Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Aberdeen F.C./archive1

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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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 18:19, 2 May 2008.

[edit] Aberdeen F.C.

Self-nomination as major contributor. I'm nominating this article for featured article because it meets all of the featured article criteria and is a well written and concise article about the football team. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 15:38, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Issues resolved, ЭLСОВВОLД talk 16:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Issues resolved, Ealdgyth - Talk 23:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
All links checked out fine. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I've left the two RSSSF things out for folks to decide on their own. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments *Old Firm is linked twice in the lead.

  • I would remove the last sentence of Recent years. It's a stubby paragraph, and will probably become outdated quickly.
  • Colours and crest: "and the initial shirt sponsors were JVC" should be "and the initial shirt sponsor was JVC".
  • Managers: "List full time managers" should be "List of full-time managers". Giants2008 (talk) 02:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Done all. Thanks for the input. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 07:57, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments

  • I passed this as a GA, and it's improved since. However, I think it may have been better to put it through a Peer Review, before coming here. I can't support it until all the references have been sorted as above. I had some concerns of these at GAN, but they have certainly improved since the first GAN. Some other comments though:
    • Don't force the image sizes where it's unnecessary.
      • Done.
    • "but the silverware ended up in Glasgow." - silverware is informal.
      • Changed to "league title".
    • "Aberdeen remain the only Scottish club to have won two European trophies." I think this needs a reference.
      • Doing...
    • "Following Ferguson, a succession of managers tried to live up to the standards he had set, most meeting with little or no success." As does this probably.
      • Done.

Peanut4 (talk) 18:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

    • I'll add this in line with my other comments, but I've spotted this because of a suggestion below. "German giants Bayern Munich" is WP:PEACOCK. Needs to be changed to another more factual description for Bayern Munich. Peanut4 (talk) 19:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Done.
  • Weak object The history section has a recentist slant because two paragraphs are about the last four years, whereas most of the early periods are divided into groups about 20 years for two paragraphs. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
This is all the more unusual because it appears that the club was most successful in the early 1980s, judging by the Euro results. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I've cut some recentism now.
Thanks, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. I'm wavering here. The article has no major flaws, but still has some rough edges which need to be sorted out before it can become a featured article.
    • As much as I like images of Manchester United defeats, a picture of a match involving two other clubs is of no relevance here. There is also an inconsistency between the use of FC Copenhagen in the caption and FC København in the body.
Hehe, gone.
    • German giants (and 1983 throwbacks) Bayern München. There is no mention of an event in 1983 anywhere else in the section, and the term "throwbacks" is too informal for encyclopedic use.
Gone also.
    • The History section has a tendency to follow the pattern "In [year], [manager] was appointed, he did x and y". A little rephrasing to make parts more club-focused than manager-focused would be beneficial.
Doing this.
    • The Ferguson era deserves more depth; it currently has roughly the same amount of prose as this season's European run.
Expanded this.
    • Shirt sponsorship began in 1987, and the initial shirt sponsor was JVC, who also sponsored Arsenal in England. I don't see why their Arsenal sponsorship is relevant. Also, this is one of a few run-on sentences present in the article.
Removed the irrelevant stuff, working on the run on sentences
    • fifth largest average attendance in the SPL in 2006–07,[41] with more than 10,000. The ref gives an exact figure, so there's no need to use an approximation.
Done.
    • Reaching the third round of the UEFA Cup is not an honour. Oldelpaso (talk) 17:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Removed.
I have put some further comments on the article talk page. Oldelpaso (talk) 22:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Comments from The Rambling Man (talk · contribs)
  • I read the word "Scottish" no less than six times in the second sentence in the lead. A bit too much.
  • "Aberdeen's league record is jointly the third best " in what sense? Most league titles only or overall positions or some other measure?
  • Expand UK in the lead to United Kingdom.
  • "Having been historically the only senior team within a wide area" ? Not sure this reads well at the moment.
  • Place citations in numerical order (I see [11][12][2], for instance)
  • Alex Smith doesn't link correctly.
  • Admiral links to the naval rank.
  • "...outside the Merkland road, or family, stand" I don't get it.
  • "The stadium's name comes from the Pictish for "place of manure".[32]" oddly positioned, probably ought to come right after first use of Pittodrie.
  • Calderwood's To column probably best to say present

