Wikipedia:Featured article review/Wayne Gretzky/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 18:57, 22 May 2008.

[edit] Wayne Gretzky

[edit] Review commentary

Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia:WikiProject Ice Hockey, Wikipedia:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia:WikiProject Arizona, Wikipedia:WikiProject Canadian football, Wikipedia:WikiProject Indianapolis, Wikipedia:WikiProject Canadian sport notified.

I believe that this does not currently meet the following Featured Article criteria:

1) Well-written: It's not bad, but it could be improved. For example, the first paragraph of the "Edmonton Oilers" section end with: "The rule was later changed." No explanation is given as to what change was made. Hyphens are used incorrectly throughout the article, and there are several noticeable punctuation problems.
2) Factually accurate: Lack of citations is a huge problem throughout the article. Notably, the "Edmonton Oilers" section has no references. Likewise, most of "Los Angeles Kings" is unreferenced and "St. Louis Blues" has no references. "New York Rangers" has only one reference. Five citations isn't enough for a career like Gretzky's (not to mention the biography of a living person). In addition, all of the other sections except "Off the ice" need more citations.
3) Proper referencing: Inconsistent formatting and lacking important information. In addition, several citations are placed incorrectly in the text.
4) Neutrality is a problem. For example: "No less an expert than Bobby Orr said..." GaryColemanFan (talk) 02:33, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

re 1- only a start, but the incorrect hyphens have been replaced by en dashes. Beyond that, your concerns are basically valid. Alaney2k (talk) 21:39, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Gretzky detractors have often claimed that Gretz wasn't allowed to be hit during his NHL career (due to his marketing value); if there's any sources for such critisims, they should be added to the article. Also, where's the mentioning of the Bill McCreary hit? Which many claimed was a major no-no. GoodDay (talk) 22:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I looked that up. That is old, the McCreary hit. I don't have a 'primary reference' for that, it was either in 1980 or 1981, and is mentioned later in newspaper articles. The topic of his protection might pass scrutiny. He had Sememko, McSorley. Who did the Rangers have to protect him? And what happened on the night of McCreary hitting Gretzky? That will take some digging to see if it is notable enough. Alaney2k (talk) 21:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I wonder what has changed in the article since it was given FA status to warrant another look. -- JT^Holla! 00:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're getting at. GaryColemanFan (talk) 00:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

My point is, the article has been granted FA status. What has changed to make someone think that it is no longer FA worthy? -- JT^Holla! 03:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

According to Featured Article criteria, "FAs are held to the current standards regardless of when they were promoted." The article clearly doesn't meet the criteria, so it needs to be looked at. Any FA can be examined and discussed at any time. Featured Article represent the best of Wikipedia, so while this may have been good enough in 2006, it needs a lot of work to maintain its status. Are you claiming that "the best of Wikipedia" should be exempt from upkeep? Is it okay to have poorly referenced Featured Articles? GaryColemanFan (talk) 04:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course not. But at one point it met the FA criteria. What about the article has changed to make it not fit FA criteria? -- JT^Holla! 15:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

What changed was the rules on what is a FA. Personally, I couldn't stand Gretzky as a player, and I'm not all that fond of him as a coach, so I'm not the best person to look at bringing it back up to standards. Hopefully one of our other hockey project members is up to the challenge. Resolute 05:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments- I started cleaning up the refs, and must agree with GaryColemanFan that there are several major issues, listed below:

1) The biggest problem is inconsistent formatting. Templates are used in fewer than half of the cites, but there are still a good number of them. A decision should be made on whether to use them or not, and some must be changed to be consistent.

2) Many dead links. All Canoe.ca or Slam.canoe.ca links (I counted five) are dead. Also dead are current refs 46 (Newark Star-Ledger), 48 (Yahoo) and 49 (The Arizona Republic). I didn't look at every link, so there could still be more.

