Talk:Andy Irvine (musician)

Untitled

Does Andy really have Huntingdon's or is the para just badly written? Is it really referring to Guthrie's diagnosis?

I screwed that one up pretty bad. Reading his autobiography on his official site I read "He was diagnosed" as "I was diagnosed". Glad you caught that. -R. fiend 16:05, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Creation of dab

This should be done with a page move, not a cut and paste. Should probably be done at requested moves as well. -R. fiend 15:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Why? If anything the rugby player is more notable than the musician.--Mais oui! 15:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Andy Irvine is a musical god,rugby players just huff and puff over inflated pigskin and muddy grass.! Should mention be made of his often singing falsetto?--— ⦿⨦⨀Tumadoireacht ^Talk/_Stalk 05:48, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

No sources

The article in its present form should be deleted, as it is entirely unsourced. Dlabtot (talk) 17:07, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

If you think so, why don't you go ahead and nominate it for deletion? Hohenloh ⁺ 03:02, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Because deletion arguments are a pain in the ass, and I wanted to give the author or authors of the article a chance to improve it. Are you always this confrontational and rude? Dlabtot (talk) 04:10, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I began amending this article a few days ago with the aim of adding precise information and generally making it more complete. I will now attempt to provide as many sources as possible and I am currently in discussion with Yintan (see his Talk page) who is guiding me so I do this properly. It might take a few weeks but I intend to provide as many reliable sources as I can, even though Andy's own official web site doesn't appear to qualify as one such. With kind regards; Patrick. Pdebee (talk) 10:31, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Updates from 22 July 2013

Just posting this to say that I have applied numerous updates to the structure of the article, to its contents (including many wikilinks to other relevant WP articles) and have also added the long-awaited sources. Along the way, I have received most helpful advice from 'Yintan' and 'Canterbury Tail', to whom I remain indebted for their kind and patient assistance.

As I write this note, I think this is the last stretch; "all" there's left to do is simply flesh out the details for the two decades '2000s' and '2010s', and I am also planning to provide details on all the songs that Irvine recorded with Patrick Street (and probably others too).

My plan is to complete these updates by the end of August 2013. With kind regards; Patrick. Pdebee (talk) 18:13, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, the excellent summer weather over the British Isles has put paid to the plans I outlined in my earlier update and I've had far too much fun with the grandsons. ;-))

The new plan (ahem...) is now cautiously open-ended: what I'd like to do is add the details of Irvine's last two solo albums and also of the songs he contributed to all the Patrick Street albums. I might also add a bit of prose for Marianne Green's album and a ref if I can find a reliable review (I seem to remember seeing one shortly after the album's release).

Thank you.

With kind regards; Patrick. Pdebee (talk) 17:45, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation of 'Irvine'

I am always surprised to hear his surname pronounced rhyming with "line" instead of "Lynn", since it is clearly of Scottish origin, after the town of Irvine, North Ayrshire, which is pronounced: /ˈɜːrvɪn/ IR-vin; Scots: Irvin, Scottish Gaelic: Irbhinn. The fact that his father was a Scot reinforces the case for pronouncing it the Scots way, as is done by some of Andy's closest collaborators (Lunny, Brady). I therefore propose adding a 'Pronounced' ref tag, as shown above, alongside his surname in the lead part of the article.

Having said that, I suppose we should make allowance for both pronunciations, since many English speakers make it rhyme with 'line', including Americans/Canadians who share that surname and also have several towns called 'Irvine', in California, Florida, Kentucky and Alberta.

Any suggestions? Of course, we could decide to do nothing, i.e. refrain from adding a pronunciation ref tag alongside his surname in the lead.

With kind regards; Patrick. Pdebee (talk) 15:17, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

References

External link to fansite added by 193.120.135.123

Hello '193.120.135.123',

I noticed that you added an external link to a fansite in the 'External Links' section of the article about Andy Irvine. I just wanted to warn you that it is very likely that your update will be reverted, because Wikipedia guidelines advise against adding fansites, as explained at point 11. in the list of 'External links to be avoided'.

I have seen fansites added to this article (among others) before, and they were soon reverted by administrators and/or their 'bots'.

