Talk:The Waterboys

Working towards Peer Review readiness

I've been working on this article for a couple of weeks now, with the goal of getting it ready for a Peer Review process. One thing that needs to happen is to do further work on making the article less purely a "History of The Waterboys" (hence my addition of a section on music, with its literary and spirituality subsections). Looking at the Featured Articles on bands leads me to believe that there isn't any firm standard on what should be in a band article. See the differences between The Beatles, Dream Theater, Iron Maiden (band), The Supremes and The Temptations. What makes sense to include in this article about this particular band? I don't think we need an entire section on their logo (Dream Theater has one), so I included a couple of lines about its symbolism in literary references. The Temptations is pretty much a pure history article, Iron Maiden (band) is much the same (but with lots of lists). Do we need a "Lineup" section here? It would be absurdly long, given the thirty-some musicians that have been a part of the band at some point. Thoughts about other sections to include? Thoughts about further improvement in other ways? Jkelly 18:21, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

And truly excellent work you've been doing too. I totally agree with making the article more than just a history. I was thinking about a larger section on the sound of the band but due to the way the waterboys have changed over the years maybe it would fit better in the history than in a seperate section? I think we also need a section concentrating on individual members of the band (which could possibly include a full lineup) as more needs to be written about anto, steve etc mentioning that mike hasn't written all the waterboys songs. Something similar to the "Members of group as instrumentalists and composers" in the beatles article maybe? Another idea we could borrow from the beatles article is the pictures of the each member of the band outlining how they are as you go down the page. We couldn't do this for all the members of the waterboys but we could limit it to the really important members. We've got to decide on who they are though (Mike, Steve, Anto, Karl, Richard Naiff maybe?) and find really cool pictures. A section on influences and who the band has influenced might be a good idea too. We could mention the bands/projects that different waterboys have gone to do in that too. We've got to mention floppy hats at some point too ;-) O'Dubhghaill 20:18, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd love to find some not-copyrighted images for Anto Thistlethwaite and Karl Wallinger. Know any Saw Doctors or World Party fans that have images they would release under the GFDL? I just made an article for Sharon Shannon, in which I included a "fair use" image of her with what I think is a pretty solid rationale (see the caption). Coming up with a stub for Richard Naiff will take a little digging (AMG doesn't even have one line on him). We could create a List of The Waterboys members list article to link to, with a section here giving a paragraph on the names you've mentioned. I have already created [[Category:Members of The Waterboys]]. Anthony Thistlethwaite's own article is not much longer than a paragraph, though... Jkelly 22:38, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Membership section

I think that the suggestion is a very good one. I think that adding a membership section which looks something like:

Introduction... more than thirty members throughout its history... some important contributors include (in order of joining):

• Mike Scott... chief songwriter, etc.
• Anthony Thistlethwaite... sax solo on "song1". "song2", co-wrote "song3"
• Kevin Wilkinson...
• Roddy Lorimer... trumpet solo on "The Whole of the Moon"
• Karl Wallinger...
• Steve Wickham... pretty much solely responsible for radical sound change, wrote some instrumentals, other songs, etc...
• Richard Naiff... going to be tough to say a lot about him, but he's now a core member...

Other notable former Waterboys members include Bill Whelan, who went on to write Riverdance, Sharon Shannon, who went on to become Ireland's best-selling traditional music artist, etc.

I don't mean to say that the paragraphs should actually be in bullet form (I just formatted that way for this comment) Thoughts? Jkelly 23:28, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Template:Infobox band

This is just a note to express my strong objection to using Template:Infobox band in the article, in case it occurs to another editor. Leaving aside the issue of stability (see Template talk:Infobox band), the information it attempts to convey quickly for the reader is complicated enough in the case of this band that a couple of lines detailing points like "Country of origin", "Years active", "Genre(s)", etc in the lead of the article is less like to misinform or present a particular point of view than trying to cram that information into the infobox. Since the template is not a guideline given at Wikipedia:WikiProject Music, I don't feel that its inclusion is necessary for the article. Jkelly 18:48, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

New reference added

Is the reference currently labelled "Album Notes" referring to the Recording Notes of The Waterboys? I assume so, but I would like some confirmation. Jkelly 18:02, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes it's the first album I was referring to O'Dubhghaill 18:58, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Any thoughts on how the article is coming along? Jkelly 19:01, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Very well I think. I'm going to try to add a little more on the sound of the two recent albums sometime this week. Maybe we should mention somewhere about the re-issues of the old albums. I'm starting to run out of ideas though, which is probably a good sign O'Dubhghaill 19:14, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Great. The article will be at peer review a while longer. I will wait for your input (and, ideally, more outside feedback) and then apply at featured article candidates. We're at 30kb now, which is, in my opinion, very close to the ideal size for an article like this. Jkelly 19:18, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Featured article

A big well done to everyone who contributed to this article and achieved featured article status. A special thank you to Jkelly for his wonderful work. O'Dubhghaill 23:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment, and for taking what was a stub and turning it into a real article in the first place. For future reference this is the version promoted. I'm glad that you're pleased with the outcome. Jkelly 23:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Influence on The Wonder Stuff

