Featured articleSex Pistols is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 5, 2010.
On this day... Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 19, 2004Refreshing brilliant proseKept
October 18, 2006Featured article reviewKept
February 18, 2024Featured article reviewKept
On this day... Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on January 6, 2011, January 6, 2015, January 6, 2017, and January 6, 2019.
Current status: Featured article

FA review needed?[edit]

Fifteen years have passed since the article's promotion to FA in 2006. One comment made by now-inactive editor two years ago (#Very editoralised) has me thinking: has the article still lived up to FA standards today? Is the article about the rock band that lasted three years in 1970s detailed enough, under-detailed (despite the article's size), or overly detailed?

Also, one of the non-free images (File:Sex Pistols, August 1975.jpg) still has an incomplete rationale/summary, but that could be easily fixable. One of the links is dead. A UK chart column of the "Discography > Other albums" section lacks sources verifying peak positions. The "Legacy" section details impact on the US and the UK, but I can't see info about the band's impact elsewhere outside those countries. Also, unless otherwise, the "History" section would be too large to load and read, especially on mobile, and should be split into sections. Id est the "History" header should be eliminated, and its sub-headers should be converted into headers. --George Ho (talk) 08:07, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As I see in WP:URFA/2020A, Ceoil in August 2021 mentioned the article containing "excitable language and bloat". --George Ho (talk) 08:12, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

URFA/2020 and FARGIVEN

No response to concerns raised over a year ago; listing at WP:FARGIVEN. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:17, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Subjective intro[edit]

"they are one of the most groundbreaking acts in the history of popular music" isn't very encyclopedic. There's no source to even say they're considered one of the most groundbreaking acts in the history of popular music — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.100.148.48 (talk) 11:00, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Statements that are sourced in the body of the article don't need to also be sourced in the lead, and that statement ties back to a claim in the cultural influence section. However, I could not verify the claim from those sources so I have tagged it. QuietHere (talk) 06:52, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I support that tag and was glad to see it - but the lead is a problem. Musically they were not groundbreaking in any way at all. Hence McClaren's statement "Christ, if people bought the records for the music, this thing would have died a death long ago,". Quoted in 1977, just as the Pistols died a death. The line in the lead shocked me as it is stated in Wikivoice - the word 'considered' really ought to be there if the statement remains. Not to say that they didn't cause mayhem, of course, but that's not 'groundbreaking' either. (for critical context, Metal Box is considered 'groundbreaking') Cheers. Thelisteninghand (talk) 21:30, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree and have changed to "one of the most culturally influential acts ", which I think is fair enough (although more influential in Europe than the US). I always had the feeling that Lyndon left because of the pedestrian style and himself and wobble had already been plotting working towards Metal Box. Ceoil (talk) 23:26, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Other members[edit]

Should we include Wally Nightingale, Stella Nova (rhen known as Steve New) and Nick Kent as Sex Pistols? They were all early guitarists during the period in which Steve Jones was the vocalist and they were being billed under the "Sex Pistols" name at the time (although sometimes "QT Jones and his Sex Pistols"). They had a brief two guitar lineup even during Rotten’s time with the band with Nova. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Actuallyjoseph (talkcontribs) 07:31, 24 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]


SG review[edit]

Save for stats: 2002-12-26

I need to stop for a bit; this is quite discouraging, and I've barely scratched the surface. Ceoil older versions had better citation formatting on the web sources, and converting a lot of them to sfns was a waste of time, now requiring more work to sort out titles, authors and publishers, and a number of those sources aren't worth the effort and may not be reliable. But going backwards isn't possible now. Language icons are needed throughout, actual titles are sometimes wrong, incorrect access-dates are given (you can't have an access-date before the publication date), and I'm only about two-thirds of the way through addressing this, and haven't yet read a thing. Maybe after you get through the list above you can look at all the other sources in terms of ... how many of them should be ditched in favor or higher quality sources before I spend time cleaning up the citation format? I strongly recommend in future efforts like this one that only books be converted to sfns; maintaining charts on music in the sfn format will be not fun. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:30, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Spent an hour or so recovering :) Back with a recommendation. Converting books to sfn is fine and good and optimal. Converting websources to sfn on an article of this nature is inviting a maintenance nightmare. I recommend going back to non-book sources being cited with ref tags. The sooner the better, because there's still a ton of work to be done here, and charts will need constant updating; doing that with sfns won't be fun, since most don't have an author name. See J. K. Rowling#References; books and long journal articles needing page numbers use sfns, the rest do not. I'll convert them back if we get agreement, but it would be good to first deal with the question list above, because some of the sourcing isn't up to FA standards. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:02, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Haven't gone through proprally, yet, but there may be more work than had though. The ref format decided on last years FAR on Spiderland worked for me, but how that could/should convert here; dunno yet. Will update over weekend, and thanks for the massive effort: fixing and reviewing :) Ceoil (talk) 21:27, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As update have removed most of the above[1] but realise more needed. Ceoil (talk) 22:10, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Checking back through-- now in better shape, recognizing work still needed to re-cite some things ... it looks like we'll get there, and my apologies for not yet having done a read-through. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Citation work

