Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bill O'Reilly (cricketer)

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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 promoted 16:58, 22 May 2007.

[edit] Bill O'Reilly (cricketer)

This article has undergone significant copyediting, it's now well and accurately referenced and nicely illustrated. A peer review has also been conducted during which all comments have been addressed. Predominantly a collaboration between myself and User:Dweller, please support this article's promotion to featured status, and feel free to add comments below. The Rambling Man 11:46, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Support. Was a part of the peer review process and my concerns were addressed then. AllynJ 12:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. A minor point or two in the "Conflict with Bradman" section; one could add a Bradman image, and you refer to Fingleton as a "trained journalist" who wasn't invited to the meeting between the Board and O'Reilly, Fleetwood-Smith et al, and then, a few lines later, state that Fingleton later became a journalist. Besides this minor quibble, I see this as an excellent article worthy of Featured Article status. --Roisterer 12:11, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
    Great, thanks for pointing that out, I'll get onto this chronological misdemeanour! The Rambling Man 12:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
    I've rephrased that part of the section, hope it makes sense, and I've also added a Bradman image. Thanks! The Rambling Man 12:24, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. Minor comment - The legacy section seems rather short, and isn't really about his legacy. Would be best to merge it with the above Later life section. Andrew nixon 12:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
    A very reasonable point, I'll get onto it. The Rambling Man 12:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
    Done, thanks. The Rambling Man 12:24, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

*Weak Support: A few points -
1. In the opening para, it says "In 1935, wisden ..." and the following sentence says "four years later". I checked Cricinfo and found no reference to aussie tour of england in 1939. here are the links - 1938-39 season, 1939 season, [1939-1940 season. please check the date of the tour.

Interesting. I've checked cricket archive here and found the 1938 Ashes series. The Wisden would have been published the following year, so I think the article, as it stands, is correct. Perhaps Cricinfo is missing something?! The Rambling Man 13:07, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
No, I've found it at Cricinfo too! The Rambling Man 13:08, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

2. Para 2 in 'Youth and early career' states: "When he was three, the O'Reilly family moved to Murringo. Murringo, O'Reilly said in his autobiography "... remove the double mention or i could do it.
:Duplication removed The Rambling Man 13:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

3. In the 'Test regular' section, the first 2 paras detail the bodyline series. it is best to merge them and make into one para.

Para's merged The Rambling Man 13:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

4. i think it is best to leave out domestic performances out of the "internatinal career" section. para 3 of the 'Test regular section' talks about sheffield shield. best to make a section - domestic career and move it there. throughout the international career section, i find references to domestic results. i think we need to move it out to a seperate section.

This was discussed with no real consensus on the talk page. I'll attempt to rephrase to suit all parties, but for the moment it may just need the section being re-title rather than two chronologically parallel sections, which may be even more difficult to read. The Rambling Man 13:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I've renamed the section "First-class career" and renamed teh subsections accordingly. This way the domestic and international careers are nicely merged without having the two parallel sections. Plus the heading more accurately represents the section following it. Hurrah. The Rambling Man 16:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

5. Is the potrait of Clarrie Grimmett and Don Bradman essential to the article? i think we can leave them out.
:I've removed Grimmett because he's not as significant. Bradman played such an important part in O'Reilly's career I don't see too much harm in keeping his image there. The Rambling Man 13:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

6. section Career rankings and ratings needs formating.
:Yes, fixed, thank you. The Rambling Man 13:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

i think that the contents of "notes" and "references" section are interchanged. can you please correct it?
:Swapped as requested. The Rambling Man 13:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

i think most of the comments (& corrections) are minor except the addition of a new section for domestic season. apologize for not participating in the peer review. will do it the next time around. once these comments are addressed, i shall remove the conditionality in the support. Kalyan 12:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Okay, thanks for your many good and in-depth comments, I'll address them individually and let you know when I'm done so you can see if you find my amendments satisfactory The Rambling Man 12:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • SUPPORT: The only comment left on the table is that of a section on domestic season needs to be added. but that is only to ensure that all data on that front is collected in one location. it doesn't affect the FA candidature. i remove the conditionality. I have a minor point that i shall send to the author directly. Kalyan 14:04, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
See above, I've attended to your final issue I think. Your minor point has been addressed, thank you for your time. The Rambling Man 16:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support: Was part of the original authorship and believe that the article has been substantially improved through the editing process. Johnlp 18:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support I've been <ahem> slightly distracted while at Wikipedia the last few days, so can take less credit for this than TRM implies. He's done a great job. Especially with tidying up the mess I leave. --Dweller 22:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Excellently researched and referenced article on an important figure in the sport. Nick mallory 04:52, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support (and I have done a very light copyedit) but it really could do with a review by a few editors outside the cricketing fraternity. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:08, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support, and some comments - The article is excellent and seems FA-worthy as it stands, but I'm completely cricket-ignorant. What does "lower-order" mean? (There's no link, or article, and perhaps it should be piped and linked to Batting order (cricket)).
Superb - done. --Dweller 16:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, I may be wrong, but shouldn't the following items have references?:

It's cited, with a quote, just a few lines below. We've usually adopted a more laissez-faire attitude to citing in the LEAD, but this one's got quite a few. Is it OK? --Dweller 16:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
    • "O'Reilly was a competent left-handed lower-order batsman"
Doing...That one's worrying - we need to do something about his batting. --Dweller 16:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
O'Reilly's citation as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1935 has the following sentence: "He had no pretensions to grace of style or any particular merit, but he could hit tremendously hard and was always a menace to tired bowlers." Johnlp 20:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The article mentions that he didn't have time to "attend coaching". This seems like it lacks context. In the U.S., us yanks have this thing called Little league in which kids play (and are coached in) baseball competitively. "Attending coaching" seems like it refers to one-on-one coaching, like piano lessons or personal gymnastics training, rather than team practice. In what context are kids coached in cricket? Is there a British Commonwealth or Aussie counterpart to little league? Here, we'd say "couldn't participate in little league" or "couldn't attend baseball practice like other kids his age".