With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 17:21, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Adding this update, out of courtesy to other interested editors, to confirm that I am today removing the link to 'Fan Run website' from the 'External links' section, as per point 11. in the list of 'External links to be avoided', first mentioned above.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 11:11, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

"The late" Alistair Hulett

Hello Trivialist,

Please could you help me understand why you removed "the late" before 'Alistair Hulett' in the Parachilna section? A simple click to Alistair Hulett would have confirmed that this artist has indeed, sadly, passed away on 28 January 2010.

I would therefore like to ask you to revert your own change in this case? Thank you for your consideration.

With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 14:32, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I removed it because "the late" is generally not put before the name of every deceased person; otherwise Wikipedia would be full of "the late Socrates" and "the late George Washington" and so on. Trivialist (talk) 15:50, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

You're quite right; it makes sense never to use 'the late' in an encyclopaedia. Fair enough and thank you for your assistance.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 21:36, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't say it should never be used; just that generally it's not necessary. :) Trivialist (talk) 23:43, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Request for your independent assessment of the article on 'Andy Irvine (musician)'.

[Copied this section from Chris Gualtieri's Talk page]

Dear Chris,

When you have the time and at your convenience, please may I ask you for an independent assessment of the current quality of the article on Andy Irvine (musician) ? It was graded as 'start class' before I began improving it on 22 July 2013, when it had only 7 references. I have read this and it seems to me that the article's quality might perhaps now have reached a 'B' class grade as a result of my efforts, although I am no expert in assessing the quality grade of WP articles.

If it helps, you can find a project log at my user page, here (click on 'Show' to open the section for "Current Project - Improve the existing Wikipedia article about Andy Irvine (musician)").

If you conclude that its current quality level is higher than 'Start class', then please would you kindly point me to the guidelines on how to get an article's status upgraded? Any other advice will obviously be gratefully received (you will probably tell me that it needs more photos...).

Thank you very much in advance for your helpful assistance and guidance whenever convenient, Chris.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 23:01, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I've upped to it C, but I was considering making a B until I saw that there were significant portions that were not cited or sourced too well. The format for the timeline is a bit unusual, but that is alright. Things like the LAPD set, the play list, is probably not the best for the biographical article. Though I am no expert here, but I bet it could meet B criteria with some checking. Articles before GA are rather subjective - so don't be too concerned, I always liked accurate assessments of individual pages. It is still pretty from the the Good Article criteria, but I'd consider the Featured Article criteria in your editing going forward. It will spare later pain. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:47, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Dear Chris;

Very many thanks for your extremely prompt action and review; I am very grateful.

I hadn't realized you have authority to upgrade articles but I am very pleased it is now anything higher than 'Start class', which I was sure was no longer appropriate; thank you very much.

If/when you have the time, please would you kindly give me a few brief pointers to some of the areas you felt were not sourced too well? Also, please would you also point me to an article that has the sort of timeline you would have preferred to see? I take note of the comment you made about LAPD; it's just that, until they've released an album, their maiden set list is all we have to give readers an idea of their choice of material. Perhaps I should present the list in the same format I used for album tracks?

Please forgive me, but your sentence "It is still pretty from the the Good Article criteria, ..." seems incomplete; did you mean to write: "It is still pretty far from the Good Article criteria, ..."? Thank you for confirming your intended idea in this case.

Thank you also for pointing me to the 'Featured Article' criteria; that's the standard I would always aim for anyway, although I am quite sure that the paucity of photos will be the killer in the end. I find it quite challenging to comply with the legal requirements for uploading images onto WP and I have given up trying; some other editor(s) will have to take on that effort, I am afraid.

Finally, shouldn't we now move this section from your Talk page to the article's Talk page? Thank you for your advice here.