I replaced all Canoe links with Internet Archive versions. Still need replacements for the other three. Giants2008 (talk) 23:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I converted two dead links into offline news citations. The other one was removed as the part of the section it was in was deemed unnecessary. There are still two dead links in Off the ice, which I'll take care of tomorrow. Giants2008 (talk) 19:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC) Done. Giants2008 (talk) 02:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

3) Several sources on his endorsements look questionable at first glance, although I haven't looked at them closely. Replaced with reliable sources. Giants2008 (talk) 02:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

4) Current refs 10 and 33 (ESPN SportsCentury) are identical and can be combined.

Update: I did this myself. Giants2008 (talk) 19:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

This isn't including the aforementioned lack of references in the NHL career section. Gretzky is a major figure in sports history, and deserves the best referencing possible. Giants2008 (talk) 17:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I will be able to help on the look up of references. I am sure his whole career can be well referenced from the Canadian Newsstand database. Alaney2k (talk) 17:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I just performed some cleanup work on the article. Punctuation was poor for an FA; hopefully I got most of the problems fixed. I changed the POV statement mentioned to: "Hall of Fame defenceman Bobby Orr said...". I'm no prose or style expert, so more improvements are surely needed. Giants2008 (talk) 22:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

All citations now after punctuation. Giants2008 (talk) 23:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment I would like to suggest adding a 'To-do list' on the talk page of the article? Would it be a good or bad idea, though? I would want to limit it to the terms of the FA review. Alaney2k (talk) 21:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea, as long as nobody here has any objections, of course. Giants2008 (talk) 00:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Progress report Since being placed on review, the number of references has nearly doubled, from 48 to 93 as I write. I also listed the article at WP:LoCE, where someone will hopefully take an interest in it. There's still more work to do, but good progress is definitely being made here. Giants2008 (talk) 22:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I've just taken out all citation templates in the article, since most of the references didn't use them. I normally like templates, but thought they were not used effectively in this case. Giants2008 (talk) 19:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your good work. A lot of the citations may have pre-dated some of today's templates. The main thing is to be consistent, that's why I always use them. That said, there is a diverse selection. Alaney2k (talk) 19:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you think templates of some form should be put back in? I ask because you used them in your latest batch of references after I took the existing ones out. If you believe they should be used, I have no problem with that, other than the annoyance of having to change 100+ citations. You also used two different kinds of templates, which I believe is frowned upon. Let me know what you want to do. Giants2008 (talk) 00:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Long-term, it probably makes more sense to use the templates, if the template format ever changes then you don't have to rewrite, but not now. I used Citation for the References section, the cite can't handle books with editors as well. I will rewrite the cites in the text to not use templates. I did that just to see how it is written, and also did the save immediately in case you were working at the same time. I will basically paste what the cite puts out. But in the References section, we should stay with the templates. I think that the format output is the correct one according to the MOS. Alaney2k (talk) 00:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment I am trying to find a cite for the "Skalbania knew that the WHA was fading ..." sentence. That may have to be rewritten. After that, I think we have the article thoroughly cited. Alaney2k (talk) 23:38, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Also see what you can find for the Skills section, particularly the first paragraph. That may also need adjusting. Giants2008 (talk) 00:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, will do. Alaney2k (talk) 00:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The Rebel League would be the best place for such a citation, I would think. I just returned that book to the library, otherwise I'd check for the citation for you. At any rate, excellent job on citing and fixing the article, guys. Resolute 15:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The Gretzky book has a good explanation. I've used Gretzky's version of events. It's more interesting this way, too. Alaney2k (talk) 18:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• Lots of fixes needed: I haven't looked at content or citations much, but from a MOS point of view, this article is going to need a lot of work. Incorrect WP:DASHes of all types everywhere, lack of conversions on units (see WP:UNITS), WP:MOSNUM, WP:HYPHEN and ce issues (look here: At age 6 he was skating with 10-year-olds.[16] At age six, his first coach Dick Martin remarked that he handled the puck better than the ten year-olds.), MOS:CAPS#All caps, no consistency in the citations in pg. pp. p. pp etc., missing spaces in the citations (sample: Gretzky(1990), pp. 34–35), incorrect spaces on WP:MOS#Ellipses, WP:MOSNUM issues everywhere (sample: They have 4 other children: ), and much more. The article needs a serious copyedit, and when nearly finished with that, perhaps editors can go hat in hand to User:Epbr123 and ask him to help with the sigificant MoS issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

