This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Mia Khalifa (song) article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that more than 4 million videos on TikTok feature the song "Mia Khalifa" – also known as the "Hit or Miss" song – even though the app had not licensed its use and has never paid the artists?
Current status: Good article
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Just want to preemptively note that, as the editor who wrote/restarted the article, I am aware of the previous deletion discussion. The consensus was that there weren't enough reliable sources to substantiate the song's notability—which I think was a fair call, based on the contents of the discussion and the information available at that time. One of the users voting to delete wrote that they felt the article "can be recreated if better sources turn up."
In its current form, the article uses several new articles from reliable sources published since the deletion discussion concluded, most notably a mid-length feature piece in Pitchfork. It also makes use of some additional reliable sources that had not been identified at the time of the deletion discussion. While this song is not exactly the Sistine Chapel, I think what I've written justifies the existence of a Wikipedia article on it. —BLZ · talk10:16, 29 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"is a 2018 song by American hip hop group iLoveFriday." → "is a song by American hip hop group iLoveFriday, from their second EP, MOOD (2019)."
Done I've mentioned the EP, but it doesn't seem proper to say the song is "from" the EP since it was not released until much later. It started as a standalone single. However, I have noted its inclusion on the EP.
Next sentence should be the one about production.
I disagree; I think it makes more sense to introduce the group members first. If the production sentence comes second, I would have to use Xeno Carr's full name, introduce the fact that "Xeno Carr" (who?) is the name of a member of the group, then somehow find a way to smoothly introduce Aqsa later. Introducing them both at once, as the members of the group, is simpler. That said, I have followed your recommendation about moving the "diss" sentence to the end of the paragraph.
"Carr produced the song." → "The song was produced by Carr."
Done
Follow on with release sentence in the new order
"known as Aqsa (formerly Smoke Hijabi)" remove the bit in brackets as this is too much irrelevant information
Ordinarily I would agree, but there's a sort of odd problem that virtually every source refers to her as "Smoke Hijabi", a name she no longer uses, which is potentially confusing for readers. She put out an Instagram video in which she said she wants to go by "Aqsa" rather than "Smoke Hijabi". That video has since been deleted (and unfortunately Instagram can't be archived by sites like Archive.org), but ultimately I want to respect her apparent decision to discontinue using that name. Here's a potential compromise: her full name, Aqsa Malik, wasn't available in a reliable source until this article from December. I would still like to introduce the "Smoke Hijabi" moniker in the lead to avoid confusion, but afterward I can refer to her by her surname. If iLoveFriday becomes more well known, they may become notable enough to sustain a separate Wikipedia article, and at that point these explanations will no longer be necessary to include on this page about a song.
Make one about diss track the last sentence, as this then leads into the second para's first sentence
Done
"a diss track" → "a diss track" as both words should be wikilinked since it's more than one line/verse
Done
"The decision to diss Khalifa" → "The decision to diss Khalifa in "Mia Khalifa""
This seems repetitive, but I've come up with phrasing that I think solves the problem: "The decision to write a song dissing Khalifa"
"The decision to write "Mia Khalifa" as a diss towards Khalifa" reads better, since you should repeat the title at the start of a new para
"The members of iLoveFriday and their fans" → "iLoveFriday and their fans" as we know there's members
Done
"Khalifa has never" → "However, Khalifa has never"
The idea of that sentence is not contrary to the previous sentence. A sentence that begins with "However" and follows the statement "iLoveFriday and their fans assumed the screenshot was real and took offense at Khalifa's apparent hypocrisy" would have to be something like "However, the screenshot was in fact fake" (which of course the reader already knows by then) or "However, the controversy was short-lived" (or something that reverses or undermines the preceding statement about people taking offense).
"It has been praised for its" → "The song has been praised for its"
That would result in "... the song. The song ...". However, I have reworded it to "Critics have praised the song..." which clarifies who is doing the praising anyway.
Not sure if catchiness should be wikilinked as it's simple
I would prefer to link it, since this song is divisive in its "catchiness" and invites scrutiny of the concept of catchiness itself. "Catchiness" is an intuitive concept but the question of what makes some music "catchy", what properties define catchiness, is a difficult and somewhat subjective one.
"Months after its release, the song" → "Months after its release, "Mia Khalifa""
Done
Sure TikTok shouldn't be mentioned as a company earlier in the lead since you write "the company" at one point?
I think "Despite the song's breakthrough success on TikTok, the company..." is clear. It's a commonplace concept that an app (or almost any product) can (and likely does) share its name with the company behind it.
