Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ben Crosby/archive2

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 archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 01:48, 19 June 2016 [1].

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Ben Crosby

Nominator(s): A Texas Historian (Impromptu collaboration?) 19:48, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Let's try this again. Ben Crosby was an early football player and coach who died before he could really do anything. This might be the shortest article I ever bring to FAC. Researching it was a pain because he's the second-most obscure of all Navy football coaches, behind the guy who my primary source said has disappeared from the historical record. There is not much to this article; it's all about either playing football or coaching football or being forgotten by football. I nominated the article earlier this year and got an image review. Hopefully I can get someone to copyedit my choppy prose. Thanks, A Texas Historian (Impromptu collaboration?) 19:48, 12 April 2016 (UTC) Notice: I will probably be limited in my ability to respond to your concerns for the following month because of IB exams. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Comments – Sorry that nobody has stopped by to give you a review so far, and that you didn't receive much commentary at the first FAC. I made some copy-edits here and there which you'll want to check. Here are some things I spotted:

• You have a tendency to "bury the lead" in a couple of places in the lead, reversing what seems to be the logical order of items in a sentence. For example, the very first sentence of the article is "Benjamin Lewis Crosby , Jr. was an American law student and football player and coach." Why is the law student part put first in this sentence, when Crosby's football career is the reason an article on him is considered notable in the first place? The fact that he was a law student might be worth mention, but not as the first thing the reader sees.

• Corrected.

• "Crosby attended Yale University beginning in 1889, where he was a popular student and sportsman." Since "where" is in reference to the school and not the year, the sentence should be changed so that the school comes directly before the comma.

• I attempted to fix this.

• "Crosby was a backup on the crew team and a two-year starter on the football team." Again, I'd move the football part up in the sentence, since that is more important than his time on the crew team.

• Done.

• "Notably" should be removed, since I'd hope something in a lead would be notable.

• Got rid of it.

• I see a couple of "however"s in the lead, which is usually a sign of wordiness. Try finding ways of removing some in the article, through rephrasing or just taking them out.

• Down to just two "however"s in the article.

• Early life and college: "both he and John A. Hartwell ... were both injured in a game." Remove one of the "both"s to avoid redundancy.

• Got rid of the latter one.

• Coaching career: We don't need two Army Black Knights football links in this section, even though I do love the team (as bad at football as they may be).

• Only one link now. Also, 14 years and counting...

• "against the Penn Quakers. The Quakers...". Try not to have the team name repeat from the end of one sentence to the start of another like this. You could try "against the Penn Quakers in Annapolis. The Quakers...", which would at least move it a couple more words away.

• Reworded it per suggestion.

If you fix these prose issues, the article should be in better shape. While I wish there was more to read, there isn't going to be that much material about a man who is primarily notable for one coaching season, and I don't think that should be a barrier to FA by itself. The article appears to be extensively researched, and I have no reason to believe that it isn't comprehensive. When I typed the subject's name into Google for kicks, around half the articles that popped up related to Bing Crosby, so I'm impressed you found as much as you did. I could see myself supporting this, but would like a quick scan for further writing points like the ones I found. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:52, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the review and sorry for taking so long to respond. I have made all of your suggested changes and I went back through the article and made a couple more changes. There might be more that can be improved, but I'm not good at spotting it. Thanks again, - A Texas Historian (Impromptu collaboration?) 19:33, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

• Support – There was one remaining duplicate wikilink, which I took the liberty of fixing. That was the last thing that I spotted. As I said before, this is a solid piece of research, and I think it meets the standards now. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:28, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Images are appropriately licensed, per discussion last time around. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:03, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your review at the previous nomination and for following up here. - A Texas Historian (Impromptu collaboration?) 19:33, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments – taking a look now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:10, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

"'contracted a "severe cold" - can be dequoted "URTI" or something

his illness intensified and he apparently "succumbed to an attack of typhoid fever". - "his illness intensified and he apparently fell gravely ill from typhoid fever." (or somesuch)

Minor points though, a nice little read. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:39, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments – I just removed a bunch of extraneous blank spaces that our templates seem to put in. Not a requirement for any review, but eliminating them decreases bytes on server usage. Other comments:

• "Navy had requested that Camp serve as coach" At this particular place, it reads awkward to me. Did the team make the request or did the Academy? Possibly change to "The Academy requested", or perhaps "The Navy team requested"

• Section Death and legacy could use some improvements, and loses me a bit on how it's put together.

• "Crosby had, reportedly, contracted a "severe cold" during his time as a head coach, which continued to affect him after the season." Seems to have a lot of commas. Personally, I think you could eliminate the commas before and after "reportedly" and still convey the same thing.
• State the year of his death.
• The sentence "Crosby's coaching position was filled by Yale teammate John A. Hartwell." should be right after his death.
• "who was subsequently replaced by another Yale teammate, William Wurtenburg." doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article. Can this be taken out, or do you think it has significance to the article?

• Break into new paragraphs right after his death, or a sentence or two followed by a sourced mini-list. For instance:

"Crosby has been largely forgotten outside of Navy football history, however..." (complete the sentence)

• His replacement as Yale end by Frank Hinkey was discussed in magazines until at least the 1920s. (What were they discussing? Why is this significant?)
• In his one season as a head coach, Crosby amassed a record of 5–2 and his team outscored their opponents 146–64. The five wins are tied for the seventh-fewest of any Navy coach, but third-most of single-season coaches.
• Crosby has the third-fewest losses among Navy coaches. His .714 win percentage is tied for the tenth-highest of any Navy coach.
• (my rewording on this) The most significant impact that Crosby had with Navy was through his hiring of Dashiell. The latter would serve as assistant until 1903 under the eight Navy coaches. As head coach from 1904 to 1906, Dashiell brought Navy to national prominence and won 25 games. He later became one of the longest-serving members of the college football Rules Committee, helping to legalize the forward pass and ban the flying wedge, among other things.

Hope this has been helpful to you. — Maile (talk) 15:00, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Coordinator note - A Texas Historian, where are we on addressing Maile's comments? I will need to archive the nomination if you are no longer attending to it. --Laser brain (talk) 16:01, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry about not replying earlier. I've had exams for the past couple weeks and I haven't been able to do much editing. The exams are over on Wednesday, so after then I'll be able to address the concerns. Thanks, - A Texas Historian (Impromptu collaboration?) 16:21, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

I'll try to address all of the concerns in the next couple of days. Thanks, - A Texas Historian (Impromptu collaboration?) 16:29, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Mike Christie

• You have "succumbed to an attack of typhoid fever" and "succumbed to the effects of typhoid fever" within a couple of lines of each other; can this be rewritten to avoid repetition?

I've looked at the sources and they seem fine; I have not done a spotcheck, and I have not looked at the images. I expect to support once the minor issue above is fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:37, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Closing comment

It's been a month since Laser brain asked for responses to Maile's comments and we're still waiting so I think we need to archive this and give the nominator time to work on things outside the FAC process. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:48, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 01:48, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.