This sort of stuff has occurred only because many editors have edited the article. I would not characterize this as serious, only that we have another area to cover. This will get covered. I will add this to the To do list. Alaney2k (talk) 14:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), factual accuracy (1c), and POV (1d). Marskell (talk) 11:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

:: Sometimes the above types of comments are completely non-useful. Are you repeating what we started with? Or have you some examples to point out? Alaney2k (talk) 14:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment I started to copyedit, fix for MOS, and clean up reference formatting this morning. I have been working on it for four hours (it's a very long article), during much of which I had to deal with edit conflicts despite the big old {{under construction}} tag I added before I began working. I'm glad other people are working on the article, but it's extremely frustrating to have to duplicate my own work. Please respect under construction tags; with the exception of my second to last edit (which had a larger time gap from my previous one), the briefest glance at the edit history should have confirmed that I was still working on it. I have removed the under construction tag I placed; time for a break. Maralia (talk) 17:10, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I may have been one of those who interrupted. Sorry about that -- the notice actually welcomes other edits. You should have used {{inuse}} Alaney2k (talk) 17:23, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I performed a couple cleanup edits as well. Sorry if I got in the way, and thanks for the much-needed copyedit. Giants2008 (talk) 23:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. I've used {{inuse}} I don't know how many times, but it didn't occur to me that I used the wrong template until hours after my message above. I really should not attempt anything brain-intensive before noon and at least two cups of coffee. Sorry for getting so cranky about it. I'll try to get back to this tonight. Maralia (talk) 23:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I've not forgotten about this - just got distracted with rl and other wiki work. Will try to get back to copyediting today/tomorrow. Maralia (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment Are we there yet? :-) Seriously, the only part of the article I think that needs some added detail is the time period in L.A. I will focus on getting some details about that time period into the article. It is a bit under-represented considering his play in L.A. was important in later getting several NHL franchises into the area. But as for citations, we must have everything covered, no? (I have one citation to fix up, that said.) I have looked at all I could look at and I think the factual accuracy of the article is covered.Alaney2k (talk) 01:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

• I can see Maralia's on the job; when she says it's a keep, count me in. But, what is the source for all of the career stats at the bottom of the article, in many different sections? Those all need sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I've added source statements for those. As Wayne is an active coach, the source for that is from hockeydb.com, considered a reliable source by the WP:Hockey hockey project. Alaney2k (talk) 14:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• I've completed a copyedit, although the article is so bloody long that I wasn't as thorough as usual. I also did some work on the 'Statistics' section: moved 'International play' into the same section; refactored 'International play' from two tables to one; and put 'Coaching career' last for chrono order. Some remaining issues:

• I am not comfortable with this uncited sentence in the lead: "Gretzky regularly played at a level far above his peers."
• The enormous table in the 'Playing career' section is virtually impossible to edit. Would be good if someone would edit it to reduce it to one row of edit box text per year, or consider dumping it in a template or something.
• I was bothered by the preponderance of hyphenated words, so I removed a slew of hyphens. I realize this could be a stylistic/EngVar issue, but (1) he's Canadian, not British; and (2) the article is so full of necessary hyphens ("17-year-old Gretzky", "All-Star") that unnecessary hyphens are unwise.
• I find the list of endorsements in 'Business ventures' to be rather ludicrously exhaustive, and would really like to see it narrowed down and most of those links removed.
• There appears to be no rhyme or reason to the order of the items in the succession box.
• I notice half the navigational footers are currently nominated for deletion. Frankly I don't think any of them add anything, except perhaps the current coaches one. The '1998 SI Swimsuit Issue' one is incredibly worthless.