Ceoil I will recompile here a list citations I still haven't finished working on; some are missing the parameters for | language= and the correct | title = with a | trans-title = ... others I just haven't gotten to yet (as it would be so much easier if websources had been left as citation templates):

Ceoil stopping there to give you a chance to catch up; this kind of work wipes out my back from the old injury. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:06, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Prose queries

History

  • Done Cut a little as its a bit fluffy. Ceoil (talk) 23:49, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Done (I think but need to revisit). Ceoil (talk) 23:49, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Early following

What do you think about:
1 Beginnings
1.1 Formation
1.2 Lydon joins
1.3 Early following
2 Fame
2.1 The Grundy Incident
2.2 Sid Vicious replaces Matlock
2.3 God Save the Queen
2.4 Bollocks album
3 Break-up
3.1 Aftermath
3.2 Post-Lydon releases
3.3 Reunions

Mainstream fame

Sid Vicious replaces Matlock

God Save the Queen

Album

Break-up

Aftermath

I'm fine with this, it shows he was about image rather than bass guitar, but ok might trim or switch quotes to prose. Also Lydon has said many times he has major regrets about what happened to Sid; might rephrase with more sensitivity....Ceoil (talk) 02:32, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Removed in the end. Ceoil (talk) 02:10, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Post-Lydon releases

Reunions

Nothing.

Influence

Its actually true![3][4]., Morrissey was also there!...will work on...prob next weekend. zzz and thanks!!! Ceoil (talk) 02:05, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done now - "catalytic expressions" (ugg) removed, and "among the most important events in popular music" reffed by those supporting the preceding list of rankings. Ceoil (talk) 04:14, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Conceptual basis

Guest musicians

Done for now, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:35, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: have spun out the discography to Sex Pistols discography as it was a mess, and what is canonical (ie pre, with and post..or witout) Rotten was prev, IMO, silly. Article disc now limited to with Rotten/Lyndon, per all sources.Ceoil (talk) 01:42, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Conceptual basis[edit]

I think it would be valuable to add this quote from Jon Savage's England's Dreaming (page 71) to the conceptual basis section of the page.

"In fact, it was Steve Jones who first had the idea of putting the group, or any group, together with McLaren. He chose McLaren, not vice versa."

Don't know how to go about adding it so it fits with the rest of the section so I'm putting it here. Theotherdavis (talk) 06:58, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tidbits[edit]

  1. Who is quoted with "would wear a velvet ..." and can there be in-text attribution?
  2. Is it relevant to mention the Golden Jubilee year? Not in source.
  3. Is there reason to capitalize "Top Ten" or other numbers in some places but have the lowercase, hyphenated "top-ten" in others?

Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:18, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Only spotting these now....Ceoil (talk) 03:14, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies; only done now. Ceoil (talk) 07:05, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

U.S. tour[edit]

The article states the 1978 U.S. tour was scheduled for 9 dates, but the Pistols only played 5 shows in 12 days. This is incorrect. According to the official Sex Pistols website - at https://www.sexpistolsofficial.com/gig-archive-1975-2008/ - one show on Dec. 28 (1977) in Pittsburgh was cancelled, then they played 7 shows between Jan. 5 and Jan. 14 (nine days). Elsquared67 (talk) 04:39, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ceoil? The source we're citing also says seven shows. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:43, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Counting out, I also get seven: Atlanta, Memphis, San Antonio, Baton Rouge, Dallas, Tulsa and San Francisco, and see. Thanks OP; hang on. Ceoil (talk) 06:39, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Article updated: see also "Notwithstanding their ill-fated 7-date fiasco", Billboard 2 Aug 2003. Need to check re nine days total. Ceoil (talk) 06:47, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Will be a few days before I get to validate the original schedule, but its more than probable that OP is right on the timeline; billboard here says two dates were cancelled and 7+2= 9. Ceoil (talk) 07:30, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok done. Good spot Elsquared67. Ceoil (talk) 07:44, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]