Talk:Arjen Robben/GA1

GA Reassessment

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Hi, I am reviewing this article as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are a number of issues that need to be addressed. As many sports related GAs are unmaintained and not improved, I will be providing only a cursory review to begin with. This review will be placed on the talk page and I will notify the wikiprojects involved (not necessarily at the same time). The article will then have seven days from the day of notification for someone to come forward and start making the suggested changes and taking responsibility for the article here. If someone comes forward, I will supply a more detailed review, if someone does not then the article will be delisted. If someone is working on the article then, within reason, there will be no time limit in which the changes have to be made.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• It is reasonably well written.

  a (prose): b (MoS):

The prose is OK, maybe a 6/10 average.

That doesn't give any clues as to how it needs improving, do you have any specific examples? Oldelpaso (talk) 09:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, what are the MoS problems that lead you to regard that criterion as a fail? Oldelpaso (talk) 09:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Good to see someone is willing to take this on. The article is not bad, and in fact I think I may have put the wrong symbol in these boxes and should have inserted pass symbols. However, since we are here, the first thing that springs to mind is that the lead is too short and doesn't properly introduce the article. It should be a clear summary of his career to date with perhaps some personal information included. As mentioned below, personal life (and early life) are too short and should be developed further. I will run through the article at some point in the next few days and point out any further problems, although these are the major ones. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Off the pitch, Robben has quite a low profile. He's not a David Beckham showbiz type. It is highly likely that there is very little information about his personal life in the public domain. Oldelpaso (talk) 20:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

See below for suggestions of how to properly develop this section. As examples, some of the following information may be helpful (although remember WP:RS) [1] [2] [3] [www.worldcuplatest.com/holland-boss-van-basten-says-no-dispute--3977.html] [4] --Jackyd101 (talk) 18:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

(de-indent) That's exactly it - I wouldn't class any of those sources as reliable, apart from the Independent, but that ref doesn't discuss his personal life. Goal.com comes closest but FAC discussions on sourcing have come to the conclusion that it should only be used for straightforward uncontroversial information. If this is a dealbreaker then I'll have to abandon my attempts to keep it at GA. My familiarity with Robben is only as a general football fan. To get anything reliable for personal life I'm pretty sure I'd need sources in Dutch, which I don't speak. Oldelpaso (talk) 07:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I see. I think we can leave this issue until the outcome of the discussion is determined at the GA talk page. If personal life sections are given a high importance then the article may ultimately fail, if not then it should be fine. On other matters, good work on the lead. I notice that two of the references are improperly formatted and could be tided up. I will run through the article again today to look for any additional problems.--Jackyd101 (talk) 08:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• It is factually accurate and verifiable.

  a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

Could be a wider use of references: there are several totally unreferenced paragraphs.

• It is broad in its coverage.

  a (major aspects): b (focused):

Personal life section is too short and poorly written.

• It follows the neutral point of view policy.

  a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

• It is stable.

  

• It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

  a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

• Overall:

  a Pass/Fail:

OK, in summary, I am still very unhappy about the poor state of the personal life section. However, as the barest of are minimums I will pass it for now (although I expect that in the future it will have to be expanded or the article will face delisting). In particular, I'd expect to see more about advertisements he has appeared in and products he has endorsed.--Jackyd101 (talk) 20:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Personal life

In order for an article on a sports person to qualify for GA, it must contain information on their life outside sports (per this discussion). This can be incorporated into the article in a number of ways, of which the most common (but by no means the only) is to provide two sections. One immediately under the introduction that describes the person's early life prior to their sporting career, and a second after their career to date is described, that covers non-sporting information during their career (and possibly afterwards). These sections should be formed of at least one (and preferably more) complete paragraphs of several sentences, written in readable prose and properly referenced to reliable sources. A good example of this can be seen at Brian Urlacher.

For some sports people (e.g. David Beckham), their life outside of their sporting career is a significant part of their notability: these are special cases which have to be dealt with individually. However, the non-sporting life of all sports persons, alive or dead, is relevant and important to their article - these are biographies, not descriptions solely of their sporting achievements.

Examples of what to include (this list is by no means exhaustive, neither is it a checklist. Not all of this information has to be included, just anything that applies to the person in question):

• In early life, it would be useful to describe the date and place of their birth, their parentage and family background, their experiences growing up and the places in which they grew up, schools they attended, youth teams they played for, and any significant events in their lives that affected them.
• Personal life should always include information on their family: wife and children. Not the kind of information that would violate BLP (particularly where it applies to children: we shouldn't be told where they go to school for example!) but enough so that we can understand the family of the article's subject. Similarly, many contemporary sports people are famous for relationships that do not end in marriage: relationship speculation often appears in the media and if significant enough can appear in the article.
• Negative stuff: drug problems (both sporting and recreational), illegal activities (including fighting and driving offences), gambling problems, extra-martial affairs, becoming victims of robbery or attack, racist abuse (both from and against) and other possibly unsavoury incidents (this is not to suggest that this particular sports person has done any of these things, this is a guide for sports people in general). No Original Research please! All allegations must have appeared in the mainstream media before they can appear here and must be appropriately cited to a reliable source. Significant unproven or unfounded allegations should also be included: see Tony Parker for an example of how these should be dealt with.
• Positive stuff: many sports personalities do charity work - this is not always widely published, but can appear on club websites and similar. Sports people are often an advocates for, supporters of or opponents of charities, advocacy groups or social and political movements: this applies both to issues within sports (cheating, drugs etc.) and outside (disease, gang violence, drugs etc.) and is usually an interesting insight into a person's character.
• Most sports people have other forms of income. This can take the form of a second (or sometimes a "day") job (e.g. Bobby Charlton was once an electrical fitter and Rory Underwood a fighter pilot). Many sports people have investments in businesses, shares and products, which, if reported, are often significant aspects of their lives outside sport. Likewise, their endorsements, advertisements and sponsors are important: what products do/have they endorsed, what advertisments have they appeared in and in which media. In addition, information about any books they have published, TV appearances made and any work as newspaper or blog correspondants are important additions.
• Sports persons can also appear in the media for a range of reasons that have noting to do with the above: car crashes, housing problems and professional feuds are among the many issues that may have made the news and might merit inclusion.

As mentioned, this list is far from exhaustive and neither is everything on it essential: its more a guide providing ideas for research into the person's life outside sports. For any contemporary or recent sports person, google should provide enough to develop a basic section and for older ones, news articles and books can give plenty of information about their personal lives.

Some sports people are known for a determination to keep their private life private and it may be that very little information can be found about them. In such cases, there will be sources discussing their reluctance to release details about their private life and these can be used as sources in a paragraph talking about their efforts to avoid publicity.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I must also add that the Real Madrid section needs a bit of expansion especially since he's likely to leave soon Spiderone 15:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)