There is some confusion, at least on my part, about the band / Scott's influence on members of The Wonder Stuff. Our reference is this:

http://www.tastyfanzine.org.uk/ints32%20nov04.htm

but User:SPANA argues that Gelb is not part of The Wonder Stuff, and it should instead read:

and Miles Hunt of The Wonder Stuff^[1]

Can someone help sort out who Gelb is, and if there is any reference for influence on Hunt? Thanks. Jkelly 22:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

My bad. A closer reading of the reference shows that User:SPANA is right. Jkelly 00:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Too close to heaven/Secret life

Can anybody explain to me why Too Close To Heaven is listed under the regular Waterboys studio albums, while The secret life of the Waterboys is listed under the compilations? Both albums are made up from alternative versions and outtakes from previous albums. The Secret Life... is based on the three earliest records, while Too Close... is based on Fisherman's Blues. However, both records share the same idea, so I think they should both be listed either under the studio albums or under compilations. Does anyone agree? Brynnar 12:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that this was based on how All Music Guide classifies them. We should double-check. Jkelly 19:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The only reason I can think of, why AMG is separating these two albums, is that the first is based on outakes of 3 albums in a period of 5 years (1981-1985), which can be considered a compilation, while the second is based on outakes from only one record, thus being an album in it's own right. If that is the argument which most people (and AMG, which I think is considered far too holy a reference for Wikipedia) have, then I am very willing to let it rest. --Brynnar 07:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Bootlegs

I just removed the addition of a new "bootlegs" section, as we don't list these in a band's discography. If a reliable source has discussed the phenomena of Waterboys bootlegs, that should be included in the article, however. Jkelly 19:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry didn't know about this policy, I'd seen bootlegs mentioned as well in other articles (for example R.E.M._discography), so I was not aware of this. I mentioned two of them them also in the article about the album The Live Adventures of the Waterboys, since I thought it was relevant for this album and because of this I included the bootlegs in the main Waterboys-article. Brynnar 07:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

No need to apologise, and I wouldn't call it a "policy" so much as a loose consensus. There was a tiny bit of conversation about bootlegs in general a few months ago at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums. I am surprised to hear that bootlegs have shown up in discography list articles. Do we have a source for the bootleg information, and is there anything at that source that seems notable enough to include either here or in the album articles? Jkelly 17:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't think of any reliable source. After all, most of the bootlegs are unauthorized and therefore there are no official lists. What I usually refer to is this site, which not only shows the regular releases, but also has a good database of the "illegal" releases. Brynnar 18:06, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Archieman

There's an interesting blog post by Mike Scott on http://www.myspace.com/mikescottwaterboys regarding his recently reverted edits to the Waterboys article. --PaulGarner 17:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Date specific link to the blog entry to save people wading through all the entries that have been made since - http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&FriendID=71722921&blogMonth=1&blogDay=6&blogYear=2007 Unfortunatley Wiki appears to have blacklisted blog.myspace.com but allowed www.myspace.com, hence my textual representation of the URL. Comments on this blacklisted URL are sought here. John 18:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Conveniently, he gave us a source for a few of the more important corrections by posting that blog entry. Jkelly 19:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

This is fairly amusing. Is the problem is that he tried to do so anonymously? If so, it's roughly the same as if a writer visited a public library and "corrected" the printed edition of his book with a pen. It would be considered vandalism and the book would be replaced. On the other hand, if he created a Wiki login...who'd believe that it was him rather than an overzealous fan?K8 fan 17:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Libraries don't expect any kind of corrections to their collection at all, whereas we absolutely encourage it, so the analogy doesn't work that well. I'd say that, ideally, it doesn't really matter who is editing, as long as they have reliable sources to go along with their additions and can adhere to our content policies, but there is a case to be made that I'm wrong about that. As it happens, most of the changes that weren't altering of direct quotes have now been incorporated into the article, because sources for them have been identified, so, in the end, I'd say that the article has been improved, and that is what counts for us. Jkelly 18:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2040025,00.html may be of interest Me677 09:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I came here to add that! I wonder how many other people will be suddenly drawn to this article as a result of it... Tim 17:27, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I was, and I've added the article to Mike Scotts page :-). Unless it's been removed already, of course ;-) Highly amusing incident if you look at the history; if I can paraphrase - Editor1:"Mike Scott is divorced", MS:"Mike Scott is married", Editor3:"Mike Scott is divorced" Editor3:Oh....err.... you are Mike Scott ! John 18:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Dead Link

Reference number 6, seems to no longer go to the intended page, would it still be acceptable if I used a web archiver? :) Marcus Bowen (talk) 15:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Waterboys discography

Why doesn't The Waterboys have a separate discography article? It seems like there are enough listings for this. I would be happy to do it and have in several other articles but I don't like messing with FA articles. (It seems like they soon lose their integrity for the rating the more that editors not experienced in working on FA ratings make edits to them.) Agadant (talk) 15:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Scott - what town or city was he born in?

