Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of Arsenal F.C. (1886-1966)

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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 22:39, 13 June 2007.

[edit] History of Arsenal F.C. (1886–1966)

Largely a self-nomination. This article recently went through peer review and the response was positive enough that I thought it was worth a nomination at FAC. It is as comprehensive as can be, with images and hopefully a neutral tone, and I've put a lot of work into making sure it is well-referenced too. Qwghlm 12:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Here's a few comments as I read through the article:
  • "This article covers the History of Arsenal Football Club from 1886 to 1966." In my opinion, this is unneccessary and redundant. Just start with "Arsenal Football Club were founded in 1886 ...". Consequently, the {{main}} link is redundant.
  • The lead could be a little longer. I'm not sure a paragraph does the article justice.
  • Did the club's amateur players give a reason for forming Royal Ordnance Factories?
  • "(a huge sum for the time)" Although it is time-dependent, is there any chance of stating how much that would be today? (or over a certain figure would be fine).
  • Try not to use ampersands in section titles. (I've fixed these instances)
  • Try to replace the word "rejigging" with something more formal.
  • "crushing scorelines"? "one-sided scorelines" would be more suitable.
I'll add more comments as I go through the text. I'm impressed by the pictures in the early years section. Good work :) CloudNine 19:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
All good points - I've worked on the first, third and fourth points and feel all have now been addressed. I will expand the lead tomorrow when I have more time :). Qwghlm 23:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Support. Taking a look at the references, I've got no real qualms about their reliability. I feel all my major comments have been addressed, so I'll support this nomination. CloudNine 11:38, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I've addressed the two outstanding points you've raised now, I think. Qwghlm 12:03, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
  • All the ”Aresnal were” sequences...is that proper grammar? -- Phoenix2 (holla) 03:13, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
In British English, yes. Sports teams and clubs are frequently referred to in the plural, even by the national broadcaster and the newspaper of record. Qwghlm 07:40, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I agree with CloudNine that the lead ought to be longer in view of the overall length of the article. Other than that, just one minor point: it might be better to avoid colloquial terms such as "the drop" and "going down" when referring to relegation. Oldelpaso 08:13, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Have tightened up the tone for relegation-related terms now. Intro on its way... Qwghlm 08:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The intro is now double in length. Is this enough, do you reckon? Qwghlm 11:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Support Yes, that looks fine. Oldelpaso 13:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Support Comment Could you explain why the history has been split between two articles? I note that it was discussed at Talk:History_of_Arsenal_F.C., but I'd be interested to know why a split was chosen over, say, cutting the single article down. J.Winklethorpe talk 23:14, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Because Wikipedia is a not paper encyclopedia and there is no practical limit to the amount of information we can hold here. I did the same thing to an even greater extent with History of the New York Giants. Quadzilla99 07:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, and that was precisely what I and BlueValour thought. The page as it stood before the split was 58k (and that was mostly text with few references). Splitting it into two, rather than removing information, was the most logical option. Qwghlm 08:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
The distinction between History of the New York Giants and this being, of course, that the Giants article is a standard use of summary style, whereas this has two main articles splitting off one section in Arsenal F.C., which is what gave me pause. Having thought about it further today, I decided I found it slightly unusual but not inherently bad. Anyway, if I were to complain about it, you could very easily subsection the History in Arsenal F.C., leaving me without a leg to stand on! On a minor note, on reading the article on its own, it wasn't clear to me why 1966 is the cut-off point — I have to read on to the next article to find why 1966 onwards is considered a separate era. J.Winklethorpe talk 18:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
The History section of Arsenal F.C. can be split into two, I see no harm in doing so. As for why 1966 is picked as the breakpoint, I have edited the article to emphasise the appointment of Bertie Mee in 1966 as a pivotal point in the club's history, which I hope helps. Qwghlm 23:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah I see what you're saying Winkle. I thought you were implying that there should only be one team history article and that individual articles on periods of history were unnecessary. My bad. Quadzilla99 03:00, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
All fine. Thanks for the slight change - it makes the structure clearer, I think. J.Winklethorpe talk 08:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I've had a good read through, and made comments on the talk page as it got rather lengthly. J.Winklethorpe talk 20:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
A lot of points, I've finally got round to adding the appropriate refs, tweaking the article and answering the couple I didn't agree with. Qwghlm 20:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Just a couple of remaining clarifications. I'm also waiting to see the result of Sandy's queries on the refs. J.Winklethorpe talk 20:45, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
All points addressed, changing to support. J.Winklethorpe talk 08:32, 9 June 2007 (UTC)


