Talk:Klon Centaur

overdrive, not distortion

s.o. KhlavKhalash (talk) 06:20, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

Well, the article describes it as an overdrive pedal... Popcornfud (talk) 08:50, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

Recent revert

Hello, Popcornfud. While I appreciate your intention to improve the article, I highly disagree with your revert. Your rational for going nuclear here seems to more or less be: "sorry, I just don't like it." You removed a great deal of sourced content and some logical (to me, anyway) structural changes in what appears to simply be subjective opposition to my writing style. Reverts, especially wholesales ones like this, should only be done when necessary, which doesn't appear to be the case here given there are no stated policy violations. I get that you might do a rewrite at some point in the future, but thinking this revert was necessary until you can get around to it looks WP:OWN to me, with all due respect. I would love for some other people to chime in on this, but guitar-related talk pages always seem pretty dead. Anyone? (...Bueller?) I'd be happy to ask for mediation. Mbinebri (talk) 15:48, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

(I think I made an idiot of myself with my edit summary of "Revert to last 12/19 edit per talk—this revert is not policy-based". It should have been "...that revert was not policy-based." Oof.) Mbinebri (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

I know it's frustrating to put a lot of work into an article and have it ripped out again. I also appreciate that you carefully researched these additions and cited them properly.

The problem is, and I'm sorry to blunt, I think the prose was poor. It introduces ambiguity, adds needless elements and makes the whole page harder to digest.

For example:

• Finnegan sought to recreate the harmonically rich distortion of a guitar amplifier being played at a high volume with the Centaur. This is a confusing sentence. It sounds like "a guitar amplifier being played at a high volume with the Centaur" is what Finnegan sought to recreate.
• The addition of citations to the lead in violation of WP:CITELEAD.

OK, those things are easy enough to fix, and that's what I started off trying to do. But then I get to paragraphs like this (the first paragraph of the article body):

• With the Klon Centaur, Bill Finnegan of Boston, Massachusetts, sought to offer players "a more natural, transparent and amp-like overdrive" to be used in conjunction with an amplifier's own overdrive to add sustain and volume, as opposed to being used as the sole source of distortion with a clean amplifier. Functionally a boost, the Centaur did however add to the signal a subtle midrange bump and distinctive distortion character. I think this paragraph will be unintelligible to the common reader. It isn't enough to merely quote what Finnegan says, we have to explain it plain English. What is a "natural, transparent and amp-like overdrive"? What does "functionally a boost" mean? What is a "subtle midrage bump and distinctive distortion character"? This reads like marketing copy for guitar equipment. Per WP:AUDIENCE, Wikipedia articles must be written for a general audience. But this is how much of the prose now reads.

As I wrote in my edit summary, my plan was to spend time to properly look at the information you added, which was all properly sourced, and find a way to integrate it that would hopefully satisfy both of us. I still think this is possible. Popcornfud (talk) 17:23, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

While I obviously dispute the notion that my prose is "poor" on the whole, I'll admit that my writing can be improved here and there. That said, occasional copyediting issues do not warrant a wholesale revert of so much sourced content. As to some of your issues, do you really think things like citations in the lead require everything to be reverted? I can't see how. Things like that are extremely easy to fix. You could easily have just raised your concerns here on the talk page rather than opting for the most extreme action. I would have happily tried to fix anything. Plus, this idea that my edits have to be reverted until you can personally review everything is literally the the first example of ownership behavior. All that said, I hope your revisions make us both happy (and don't take too long), but I do feel your revert was unjustified. Mbinebri (talk) 18:26, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

“do you really think things like citations in the lead require everything to be reverted?” No, I don’t. As I said above, I initially set about amending these small issues individually, but decided to revert when attending to all of these complex changes became unworkable. I mean, you totally rewrote and restructured the whole page here, and made it much bigger.

“this idea that my edits have to be reverted until you can personally review everything is literally the the first example of ownership behavior”. That’s not what happened; I read the entire new version, tried to amend the problems individually (see the edit history for some examples me doing this) and gave up. I have read your version of the whole page through several times.

Here’s a proposal - could you identify the information you think is important to retain in your version? For example, look at the paragraph I cited above - I honestly don’t know where to start with that, because it would need another complete rewrite to make any sense. Maybe you could propose another version that’s more approachable to the common reader? Popcornfud (talk) 19:39, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm really just stumped on how you have such a problem with the whole article. You cite "small issues" in the name of a huge revert. This whole thing seems backward to me, like the prose has to be worked out before the content can be allowed, even when it's sourced. I'm of the opinion my expansion should be restored and we can work the prose from there as needed. As to what content I think is important to retain, it's all of it, otherwise I wouldn't have added it. :) But I think the new information on the circuit was badly needed. Either way, I asked for a third party to chime in, just to try and help us out. Mbinebri (talk) 20:55, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

I think I made a mistake when I started off giving examples of the small issues before moving onto the big ones -- the small issues aren't the reason I made the wholsale revert, so that was just a distracting way to begin the discussion.

