Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Adam Gilchrist

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 07:46, 15 March 2007.

[edit] Adam Gilchrist

A solid piece of work, mostly by User:The Rambling Man, this has grown from a run of the mill cricket bio to an outstanding article, worthy of FA status. Particularly tricky has been lifiting the article out of the welter of stats that threatened to drown the narrative flow. Masses of OR has been removed. Even more has been sourced - witness 120+ references at the last count. Constructive criticism welcomed, as ever. Even better, please do feel free to support this nom! --Dweller 21:40, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• SUPPORT Great effort to bring this up to FA in a few weeks. This is well referred and has everything I need to know about Gilchrist.--Thugchildz 22:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong support Can't see anything notable wrong with it. Buc 22:48, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Support - Solid article, well-referenced to the highest extent. AQu01rius (User • Talk) 23:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - Pictures are fuzzy and are of distance shots which makes it hard to see his face. Cant you get better ones? Mercenary2k 23:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

  You're correct, but these are the only ones we have - indeed most sports bios here have no photo at all, so 3 is pretty good. The top one isn't amazing quality, but does at least show his elfin face recognisibly. Others show him in action and are fine for illustration - his exuberant celebrations of a good innings and in action as a wicketkeeper. --Dweller 11:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - Many missing parts in the coverage. There is no mention of his 2000 elevation to vice-captaincy after the Nursegate-Warney scandal. There is a complete blackout on the 2000/01 Australian season, where he captained one Test in Adelaide when Waugh was injured. No coverage of March 2001 tour to India. So basically there is a big gap of 18 months from early 2000 to mid 2001 Ashes series. He captained another Test at Headingley when Waugh was injured. This is not mentioned, when he let England have a target of 300 on the last day and they made it easily. No mention of 2001/02 Australian season. This was when they tried to get Hayden into the ODI team, and rotated Gilchrist Waugh and Hayden in the opening slots. Both Waugh and Gilchrist went out of form < 20 average for the season; Waugh borthers dropped, most successful Australian ODI opening combo broke up; Elevation of Ponting to captaincy ahead of Gilchrist, the incumbent VC is not mentioned. 2002/03 Australian season not mentioned. 2003/04 season not mentioned...many gaps in the coverage. He was also fined by ICC/ACB for pubilcly condeming Murali at a sponsorship function somewhere. Many seasons have little/no account. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

  Serious issues raised here. To keep this page clutter-free and to ensure we deal with the concerns properly, I'm going to cut and paste the comments to the article talk page and reformat so we can address them point by point. Will post back here when all concerns are addressed in one way or another. --Dweller 11:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Work is progressing at the article and its talk page, where this serious oppose is being dissected. I'd like to point out at this stage that I've rebutted the last of Blnguyen's criticisms at the talk page, but am keen to solicit consensus, as I am aware that my opinion may not be universally shared. Please keep the debate on this point or Blnguyen's other criticisms at Talk:Adam Gilchrist for now. --Dweller 13:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I identified 10 criticisms in Blnguyen's oppose. At the article talk page, 9 have been addressed by User:The Rambling Man and the other (the least concrete) rebutted by (erm) me. --Dweller 11:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support - I have just read this end to end for the first time, and was impressed, but there are a few areas where some minor improvements could be made:
  • I noticed that some of the hyphens/dashes look a bit odd (n-dash in "all–time" and "one–day" instead of hyphens, m-dash in "2005—6" instead of n-dash, etc);
    • Grr, I hate WP:DASH, I want someone to write it in English! Yes, this will be attended to post-haste, thanks for the heads-up. The Rambling Man 21:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Dashes dashed, dash it. The Rambling Man 22:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • there are a few single-sentence paragraphs;
    • I can't find any now, post-overhaul, so hopefully covered. The Rambling Man 20:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • some of the referencing looks a bit excessive (for example, the reference [12] is used 3 times in two sentences in the "Early and personal life");
    • Removed the specific example, will search for more - we've previously been opposed because we were told to cite virtually every sentence! I know, a good middle ground should be sought. Please let me konw if you find other over-the-top citing, or indeed remove it yourself if you'd be so kind. The Rambling Man 20:04, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • as he is a wicket-keeper-batsman, it would be nice to add dismissals (catches/stumpings) to the career batting performance tables at the end;
    • Yes indeed. A fine suggestion, to be implemented asap. The Rambling Man 21:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Done. Hope it satisfies...The Rambling Man 22:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • would it be possible to add man-of-the-match tables, like Harbhajan Singh and Paul Collingwood.
    • Again, agreed, but if no-one minds, I'll stay away from the bright colours! To be added soon. The Rambling Man 21:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Now added and each scorecard/tournament linked to. The Rambling Man 10:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