  • Fixed, see below. Qwghlm 09:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Some of these are problems, some are questions — most significant is the concern over 1c, reliable sources:
    • Is that a hyphen or n-dash in the article title? I'm not sure if there is consensus at WP:MOS as to whether the correct usage (endash) should be included in article titles.
    • Problem with the article title in the lead, which should not include links: see WP:LEAD#Bold_title
    • Missing footnotes.
      • There are still missing (blank) footnotes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
    • See also and templates used incorrectly at bottom of sections, see WP:GTL
    • Inconsistency throughout wrt WP:DASH
      • Scores still have hyphens rather than ndashes, and some ndashes are used in place of mdashes ( ... Nor did the club have much luck in the FA Cup – after reaching the final in 1951–52, ... )
    • Incorrect use of bolding in the text, see WP:MOSBOLD
    • This looks like it's from Usenet, what makes it a reliable source? http://www.rsssf.com/
    • This looks like a personal website, why is it a reliable source? http://www.krysstal.com/index.html
    • Bibliography and further reading is mislabeled, as it contains External links.
      • You are correct (WP:GTL is a wreck, and needs work to provide some clarity between the different appendices.)
  • SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Now uses an endash as per other similarly titled articles at WP:FA
  • Fixed.
  • Fixed.
  • Not sure what you mean by this - do you mean the use of {{for}} at the end of the main text? What do you recommend instead? As it is a natural continuation of this article I think it's appropriate.
  • Again, not sure what you specifically mean here. Where is the usage inconsistent?
  • Bolding removed.
  • RSSSF was organised around a Usenet group, but it does not use Usenet as a source for its statistics; it is a highly-respected statistics site that uses books and the such. It has been cited by the mainstream media (e.g.) and is regarded as a reliable source by members of WikiProject Football.
  • (Apologies for breaking in, here) I trust RSSF, as I'm already aware of it, but its lack of sourcing might concern those who are not. You could easily replace it with, say, this link to the same data at soccerbase, which is published by the Racing Post, and should therefore be accepted as a reliable source by all. J.Winklethorpe talk 18:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I have qualms about Soccerbase - the goal average in those tables is clearly wrong, and there are no ordinals in the left hand column (making claims about 10th place or whatever harder to verify). Plus Soccerbase is not 100% reliable, especially for older statistics; for example, their entry for George Allison says he quit as Arsenal manager on May 1, 1947 when he actually quit after the end of the season, which went on till June 7 due to post-war delays. Soccerbase suffers from the same lack of sourcing, and is know to have errors for the time period. Qwghlm 21:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Ho-hum, kind of exposes the difference between info from a supposedly reliable commercial publisher, and a more accurate non-commercial site. Anyway, I have no issues with RSSF. J.Winklethorpe talk 07:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • That link was dead as it turns out, and now has been replaced with an alternate and more reliable source (the BBC).
  • Nothing in WP:MOS that says electronic texts are not allowed in Further Reading sections, and I think it a more appropriate title. Qwghlm 09:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • OK the broken link has been fixed, and the dashes are now consistent. As for the {{for}} template - to me, a reader wanting to know more about the club's history post-1966 would want to have the link at the very end of the article (i.e. when it has actually reached 1966) to follow onto once they have finished reading, without the need to scroll to the top of the ultimate section. For now, I've removed it, but would welcome your input on how best to provide a link that continues on to the next page, at the very bottom of the article. Qwghlm 19:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I like the WP:GTL guidelines about placing templates at the top of a section, because I like to let a reader know in advance that s/he is not reading all we have to say on the topic, and there is somewhere else to go in case they want to come to back to it. If you don't like it at the top, you could add the link to See also? I've struck my oppose because one template is not worthy of an oppose. Thanks for the quick response ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:24, 8 June 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.