Maybe mention the song's music video somewhere in the lead?
What would you suggest saying about it?
Mention when it was released and the fact it was briefly taken down.
Not sure what difference this makes. "Modest success" is a widely used phrase.
"Not only was the tweet fake" remove the URL link
Done lol, I don't know who added that link but obviously it does not belong there.
"fake but, in fact, Khalifa is not Muslim and never" → "fake, but Khalifa is actually not Muslim and never"
Done
Merge this with the para below as it is only two lines
These two sentences are actually the end of the paragraph starting with "The song and video were modest successes...", which is interrupted by a block quote in the middle but is still a single paragraph. If this were an essay rather than a Wikipedia article, the placement of paragraph indentations would make this more clear, but I don't see any issue with the way it is right now or compelling reason to stitch together one much longer paragraph.
"the apparent hypocrisy" → "the apparent hypocrisy of the screenshot"
Done but I used "statement" instead.
"said in an interview" → "stated in an interview"
I don't see a reason to change this. Dropping a synonym for "said" without good cause, just to avoid saying "said", is not good writing. "Said" is a perfectly natural word and one of the most repetition-proof words in the English language. Its synonyms are overused and tend to make writing more stilted.
Wording is repetitive
"Many of the group's fans" → "Many of iLoveFriday's fans"
Done
"reacted with anger at Khalifa" → "reacted with anger towards Khalifa"
Done
"about whether iLoveFriday" → "about whether the group"
Done but as "group members" because "the group themselves" is awkward.
"realized the screenshot" → "realized that the screenshot"
"Regardless, they recorded" → "Regardless, iLoveFriday recorded"
"On September 27, 2019, "Mia Khalifa" was released as the first track on iLoveFriday's second EP MOOD." should be added as the sentence after the one about release to TuneCore, with this being a good source
Done but added to the end of the paragraph to maintain chronology.
"the video for" → "the music video for"
Done
Mention the release date of the music video?
Done
Merge last para with the one above since the former is a single sentence
"was due, in part, to her" → "was partially due to her"
Keeping the way it is.
"The beat was produced" → "The song was produced"
Done
"as the memorable highlight" sure this word is required?
Done
"because of these lines" → "because of the lines"
Done
"said the verse captured Malik's" → "said the verse captured Malik"
Done
"absolute brattiest"." → "absolute brattiest.""
MOS:LQ: "If the quotation is a single word or a sentence fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside the closing quotation mark." Example: Marlin needed, he said, "to find Nemo".
"He emphasized her delivery" → "Cooper emphasized her delivery"
Done
""kiss yaaaa!"," works since the ! is required in the quote and you can't have a , right next to it
Not sure what you mean here. If you're saying there can't be a comma after an exclamation mark inside a quotation then you are mistaken. See MOS:LQ, which gives this example: Dory said, "Yes, I can read!", which gave Marlin an idea.
"in her voice" → "in Malik's voice" as it's a different sentence so mention her surname again
This is the second time "her" is used in that sentence ("her delivery"). I think it's clear who the pronouns refer to, given that Malik is the only female member and indeed only female subject in that paragraph (the critic, Duncan Cooper, is male). Who else's voice could be under discussion?
"sick way," "really" → "sick way," as well as "really"
Done split the sentence.
"noted the same" → "expressed similar feelings"
Done
""grating voice"." → ""grating voice.""
MOS:LQ: "If the quotation is a single word or a sentence fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside the closing quotation mark." Example: Marlin needed, he said, "to find Nemo".
"The rapper and Internet celebrity" → "American rapper and Internet celebrity"
"Aqsa Malik, speaking" → "Malik, speaking" as her surname should commonly be used for mentions like it has been done thus far
I don't think this rule necessarily applies to pull-outs like image captions or quote boxes. My assumption is that many readers casually scroll through an article and look at pull-outs like this before, or instead of, reading body text.
"and was so closely" → "and was very closely" since so is used shortly before
Using "so" twice is the point. It's a parallelism to emphasize that both the extent of the song's popularity and the extent of its close association with TikTok contributed to the way it spread and was understood as a meme. The clause would lose meaning otherwise. Consider a similarly structured sentence as an example: "The movie was so scary, and so violent, that the children could not handle watching it for even one more minute." This, one the other hand, makes no sense and is syntactically broken: "The movie was so scary, and very violent, that the children could not handle watching it for even one more minute."
"that it spawned" → "that the song spawned"
This is in the middle of a sentence, and the second time the song is referred to by the pronoun "it". It makes more sense to change "It became so popular" → "The song became so popular", which I have Done.
