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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2008 Philadelphia Phillies season/archive1

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

The article was not promoted by Karanacs 21:23, 26 May 2009 [1].

2008 Philadelphia Phillies season

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Nominator(s): KV5 (Talk • Phils) 23:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because I believe that it meets all of the criteria. This is my first FA attempt after several months reviewing and writing FLs. I've worked on this article since the beginning of the 2008 baseball season; it's gone through 3 peer reviews and is currently the first team season GA for Major League Baseball and WP:BASEBALL as a whole. I fought off the vandals after the World Series victory and think that this article is completed, fully referenced, and well-written. I will address all concerns raised by reviewers to the best of my ability. Thanks! KV5 (Talk • Phils) 23:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Of course, in my initial edit summary, I meant FAC; typing "FLC" is habit. Cheers. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 23:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Technical comments

  • Dates in body (long month-day-year) and refs (ISO style) appear consistent; ref author name order consistent too.
  • 2 external links dead: refs 50, 81. Others that were highlighted in the link checker appear to work.
  • 2 unlinked sources (ref 1 and 84) don't have page numbers.

--an odd name 23:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to find archives of the dead links right now (checked Wayback and Google Cache); no luck. :( I searched for their titles on philly.com (with "Archives" selected on the dropdown) and only ref 81 shows up, paywalled (without even giving a url!). --an odd name 03:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments -
  • Newspapers titles in the references should be in italics. If you're using {{cite news}}, use the work field for the title of the paper, and the publisher field for the name of the actual company that publishes the paper.
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I did a complete re-audit of the references before doing this nomination, since you commented as such at the 3rd peer review, and I thought I had gotten them all. Could you mention which references specifically? KV5 (Talk • Phils) 15:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images - nice to see a N.American sports' article without non-free content. A better image of File:Philadelphia_City_Hall-zoom.JPG would be nice, but I guess the subject is not easy to get access to. good job! Fasach Nua (talk) 20:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Do you think it would be better if I cropped the size down to focus in more? I don't know how much extra clarity I could get between that and a little playing in Photoshop, but if you think it's worth a try, I'll do it. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 20:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think no ammount of digital image processing will fix this, to crop it will lose information about the height, information I think is required for the article. A fresh photo either with a long lens, or up close would be nice, but probably impractical, and it's quality is not key to the article content Fasach Nua (talk) 20:58, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - Few picky things from the first few sections:

  • Link sweep in the lead for those who aren't familiar with the term.
  • March/April: Romero was already linked in a previous section.
  • May: Space between initials for T.J. Bohn?
  • June: "with the pitchers allowing an average of 4.79 runs per game" is an awkward noun plus -ing strucutre.
  • Link Triple-A for non-baseball fans to understand this better.
  • July: "with Utley garnering the most votes of all National League players." This is another noun plus -ing. One more later: "with the bullpen earning the victory".
  • September: "nearly-full". No hyphen after -ly.