My comments.. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Done them all. Thanks, weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 22:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. OK, I admit that I am influenced by the fact that the period in which I lived in Aberdeen (and went to Pittodrie fairly regularly) was during the shambolic 1999-2000 season. And shambolic it surely was... by some strange fluke they got to the Scottish cup final but ended up having to field a midfielder in goal; and they were in Europe, again by some strange set of circumstances, only to lose to some Irish part-timers. Anyhow, my point being... does the article not rather blow Aberdeen's trumpet? Yes, they are arguably Scotland's third football team, but they come so far behind Celtic and Rangers it's not funny. (This is briefly referenced in the fact that they were the last club outside the Old Firm to win the League... almost a quarter of a century ago...)
  • Otherwise, the prose could do with improvement. There are innumerable which/that issues, and other areas where fluency and coherence could be improved. If I have time, I may dive in and undertake some edits myself, rather than listing them all here. One very small instance, because it's almost comic: "Aberdeen were inspired by Halliday, now playing in red." Presumably it's not Halliday who was playing in red, despite the implication left the by grammatical construction? (Sidenote: this is an endemic problem in Wikipedia: someone should write up some sort of tutorial about the use of dependent clauses.) --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 00:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Right, well, I've fixed the one example you gave, but I don't think the article needs changing for POV. Any other football FA will read like this one; in my mind, this is better than saying "Aberdeen's league record is absolutely terrible compared to the Old Firm", because that is mentioned, but not to the extent of being written by Smithy. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 19:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Support - One other thing I noticed was in the last paragraph of Supporters and nicknames, last paragraph, ; may be referred to by some supporters as "The Dandy Dons" or "The Dandies",. I would start a new sentence there. Otherwise, I think it meets the criteria, and is ready to be promoted. Giants2008 (talk) 20:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very, very much for the support. I have addressed your concern. Cheers, weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 20:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Oppose by User:Dweller

Sorry - quite a lot here, of which the most crucial are some citation issues:

  • (Opening sentence) Pedantically, Aberdeen Football Club is not "... a team". The team is part of the club, which includes all kinds of assets other than the team itself. Slight reword please.
  • "Aberdeen's league record is jointly the third best alongside Hibs and Hearts" the nature of the record is ambiguous - is this for league title wins? I'd assume "league record" means either W/D/L record or total points won, or something similar.
  • Wikilink Donald Colman in the Lead and unlink him later.
  • "Aberdeen have tended to attract a sizeable support from the city and surrounding areas": "a sizeable" is WP:PEACOCK. By many other clubs' standards, an average of 11,980 is peanuts. By others' it's overwhelming. Just drop those words and it reads fine.
  • Clumsy: "Aberdeen have no geographically close rivals; their nearest neighbours at the same level are in the city of Dundee, with Dundee United having been their principal rivals in the New Firm in the 1980s." I suggest "Aberdeen have no geographically close rivals. Their nearest neighbours at the same level are in Dundee; in the 1980s, they formed the New Firm rivalry with Dundee United."
  • In the opening line, you've used plural for the club ("are") which is fine except you've used singular in "The current Aberdeen F.C. was formed" and elsewhere. I suggest that you adopt a strategy I've used in FC articles of referring to the Club in singular (like any business) and the team in the plural. Up to you, but you do need to be consistent.
  • MOSNUM suggests 7th should be seventh
  • I'd like to see some citing around the club stopping playing during WWI. Was there competitive football to drop out of?
  • Colman's invention of the dug-out definitely needs citing. If it's in source 6, it's worth repeating it across the 2 sentences per extraordinary claims
  • "the Second World War virtually cancelled football competition." Ugh. Please reword.
  • "Formation and early struggle" section mentions almost no struggling. It looks from the chart as if they finished (almost?) bottom of the league immediately before WWI - this should be specified for balance, and there's definitely some relegation that's not mentioned.
  • "Steady rise" as a section heading sounds like POV. In my opinion, it's not very steady and the chart seems to agree with me. Either way, it's an opinion, which is bad.
  • "From this early success, Halliday's side reached two more Scottish Cup finals, in 1953 and 1954" Are you connecting a cup win in 47 with two more 6 and 7 years later? That seems very dubious. How many players played in both 47 and 54?
  • "Shaw stepped aside for another former favourite player, Tommy Pearson" I might have missed it, but who was the previous former favourite player?
  • The backbone of Ferguson's side looks like your POV
  • "Aberdeen remain the only Scottish club to have won two European trophies." needs a cite
  • "Premier division" is the capitalisation correct?
  • I found the History section hard going. It seemed quite bitty and without a flow. Could do with being smoothed by a copyeditor - NB I don't think the whole article needs c-e work
  • Can you smoke anywhere in Pittodrie in 2008? I'm surprised.
  • Various cites (eg numbers 36 and 37 re the Red Army) need to move to after pieces of punctuation
  • The Red Ultras website is definitely not RS
  • Squad list seems unreferenced. Ditto for managers. Ditto for honours. That's three biggies for me.
  • The Hall of Fame people should be shot for not including Fergie. Just my 2p!

Sorry :-( --Dweller (talk) 14:59, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.