Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/FIFA World Cup/FirstNomination

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[edit] FIFA World Cup

(partial self-nom) A comprehensive article on important subject. Worked on by football improvement drive, also has been on peer review. Conscious 20:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Article has been moved fairly recently (Football World Cup→FIFA World Cup). Articles have been spun off this article to reduce length (beginning about December 20). Had 17 votes in favor of having the article as the Football Article Improvement Drive. When a member of the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team came around to ask for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, FIFA World Cup was mentioned. FIFA World Cup "look[ed] A-Class to" Walkerma (as shown here). This article has been under work for about two months (since December 24 2005) in an effort to make this a featured article (or "as good as the one on Olympic Games eventually," as Chanheigeorge said). — Ian Manka Talk to me‼ 21:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Support Comment Can we have an image of the WC at the top of the article? --PopUpPirate 01:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, we need to have one. I have attempted to find one on Wikipedia to no avail. I'd upload one, but I'm not too good with images, in general.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by IanManka (talk • contribs) .

Further comment. I assume you mean a picture of the real Cup, not the copy given to Germany shown in the linked article on the trophy (not that that's such a great image itself).

And speaking of images, I imagine that in an article about the greatest trophy in international soccer I would expect to see an image of someone playing, or just finished playing, soccer. Is there something somewhere we can use showing a team, still in uniform, celebrating with the trophy on the field? I know there's a picture of Diego Maradona holding it aloft with a huge smile on his face. We need some visual connection with the sport.

Will say more as I get a chance to look the article over. Since this is going to not only be timely (Main Page on the opening day?) but about the world's biggest sporting event, we have to make it good. Daniel Case 04:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There is some discussion at the talk page of using images from the 1978 World Cup, I believe. I still think we need a picture of the trophy of the "real Cup" as you call it -- and you're right, the image isn't too good in the linked article. — Ian Manka Talk to me‼ 21:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

OK. Here's what I have:

• "West Auckland won the tournament and returned to Italy in 1911 to defend their title. In this second competition, West Auckland beat Juventus 6-1 in the final, and were awarded the trophy outright." This last word suggests that they shared the trophy at the first competition. Is there something missing here?

• • Fixed. — Ian Manka Talk to me‼ 05:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• "For example, the winner of the Oceanian zone and the fifth-placed team from the South American zone entered a play-off to decide which team would qualify for the 2006 World Cup." Hasn't this always been the case due to the relative strength of Australia compared to most of the other sides in that zone? There's some controversy about this, IIRC ... has it been suggested that the Oceania zone be redrawn to be more competitive and the playoff eliminated. This can probably best be dealt with in the daughter article (currently it's not mentioned there at all), but a mention here might be nice.

• "In the knockout stage, teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner, if nessessary." Didn't they also once use a coin flip (except for the final itself)? The article should mention that if it's so (as well as allude to all the other tiebreaking controversies over the years).

• Mascots: Might also spice up the article to include a picture of one from the daughter article ... Willie is the best choice for historical and encyclopedic value, but those Tip and Tap figurines are just so cute.

• • Fixed by Conscious.

• "In all, 207 teams have competed to qualify to the World Cup ..." Does that mean in the actual tournament itself? Or all the qualifying rounds? Some clarification is needed here.
  • Fixed. — Ian Manka Talk to me‼ 05:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
• Maybe you could also throw in how many nations have actually sent teams to the qualifying rounds. Is every nation in the world represented in that group? If one isn't, why?
  • I think this is fixed, but I am not entirely sure. The 207 teams number refers to the total amount of teams who have attempted to qualify. Take a look (here) and see what you think. Was this what you were looking for? — Ian Manka Talk to me‼ 05:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• Also, it might be nice to have a section on cultural aspects of the World Cup, from the team songs (especially in Britain) to the Three Tenors.

OK, beyond that, the major issue is some clunky and sloppy English (as noted in peer review), which I'll take care of in a copyediting sweep later. Daniel Case 03:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Just did the copyediting sweep. Trimmed down a lot of run-on sentences and unnecessary verbiage. But issues remain.

