Talk:Davie Cooper/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Kosack (talk · contribs) 15:57, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Picking this one up for review. An interesting read on a player I can't say I knew much about. Review coming as soon as possible. Kosack (talk) 15:57, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Initial review

Infobox and lead

• Could probably do with a source just to show his full name was only David Cooper.
• His height also needs sourcing.
• A lead section should generally not go over four paragraphs as per WP:LEAD, which this does but the final part could realistically be merged with the paragraph above.
• Also per WP:LEAD, the lead section doesn't need refs if the information is already sourced in the main article unless particularly controversial. I would suggest all but the refs claiming him to be one of Scotland's greatest talents are not needed.
• I would suggest adding what division Clydebank were in during his time there or at least when he first joined.

Early life

• The quote in the box needs attributing to the author or publication, see quotes such as the ones at Robin Friday as an example.
• I would suggest linking left-half and inside left to Inside forward
• "helped promote the new club in the local community.[14] [8]", it's generally advised to keep refs in numerical order unless doing so for a specific reason. Also, no need for the space in between.
• Single sentence paragraphs are generally to be avoided. I would suggest merging the final sentence with the paragraph above.
• In regards to his first two matches for the club I'm guessing this was a two-legged tie in the Cup? Worth mentioning if so. The latter part of this paragraph also appears to be unsourced.
• "Cooper ended the season with 29 starts, 2 as a sub, and scored 5 goals", source?
• "the 1975–76 season", link to 1975–76 Scottish Second Division.
• Penalties is linked but used two sentences before. The link should come at the first mention.
• "more than treble what Cooper was receiving as a Bankie", do you mean the transfer offer was three times more or the wages Villa were set to offer him?
• "achieved some remarkable results", remarkable seems to be venturing into pov territory.
• Rangers and the Scottish League Cup are linked previously so don't need linking again.
• Link treble to Treble (association football).
• "Remarkably, the Clydebank side", again the use of remarkably is bordering on not maintaining a WP:NPOV I think.
• "This time, John Greig", no need to repeat his first name.
• "overcame the strong Clydebank team", strong is not a NPOV I would say.
• "opened the scoring in the 6th minute, followed by a Davie Cooper equaliser the minute after", suggest rewording to something along the lines of "6th minute, but Cooper equalised for Clydebank a minute later".
• Contact > contract?
• No need to link Jock Wallace again.
• "The fee and a salary of £10,000 were agreed", I'm assuming this is a signing on fee for Cooper? If so, I think that could be made clearer.
• Perhaps some sort of summary could be added after his final appearances. Something along the lines of "Cooper made a total of xxx appearances during his time with Clydebank, scoring xx times"?

Rangers

• The opening part with the fee and signing on fee seems like it's just repeating the information from the previous section.
• Jock Wallace and St Mirren are already linked previously and the treble will also be if the point above is agreed in the Clydebank section.
• Second paragraph appears to be unsourced.
• The Rangers section seems a little choppy in the middle. I know you're probably trying to do a paragraph per season but the short two line paragraphs seem a little choppy and could probably be summarised better.
• A big chunk of this information appears to be unsourced as well.
• The final sentence and quote is unsourced.

Motherwell

• Scottish League Cup and Motherwell are overlinked in the second paragraph.
• "assisting in three of the four goals scored", assisting in a goal reads oddly to me. Why not just assisting three of the four goals scored?
• Following sentence is unsourced.

International career

• Ref 54 can be moved to the end of the sentence to cover all of the information.
• Does ref 58 really cover all of the info in that paragraph, particularly his 11 consecutive games for example?

Death

• "where consultant neurosurgeon Professor Garth Cruikshank took charge of the case", unless Cruikshank is particularly renowned in his field, I'm not sure the namecheck is necessary here.

Legacy

• Quote from Walter Smith needs a ref.

International goals

• The table needs scope=rows and cols as per WP:ACCESS.
• Table needs a ref.

References

• This article is scoring very highly on Earwig's copyvio detector, over 84% for one source which is far too high. Some of the information appears to be directly copied from the site in question. There are some other instances of close paraphrasing too that need to be looked at.
• Ref 1 seems to have the first name of the author as the link rather than the required heading.
• Avoid shouting in ref titles such as #3, per WP:ALLCAPS
• Although not a sticking point for GA, if you have the name of the organisation, The Independent or 11v11 for example, it's generally not necessary to include the web address, such as independent.co.uk or 11v11.com
• When using the same ref more than once, they should be combined as to avoid numerous separate listings of the same one, for example page 41 of Drysdale's book is listed for refs 30-33 when they should be combined as one.
• None of the refs seem to have publishing dates despite being available, these need to be included.
• Is ref #59, Not The Old Firm, a reliable source?
• I'm not sure Sporting Heroes is generally considered reliable either.
• Ref 72 author's name, Jakc > Jack
• Ref 78 is a bare url.

Hi Andrew, above is what I've picked out on an initial run through. The main concerns are the very close paraphrasing in some parts, particularly the Rangers section, a lack of refs in some places and the general neatness of the refs. I'll pause here for now as there is plenty to be getting on with. Thee article will likely look a little different when these items are addressed, so I'll do another run then. Placed on hold for now, ping me when these are completed or if you have any questions. Cheers. Kosack (talk) 10:02, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

@Kosack: Hi there! Thank you for picking this up. I hope to do as much as possible as you have suggested, unfortunately my work may not allow me to do as much as I'd want. Thank you for the very helpful suggestions though! Andrew Henderson (talk) 12:25, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

No worries, there's no rush. We can leave this open for a couple of weeks and see how we go. Kosack (talk) 06:33, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi Andrew, just checking in. I can see some progress has been made here but a lot still to look at. Do you anticipate further progress on this? Kosack (talk) 15:08, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

@Kosack: Hi again I’m afraid my progress has been quite slow. I feel like this page is still missing quite a bit of information which I can add and I may have been too quick to suggest GA promotion. I have struggled to format the references for Drysdale, especially the ones that are used multiple times. I’ll keep adding as much as I can, however if it doesn’t meet the standards I’m happy to work on it and ask for review again in the future. Andrew Henderson (talk) 22:32, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

@Andrew Hendo: That's ok, I can bring this one to a close now if it's unlikely to progress anytime soon. The bare bones are definitely here, but as you say there are still parts that certainly need fleshing out. If you need any help with anything or even another review in future, drop me a message. I'd be more than happy to help out and obviously this review will stay here so you can work on it as you see fit. Kosack (talk) 08:09, 22 August 2021 (UTC)