Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Michael Gomez

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Michael Gomez

Toolbox

Self-nominator : I'm nominating this article for featured article because I've been working on this article for a couple of years now and feel that it meets all featured article criteria. It is well written, complete with images, and very well cited. Hopefully you all agree and we can add another FA to the lot! Its my first ever FA nom so User:Risker has been steering it through the riggers of the FA challenge, especially with respect to getting the referencing up to the required level. I am hoping to have it the FA on 21st of June which is Michael's birthday and the date of his next and probably last ever fight. thanks--Vintagekits (talk) 13:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment - Because I wasn't terribly familiar with what would be considered a reliable source for an article on a boxer, I asked Ealdgyth to do a pre-FAC check. The results of her review are on the article's talk page. There are "reliability" rationales written up for most of the sites she queried; a few have been eliminated as a result of the copy-edit and her check, and a few more mainstream media sources added. Risker (talk) 14:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments

  • "in knockouts.[1][3]His" – a space is missing
  • "round. [3]" – remove extra space
  • Why is "Family and youth" made up of small, stubby paragraphs?
  • "head.[13][6][14]" – place refs in ascending order
  • "Year". [2][16][18]" – remove extra space
  • There are actually a few times when there are spaces before references. Remove those spaces per WP:FOOTNOTE.

Gary King (talk) 16:40, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

  • All addressed, I believe, including some rearranging of the "Family and youth" section. Thanks, Gary. Risker (talk) 18:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • There is no requirement in any guideline for citations to be placed in ascending order; some editors may choose to place the citations in the order of the most relevant. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Otherwise sources look okay. Links all checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Both websites are listed by a Daily Telegraph journalist as being in the top ten websites for boxing information, here. --Vintagekits (talk) 21:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Looks borderline acceptable to me. I'll leave this out for others to see (since a lot of folks aren't boxing fans and won't know the sites that well). Like Risker said, I checked over the sites before it was nominated, and the replies are on the talk page. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. Not a bad article by any means, but with serious prose and structural problems that undermine it. I have laid these out below, but be aware that there are only representative problems and the whole article needs to be thoroughly reviewed against these suggestions. Once done, I would be happy to review again.

