Talk:Avril Lavigne

This article used to be a good article. It was promoted on 13 January 2009 and demoted on 19 April 2011. This means the community feels this article was written very well, but is not now. You may see the vote that promoted the article here. You may see the vote that demoted the article here.

Requirements for good articles

1. The article must be about a subject which belongs in Wikipedia. There is no use improving articles that do not belong here, and better fit another wiki, like Wikibooks, Wikispecies, Wiktionary...

 Done. Avril Lavigne is a singer.

1. The article must have a certain length. A minimum is 3.5 kilobytes, not including infoboxes, images, references, other websites, interwiki, and categories. There is no use in denoting very short articles as good.

 Done

1. The article must have gone through a few revisions, possibly by different editors. No one writes perfect articles.
2. The article must be filed in the appropriate category. It must have at least one interwiki link.

 Done

1. The last few revisions should be minor changes (like spell-checking or link-fixing).
2. All important terms should be linked and there must not be many red links left. Red links point to articles that do not exist yet. Usually the important word or phrase is only linked the first time it occurs.

 Done

1. If there are any illustrations, they must be pertinent to the article. They must also be properly labelled.
2. There must be no templates pointing to the fact that the article needs improvement. Some of these templates are {{complex}}, {{cleanup}}, {{stub}}, {{unreferenced}} and {{wikify}}. The article also should not need them.

 Done

1. Content that is from books, journal articles or other publications needs to be referenced. This can either be done with <ref>..</ref><references/> tags, or as a list of publications.

I am going to try and get this up to GA status. --  Da Punk '95  talk  19:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Problems

There are multiple issues I can see with this article. I went over it and wikified a host of terms which are not simple and corrected much of the language problems, but many remain. There are several cases of information being included in sections where it seems to have nothing to the rest of the section..

• She was found in a bookstore while singing songs.
• She started street performing.
• She debuted when a recording artist saw her singing country songs in a book store.

  Was she lost in the bookstore? Was her first professional performance in the bookstore? On the street? These bits on her past are sketchy at best and a bit confusing.

• Her most famous single currently is "Girlfriend".

  Isn't this more about her music career and not her life story?

• Whibley asked Lavigne to marry him by surprising her with a trip to Venice, Italy. (was "Whibley proposed to Lavigne by..."

  Did he propose on the trip or drop to one need and say "here's a trip, lets get married"? How is surprising her a proposal?

• Avril's younger sister Michelle Lavigne was one of Avril's bridesmaids. She likes the colours hot pink and black. The song "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls was played as their wedding song.

  What does her like of those colors have to do with the wedding?

• In 1999, Avril won a competition to sing with Shania Twain in Ottawa, Canada.[6] She debuted when a recording artist saw her singing country songs in a book store.

  (debuted? see above) Which recording artist? The reference there give the name; it also says she was discovered at the age of 14. That would make it late '98 or early '99. If she performed in front of 20K people with Shania Twain but was discoved by "a recording artist in a book store", wouldn't the discovery have come before the competition?

• She made her breakthrough with "Complicated", "Sk8er Boi" then "Don't Tell Me" and the first two singles off Let Go both entered the top 10 in the music charts.

  She made her breakthrough with three different songs? from two separate albums? Also, the entire sentence is a run-on. Breakthrough is one thought, hit singles is a different thought.

• The next night, on Total Request Live, she gave the middle finger to journalists after being asked for her opinions of the media, later followed by other times where she was rude and violent.[9]

  The reference only supports that she was on TRL and gave the middle finger. There is no reference to her doing it to journalists (as if one could actualy find a journalist on MTV, let alone one at TRL) nor the other rudeness and violence that is implied to have taken place on the show (Later, followed by other times). Also, The next night - as the album was stated as released in May, would that be June 1? Including the date on the release would clear that up.

• Lavigne and Matthew Gerard also wrote the song "Breakaway", which became a hit for Kelly Clarkson.

  Was this song that they wrote for another performer also on her album Under My Skin? If not, it does not need to be included in the subtopic of the album.

• ..which is different to and saying "I want to" not "I wanna.

  ... *shrugs*

• When her songs started getting too profane they stopped airing it completely sometimes, such as Radio Disney.

  Was it stopped completely or sometimes? and what is such as Radia Disney? The such as would probably go a lot better as Lavigne used to be a common favourite for public radio shows, such as Radio Disney.

That is a lot of problems for an article which is supposedly a good one. --Creol(talk) 05:42, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Problems with article

• "Avril Ramona Lavigne (born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer and songwriter." <-- I thought she was a fashion designer as well? Enwiki says she is a " Canadian singer-songwriter, fashion designer, actress, and philanthropist"
  • Not actually what she's terribly notable for. We aren't enwiki. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
• " She performed the track "Sponge Bob" for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" <-- Why is only this film mentioned?
  • Because it's notable? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
• " Avril has French-Canadian grandparents, however, Avril does not speak French." <-- Reference? Also, imo, it sounds like random trivia (the latter part)

 Fixed Fixed the three above. Albacore (talk · changes) 23:07, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

• "She was found in a bookstore while singing songs" <-- What?
  • Looks like it's been rephrased. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
• "She started street performing." <-- Ref?
  • Gone. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
• "Her most famous single currently is "Girlfriend"." <-- What is "famous"? Is there any ref for this fact?
  • Not phrased like that. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
• "In February 2004, she began dating Canadian singer, Deryck Whibley, the lead singer/guitarist of pop punk band Sum 41. " <-- Huge jump from 1984 to 2004! Perhaps some of the details enwiki mentions could be included here.
• In the Let Go section, would it be possible to give a little detail about the success of the album?

  Some info added for DYK. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 16:02, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

• "The next night" <-- What "next" night?
  • Reworded. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
• No singles from Under My Skin are mentioned... at least mention the lead single (My Happy Ending?)?
• "Avril sang in "Girlfriend": "I want to be your girlfriend," which is different to and saying "I want to" not "I wanna." <-- Uh, what?
  • I guess it's to show why she was sued. I think I've fixed the grammar fail. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
• "She then went on a world tour, known as The Best Damn Tour" <-- no ref?
• Nothing is said about Goodbye Lullaby...

   Fixed now. Few paragraphs added on the new album. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 13:13, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

• ...or about her songs in Eragon and Alice in Wonderland.
• The "Music airings" section is almost completely unsourced. This is a BLP, we need more sources for these kind of facts...
  • Gone. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
• Nothing about philanthropy or fashion designing or even about her musical style?

Overall, this article looks far away from being a GA in my opinion. A lot of work is required to make it better. For that matter, I haven't yet looked at the sources cited yet... Regards, Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 12:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Many more examples of poptrash are in the article, such as

• "Whibley asked Lavigne to marry him by surprising her with a trip...". Typical pop journalese; ungrammatical and unref'd.
  • Removed. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
• "She was walked down the aisle by her father". Now that's really notable and surprising.
  • Removed. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
• "a Roman Catholic ceremony that began at 5 p.m." Why would anyone want to know when it began?
  • Removed. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
• "When asked if they were ready for children they said "not right now, but somewhere down the road". This does have a ref, but it's so meaningless.
  • Well it's actually not meaningless at all, it may be trivial however. But since it's referenced, there's no harm in it. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
• In contrast, there's not a word as to why a couple married as Catholics should divorce in just three years.
  • Nor should there be. It's not up to us to speculate why they got divorced. And being Catholic is irrelevant too unless you're injecting some of your own POV here? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Even if the specifics were fixed, the whole article is lacking in real substance. She's notable enough, but this is just an average article, and should be demoted. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Forget GA. This article needs to worry about BLP Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 17:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Explain? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)