Maralia (talk) 07:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The uncited sentence is repeated later with a cite. I'll fix that. About the playing career table, it's not clear what your goal or plan for that table is, to be able to suggest something. The succession boxes and templates are an on-going issue. Since it is a sports article, people seem to think that people want these templates and go out and edit them. There is some effort going into the creation of these templates that could be better used on editing content. It's not the ice hockey project members who are creating these, it seems to be sports fans who don't crack open books for a citation, or apply references to text, etc. ... I noticed you thought it was odd to mention that they are still married. Celebrity marriages not lasting, encyclopedic point of view, that's why that was noted. Is it inherent nowadays to assume people are still married? Maybe I'm just a bit cynical. :-) Alaney2k (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for adding that cite; I'm not fond of citations in the lead, but that statement is such a strong one that I feel it needs a cite there.
• I went ahead and made the changes I wanted to see on the Playing career table. The appearance of the table is the same (with the exception of the last row, which I changed to what I think is a more logical title), and it reduced the editbox length of the table from 33 screens to 6. This should make it much easier to correct any data or manually fix vandalism - before, you couldn't even fit all the fields for a single year's data onto one edit screen.
• I get what you mean about celebrity marriages, but it's a bit POV to say 'still married': it implies there may be reason to think otherwise.
• Regarding nav footers: I'm not quite clear which are supported by the ice hockey project. I would be happy to see all of the nav footers go, with the possible exception of the Current NHL coaches one.
• As to the succession boxes, I would think overall chrono order makes the most sense, although I could see an argument for subsets by award with chrono order within each subset. Additionally, I'd like to see the language cleaned up, so we don't have "Winner of the NHL Plus/Minus Award" but "Lou Marsh Trophy winner".

Maralia (talk) 16:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• I would get rid of the list of endorsements altogether. Having a list of 30 companies adds nothing to the article, not to mention the difficulty of citing all these endorsements. The succession boxes and footers are ridiculous for major athletes like Gretzky. It's just box after box, none of which are important. Since they seem to be standard, however, I'd be cautious about removing them. As for the other header, don't guys like me always get the Swimsuit Issue to see The Great One? :) Seriously, this was probably created for models, and the athletes who have appeared in it are supposed to get it as well. It has absolutely no relevance, and doesn't seem to be a standard yet (Anna Kournikova has the template, but Maria Sharapova doesn't). I wouldn't be sad to see this go. Giants2008 (talk) 18:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The endorsements may date from the time that the article was smaller. Would it be worth keeping as a split? Probably not. Let's prune the navboxes. Alaney2k (talk) 02:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I cut that list of companies—just free advertising.

Does anyone want to do the exceptionally boring work of ref consistency? I don't see huge issues with this article beyond that—except that Bobby Orr is the Best Ever—and would like to keep it. Marskell (talk) 21:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

They look pretty good except for the few that say "accessed" instead of "Retrieved on". Once that's finished, how do we go about wrapping this review up? I think it has improved considerably and should be kept as a Featured Article (perhaps even nominated for Today's Featured Article to celebrate its improvement). GaryColemanFan (talk) 04:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure how they end, but I have made that fix. -Djsasso (talk) 04:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• Keep as FA. The concerns I brought up when initiating this FAR have been addressed. The prose and MoS compliance are good, everything now appears to be referenced, references are properly formatted, and neutrality does not seem to be an issue. This diff shows the article's improvement during this process, which has been substantial. I believe it now meets the Featured Article criteria GaryColemanFan (talk) 14:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I've done more reference formatting cleanup. Some remaining issues:

• The various Gretzky book citations need work. Some Gretzky cites have no year. Other cites have a year (1994) for which no Gretzky-authored book is listed; this may mean they're actually Taylor cites.
• This cite needs a pub date: Gallagher, Tony. "Great One saves hockey in Phoenix", The Province, p. A81.
• This cite needs a publication name: Morrissey, Bob. "Gretzky brings Kings to Hull", September 12, 1989, p. F1.

Maralia (talk) 17:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I did the Morrissey cite. The newspaper name was there, but it was incorrectly formatted. Giants2008 (talk) 18:50, 22 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.