  • The lead is difficult to read because it is broken into a number of very short paragraphs. Try merging these paragraphs together to reduce their number to three or four at the most and then copyedit it to reduce the information to the most important facts. Don't try to tell his life story in the lead, just give an overview of the article accessible to a reader with no background information. For this reason, it is not necessary (although I personally don't object one way or another) to have sources in the lead as anything stated there should be presented in greater detail below and thus will be sourced in the body of the article.
  • Prose has major problems. I have listed some of them below, but be aware that these are representative problems rather than a complete listing, and if you miss some other reviewers will swoop on them. Go over the article thoroughly to make sure these are dealt with throughout and look at User:Tony1 for his excellent essays on how to improve prose.
  • "and continues to live in that city." - This is an example of redundancy - you don't need to say "in that city" as this is clearly only to avoid saying Manchester twice in one sentence. Try simplifying the prose, such as "He moved to Manchester, England with his family at age nine, where he still lives."
  • "and was the first Irish boxer" - missing word, should be "and he was"
  • "The first cracks in Gomez's career" - Unless cracks is a technical boxing term, this is a cliche which should be avoided at all costs.
  • "On 21 June 2008, Gomez is due to fight in what is seen as possibly his last" - his last what? I know it means fight/bout/match etc. but it should say so explicitly for clarity's sake.
  • "From birth, his upbringing was both turbulent and uncertain." - Cliche and doesn't gel with surrounding sentences. This might be as simple as the insertion of a semi-colon.
  • "Gomez had hit one of the men," - "the men" doesn't read right, because you haven't explicitly mentioned any men. Try "an assailant" or similar instead.
  • "After an initially shaky beginning in the professional ranks" - Redundancy, "initially" and "beginning" mean the same thing in this context.
  • "then went on a" - too simplistic, think of a better way to say it. (i.e. "then began a")
  • "Gomez handled Jickells" - handled has more than one meaning and is a little colloquial, try using defeated instead.
  • "crushing left hook" - unless crushing is a technical term (in which case link it), lose it as it is opinion.
  • "John Munroe, who was sitting ringside, was called over by Ian Darke, at Gomez's request to verify his theory. This turned in to a war of words" - war of words is bad cliche, but the problem here is that the uninitiated have no idea who Munroe (or later Warren) are. Introduce them with their job title (i.e. coach John Munroe) and link them if possible. In fact, that whole sentence is so confusing I can't work out what it is trying to say.
  • "Although Bognar was shaken Gomez was unable to make his power count." - Short simplistic sentence crying out for a second clause.
  • "Gomez wanted to rematch against Bognar, and five months later in July 2001, the pair had a rematch" - rematch twice in one sentence?
  • "in what turned out to be a short and explosive encounter" - Prose is clumsy, and there's that word explosive again.
  • "to put Bognar down" - like a dog? If its not a technical term, avoid it.
  • link KO the first time it is used.
  • "Lear inflicted damage to the nose of Gomez, whose nose began to bleed heavily from the sixth round" - many things wrong here.
  • "At the end of the eight round" - eighth? check spellings throughout.
  • "and the manner in which the fight ended," - having asked for more clauses, here there are too many. Try incorporating the first two.
  • "In what was becoming a predictable pattern in Gomez's career" - unecessary opinion.
  • "A war of words" - again, unless its a technical term, this is a cliche.
  • "Behind the scenes, however, all was not well in the Arthur camp." - cliche
  • I'm going to stop the prose review here. There are plenty of other serious prose problems both before and after the cut off point, but this illustrates the biggest problems ou should watch out for when copyediting and gives you pointers right through the text.
  • "has often been involved in controversial and explosive fights, with 16 of his 17 fights between February 2001 and March 2008 ending in knockouts." - I don't know a huge amount about boxing, but this sentence seems to indicate that any fight which ends in a knockout is therefore controversial and explosive, which I'm pretty sure isn't true. I think I know what the article is trying to say, but the sentences needs to be revised for clarity.
  • The whole third paragraph of the lead seems to be something of a prose list, i.e. a disconnected listing of interesting things, rather than a coherent narrative that connects key facts and events. This is one of the issues that I think needs addressing per my first comment above.
  • The fifth, sixth and seventh paragraphs of the lead go into surprising detail about specific fights. This should be reserved for lower down the article, keeping the lead a brief summary.
  • "The Armstrong family - Linking to Armstrong has no value unless it is a specific link to that particular family (i.e. like Kennedy family).
  • If his name was Armstrong, why is he now Gomez? This has to be explained much earlier, and Armstrong used when referring to him before the date he became Gomez.
  • "His mother had taught him to shoplift as a child and he was involved in petty crime throughout his youth in Manchester." - This is probably sourced by the refs at the end of the paragraph, but just to avoid any BLP problems about a potentially controversial claim, I would give this its own citation.
  • "Gomez lives with his childhood sweetheart Alison and their three children in Manchester.[10]" - This is in the wrong place. In fact, throughout the article discussions of his family life and ring persona etc. are rather randomly interspersed with his biography. The article needs reorganisation to give the biographical parts better narrative flow. I suggest moving the other discussions to sections of their own. In addition, there should be no parargraphs this small. Paragraphs should be as long as they need to be, but are rarely less than three sentences. Small paragraphs break flow and look very untidy.
  • Unless his ring persona was devised in 1995 (in which case you should say so), that section is in the wrong place.
  • "all-out action style" - Is this a technical term? If so, link it, if not, find something that it can link to to explain what it means exactly.
  • "In 2007, a film of his life entitled The Michael Gomez Story" - why is this in Background? It belong much, much further down the page.
  • "Jody Latham, who also plays Lip Gallagher on Shameless and the part of Gomez's best friend and fellow boxer Michael Jennings is played by Emmerdale's Kelvin Fletcher" - Unless the characters they play on those shows has anything to do with their roles in the 2007 film, they should not be mentioned. Simply give the actors names and leave it at that.
  • Don't begin a section with "Soon after, Gomez relinquished" - Sections should grammatically stand alone, so say soon after what, or just remove the first two words.
  • "However, others pointed to his well publicised troubles out of the ring." - Who, how and why just for starters.
  • "Reports also circulated that Gomez was having trouble in his private life and that he had been stabbed in a street fight" - Is this a different stabbing to the one above?
  • "perceived as having been through" - by who; name them or their publications.
  • "The match was turning into a" - tense slips out of alignment here.
  • "Joe Calzaghe pulled out of his arranged fight" - so what? He isn't mentioned earlier as being involved.
  • "After the McDonagh fight Gomez had retired from boxing" - tense
  • "Following two comeback fights against journeyman opposition" - overlinking, this is at least the fourth time you've linked journeyman.
  • "threatened to steamroller" - is this a technical term?
  • "Soon after referee Mickey Vann stopped the fight" - In whose favour?
  • In this case you need to say to whom the fight was awarded.--Jackyd101 (talk) 07:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