But generally very good. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

We seem to be all done. Any other comments? --Dweller 11:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support. It's good. Comments: ...successful World Cup campaign,[55]. - Seemingly unfinished sentence. Avoid external link referencing format in the "Achievements" section — convert those intro regular references instead. Choose whether you would like to use British or American date format throughout the article. Gilchrist's skills as a wicket-keeper are sometimes questioned... - The following part of the sentence should state some people doubt him being the best keeper in Australia, and not the opposite. ...in six innings against both India and Sri Lanka - "both" is redundant. The author referencing parameter is reserved solely for people. List of cricket terms improperly linked. A Test series whitewash over New Zealand,[70] was followed.. - Whenever a reference is placed in the middle of a sentence, adding a comma prior to it is unnecessary as this would normally result in a grammatical error. ...moved the family > ...moved with the family. Michaelas10 (Talk) 16:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to read this and provide comments. If you don't mind, I'll copy them to the talk page, divide them and then work on them individually. Thanks again. The Rambling Man 16:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

All comments have been addressed in one manner or another, and each responded to individually on the talk page. Thanks again for your comments. The Rambling Man 18:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support. I have to say very nice work, very solid overall. I do have a couple of comments though. Obviously this is a personal preference but I'd like the lead to be without citations, also it could stand to be expanded. There are a couple of two sentence paragraphs which could be expanded or combined, particularly the ones in the lead. You could expand the first paragraph in the early life section in particular. Maybe by saying who he looked up to as a youth or who he played for/with as a youth (I'm not that familiar with cricket but I assume they play cricket in organized leagues in their teenage years also). Also this sentence could use a source:"At the start of the 1997–98 Australian season, Healy and captain Mark Taylor were omitted from the ODI squad as the Australian selectors opted for a more aggressive batting style, choosing Gilchrist and Michael di Venuto." It sounds like a statement someone might argue over (someone might say they was omitted for other reasons). Also link whitewash the first time it appears, if it already is linked I apologize but I don't think it is. In addition "Gilchrist has also been reprimanded for criticism of other players, including questioning Muttiah Muralitharan's bowling action in 2002 and was reprimanded by the Australian Cricket Board." Is unclear why was he reprimanded by the Australian cricket board? First World Cup Success contains a couple of long sentences as do a few other other sections but I guess they're alright, also maybe remove the "aganosingly" adjective in favor of something more neutral and formal in the Two in a row section, unless it has some meaning I don't understand. All in all it's very nice work though, I particularly like the detailed tables, the section about walking (adds a little humanity to the article), and the tremendous sourcing that's been done. Really solid work overall. Quadzilla99 13:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Once again, all comments have been addressed in one manner or another, and each responded to individually on the talk page. Thanks once more for your comments. The Rambling Man 15:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

These have been addressed. Quadzilla99 15:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support very good despite lack of image in infobox (sorry - just my browser; having bypassed the cache the image appears). Excellent work. See Paul Collingwood and Harbhajan Singh for other FA's to compare with, and I believe this conforms with them. к1иgf1$н£я5ω1fт 11:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support - all issues have been adressed. Excellent work by the contributing editors once again. HornetMike 13:10, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• SupportWeak oppose -- choppy prose. 1. He is.. appears 3 times in 1 paragraph in the lead. 2. add the (US baseball franchise the,) Boston Red Sox 3. Section titles needs to be in a more encyclopedic tone "Two in a row?"; "2001 Ashes and beyond"? --> =2003 world cup=; =2001 Ashes=; 4) .e. --> that is 5) known for his emotion -- POV; rephrase 6) 'remarkably high' --> high 7) He made only seven further appearances odd wording -- that ending paragraph is choppy. 8) Avoid mentioning his age (35 year-old) =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Hopefully all your issues have now been addressed. The Rambling Man 08:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• SupportGood work.--Eva ^bd 20:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong support Nice article. Madhava 1947 (talk) 05:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Support - Nice article, could do with a clearer image, but otherwise excellent SMBarnZy 11:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment yeah, we'd kill for clear, free-to-use images of all these players, but unless someone's out in the Windies tomorrow with a digital camera with a long lens and a broadband connection, we won't get an improved image for the moment! The Rambling Man 11:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Support: Spent a few minutes and decided that i shall adopt the same kind of template for articles on Indian cricketers that i would like to work on. Kalyan 21:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.