Talk:Trans-Europe Express (album)

Infoboxes and NPOV

To the anonymous user who's been vandalizing all the Kraftwerk album entries today by removing borders round right hand info-boxes (looks like hell now! all that text shoved up against the main body of the article, with hardly even any whitespace between it), can I just cry ahine?!

Moreover - conceeded that one wants to avoid over-the-top POV stuff in these articles, but no discussion of aesthetics can be entirely "objective", and moreover a large part of the reason why people read music articles will be to find out what others think of the music, ultimately boiling down to "is it any good or not?"...

Any discussion of Kraftwerk's music would be ridiculous if it did not note that the TEE album saw an important development in their sound... the degree to which this record influenced other musicians is widely documented...--feline1 17:15, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Lead section: Kraftwerk's bilingual releases. And also VH1

I have re-reverted to my edit, because of course, I am right LOL :-)

— Not quite. Or quite not. And FYI, my name isn't "Lol" ;-p ←^#6  talk

Since 1975's Radio-Activity, Kraftwerk have always simultaneously released two versions of each of their albums: one sung largely in their native tongue of German, the other version sung mostly in English, for release in non-German speaking territories. It is incorrect for the intro to say that the album was "orginally released in German as Trans-Europa Express...", as this means the German version was recorded and released first. In actual fact, both versions were recorded at the same sessions, and released simultaneously.

— Granted (even though, for a short wikipedia:lead section, the finer points of "originally released" vs. "simultaneously released" aren't all that necessary). Still, the current wording is clunky. I plan to rewrite it, with an additional touch of "State The Obvious" (about Kraftwerk being a band, and a German one at that), and other changes justified below. ←^#6  talk

As to VH1, purr-lease! This is an encylopedia primarily for objective information. Some daft "reader's poll" on some dubious satellite TV station is not an important objective fact about this album. ("56th best album of all time"?!? For a start, I don't believe that "time" has finished yet! And 56th?!? LOL Quite sure about that? I heard it was 53rd? ;-) Moreover, TV stations and magazines run these silly polls all the time (usually to help fill up their output with easy-to-throw-together repeats of old material, rather than producing new stuff). Why is one particular VH1 poll so important that it needs to be at the top of the article, when no other polls are mentioned? No, if this little piece of trivia needs mentioning at all, it belongs as a footnote, after the actual important factual info & discussion about the album itself has taken place.