This extensive list of problems does not, I'm afraid, come close to dealing with all of the article's problems, which are rooted in its prose and unclear structure. I suggest at least three thorough copyedits by three seperate editors and a restructuring to ensure that the first half of the article has a clear narrative. I think the sourcing is good and I like the images, and with some work this article could come a lot closer to FA standard.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Thinking about it, if you want I can give the article a thorough copyedit myself later this week. I'll have to take an axe to certain parts, and I don't know much about boxing so someone will have to check I've not messed up any technical stuff, but if you're interested I'd be willing later in the week (a bit busy the next couple of days). I don't know if he's still around, but I know you were friends with User:One Night In Hackney who is an excellent prose writer, so if he is still here see if you can get him to take a look as well.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments, Jackyd101. I agree with much of what you are saying, particularly with respect to the flow and organization. I'll point out that one of the reasons the article is well sourced is that pretty well every descriptive statement comes right out of a reference source; hence, explosive punches and fights, and crushing left hooks and threatened steamrollering. "He threw an explosive punch" is much better prose than "His punch was described as explosive by Joe Blogg, boxing expert." The second sentence tells us more about the reporter than the subject. Referees stop fights, but not in favour of one boxer or the other; that is the decision of the judges. Gomez has been with his childhood sweetheart for about as long as he has been boxing, and they had their first two children before he started his professional career so, chronologically, that sentence is probably in the right place. The article is a BLP of a person who has lived a life full of extraordinary situations (both negative and positive), and my initial focus was on ensuring the claims were thoroughly but not excessively sourced (I reduced the references by about 40%); by the time I'd done that, I suspect my eyes had glazed over and I missed many of the points you have made. I am all in favour of other eyes and copy editors working on this article; as with all articles, however, it must remain true to its reference material, which in the case of this particular sport, tends to be quite descriptive and to use terminology that might otherwise appear hyperbolic. I don't think ONiH is around any longer (at least not officially), but perhaps Vintagekits has a way to inquire directly. I do encourage you to take a crack at it, and I'll give it another pass tonight or tomorrow as well. Risker (talk) 01:48, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I understand your point about this article sounding like the references it comes from, but Wikipedia is not part of the sports press and as a result Wikipedia articles need to phrase things differently based on encyclopedic prose. This means that subjective adjectives such as "crushing" should only be used when part of a direct quote or when crushing is a technical term - this does not mean that the article should be boring, such is the fine line on which brilliant prose rests. If you plan to keep the whole article chronological (which is fine), then you have to better integrate details of his personal life into the article. At the moment they seem tacked on. The only BLP I saw as potentially being a problem was that thing about his mother teaching him to shoplift - thats pretty controversial and so should be directly sourced.--Jackyd101 (talk) 07:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I'll have to delay my proposed copyedit to the article, I'm going to be much busier than expected this week. If its still under review here in a weeks time I might be more able to help. I will continue to monitor the article however and if it improves I will be happy to strike through comments and reconsider my !vote. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 09:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments - I will not nitpick that much, however there are a few things that might need tweaking:

  • In the "Ring persona" subsection there is this statement: "a reference to his Mexican-sounding chosen name", this should be changed to "a reference to his Hispanic-sounding chosen name"; Gomez is actually a very common surname, it is seen throughout Latin America and Spain, it is not more "Mexican-sounding" than "Rodriguez" or "Rivera".
  • I get a felling that the article may overuse the term "belt", this seems particulary notable in the "Early professional career" section, remember that boxers actually fight for the championship that the belt represents, not the belt itself.
  • As far as the references go, I would like more newspaper footnotes but most of the pages used are familiar to me, so I'm not going to push that.

That should do it for now, I may provide further comments once these are attended. - Caribbean~H.Q. 04:55, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Support. I have watched this article grow over a long time; it is the result of long and laborious hard work. It now meets all FA criteria. Probably, the most complete biography of the subject available in print or on the internet. Wikipedia is fortunate to have it. If I have one minor quibble - it's that I would like to see a concluding paragraph outlining his achievements, contributions to the sport and hopes for the future. In my opinion the page does not need further copy editing; I look forward to seeing it on the main page. Giano (talk) 21:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - Giano's going to be mad at me, but I don't believe this is ready. I second Jackyd31's concerns about the lead and prose, and add these.

  • Background, Family and youth: Are links for wheel and lamp post necessary? And why is youth linked?
  • North Manchester link goes to North Manchester, Indiana.
  • Trouble outside of the ring: Why is pavement linked? Don't even get me started on heart.
  • Early professional career: Gomez as a single name doesn't need a link. Jackyd31 complained about an Armstrong link, and this is another example of that.
  • Move to super featherweight: "walking away with the title on a points victory over 12 rounds." Try mentioned what type of decision it was. These little details are important for any quality article.
  • In the next sentence, it says that Gomez was undefeated. Clarify that it was during that year, because you don't want confusion with his early-career defeats.
  • "and a successful defence" is incorrect grammar, since three opponents are named.
  • Intercontinental or Inter-Continental? Both are used.
  • Bognar fights: "suffering from flu" Should a or the be added?
  • Does Wikipedia have a seperate link for flash knockdown? Jargon such as this should be linked if possible, although I don't see a page here.

I also noticed some peacock and POV words, so this is far from a full list. The most important thing is to get some writing help, hopefully in time to benefit this candidacy. Giants2008 (talk) 02:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)