""#TikTokTest"." → ""#TikTokTest.""
MOS:LQ: "If the quotation is a single word or a sentence fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside the closing quotation mark." Example: Marlin needed, he said, "to find Nemo".
"wander into a public areas" → "wander into public areas"
Done
""hit or miss", hoping" → ""hit or miss," hoping"
MOS:LQ: "If the quotation is a single word or a sentence fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside the closing quotation mark." Example: Marlin needed, he said, "to find Nemo".
"who might complete the line" → "intended to complete the line"
I don't see how this is a necessary change or an improvement.
"to find other TikTok users" → "to find other users"
"As with the app itself" → "Similarly to the app itself"
I don't see how this is a necessary change or an improvement.
"function as important platforms for listeners" → "function importantly for listeners"
Not an improvement. I'll cut the sentence to its bare bones to show why: "Social media and TikTok function for listeners to discover new music." The word "function" all alone by itself becomes meaningless—function how? It functions as a platform for music discovery. Consider a similar example: "When I drive my car straight into a wall at high speed, the car functions." Huh? How about: "When I drive my car straight into a wall at high speed, the car functions as a battering ram." Ah, OK.
"including, for example, Ariana" → "including Ariana"
Not an improvement. Quoting from a bigger portion, it would become "other songs reached comparable levels of popularity on the app around the same time—including Ariana Grande's 'Thank U, Next'—". With this wording, there is no clear purpose to specifically naming Ariana Grande's song and not other's. Why not someone else's song? Why are we highlighting Ariana Grande's song, is just a namedrop for its own sake? Why only one song, when clearly there are several others in the same group? Why not name three in a row all at once? With "for example", the purpose and reasoning is clearer: one song from this category has been selected because it is a well-known example that illustrates relevant qualities of most other songs from the same group. Other than being well-known, its selection was essentially arbitrary and chosen just by means of an example. Incidentally, this was a secondary source's choice of example, not my own.
"Grande, iLoveFriday" → "Grande and iLoveFriday"
Done reworded for clarity.
Img needs alt text
Done
"from South Dakota" → "from the US state South Dakota"
"were more than 2.5 million" → "were over 2.5 million"
Wrong. In this context, there are two possibilities: (1)using "more than" is more correct than using "over", or (2)either "more than" or "over" is fine, and the two are essentially interchangeable. There is no basis for saying that "over" is more correct than "more than" when attached to a numeric value.
"at least 4 million" → "at least four million"
Using the numeral before "million" keeps it consistent with "2.5 million". I'm not going to switch to "two-point-five million".
"also reached the number 1 position" → "also reached the number one position"
"The song's lyrics were the 18th" remove this as a Genius should only be used as a source for news and interviews
According to...?
Genius has been cited as unreliable per discussion.
Ah, I see the misunderstanding. Yes, per the discussion, obviously the crowd-sourced aspects of the Genius site (lyrics in most cases, certainly annotations) are not reliable and shouldn't be cited on Wikipedia. However, the site also has a "News" section, which is not described in that discussion. Unlike the familiar user-driven portion of the site, Genius News has its own staff writers (plus freelance contributors) and the editorial oversight one would expect from a professional publication. It is not crowd-sourced and there is no user input. The articles published by the site's news wing can be seen at that link. —BLZ · talk08:46, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"most-read" it is related to user-stats, therefore I am not comfortable with this; remove it
In the exact same way that YouTube views are "user stats". This is absolutely not the standard for not citing user-generated content. Page views are not even close to the same thing as user-generated content; the overwhelming majority of people viewing the page are there as readers who don't even have Genius accounts. The reason we don't cite Genius annotations is because a random user's interpretations or descriptions of lyrics are not reliable. But an editorial, staff-run section of Genius announcing that the song was one of the most-viewed pages on their website is notable and reliable. A high view count on one of the web's most popular lyrics websites, which specializes in hip hop culture, is an indicator of the song's popularity, and is even more noteworthy since it is one of the very few self-published songs. —BLZ · talk04:16, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"compensation system at the time" → "compensation system as of February 2019" since the time is unknown otherwise in new para
Done simplified the sentence.
"views on that site" → "views on the site"
Done reworded the sentence.
Merge with the para below as it's only one sentence
There's nothing inherently wrong with one-sentence paragraphs. The two paragraphs are about two different topics: compensation via YouTube, and compensation via TikTok. Mashing them together is less organized and essentially arbitrary.