--feline1 14:24, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

—

Guideline: Wikipedia:Contribute what you know or are willing to learn more about

1. Re: "on some dubious satellite TV station" : I'm afraid you have both absolutely no idea what you are talking about, and absolutely no willingness to learn more about it either. It's not like the VH1 name wasn't a blue underlined link that would have allowed you to find out, contrary to your claims, that VH1 is not some satellite thingy but a major international cable music channel, also home to Behind the Music – just like there's "Coke or Pepsi", "Nike or Reebok", it's "MTV or VH1". I don't even watch TV and I know that. As for you, you could (should) have checked first what VH1 was if you wanted to contest its relevance.
2. Re: "Some daft "reader's poll" : Again you've no idea what you're talking about. "After sending ballots to over 700 songwriters, disc jockeys, radio gurus and musicians ranging from Art Garfunkel to Britney Spears, the station's powers that be tabulated and compiled a ranked list of the best of the best in rock and roll history" [1]
3. Re: "best album of all time"?!? For a start, I don't believe that "time" has finished yet!" : It's irrelevant, it means "of all the time already elapsed", and it's just a common expression anyway, used by all such lists. However, I'll grant you the title should have been between quotes, to report it as the list's title, not as a raw fact.
4. Re: "TV stations and magazines run these silly polls all the time" : First, no they don't, not the big "Greatest Albums of All Time" lists. Second, the lists of some major players aren't on the same level of relevance as your usual local "best of the year" lists.
5. Re: "Why is one particular VH1 poll so important that it needs to be at the top of the article, when no other polls are mentioned?" : Because VH1 is big enough to make it significant. You're however right there's no need to stick to it only. The point is, that TEE has been part of a LOT of such "Greatest Albums of All Time" from major and minor players. So, both authoritatively and cumulatively, that is an important and notable fact that sets TEE' apart. It's even more important when those lists are esentially "pop/rock", meaning that Kraftwerk's TEE was an oddity of sorts in those lists, but everybody still felt important to include it.
6. Re: "an encylopedia primarily for objective information" : A significant fact, such as the inclusion in a prominent best-of list, is an important and objective information that can be reported in an encyclopedia. As was said about another prominent list: "the list was influential, and supporters of bands often point to the presence of an album on the list as tantamount to inclusion in the pop-cultural canon. Even those who seriously challenge the rankings on terms of artistic merit generally accept their validity as indicators of influence and fame."
7. Re: "if this little piece of trivia needs mentioning at all, it belongs as a footnote" : Nope. First, because it wasn't simple trivia (cf. above). Second, because with the expanded listing of 3 major lists I'm now going to put, it's even more factually important how many time this album is best-listed. Third, because the lead section is the summary of the key points of the article, and the recognized importance of this Kraftwerk album for the outside world is a key point. Last but not least, the lead section may be the only "face" of an article for future Wikipedia versions on handhelds or paper: "For the planned paper Wikipedia 1.0, one consensus recommendation is that the paper version of articles will be the lead section of the web version. Summary style and news style can help make a concise intro that works stand-alone." §
8. Re: "And 56th?!? LOL Quite sure about that? I heard it was 53rd?" : Yes. Contrary to you, I did check. The new version will have three major rankings AND their source as notelink, on a stable Archive.org URL.

Guideline: Wikipedia:Contribute what you know or are willing to learn more about

So, I'm going to rewrite the lead section, back to the former idea, but also integrating the 3 points seen through this discussion (simultaneous releases ; "Greatest Albums of All Time" in quotes ; two more prominent best-of lists having TEE augmenting the fact of its importance to the outside world), and it should hopefully be the better for it. (See diff and article.)

←^#6  talk 19:50, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• P.S. 1 : Your first revert (diff) would have gained in having an edit summary and/or a talk point, explaining all those things the first time around, instead of after multiple reverts. Also, it was NOT a Wikipedia:Minor edit : "The rule of thumb is that an edit of a page that is spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearranging of text should be flagged as a "minor edit". A major edit is basically something that makes the entry worth relooking at for somebody who wants to watch the article rather closely, so any "real" change, even if it is a single word, is a major edit. [..] Marking a real change as a minor edit is considered bad behavior, and even more so if it involves the deletion of some text."

• P.S. 2 : When you claim a "revert" in the edit summary, you are NOT supposed to make any additional stealth edits to the reverted version, even when it's apparently as tiny as fixing "Endloss" into "Endlos" – just on principle. Normally, please revert to a previous version, verbatim, as is – and then make a second, minor edit, for the fix. Or, at worst, please clearly document your additional change as, like, "Reverted to blah blah + Fixed a typo BTW (Endloss > Endlos)". It's a matter of principle, and of trust. If you'd get in the habit of doing stealth edits during reverts, you couldn't be trusted.

• P.S. 3 : So please RTFM and STFW, or STFU ;-)

←^#6  talk 19:50, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Number 6, you are not a number, you are wee troll

No.6, I tire greatly of you trolling round wikipedia spewing your gross pedantry all over me. (So I fixed a tiny typo in the process of doing something else?!? jeez!) Perhaps the are some articles on Storage Jars you'd prefer to edit... Nonetheless, I am happy with the edits you made to the intro - the addition of the additional polls makes the point that this is a highly regarded album well, as opposed to the original entry, which just looked silly. As to your PoV rant about the amazing objective importance and credibility of a VH1 awards polls - well, I can't say I buy it. And neither would Florian Schneider. Artistic merit isn't conferred by hegemonic broadcasting conglomerates with more commercial breaks on them than music /yawns/