woodward, who has never published a book, and until recent early retirement had a full-time job in local government.

Yours sincerely

Michael Gray

Andrew Muir is the author of Razor’s Edge, the most detailed book-length account of Dylan’s Never Ending Tour. He writes:

As you know I used Bjorner’s research extensively when writing Razor’s Edge. I used his website for convenience but all of the information – and indeed more – is also available in book form. I used him because I knew I could rely on him as he is a diligent worker. True it is a fan’s “labour of love” but, as you are aware, I was in constant communication in those days (I still am I guess) with all the known Dylan authorities and I know that Olof checked and re-checked with all of them over any doubtful or debatable data. I passed information between various sources myself as well as contributing, especially when I was running my information service. Olof collects, collates and cross checks the information from Clinton Heylin, Glen Dundas, Michael Krogsgaard and so forth.

The last 3 names, Glen Dundas [[7]], Michael Krogsgaard [[8]], and Clinton Heylin [[9]], are the best-known authorities on documenting Dylan’s recording and performing career (in addition to Bjorner) as a check on amazon will confirm.

btw I was told that IMDb is not a reliable source, and asked to get rid of references to this source in the Dylan article. I’ve just noticed that Frank Zappa has just been promoted to Featured Article and it contains 2 references to IMDb. Some inconsistency? Mick gold (talk) 14:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

IMDb is in my opinion an o.k. source if it concerns reference for, e.g., an actor's apperance in a certain film. It cannot be a valid source when it comes to other things than pure film credits (as all the "goofs", "trivia", etc. information is provided by readers. The two instances IMDb was used in the Zappa article was to establish a matter of pure film credits. --HJensen, talk 21:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I must say I was surprised by the flap over Bjorner, and hope Michael Gray's and Andrew Muir's comments (incredible stuff) settle the matter. Frankly, if Bjorner’s books had been cited instead, there wouldn’t have been any question raised. However, that would leave most readers in the dark on the vast information Bjorner has so generously made available on his website, a very Wikipedian gesture on his part. As for the featured status, the recent editing and vetting have improved the article considerably, a tribute to the FAR process as well as Mick gold’s efforts. Of course, more could be done to flesh out the story, trim less important detail and hone some of the writing, but that’s true of most things. For now, I believe readers are exceptionaly well served by what's here. Allreet (talk) 16:46, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment: mainly comprehensiveness concerns.

• I think the 2000s section still goes into too much detail (although good work in trimming it so far). For example: "Martin Scorsese's film biography No Direction Home was shown on September 26-27, 2005, on BBC Two in the United Kingdom and PBS in the United States." A lot of stuff from these could go into sub-articles. There's no need to mention every release esp. compilations and documentaries made by/about him. Remember that we have 50 years of his career to consider.
• Needs an authoritative Musical style section that discusses his guitar-playing, singing and the main elements of his music, and how they changed over time. This way, a reader who only wants read up on Dylan's music needn't have to wade through his biography.
• Definitely needs a section on his Lyrics, which have been very exhaustively discussed by music critics and scholars.
• Needs a Legacy section: While there is a list of names, Dylan's specific influence on music hasn't been discussed. For example: Hendrix and Lou Reed have acknowledged Dylan's vocal style as being influential on their own. What about his impact on folk music in general?
• There seems to be undue coverage of the Never-ending tour; does it need a section of its own.
• "The tour culminated in a famously raucous confrontation between Dylan and his audience at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in England. At the climax of the concert, one fan, angry with Dylan's electric sound, shouted: "Judas!" to which Dylan responded, "I don't believe you... You're a liar!" He then turned to the band and, just within earshot of the microphone, said "Play it fucking loud." Seems very iffy sourcing that to Scorcese's documentary. "famously raucous confrontation" is not even explicitly mentioned in the movie as being so. indopug (talk) 06:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

PS: ignore the edit summary [10]. indopug (talk) 07:03, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

• To respond to this valid final point, I've added the Rolling Stone review of the live album of the 1966 concert as a ref, which describes the atmosphere in the Hall: "This isn't rock & roll; this is war."
• As for Never Ending Tour, it's what Dylan has been doing for past 20 years (nearly half his professional career). Isn't it worth noting schedule of 100 concerts per year, in addition to radio shows, art exhibitions, movies, autobiography, and making albums? Also important to acknowledge how divided Dylan's fans are today about the quality of his live performances. Mick gold (talk) 13:33, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I've started some trimming of the 2000s section, but I think it could still use some more. (I'll try to get some more done tomorrow if possible.) Of course, if any editors disagree with any of my trims, feel free to revert any essential info, or as has been suggested, try to move some of it to the subarticles. Moisejp (talk) 12:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

• Oh, my; this FAR has a huge WP:TLDR factor (like the article, which is too long), and having already waded through one FAR on Dylan, I'm bowing out. But the dab finder in the tools at the top of the page show dablinks that need repair. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

• Fan Section has gone. New Legacy section [[11]] addresses Dylan's lyrics. Mick gold (talk) 07:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
• Article currently 59KB of readable prose, a reduction of 20% since FAR began. Mick gold (talk) 09:23, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments. I have made a number of edits trying to make the cites more consistent. I have some questions and comments that popped along the way:

• The book Trager, Oliver. Keys to the Rain, the Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. Billboard Books, 2004. (ISBN 0-8230-7974-0) should not have its place in the footnotes, but in the reference list. Also a page number is missing.