• • Intro still needs work, as noted below. I think I can completely redo it but it will take some time.

• • What about "Mundial" as a term for the tournament? I don't hear it as much as I used to but it's still around as a term for the tournament in Spanish-speaking countries. Should that be in the intro?
    • AFAIK "Mundial" is just a Spanish word for the adjective "World". Conscious 12:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

• • It's just me, perhaps, but I think it looks terrible when section heds are followed immediately by subsection heds. Perhaps there could be some sort of intro for these?

• • "However, American interest in soccer was declining as American football became more popular, making it unlikely tickets to events would sell well. FIFA and the IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and so football was dropped from the Games." This is as I reworded it, but it needs a source.
    • Sourced, and BBC's information was quite the opposite of the article's. Conscious 12:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

• • "The British home nations, where football was first played, entered the World Cup for the first time in 1950, after reaching an agreement with FIFA about their status." What exactly was the disagreement? I'm guessing that FIFA wanted a single UK team? Can we make this clearer?
    • Rewritten. It turns out they just didn't want to play. Conscious 14:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

• • "I'm wondering if, at some point in time, a daughter history article might not be such a bad idea. This treatment is pretty good but given that practically every other section has a daughter article link, the absence is glaring. Certainly the history of the World Cup has to consist of more than this (Don't consider this fatal to your nomination, though).
    • Well, it can be done even now. It only takes writing a summary of the history, I'll try to do it. Conscious 12:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

• • "The basic constraint is that no group contains more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation." This isn't clear. Is this what is meant to happen or what actually does happen? If the latter, I remember the 1990 World Cup when the group of death (and that should be in there too, as well as in the daughter article) featured England, Ireland, the Netherlands and Egypt ... three European teams, which doesn't fit the picture. Is the geographic distribution something new? If so, that needs to be in the article.
    • Since 1998, added. Conscious 07:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• • We need to do something about the Willie image, since it's going into the table below. Daniel Case 05:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Tried to shrink, does it look better now? Conscious 12:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

• I've claimed fair use for a picture of Brazil celebrating their victory. Also inserted image of Willie (fair use, too). Conscious 13:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• Object. I want to see this featured, but I'm finding some troubling errors in the prose, such as stilted wording. I tried rewording the lead, but I find the second paragraph does not flow well, jumping from one topic to another. Sentences like "In the Olympic games of 1924 and 1928, Uruguay won the football gold medal, in the first intercontinental football competitions", "The Women's World Cup is, obiviously, a women's sport, and is one of the largest differences between the two" ("largest difference"?), "In the World Cup competitions from 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy (originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde but renamed in 1946 after the president of FIFA who organized the first tournament in 1930) was awarded to the winner" (way too long and digresses in the middle),"Africa was the continent chosen, and South Africa won the vote over four other African nations", and so on. This article needs to be looked over from top to bottom. I also think m:Cite should be used for footnotes (which, by the way, there are not enough of; nothing is cited, for example, to corroborate the section on the trophy). See WP:FN for further details on how to convert from {{ref}} to m:Cite. The "Best performances by continental zones" subsection reads very badly, because it's mainly disparate information thrown together without any thought for the flow of reading. It should be rewritten or converted into a list. The image of Brazil with the trophy needs a fair use rationale (see WP:FU). I think that's enough for now, so I'll stop. Johnleemk | Talk 17:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I've reworded the three sentences you cited and converted "best performances" section to a table. After reading WP:FU more carefully I realized that this image cannot be fair use, and replaced it with another. Conscious 19:08, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Reworded the fourth and converted references (while adding a couple). The m:cite system is WAY better, thanks for pointing to it! Conscious 21:26, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the rewrite, but as PR and Daniel Case pointed out, it's not just those sentences -- the whole article tends to have sloppy writing. I've gone through the lead and first two subsections, but I don't have the time right now to finish up the rest. Hopefully Daniel can do the rest. Until then, I will have to regretfully oppose -- this is not brilliant prose by any means. Johnleemk | Talk 16:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)