How did this get to FA - I was looking to see where Scott was born, what town or city?

Scottish?

In what sense is this a Scottish band? Mike Scott is Scottish, but the band members have been English, Scottish, and Irish. It seems that saying "Scottish band" limits the band's definition. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 23:28, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I always thought the band were Irish - after all, they did use the lyrics from a poem by W.B. Yeats in one of their songs! The article does actually say that the band has had members from Scotland, England and Ireland, but if this is so, one does wonder whether, as well as being in the category "Scottish groups", they should be in the category "Irish groups" and "English groups". ACEOREVIVED (talk) 16:37, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Paul Brown

Help in developing that article would be appreciated. The topic of the page has been kind enough to leave a list of possible references to work from on the talk page. Thank you. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 19:53, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

A few days ago, added [[ ]] to ""Brother" Paul Brown" in the info box giving it a red link with a view to developing it into an article, but Malmsimp reverted it. I also notice that https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brother_Paul_Brown&action=edit&redlink=1 carries the message "A page with this title has previously been moved or deleted." Then yesterday, I created Bro Paul Brown but moments later, Praxidicae basically erased the content of the article and redirected it to The Waterboys article. Bro Paul Brown is a Grammy Award winner and deserves his own article, but making this happen is proving rather challenging. Any ideas anyone? Johnalexwood (talk) 12:45, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

List of Waterboys' members

The fact that so many people have played for the band strikes me as notable in and of itself. The list is cited. This is explained very clearly in the invis. note at the top of the section. No doubt there are other ways of doing this, but I don't think it would be helpful to add the same cite to all, (or perhaps nearly all) of the individual entries. It would be helpful to discuss this topic if need be rather than edit warring. Ben MacDui 11:57, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I wont revert again without agreement. Its a bit unweildy though, we might want to trim it down. Also, I'm thinking a seperate article on the discog might be called for. Ceoil (talk) 13:01, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the length of this list was ridiculous, and contained people that are complete unknowns even to water boys fans. I would stick to names for which there are independent sources and had some sort of influence on the artistic direction of the band rather than being a one tour hired hand session musician. It would be fine to say there was a lot of such musicians without naming them all in the absence of independent commentary. --_nonsense ferret 13:21, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't have any difficulty at all with either a separate discog article and/or a separate membership article. A problem with a partial list is that I suspect that any distinction between influential and relative unknowns is likely to be very subjective - on what basis do you draw the line? They are all cited and/or listed at the Waterboys website so some may be relatively obscure, but "complete unknowns" may be going too far. Ben MacDui 16:12, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

you draw the line at significant independent coverage as is the usual answer for these things. A list article full of names that will never qualify as notable enough for an article in their own right is a complete nonstarter. I really don't have a problem listing the likes of Antony and Steve wickham for which there is a huge amount of coverage, this attempt to copy out every name from the wsterboys website goes way too far imho. --_nonsense ferret 16:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I think you will find that the encyclopedia is quite forgiving when it comes to lists, but that is not the issue here. That's 2:1 in favour of a 'trimming down'. Due to the effects of inflation I am increasingly used to these discussions involving fewer editors than might have been the case in an earlier phase of the universe's history but let's leave it for a few days and see if there are any other orbiting editors who want to pitch in. Ben MacDui 13:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Grand. Ceoil (talk) 02:03, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

High faluted talk of the early years of the universe not withstanding, I have spun out the disoc section. Ceoil (talk) 18:03, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I have a draft List of Members - hopefully to be completed this w/end. Ben MacDui 12:57, 11 February 2015 (UTC) PS I think you mean 'high falutin'.

I think Bro Paul Brown deserves a wiki article of his own. He's a Grammy award winner after all. I created an article with plenty of references showing his notability, but it got incorporated into The Waterboys' article (redirected). What to do? Johnalexwood (talk) 12:14, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

External links modified

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Orphaned references in The Waterboys

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of The Waterboys's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Dead":

• From Kevin Wilkinson: Doc Rock. "The Dead Rock Stars Club 1998 - 1999". Thedeadrockstarsclub.com. Retrieved 2015-12-24.
• From Mark Smith (musician): "2009 July to December". TheDeadRockstarsClub.com. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
• From Nikki Sudden: "The Dead Rock Stars Club 2006 January To June". Thedeadrockstarsclub.com. Retrieved 9 January 2015.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. Feel free to remove this comment after fixing the refs. AnomieBOT⚡ 02:36, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Infobox

Per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE the infobox is supposed to be a summary of the key facts of the article. Therefore, the "Past members" section could be seen as too overloaded as it currently stands. Is this so, and importantly, if it is, how should we deal with this? Should we omit this section entirely, or if we reduce it down, how do we decide who should and should not be granted a place in the infobox? Helper201 (talk) 22:43, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I removed the RFC tags on this because this needs to be discussed before a RFC is opened per WP:RFCBEFORE. This question is too broad for a RFC. You could request input from one of the project pages if want more discussion. Nemov (talk) 01:59, 23 January 2024 (UTC)