With kind regards for now;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 00:52, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

@Pdebee: Just off the top of my head Bob Dylan. And I started getting a bit concerned when I was looking through "Mozaik - Live from The Powerhouse" and "Mozaik - Changing Trains" and "Parachilna". Some of the content seems right for a discography page with how detailed it goes, but that is also a lot of work to do. My main issue is that much of the content is analysis of the album and it detracts from Irvine's biography. So its not altogether coherent, making these little tangents to discuss the work. A good example is paragraph 3 of "Rainy Sundays... Windy Dreams", with this line: "The Balkan set begins with Romanian Song (Blood and Gold),[18]:68–69 based on a Romanian song collected by Béla Bartók, re-written by Irvine and Jane Cassidy and set to the music of a Bulgarian dance tune in the 'paidushka' rhythm of 5/16; the song then segues into Paidushko Horo, an extensive collection of musical phrases borrowed from Bulgarian dance tunes in that rhythm and performed at breakneck speed." This is not really appropriate for a biography in my eyes, great for a discography or an analysis of the work itself. Read through Bob Dylan, you'll probably be stunned by it, it is a featured article after all. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 01:00, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

@ChrisGualtieri:

Dear Chris;

Thank you once again for your prompt reply, and for pointing me to the Bob Dylan article. I have reviewed it and also reflected on your helpful suggestions; here are a few initial comments.

Yes, if the Dylan article is considered a standard, then I could easily emulate it. However, I didn't really set out to write a biography of Andy Irvine (I definitely didn't want to delve/intrude into his personal life, for example), but rather to provide an overview of his music career with emphasis on his artistic production; this, in my opinion, is a somewhat different objective.

Besides, a major problem editors would face is the limited number of quotable sources in the case of Irvine (a handful of books and lots of newspaper reviews of gigs, tours and albums), compared with the mountain of published material about Dylan.

The structure of the timeline I adopted is the same as in the Dylan article, except that I broke down each decade into further sub-sections for each major project. I adopted that approach because of a comment made on 8 August, 2013 (here, highlighted in green on the right) that the article suffered from "impenetrable walls of text" (see the ensuing discussion and agreed-to solution here).

Thank you for pointing out the 'discography' nature of the details I supplied about album tracks. Yes, I could easily create a separate article for each album (like someone else already did for EastWind) and then re-locate the details there. This would have the benefit of streamlining the main article to a format closer to the Dylan example. However, a major problem I see with this approach is that I would then have to supply an image for the cover of each album, which takes me back to the intractable challenge of uploading images into WP, a task I am not prepared to undertake. Therefore, I would receive complaints about the fact that these 'album' articles are incomplete because they don't feature the cover image.

I will reflect some more on your helpful suggestions but, for now, I feel somewhat reluctant to remove the prose that highlights Irvine's ingenuous artistry, which was what motivated me to enrich the article in the first place.

In any case, I am grateful to you, Chris, for your helpful advice and guidance, as it can feel quite lonely here on WP!

With kindest regards for now;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 02:47, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Featured articles are among the best, but there is no "standard" appearance for most articles. Wikipedia is a large place and its not lonely - but you probably do not want to tread into the drama-filled nexus of discussion. It's like the nine layers of Hell, the deeper you go the worse the punishment! Though in all fairness, working on Wikipedia is not so bleak, especially on the content side. It is to further access and cover the sum of all knowledge after all. If you are willing to put in the work, you typically get final say in its appearance. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:52, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Talk memo to Alison ["Photos of Andy Irvine (musician)"].

[Copied from Alison's Talk page.]

Dear Alison,

First of all: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for 2014.

For the last few months (since 22 July 2013), I have been updating the article on Andy Irvine and I am pleased to say that this helped the article being upgraded from 'Start class' to 'C' yesterday.

Today, I came across the photo you uploaded into Commons, of Andy Irvine on stage with Dónal Lunny, Liam O'Flynn and Paddy Glackin (a.k.a. 'LAPD'); I was very pleased to be able to add this photo into the 'LAPD' section of the article; thank you for making this possible.

If/when you have the time and inclination, Alison, please would you be kind enough to have a look at this article? There are only two photos in it and I am sure you will conclude that it could do with a few more, about Andy's various projects over the decades.

However, one task I am not good at is uploading images into Commons, because I am bewildered by the licensing rules and I therefore find the uploading process confusing and somewhat frustrating.