The intractible problem is that much of your version is presented in this dense WP:JARGONistic fashion, which is very hard to fix without extensive unpacking and rewriting, that made me hit the TNT plunger. I don't think it was a net improvement, because it just made the whole article hard to understand.

Again, I point to the first paragraph of the body as an example. I genuinely don't know what that's saying, and I'll have to cross-reference the sources against the prose to figure it out. Readers shouldn't have to do that to understand articles. Popcornfud (talk) 20:59, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Where is all this jargon in the history section? Or the legacy section? Or the clones section? I don't see what you're failing to understand in the bulk of my expansion. The one sentence you're hung up on can be clarified. If you have any unstated issues with the design section, I don't know what to tell you. It's audio equipment, there will be technical terms. After all, the first sentence in the policy you cite is "Some topics are necessarily technical". I still don't see the validity of the whole reversion you did. Mbinebri (talk) 22:05, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

 RESPONSE TO THIRD OPINION REQUEST

---

TL;DR: Non-inclusion of the disputed content is warranted, as it was written. Collaborate on forming more appropriate prose to re-insert the content in-question.

I am not musically-inclined nor do I have any knowledge of the subject, so I feel I may be able to offer inputs when one of the alleged issues at-play is WP:JARGON. If, however, either of you have objections to my rendering a 3O because of this, then let me know.

After reading the above discussion, I must say; Surely there is a middle-ground, here, no? Mbinebri, at no point has Popcornfud said that they are unwilling to compromise. Indeed, they have, in my estimation, made every indication that they would be open to a re-write of your proffered content.

However, Mbinebri, I do agree with Popcornfud that your preferred diff makes little sense to me, a person with zero understanding of this subject. What is a "subtle midrange push"? Why is it subtle? Why not soft? Why not quiet? Why not... etc. That wording alone is quite FLUFFY (along with others). You quote the first sentence of JARGON, but not in its entirety; "Some topics are necessarily technical; however, editors should seek to write articles accessible to the greatest possible number of readers." [emphasis added] It further advises: "Minimize the use of jargon, and adequately explain its meaning when it is used." (in all fairness, "harmonically rich distortion" in the current diff could use some explanation, as well; I couldn't tell you what that means if my life depended on it). This:

"While the Centaur has been credited with popularizing 'transparent' overdrives, it provided a subtle midrange push and fatness to the affected signal, leading Guitar World to characterize the pedal as a 'sonic sweetener' as opposed to a true boost"

...may as well be in another language, in my eyes. I can continue, but I hope you see what I'm driving-at. Yes, some — many, in my opinion — topics are inherently technical. However, it doesn't mean that their articles cannot be written in a manner in which most people can understand their meaning, or, at the very least, infer their meaning. The above paragraph? I'm not joking when I say I couldn't tell you what any of that means (and it has nothing to do with your writing, merely the technical terms mean nothing to me).

You added a lot of text and likely a lot of information. However, the prose is simply too technical and too FLUFFY. Popcornfud is under no obligation to copy-edit the content on your behalf. They have every right to remove the content until such a time as it is ready for inclusion. Disputed content is disputed content and ONUS is ONUS, as I'm sure you're both extremely well-aware. As I said, you added a lot of information. Surely, some of that text has a home in the article. If you are willing, I'm sure Popcornfud and I would be happy to collaborate with you in adding at least some of the disputed content. Popcorn's already offered to do this "Here’s a proposal - could you identify the information you think is important to retain in your version?" Quite frankly, the conversation should not have continued as an argument/disagreement after that statement was made. However, I think it's obvious you are passionate about this topic and that you have compelling information you wish to add... I don't think anyone is against that.

So, may we start there? Can you please concisely share with us the points that you wish to include, along with their sources (if they are already in the article, just note that), and then we can go from there? — MWFwiki (talk) 07:27, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, MWFwiki! This still sounds like copyediting trumping content to me, but I'll take the "L" here. That said, I think issues with technical terminology only seems to apply to the design section (where you would expect it to be) and a couple other sentences. I feel like the history and legacy sections shouldn't be that much of a problem to re-add then...? Anyway, if Popcornfud still wishes to do a rewrite, I look forward to seeing it. And I apologize if I sounded heated! I probably always sound mad in these things when I don't mean to! Mbinebri (talk) 10:57, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Rewrite

I went back to the article state from 12/19 and tried to clean it up and address the concerns raised here. I removed language like "harmonically rich" and many of the quotes. I cut down on some technical terms and tried to make what's left more readable rather than hitting you with everything all at once. I also tried to be clearer about what things like "transparent" means. At the same time, I do think some detail is warranted to understand what makes this pedal different than others. Hopefully this is at least somewhat of an improvement, or at least a decent starting point going forward. Thoughts? Or am I in for another reversion? Mbinebri (talk) 15:16, 21 December 2025 (UTC)