Talk:Shane Warne/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: No Great Shaker (talk · contribs) 15:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Review

I'll be happy to do this review. Hope to provide some feedback soon. No Great Shaker (talk) 15:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

• Thanks. I've invited others to contribute to the GA via the talk page, so this may happen. Desertarun (talk) 15:35, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Result

I'm applying immediate WP:GAFAIL here because the article is not at all well written and it badly fails GACR#1. Although there has been no edit warring, I don't consider the article to be stable (as per GACR#5) because it was added to WP:GAN only days after Shane Warne's death and while a lot of activity was ongoing. I have studied the lead in depth and it doesn't comply with MOS:LEAD as well as being badly written. I've only skimmed the narrative but I can see the problems in the lead are repeated throughout.

Focusing on the lead, the points noted are:

• There is way too much about awards. The lead should really not mention any of these. The place for awards is in a later section of the narrative and it needs to be concise, preferably as bullet points.

• The opening paragraph needs to be a summary of his career and should mention the following:

his first-class career span was from 1991 to 2007 (omit the T20 stuff)

he was an international cricketer, not any old cricketer

he played domestic cricket for Victoria and Hampshire

he made 145 Test appearances, taking 708 wickets (omit first-class and limited overs stats)

• Given the above, the opening paragraph should say something like:

Shane Keith Warne (13 September 1969 – 4 March 2022) was an Australian international cricketer who played from 1991 to 2007 as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a right-handed batsman for Victoria, Hampshire and Australia. He is widely acknowledged to have been one of the sport's greatest-ever bowlers. He made 145 Test appearances, taking 708 wickets.

• As written, the opening sentence says he was simply an Australian cricketer. So was Frank Warne, whose article begins by saying he was a first-class cricketer.

• A right-arm leg spinner. What about his batting?

• considered as is poor grammar. Say recognised as or considered to have been. Better to use acknowledged to have been (see above).

• Remove the Cricketers of the Century bit from the lead – it is, in any case, not well written because the only specialist bowler and the only one still playing at the time is ambiguous.

• Warne played his first Test match in 1992 and took more than 1,000 wickets in Tests and One Day Internationals will confuse readers who aren't knowledgeable about cricket. Bringing ODIs into it loses the context. Keep them separate.

• In the second paragraph, the text jumps from Test to ODI; back to Test; then to awards; then, at last, his batting gets a mention; domestic; domestic again; back to Test. The non-cricket reader will probably give up now.

• In 2007, Warne was named in Australia's greatest ever ODI team. Context again. Was this an all-time team based on someone's opinion or was Australia's 2007 ODI team their best ever (like their 1948 team being the best ever in Test cricket)?

• where he played the roles of both captain and coach. This needs to say he was the player-coach who also captained the team. Coaches don't usually play so, as written, this may confuse the reader.

• In the 150th anniversary of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. It was the 150th edition. An anniversary is different.

• In 2012, he was also inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by Cricket Australia. Why also when there is no other mention of 2012?

• for the IPL 2018. IPL 2018 is an event title which does not have a definite article.

• His career was plagued by may present a false perspective. Better to say that he was involved in the off-field scandals.

• Refs 6, 7 & 8 should not be in the lead. I haven't checked but presumably there is content in the narrative about his impact on leg spin? If so, the citations should occur there, not in the lead.

• He was also honoured at a state memorial service at the ground after his death. This is, frankly, appalling. He would hardly be honoured with a memorial service while he was still alive.

I have only skimmed the narrative but I can see that the prose there is of a similarly poor quality and the list above is long enough to illustrate the problems. This should not have been nominated and a considerable amount of work will have to be done to bring it up to the required standard. No Great Shaker (talk) 21:43, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

No worries, you've given something to work on regardless. Desertarun (talk) 22:20, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Note to next GA reviewer: The article has had over 90 edits from WP:GOCE since this GAN. I believe the prose problem to be fixed. Desertarun (talk) 08:31, 24 June 2022 (UTC)