Talk:Avril Lavigne

It's still in a rather questionable state. The later stages degenerate into some rather cheap humor. Let me see how I can work on it. --Scofield 15:03, March 29, 2011 (UTC)

I had to revert you, Scofield.

Some of your complaints about my work are obviously legitimate. This article is angry and it takes cheap shots. And that's not necessarily good. But what you've replaced those sections with is completely unencyclopedic. The page ceases to sound like a paraody of a Wikipedia article about an individual and starts sounding like a sarcastic teenager casually spouting out his opinions on Rock 'n Roll and the intelligence of the general public, using CAPITAL LETTERS for emphasis. It's no better, and in many places, it's a lot worse.

I know you spent a lot of time on this this morning, but I think what you did hurt the article far more than it helped it. We can have some third party look at the diffs if you want. pillow talk 18:42, March 29, 2011 (UTC)

Let's just compare

The two ledes.

My original:

Avril Lavigne is a name used to refer to two people: a 17-year-old girl who unsuccessfully tried to start a fashion trend involving neckties, and a 26-year-old girl who no one gives a shit about. Both are, unfortunately, Canadians, and both belong to the seemingly endless category of young female "singer-songwriters" who are secretly sockpuppets - the latter, a sock of the ubiquitous Max Martin.

Your rewrite:

Avril Lavigne is a name used to refer to a woman who, in her own words, is a "professional rocker". That basically means that she is a rockstar by profession. Unfortunately, she's a solo artist (REAL rockstars are always part of a band. ALWAYS!) and a Canadian. These two factors have effectively reduced her definition of herself to a rather overtly ambitious joke, as despite her best efforts, her songs have never managed to rise above the usual mainstream crap we people are forced to endure every day of our lives.

Okay, now, I'll admit my lede breaks enyclopedic tone with "who no one gives a shit about." That's done deliberately, in the hopes that putting it that bluntly might be funny, but it may very well be done too early (i.e., the first sentence may be too early). And the obscenity might be better dialed down to "cares" or something: I suspect we'd find a disagreement on that subject if we polled, say, Dexter and Spike. But my satiric concept is pretty clear: that Avril Lavigne has been totally irrelevant for years and that she isn't even worth talking about except in a historical sense; and that she doesn't do her own work and relies on industry professionals to build her image and write her songs and make her sing. (Yes, I know Avril is always jawing about how she actually writes songs herself: the article makes the opposite claim, because, frankly, I think she's lying).

Yours, on the other hand - the first sentence is encyclopedic but not funny. And then the second sentence is editorializing. You'd never see an encyclopedia say "That basically means..." and then slip in a biased rephrasing. And then the third sentence simply contradicts Lavigne's own subjective description of herself - something a blogger might do, absolutely, but something an encyclopedia would never, ever, do. We have REAL and ALWAYS, which is a style you'd see in a blog an never in an encyclopedia. Then it claims her self-definition is a joke, and it flatly says that her songs are "crap."

So, at this point, what you've written is in absolutely no way a parody of Wikipedia. It isn't even satire. It's a blunt, naked opinion that Avril cannot be a credible rock star since she isn't part of a band. (And that's a weird opinion, by the way!! Are David Bowie or Alice Cooper or John Mellencamp or Elvis Costello non-rockstars because their backup musicians aren't organized into a band?)

I step out of encyclopedic tone for just a moment, as a joke in and of itself. You aren't even writing a parodic encyclopedia article. You're blogging about a subject. Not only is that really not what we do here, but it's going to be off-putting to a lot of people. You can make people laugh with carefully-constructed lies, but it's much harder to make them laugh by just soapboxing. Certainly, there are stand-up comics that do just that, but their work doesn't sound like what you've done. And - what are you satirizing? Your lede concept basically boils down to "Avril Lavigne says she's a rockstar but she's not." A concept of an article might show that assertion, but simply telling it leaves little room for satire at all. pillow talk 18:56, March 29, 2011 (UTC)