Ref has been changed in response to your criticism.Mick gold (talk) 18:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

• One cite is "Mojo magazine, December 1993." This a bit to little; should be in a cite-template with publisher etc.
• A sentence starts with ("For ever panting, and for ever young") - I couldn't make anything out of it.

It's a quote from Keats's verse, it's accurate.Mick gold (talk) 18:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

• Some section titles are all capitalized while some are not. I did not dare tocuh it, as some are album titles, where full capitalization may be ok (?).
• What is "an about-face" mentioned in 1990s section?

A reversal of attitude. see Webster [[12]].Mick gold (talk) 18:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

• The link http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dylan/ was dead (I checked it as I was puzzled by the title "Bob Dylan A Martin Scorsese Picture")

Link seems to work. It's: No Direction Home: Bob Dylan A Martin Scorsese Picture.Mick gold (talk) 18:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

• How can it take Greil Marcus seven pages to write the quoted text on the song "I'm not There"??

The pages cover Macus's discussion of song.Mick gold (talk) 18:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

• How come that Dylan's "Cadillac Escalade" in October 2008 is cited in 2007?

Date has been corrected. Mick gold (talk) 18:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

• The cite-web template makes accessdates into links conforming with your preferences, while the cite-news template does not. This creates quite some inconsistency, but I cannot see how the main author of this piece can be blamed on inconsistencies among templates (and the fact that naked date linking is not reccommended). Dates gets autolinked irrespective of template used. This is a serious issue, but not for this article as I see it.
• The citation: "Paul Simon, Rolling Stone interview, June 1972....." strikes me as incomplete

I took this quote from book, The Rolling Stone Interviews, Vol. 2, ed Ben Fong-Torres, 1973. so I'll add that as a ref/citMick gold (talk) 20:25, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Otherwise, I think the article reads very good, but I think it could still be shortened. There are, e.g., exceptionally many quotes from others that are rather long. Another thing: Why are there NO sound bytes? That appears me as quite peculiar. Cheers!--HJensen, talk 16:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Done! Great song, by the way. Xenus (talk) 15:17, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Citation question: The fn 33 reads "The booklet by John Bauldie accompanying Dylan's The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 (1991) explains: "It was Pete Seeger who first identified Dylan's adaptation of the melody of 'No More Auction Block' for the composition of 'Blowin' In The Wind'." Dylan acknowledged the debt in 1978 to journalist Marc Rowland: "'Blowin' In The Wind' has always been a spiritual. I took it off a song called 'No More Auction Block'—that's a spiritual and 'Blowin' In The Wind follows the same feeling." pp. 6–8." There seems to be two cites going on here, or is everything from the booklet? It is a bit difficult to see, and in any case isn't it a bit over the top to mention three times where the melody comes from?--HJensen, talk 23:21, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The whole cite comes from the booklet. I've shortened the cite, sub it further if you wish.Mick gold (talk) 07:10, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Yet another citation question In some instances, a citation is given, and then followed by "Reproduced online at.... some web address". I am not sure that most of these web links are allowed, as they point (as I can tell) to sites that do not own the copyright to the material. Mick, could you please go over these, and just delete them if they are copyvios? (Sorry for being such a pain....). --HJensen, talk 22:04, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll have a look Mick gold (talk) 06:10, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Status: Does this need to stay in FARC are people ready to start !voting. Marskell (talk) 14:30, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep FAR has eliminated a lot of cruft, and improved references and WP:MoS issues. Overall, I think it's a well-written, well referenced account of a long and complex creative career. Mick gold (talk) 06:10, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep for the same reasons given by Mick gold above. I really feel in the last weeks the article has become quite a bit more focused, and the WP:MoS issues have been dealt with. Moisejp (talk) 07:03, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - Per my comments already made. — Realist² 13:02, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - the FAR process has seriously tightened up the prose, completely removed cruft, improved punctuation & word-choice, and give an already strong article an added focus. Overall a highly informative, well-researched and thoroughly referenced article, deserves to be Featured ContentWarchef (talk) 23:26, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - Agree with all of the above. Allreet (talk) 04:54, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

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