"their song's breakthrough success" → "the breakthrough success of "Mia Khalifa""
I don't see how this is a necessary change or an improvement.
Remove wikilink on licensed
Done
"and, to date, have" → "and have still"
Done I just changed it to "never". They formed a new deal with TikTok foregoing compensation in favor of promotion, so "to date" or "still" are not necessary.
Remove wikilink on the common term manager
It links to the specific concept "talent manager", which is not the most common sense of the word "manager" (boss, employer).
"TikTok has been criticized" → "The company has been criticized" due to repetition
There are 56 words between the two uses of "TikTok". I think it's fine as is.
Create this section to show the song's streaming release using the ref from background and release; see this as an example
Is this necessary? The song was first officially released in February 2018, but as far as I know no precise date is available. Pitchfork only says "released last February" (i.e. February 2018). It was reuploaded to Apple Music and Tidal on December 14, 2018, presumably as part of a new management deal, but that's not the true date of its first "release".
Yeah it is, you can use February 2018 as the release date
I'm not at all convinced that a "Release history" section is "necessary". What policy mandates it, or describes when it should or shouldn't be implemented? I don't believe it's a good idea in this case because it adds little to no information (unlike, say, "All I Want for Christmas Is You § Release history, which I can see as necessary because of the complicated multi-part global roll-out). That said, I went ahead and added it anyway. Although it adds nothing, it doesn't really take anything away either. —BLZ · talk08:57, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Refs 2 and 19 are heavy on copyvio – reduce the quotes
I've paraphrased a quote from Ref 2 (Pitchfork), but most of what is cited from there are statements of fact that are not inherently copyrightable. The few quotes that are used are attributed, short, and justifiable fair use. I'm not sure what problem you have with Ref 19 (Complex), which is used only three times and only to support factual statements, not to attribute any quotes.
If copyvio is over 40% for a ref, then the amount of content quoted needs to be decreased for it to not violate.
I've reduced quotations and similar phrasing. I will say that Earwig's Copyvio Detector is a helpful tool for detecting possible copyright violation, but it's still just a tool. Nothing says all Earwig-checked links must be under 40%; that's just the threshold indicating "possible violation", but context and critical judgment must still be applied. The Pitchfork source is still barely over 40% (41.5%), but everything quoted from it is attributed. Some of the phrases picked up as "copyright violations" of Pitchfork include things that Pitchfork itself was quoting, like the famous lines from the song's lyrics and the text of the "fake tweet". Other quotations that I've used from that Pitchfork article are all properly attributed and justifiable as either critical commentary or direct, non-paraphrasable statements from the group members. —BLZ · talk09:35, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WP:OVERQUOTE If you don't reduce the quoting then I will have to fail this.
Websites are supposed to be cited as publishers if they are not italicized.
Per my comment above: all my citations to Genius are from the Genius News section of the site, which is a professionally staffed publication by the same company/at the same website. To help distinguish it from the unreliable crowdfunded portions of the site, I've kept it in the "website" parameter but relabeled it "Genius News".
Ref 4 should have last name cited before first for consistency with the others
Done
Ref 5 should use Tubefilter as a publisher
Done
Ref 7 should only use YouTube as a publisher
YouTube is literally not the publisher. If you upload something to YouTube, YouTube did not "publish" it, you did. For most music videos, the publisher would be the label or maybe a company like Vevo. YouTube is just the platform, which is the purpose of the via parameter; Template:Cite web/doc says via"Name of the entity hosting the original copy of the work, if different from the publisher. This entity is committed not to alter the work. GitHub, SourceForge, CodePlex, YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion and Netflix are examples of service dedicated to acting on behalf of the publisher".
Ref 8 should only cite Noisey and not include a publisher; wikilink it to Vice (magazine)
Publisher is redundant if the name is the same or virtually the same as the website, like The New York Times and The New York Times Co. or Vice itself and Vice Media. An example given for a publisher at Template:Cite web/doc is "CBS Interactive", which owns "Metacritic.com", which is the exact relationship here between Noisey and Vice Media. As for why I linked directly to "Noisey" rather than a piped link to Vice (magazine), see MOS:RDR—it is actually more correct to link directly to Noisey, even though it is (currently) a redirect.
Ditto for ref 9 with KentWired
I disagree, in this case it's not obvious who publishes "KentWired" from that name alone (since it is a reliable source, but not necessarily notable on its own). The publisher parameter here clarifies who is editorially responsible for the site's content.
Done Someone else must have changed this.
On hold for a week. --Kyle Peake (talk) 08:15, 23 January 2020 (UTC)