I think you have completely misinterpreted my intentions. Yes, my article is supposed to be sending the message that Avril claims to be a rocker, but can never really be, but the entire point of the satire was to write this article from the cynical perspective of a rock purist. The juvenile tone was also intentional, as I intended to poke fun at both Avril's work, and the grounds on which I'm panning it. This article was being written by a person who tries to write in an encyclopedic style, but doesn't exactly succeed as he himself is being irrational and narrow-minded, and it shows. And if you take a closer look at what I did to the "Career" section, you'll find that I have indeed parodied her work (and personally, I think it's a major improvement from your version). --Scofield 19:11, March 29, 2011 (UTC)

Sigh... and I don't like it. I probably don't have to remind you that this is, oh, the fifth time you've jumped in and started completely changing something I'd written (including long-established FAs), and the fifth time I haven't liked your edits very much. Well - you want to take it to a third party? Get some outside feedback? pillow talk

Some completely unhelpful outside input: I looked, and Scofield, I didn't find any of what you wrote amusing. I didn't find Hyperbole's amusing, either, but it was somewhat less irritating to read. Although it actually was pretty irritating. Man... 1234 ~ 19:20, 29 March 2011

Unfortunately I pretty much agree with your assessment. pillow talk 19:25, March 29, 2011 (UTC)

And don't think that I'm not getting tired of you reverting me all the time. Frankly, I consider my concept a much better one than yours, but if nobody else finds it funny, that's 2 hours of my life I just wasted. --Scofield 21:02, March 29, 2011 (UTC)

I don't enjoy reverting you all the time. I simply can't figure out why you keep following me around the wiki rewriting everything I do - when you know I have a tendency not to appreciate it. Seriously, if you have a "better concept" for the article, wouldn't the logical thing be to write an article that follows that concept in userspace instead of erasing my work? And then let the community decide how to name the pages? A different concept means a different article, and while this article is imperfect, I don't think it deserves to be overwritten within twelve hours of first being born. pillow talk 21:07, March 29, 2011 (UTC)

I guess I got a little confused when you said this was a "start class" rewrite. When I read it, I didn't think this was the best concept for an Avril Lavigne parody at all. I thought that I'd be able to use it as a template using which I could write something better. I guess my assumption that this was a makeshift piece wasn't entirely correct after all. --Scofield 11:09, March 30, 2011 (UTC)

When I said "start class," I meant I wasn't finished writing it. I didn't mean I wished someone would come, erase my work, and start over. I'm serious when I say that if you think your concept can succeed better, you should take the last diff before I reverted, copy it to userspace, and polish it up there: if the community agrees with you that it's a better article, it can take this space. pillow talk 16:09, March 30, 2011 (UTC)

Some completely unhelpful outside input, part 2: I liked the second section most in both versions. On a related note, I really dislike the American way of using "s. Just look at this:

“ This "song," too, swiftly became one of the most major hits of the 2000s, which probably says something about that decade. ”

The function of ", too," is completely ravaged by the first comma being imprisoned between quotation marks. A real solution would be for the computer companies to invent something that looks like a comma with a quotation mark right above it. Pending that spur-of-the-moment inspiration to occur, however, I prefer putting the quotation marks around what's actually being quoted. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 07:00, 3 April 2011

Please stop abusing yourself to pictures of Justin Bieber, Socky.

And, of course, you're completely right about the American approach to commas and quotation marks being retarded. I've been saying that for years. But as Avril and I are both Americans, I feel like I have to do it that way. pillow talk 07:03, April 3, 2011 (UTC)

And by "American" I mean "North American," but I think Canadians punctuate the same way as those of us from the lower 48. pillow talk 07:04, April 3, 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying there are Americans that aren't from the US of A? Blasphemy! —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 07:23, 3 April 2011

Innit that what 's are for? Well, one of their arbitrary uses, anyhow... I use them for that. Arbitrarily. When it looks better. It does look better. 1234 ~ 07:05, 3 April 2011

You mean the thingies you put around a word to raise doubt that it should actually be called that? Maybe. People can be really inconsistent in their use of 's and "s. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 07:23, 3 April 2011

What about s and ´s and `s and... 1234 ~ 07:26, 3 April 2011

Diacritics are not apostrophes and italicization is to specify the scientific name of a species. Alternatively, we could start using « and » as quotation marks. The French do it all the time! —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 07:38, 3 April 2011

Spanish, too. I've seen folks us --these to denote quotes, too, actually. 1234 ~ 07:40, 3 April 2011