Therefore, the purpose of this message (a desperate plea, really...) is simply to seek your assistance, since your Wikimedia page is clear about your motivation to upload photos; if you were willing to add more photos of Andy into Commons, then I would be able to retrieve them and include them into the article.

I am sure you have tons of urgent or more worthy things to do with your precious time and you might not be interested in helping me with this; however, if I hadn't asked, I would never have known that you might have said 'Yes!'.

So, I look forward to receiving your reply, whenever convenient, and I will respect your decision as final, one way or the other. However, I am hopeful that you might also be one of Andy's fans and therefore willing to help me make his article even better than it already is. So, Alison: thank you for your consideration to the present request.

With kindest regards for now;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 22:18, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Happy New Year! / Article on 'Andy Irvine (musician)'

[Copied this section from Chris Gualtieri's Talk page]

Dear Chris,

Happy New Year to you and all very best wishes for 2014.

Since you last upgraded the article on Andy Irvine to 'C-class' quality (on 26 December, 2013), I have applied 164 changes that took your advice into consideration. Mainly, I have:

• increased the number of reference citations from 74 to the current 115;
• de-italicized all track names and put them within double quotation marks (as per the guidelines);
• completed the section on Marianne Green's Dear Irish Boy;
• made the 'LAPD' set list much more compact and meaningful;
• and even found a photo of 'LAPD', which I have also added to that section!

The only change I have not (yet) applied is to create separate articles for those album descriptions which you found too detailed for a biography article (such as: Mozaik - Live from the Powerhouse, Mozaik - Changing Trains and Parachilna). This is because I won't be able to commit to doing this work until I have figured out the mechanics of creating a WP article for an album.

However, I would appreciate you having another look at the current version of the article, in hopes that you might now assess it as being ready to be upgraded to 'B-class' quality. After all, you had previously stated that it was close to a 'B' already, and I'd like to think that the recent improvements will now convince you that a 'B' is justified.

Thank you very much in advance for your time and consideration, whenever convenient, Chris.

With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 02:45, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

@Pdebee: Problems solved, moved to B-class. You should consider nominating it for a Good Article review. WP:GAN for details and WP:GAC to check against the criteria. Another editor will review the entire article and assess it, this is an important classification that is on the road to featured article status. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:50, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

@ChrisGualtieri: Dear Chris;

Thank you *so* much! (You have made a sexagenarian Wikipedian very happy! )

Seriously: I very much appreciate your extremely prompt action and reply and, of course, your helpful advice now to aim for GA. That will therefore be my next goal; however, I'd first like to embark on the task we discussed earlier: 1) create separate articles for some of the albums and 2) move the 'discography details' from the main article out to these 'album articles'. In many ways, I agree with you and would like to achieve that goal, but will keep these details in the article for now as I don't want to lose them.

When that's done, then I will carefully review all the other tasks associated with aiming for GA, and take it from there.

Once again, very many thanks for your kind support, and for all your helpful advice and guidance; it's all very much appreciated.

With kind regards for now;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 03:07, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

@Pdebee: Thank you for being so nice and helpful! I've been doing all I can for Wikipedia, but I do get some drama here and there on this big site. I've been reviewing some articles to see if they pass the muster lately, but I don't dare go into the "big-boy" pool with the FA editors. Some of those elite Wikipedians are professors and doctorates. It is a bit of a different environment as you go closer to the heart of the community, since people like me are a bit eccentric, but well-meaning in general. Most of us are cheerful and dedicated, but a Featured Article on the main page is the pinnacle for most editors on Wikipedia. It's a lot of work and a labor of love, but you've come this far so quickly. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:15, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

@ChrisGualtieri: Dear Chris;

Thank you for your kind words of encouragements. Yes, I have seen some of the scrapes you (and other admins and such like) get into and sometimes it's quite scary! For now, I am quite happy to remain a 'coal face' editor of content; I suspect that, one day, I might get invited or nominated to become something else, based on my track record. Until then-and like you-I'll keep beavering away at improving articles and logging my various projects at my user page: at the very least, this demonstrates that I strongly believe in quality, transparency and accountability.

Please keep up all the good work you're doing yourself; it's quite an inspiration for newbies like me!

