Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Margate F.C.

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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 18:00, 19 June 2007.

[edit] Margate F.C.

I thought it would be interesting to see if I could get a non-league football club article up to featured status (I realise that York City F.C. is a FA, but I don't count them as a "true" non-league club as they were in the Football League until three years ago, Margate on the other hand have never been in the FL), so have been working hard on this one for the last month or so, including getting a peer review which raised only a few minor points, all of which have been addressed. So now here it is for consideration for Featured Status. Many thanks in advance for your time! ChrisTheDude 14:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Support my concerns at the PR were addressed. Good work. The Rambling Man 14:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Looks great. Epbr123 15:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. Very interesting and well written, and that's coming from me not knowing one thing about the team and/or sport. I would change the formatting of the reflist, however, perhaps to two columns to do away with the white space to the right. That's all I've got, though, great job. :) María (críticame) 16:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Very nice work, I can't see any problems. Gran2 18:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose 'Support all necessary corrections made

(a few changes need to be made, correcting #6 alone will change my opinion to Support) Very nice overall, especially references (I wish more articles on Wikipedia were more like this). A few things to improve the article and you will have my full support.

1) Don't put the number column in the chart showing the players at all. If all of them are N/A, then why have the column in the first place. If you are trying to point out they don't have numbers, then just add a sentence in the intro.
  • I've removed all the "n/a"s, although the column heading still displays in the template, I have no idea how to rectify this.... ChrisTheDude 07:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I see. That's because you're using a template. Well, I'd just make my own, but that's up to you how you want it done, but I'd really like to see it done Read up on charts and I think you could do it yourself. — BQZip01 — talk 08:55, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
2) Just a pet peeve of mine (and not technically wrong in Wikipedia) that appears to bring down the quality of your article a bit. If you use multiple references at the end of a sentence, make sure they are in numerical order (it just looks bad IMHO).
Actually, I agree here, so that's been fixed now. The Rambling Man 07:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
3) rename your section of "Support" to something like "Popular support" to be more specific (since this doesn't deal at all with finances, gov't support, etc.)
  • I've changed it to "supporters", hope this is OK. It's a term universally understood, AFAIK, to specifically mean the people who turn up and pay to watch the game.... ChrisTheDude 07:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
4) In the "Players" section merge the single-sentence paragraph in somewhere else. It also doesn't need its own subheading.
  • I've removed the sub-heading, thus conjoining it to the "notable former players" section, where it fits in ChrisTheDude 07:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
5) Just little things throughout like "Margate Football Club was originally founded in 1896..." as opposed to when they were founded later? Also this is another example of passive voice.
  • I've removed the word "originally" but can't see how the passive voice could be avoided in this example, as the only way to use the active voice would be to say "(Persons X, Y and Z) founded Margate FC....." and personally I don't feel that would read well as an opening sentence, although I'm prepared to be challenged on this ;-) ..... ChrisTheDude 07:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
6) Way too much passive voice throughout and doesn't quite satisfy FAC 1a IMHO. Try to use more of an active voice. In short try to eliminate all conjugations of the word "be" when used in conjunction with another verb. If you have trouble with this, let me know; I'd be happy to help.
Example: Instead of
"By the 1920s the kit had changed to plain white shirts (with the team having the appropriate nickname of "The Lilywhites") but in 1929 the club adopted amber and black as its colours."
try
"By the 1920s the kit had changed to plain white shirts and the team garnered the nickname "The Lilywhites", but in 1929 changed their colours once again to amber and black."
  • I've been through and corrected as many examples of this as I can find, hope it's now OK. There's a few examples where I simply can't see how they can be changed (eg "Hartsdown Park was demolished in 2003" - you couldn't really replace that with "Workmen demolished Hartsdown Park in 2003", it would sound rubbish), but hopefully the overall "voice" of the article has now improved.... ChrisTheDude 07:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually on second thoughts it wouldn't sound that rubbish, but in that one instance I still think that "the stadium was demolished" is OK.... ;-) ChrisTheDude 07:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Your example isn't correct... you've changed the past perfect tense to the simple past tense, not the active to the passive. Both are in fact active (passive would be "the kit had been changed" and "the kit was changed"). In fact, past perfect is a superior choice here because it represents "completed action before something in the past". The sentence doesn't say exactly when the kit changed, just that it happened on or before the 1920s. But your overall point is correct, the article does use the passive too often (although not grossly so). - Merzbow 07:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Aw crap. This is what happens when you rush things late at night (it is near 3 AM here). You are absolutely right. I had another phrase all picked out but copied this one and edited it. My bad, but as long as my point is clear, I think we're on solid ground here.
Better example:
"...and by the time they were able to return to their own ground they had been relegated to the Isthmian League."
change to
"and by the time they were able to return to their own ground they were relegated to the Isthmian League."
  • I've now reworded that sentence, hope it's OK as it stands.... ChrisTheDude 08:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
  • ....and I've removed as much usage of the passive voice as I felt possible too ChrisTheDude 11:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
7) link FA Cup earlier in the article and spell out what FA means in its first usage.
  • FA Cup is already linked in both its first and second usages within the article. I have added the additional descriptor "England's premier cup competition" as I feel this is more appropriate than simply stating that "FA" stands for "Football Association", which wouldn't especially enlighten the non-savvy reader.... ChrisTheDude 08:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
8) Watch informal words. This is an encyclopedia, not storytime village.
  • I feel I've weeded out any remaining informall language, are any specific examples you feel I've missed? ChrisTheDude 08:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
This is really close and satisfies almost all criteria. Keep pressing on it!!! [[User:BQZip01| — BQZip01 — talk 08:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Well written article. I would however, remove about half of the references where possible. e.g. All the manager info comes from the same webpage, does it need listing 25 times? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Taylorjb (talk • contribs)
  • Sorted, I think, I've rationalised all the refs in the manager section that link to the same page into one link at the top saying "this ref unless shown otherwise" - the others all link to separate distinct pages..... ChrisTheDude 15:06, 15 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.