Doing... Unsure, but he wasn't British, lol. Nonetheless, your point's well made. --Dweller 16:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
The Wisden citation says he "owed little or nothing to any special coaching". It also says that he was advised to alter his grip "but decided not to do so and now this is exactly the same as it always was–the first two fingers round the ball and the others folded on to the palm of his hand." Johnlp 20:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

In the same paragraph, there's a comment questioning the inclusion of two bats. Were they both bats, or was one a ball? If they were both bats, then to avoid it reading like a run-on sentence, it should refer to the two bats initially. "He learned to play with his brothers, playing with two bats - one a "gum-wood bat and a piece of banksia root chiselled down to make a bat, and the other...". (and so on).

The second one should be "ball" and I've altered it now. Johnlp 20:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Just some thoughts, possibly to make the article easier to read for us yanks. The Transhumanist    16:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Zleitzen's oppose
  • Oppose Some poor writing. Though given the project support above, and the fact that much of the support seems to come from people who have actually worked on the article, it'll probably make little difference.
    There's no intention from the people who worked on this to rush it through as a blanket support, hopefully we can deal with your comments and gain your support. The Rambling Man 17:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
    • "When O'Reilly died, Sir Donald Bradman said he was the greatest bowler he had ever faced or watched." Floating quote not attributed to anyone
      Attributed The Rambling Man 17:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
    • indeed "he was asked to make up the numbers” Floating quote not attributed to anyone again
      Attributed The Rambling Man 17:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
    • “O'Reilly was selected for the New South Wales practice squad, based on his performance in a single match for North Sydney, he made his debut in the 1927–28 season, playing in three matches and taking seven wickets.” Rambling sentence. In fact much of that section reads poorly.
      Okay, the sentence in question has been rephrased thus: "O'Reilly was selected for the New South Wales practice squad based on his performance in a single match for North Sydney. He made his debut in the 1927–28 season, playing in three matches and taking seven wickets."
      I'll copyedit the remainder of the section, although our resident copyeditor has already done a job that would be infinitely superior to me, so I'm not sure what I can add. Still, I'll give it a go. The Rambling Man 18:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
    • “ Also opening the bowling in both Adelaide and Brisbane, and by a falling-off in the performance of Grimmett” …by a falling off? What?
      Yeah, in all honesty I've tried re-writing that a few times and seem to have hit writer's block each time. Anyway, I rephrased it thus: "...and by a decline in the form of Grimmett." The Rambling Man 18:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
    • “On the debit side, his figures at The Oval, where England posted the then-record Test score of 903 for seven wickets were three for 178 off 85 overs,” Sentence needs breaking down with correct punctuation.
      Rephrased & re-punc'ed The Rambling Man 18:09, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

-- Zleitzen(talk) 17:27, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The Rambling Man has done a good job dealing with these comment.
  • The quotes complained of as "floating" both had inline citations already, as far as I can see (the second one had two citations), but there was no explicit recognition of who was being quoted in the text (now both fixed - Engel twice).
  • The rambling "practise squad" paragraph (should that be "practice"?) was edited after my copyediting run through (it used to say "Selected for ..., based on ..., he made his debut ...") but a new section heading was added and it acquired the opening "O'Reilly was". But it reads better broken down anyway.
  • The odd "falling off" sentence did need dealing with. And an extra comma was needed in the "903 for seven" sentence. Both mea culpa, mea culpa. Sorry. Now fixed, I hope.
Are these just examples, or are there other issues? As The Rambling Man says, there is no intention to ram this through - any reasonable objection or comment will be dealt with. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Michaelas' support
  • YA RLY (erm.. I mean support).
  • First sentence ("...was one of the greatest cricketers of all time") sounds straightforward POV to me. Him being declared so by the press is already mentioned in the subsequent paragraph.
  • I think that someone regarded as one of the greatest of all time should have that recorded in the opening sentence. I'll review. It's not POV as it's sourced... and, as previously discussed, there's some latitude with citing in the Lead. --Dweller 10:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • We may only use NPOV sources when purely declaring claim a fact. However, as the source isn't NPOV here, it must be mentioned and quoted (e.g. Wisden reflected on Bill O'Reilly's successful 1938 Ashes tour of England: "He is emphatically one of the greatest bowlers of all time."). Please see WP:NPOV#Characterizing opinions of people's work. Michaelas10 10:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • "Tiger O'Reilly"/"Bill O'Reilly"/"Don Bradman" aren't descriptive image captions; where was he pictured? How old he was? Where is the picture from?
  • Fair point, I'll have to defer to someone else on this... The Rambling Man 03:13, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • All now descriptive. --Dweller 10:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • 'O'Reilly's later years were troubled with poor health, including the loss of a leg" - Why did he loose a leg?
  • This is from his Wisden obituary, which doesn't specify. I'm not sure it would add too much. Presumably, if it was because of a noteworthy incident (like Fred Titmus's toes) it would have been recorded. --Dweller 10:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • "He died in hospital in Sutherland in Sydney" - Remove "in Sydney", redundant.
  • "...quietly read" > "...read quietly".

Michaelas10 19:12, 17 May 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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.