With kind regards for now;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 03:28, 3 January 2014

Neutrality and tone

Someone, or more likely more than one person, has been putting a lot of hard work into this page, and it's much appreciated, but I do think we have to be careful to make sure that the article maintains the neutral, encyclopedic tone that is expected in Wikipedia. Below are a couple of examples that might need to be rethought:

Listening to this album, one would think it was recorded in any of the world's best studios, not in disused buildings using a laptop and some Pro Tools.[112] Most of the time, there are only two instruments playing–three when Irvine also plays harmonica–and the resulting sound is bright and pristine, enabling the listener to identify each part played by these two outstanding musicians, and to marvel at the harmonious music they are able to achieve together.

Shell's plans for the Corrib gas project have caused serious division and hurt in County Mayo.

The first is a bit gushy, the second probably not neutral enough. Some very slight changes could probably resolve the issues. For instance, in the second, something like "Shell's plans for the Corrib gas project have been the subject of controversy in County Mayo." 850 C (talk)

@850 C: Hello '850 C',

Thank you for your comment. As I am sure you can tell from looking at the stats and also at the sections above, I have applied many changes to this article since 22 July 2013 and I am pleased it was upgraded to 'B-class' quality as a result.

I fully agree with you about your two suggestions and have now changed the text accordingly. The first piece of text was something I wrote not long ago, so that was easy to change. Like you, I was never comfortable with the sentence a previous editor had contributed about the 'Corrib gas project' and I am glad you suggested a better form of wording. Thank you.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee. (talk) 20:37, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. ;-))

@Gob Lofa: Dear fellow editor,
I noticed that you recently started proof-reading this article and already fixed a few things that I had overlooked (like the typo 'dutch' > 'Dutch'). So, many thanks for that. As you probably noticed, I have now de-linked quite a few repeated and overlinked names, titles, etc. during the last few hours, as you had done for Cisco Houston. There might still be a few duplicate links here and there, but I think I've now covered most of them. So, thanks also for the hint.
It's good to have someone else join me in trying to bring this article to GA status; so, welcome to this effort and thank you for your help so far in that endeavour. I think we're approaching the point where there isn't much more material that one could add to the article while also citing reliable sources, of course.
However, the next big effort would be to add photos, a task which will be difficult owing to the paucity of Irvine-related photos in Commons. I did ask a couple of fellow editors who seem to specialize in uploading photos into Commons, but neither has responded to my polite approaches; so, no joy so far. Is that something you've done before, by any chance?
Anyway, many thanks for your help so far.
With kind regards for now;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 21:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Patrick, you're welcome. You've done good work here, fair play. I haven't uploaded any photos, but I believe it's a pretty straightforward process. Are the photos your own? Because there are copyright issues with many photos found on the Net. Have a look at Wikipedia:Uploading_images and see how you get on. Let me know if I can help. Gob Lofa (talk) 22:16, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

@Gob Lofa: Dear friend,

Thank you for your prompt reply, and for your kind words of appreciation. Other fellow editors had already built a good structure before I started contributing in July 2013. I realized I could augment on their efforts thanks to my collection of printed sources, mainly Folk Roots magazines and the all-important Frets edition of March 1985. Of course, O'Toole's book was the essential source for Irvine's early life and all the details about Planxty. It's interesting to consider the scope of a putative book that would add all the other aspects of Irvine's career (as done in the present article) to fill the gaps that O'Toole's book did not document, largely because he focused on Planxty, of course. Anyway, I very much enjoyed adding my contributions, not least because I also learned a lot about editing Wikipedia, so that I could branch out and contribute elsewhere also.

As for photos, I did invest some time to learn about the task and I fully agree with you that the mechanical process of uploading photos seems quite straightforward. However, as you say, it's the copyright guidelines that I found quite complex and worded in 'legalese'; they seemed designed to deter rather than facilitate (my personal opinion). Obviously, the crux of the matter is ownership of the digital photos, as you say. Since I only own one digital photo, I could try that but it seems that the process of proving ownership is quite protracted, what with the need to exchange e-mail with the Wiki colleagues who police the process, in order to prove ownership. However, I suppose that any organization determined to do this properly would have to put such procedures in place and enforce them rigorously.