My big concern here is whether the tone is formal enough, a common complaint for sports articles that come here. Seeing something like "to close out the 'dog days' of summer" sends off warning signals for me. Giants2008 (17-14) 01:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have done all bulleted comments except the last; "nearly-full" is a compound adjective in this case. As to the tone, specifically "Dog Days", this is a term that's even notable enough to have a Wikipedia article about it. Would it help my case at all if I linked this? This is a term that's strongly associated with baseball, and specifically baseball in the hot and muggy days of August. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 17:40, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes... I was actually complimented on their use during the final peer review. Originally in the post-season section, the box scores had individual game summaries for each one, but it made the article extremely clunky because each summary was only one to two sentences. I could easily remove the hide boxes from them and keep the box scores if it's fine to keep them all together. The hide boxes were for ease of reading. Same with the game log; MLB seasons are 162 games long and using them in a printed or reduced form of the article is unlikely. Unhiding the game log is going to make it ugly and it will take up a lot of space. I'm not sure what you want me to do here. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 21:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose on style/organization basis for now. The game log is going to be a problem, and unfortunately this is one of those time that WikiProject standards collide with MoS standards (and, by extension, FA standards). There are really two issues: The first is that the box can't be a show/hide, even if it defaults to show. The second is that the game log really shouldn't be in the article, in my opinion. As a table, it's really ugly. The colors are bad and make the article looks like a Ringling Bros. circus. Also, it's an unbearably long table of information that arguably belongs somewhere else—either in a list article or just nowhere at all. If anyone is really interested in reading all those stats, they can click the link to the team web site. As it stands, it doesn't meet Wikipedia:Summary style. --Laser brain (talk) 21:37, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We're discussing changing the colors at WT:MLB right now, so that issue will likely be solved soon. As to the game log, this would be the first article of this type to pass FA, if it does, so this game log will likely set the standard for future noms. I have no problem finding a different way to incorporate it, but I need more information than "it's ugly" and "it shouldn't be there". I see no reason to delete the game log; it's part of the season and, in my view, necessary. If it's determined that this would be better as a list, then I'll take that discussion to WT:MLB and we'll see what comes of it. I'm sure that the table, with a short lead, could be moved to something like List of 2008 Philadelphia Phillies games and linked from the regular season section as a see also, but this throws huge amounts of effort by a hard-working project to the wind. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 00:15, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I find it difficult to believe that this review is gonna get hung up because "the table looks ugly" and "the colors are bad". Green and red are used for the win/loss backgrounds of every sport I've ever seen on WP, it's never been an issue and changing it to blue/chartreuse isn't going to do a dang thing. The game logs are simply there to compliment the prose, which is why I prefer them to be hidden (If it takes that they be un-hidden to get an FA, I'll live with it). Last season the game logs were moved to their own page and used as templates, which was ultimately voted down because its pointless to have a template that is only used within one article. This review has to be based around wheter or not 2008 Philadelphia Phillies season meets the FA criteria and not personal opinion. blackngold29 00:54, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I gave more reasons than what you're citing above. The best reason to remove it is in the interest of summary style and readability. Blackngold29, the style and structure of the article are part of the FA criteria, and every single review here is based on personal opinion. The FA criteria are largely subjective. In my opinion, the table should not be in the article in any form or combination of colors. If it suits you, you may discard my comment that the table is ugly. I have not yet had time to examine the prose. --Laser brain (talk) 01:05, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be any improvement to move the game log to the end? Similar to how albums have the prose at the beginning, then lists (track listing, charts, etc.) at the end. Don't take my comments personally, there are a few different reasons I said that based on multiple reviews. blackngold29 01:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so. My comment may very well be discounted as going against consensus, but I think this article needs to be mostly prose. As it stands, at least half of it is tabular data. The game log is like 6 screens of information. I know sports fans have an affinity for stats, but we need to focus on a general readership here. Shouldn't this be a synopsis of events and performances, in prose form? I don't know, maybe I'm way off base. Maybe I just need to live with the fact that a season sports article will look like this. The only basis for comparison I have is some FAs for bands. If the band has a notable career, their discography is almost always its own article—because people who want to read about the band and people who want to see tabular data are often different audiences. --Laser brain (talk) 02:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's kind of unfair to compare it to a band's discog, because it's been established that most deserve their own discog list; most of which can achieve FL status, unlike a game log. I agree that the game logs are lengthy, which is why I always preferred them hidden (Grrr, MOS) as that would keep the info and reduce the scrolling. A few possibilities after looking at the article closer: 1 I would remove the Roster as the Stats section already lists everyone on the team (we just agreed on this at WP:HOCKEY too), 2 Are the inning-by-inning run tallies necessary for every playoff game? (Another place where a collapsible box could help) By removing those, it would reduce the non-prose aspects of the article, while not losing too much info. I absolutely agree the emphisis should be on the prose, but I think by looking at the game log it gives the reader a quick understanding of the ebb and flow of the season. I'm not going to review the article persay, but I would like to get some viewpoints on this stuff for future reference as this will likely pave the way for season FAs to come; and well, I'm intrigued by first-time stuff like this. blackngold29 04:05, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: There were hide boxes on the playoff scores before this review. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 11:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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