On a related subject, there seems to be a way of adding photos of album covers into Commons with a wording such as "The cover art copyright is believed to belong to the label, [name of label], or the graphic artist(s)." So, I might try to start adding such photos for all the album-related articles I created for Irvine's albums (solo, Patrick Street, Mozaik, etc.) and see how successful I might be after the first attempt!

However, what the article would also require before being submitted for GA reviews, are photos of Irvine performing solo (I have one of my own from 1985), and in partnership (I don't own any): 1. Sweeney's Men, 2. Planxty, 3. with Paul Brady, 4. with Mick Hanly, 5. Mosaic, 6. Patrick Street, 7. Planxty reunion (2004) and 8. Mozaik. One for each of these would, I think, make the article more complete and worth submitting for GA. Maybe some very kind soul might volunteer to tackle this mission, after reading the present exchange between us... one can always dream.

Take care, and thanks once again for your contributions so far.

With kind regards for now;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 12:25, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Patrick, here's a quick overview of what it takes to load pics. First for commons, the pics need to be "free", which ideally means that you took them, or otherwise it means that somebody published them under a free CC license. A good place to look is Flickr where you can specifically search for pics with the right license. Non-free pics should be loaded here to English wiki, but you have to pass the fair use test. If it's reasonable that someone could take a free pic, it does not qualify, which is why you don't see such pics of living people, but if someone has deceased it is no longer possible to take a free pic, so you can load them. Likewise, if a band has broken up, the same argument can be made. The thing to do is, look at other pics that have been loaded and review the justification that was used, as that might give you some idea as to what will work and what won't. Hope that helps, Rob. Robman94 (talk) 03:20, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

@Robman94: Dear Rob,
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this section, and also for offering your guidance above, on the subtleties attached to the rules governing photos in Wikipedia. Your input is immensely helpful and I feel encouraged to make the effort of learning more by studying existing examples, as you suggest. I had begun to do this for album covers and will probably start there, as it appears a simple enough process to get started with. If that works well, I'll test the waters with the one photo I have, which I took myself in 1985 and had digitized. I'll also follow your advice and look on Flickr and proceed from there. It all seems a bit daunting from here because of my ignorance and lack of experience, but also because I'd hate to do the wrong thing, especially in risking copyright violations.
In any case, very many thanks once again for your patient and helpful guidance, Rob.
With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 15:32, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Album covers are easy, you obviously can't find a free version, so they qualify under "fair use" and should be loaded here rather than at Commons. I have loaded many album covers (example), so look at the rationale that I used so you can use something similar. You need to keep the size small for fair use pics, usually 300x300 pixels works. For any pic that you took yourself, there is no problem, you can load those to Commons, and load the full size pic.. Again, I have loaded many of my own pics (example), so follow my lead if it helps. When you're searching Flickr for pics, you should first look for pics released under a Creative Commons license WITHOUT commercial or derivative restrictions. Here's an example of a Flickr pic with the right license. If you click on the "Some rights reserved" link, you'll see that this is released under a CC 2.0 Generic license. Here's an example of a Flickr pic with the wrong license as this one says "All rights reserved". Here's another bad one because, even though this is released under a CC license, it has the NonCommercial-NoDerivs tag, which makes it invalid for wiki use. Another thing to be aware of is, just because someone has posted a pic with the right license doesn't mean they had the right to do so, for example this pic has the right license but it's a photo of a record, which is a copyrighted piece of work, so the photographer didn't have the right to release it under a free CC license.

If you do a search for an artist that you are working on and don't find any free pics, try searching next for pics released under a restrictive CC license and then write to the photographer and see if you can convince him or her to release them under a free license. I have done this successfully many times, like here. Also, if you're writing about older artists, it's possible that there are free pics available due to them being released without the right copyright, and ebay is a good place to find these. Here's an example. Robman94 (talk) 17:33, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

@Robman94: Dear Rob,

Wow! This is an extremely useful, step-by-step outline on how to do it and, once again, I feel really encouraged to delve into this task and develop new skills by exploring the many links you supplied so generously in your latest update.
Your support to me, in this instance, is an example of what makes Wikipedia great when it inspires what's best in people: the willingness to go the extra mile by sharing one's knowledge for the benefit of someone else; in turn, this increases the positive energy that benefits the entire community of editors and readers alike.
I therefore remain most grateful to you, Rob, for taking the time and trouble to break down a complex task into more manageable steps, for me to take with greater confidence. I am hopeful to approach you again for advice in future, if/when I get stuck or confused?

Thank you very much once again for your magnificent guidance, Rob, and for all your other contributions to our encyclopedia.

With kind regards;

Patrick.

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Nationality?

Regarding the recent edit (22:41, 12 November 2017‎) characterizing Andy as "English," do we have any documentation about what nationality Andy regards himself as being, or whether he even recognizes nationality as being legitimate? Also, what is his citizenship? If he is a longtime resident (and citizen?) or Ireland, it would seem inappropriate not to acknowledge him as being Irish, by immigration if not birth. I have no bone to pick here, but I am curious. 850 C (talk) 23:41, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Dear 850 C,

Thank you for your helpful comment. Judging from the time stamps, we addressed this recent edit at about the same time; for my part, I decided to revert it, with an explanatory edit summary. Thank you once again.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 23:53, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

It's a little odd-seeming for someone of English birth and a decidedly Scottish accent (he's on Irish radio right now) to be described simply as "Irish", but that does seem to be his effective identification. "ANDY IRVINE is one of the great Irish singers, his voice one of a handful of truly great ones that gets to the very soul of Ireland." I'd presume that his citizenship is both of UK and of Ireland, as his place of birth would confer the first, and his maternal ancestry an entitlement to the latter. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 09:36, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Consolidation and removal of detailed content.

Dear fellow editors,
I am leaving the present message out of courtesy to other editors interested in (or watching) the present article.
As a result of the "Very long" template added in June, here, I have taken action today and removed the detailed information I had previously added about Irvine's songs and tunes (just over 15,000 characters). I also removed five subheadings, where possible. I think the article now exhibits a consistent approach across all the subsections that mention the songs and tunes Irvine has contributed to all the non-solo albums, especially since most albums now also have their own, separate article.
I would like to leave the remaining content as-is, for now, the main reason being that Irvine's career is characterized by multiple strands of solo and band activities, some in parallel projects with long-ish gaps between them (three iterations of Planxty; several resurrections of Patrick Street; long gaps between Mozaik projects, etc.). I have therefore retained a chronological order of all these activities, broken down into discrete subsections within major sections for each decade, and I hope that this will receive continued support from fellow editors.
From the point of view of ease of navigation, I'd like to think that the TOC is helpful, with each major section heading under 'Music career' showing a clear summary of the main projects by decade; readers can therefore jump to a specific decade directly from the TOC, and proceed sequentially within that decade, then back to the TOC to read about another decade, for example.
I would propose to remove the template in a week's time unless anyone disagrees, in which case I will look forward to working with anyone who has constructive ideas on how to improve the article further. In advance, thank you for your thoughts.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 16:47, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Since there was no feedback during the last 16 days, I'll now remove the template but am happy to discuss this again.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 17:13, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Changing the citation style from ref tags to sfn templates

Dear fellow editors,
I am leaving the present message out of courtesy to other editors interested in (or watching) the present article, in order to seek consensus, per WP:CITEVAR.
I would like to simplify the internal structure of the present article by replacing <ref name="..."> tags with {{sfn}} templates. The main benefit would be to de-clutter the wikitext from imbedded ref tags, by grouping the {{cite}} templates into the article’s back matter. For an example of what the end result would look like, please see the article on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (a featured article), or my recently created article on Felice Lascelles. I would welcome the views and suggestions of other editors, and will wait for a week to enable them to respond to this proposal. In the meantime, I will restructure all existing citations from horizontal to vertical format, as this makes it easier to differentiate them from the article’s prose while in edit mode. Thank you.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(become old-fashioned!)} 16:01, 17 June 2024 (UTC)