Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sinclair Research Ltd

Sinclair Research Ltd edit

self-nomination, I worked a lot on this article, it's very detailed and includes lots of pictures, and has a good lead paragraph (might need expanding though). It went through peer review and got some good comments. Includes references, further reading, external links and see also section. — Wackymacs 08:06, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good article, but it just not sufficiently comprehensive and detailed, therefore object. Also the only reference is from 1985 - I should like to know where the post-1985 stuff comes from. Basically everything Sinclair did after 1983 was a failure (and in some cases was very dodgy), there are underlying reasons for this that need mentioning. (Sinclair got lucky with a good design team for the Spectrum and then thought he was the one responsible for its success). The failure of QL is attributed here due to "it's strong competition", and not the nearly total loss of confidence in Sinclair after his actions "launching" it before they even had a prototype.

There's an online exposé of the downfall of Sinclair that I'll try to find. Morwen - Talk

*Most of the post 1985 information is from the 'Planet Sinclair' website (linked in the external links section), a very informative website all about Sinclair himself, and all the products the company ever made. I'll see how I can improve it, if you can help it'd be very useful in getting this closer to FA status. — Wackymacs 15:37, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Object.
1. The images Image:Tv1a.jpg, Image:Sinclairblackwatch.jpg, Image:SinclairStereo25.jpg, Image:SinclairC5.jpg are claimed as "fair use", but it should be possible to create or find free-use replacements, so there's no reason to use "fair use" images here.
2. ~~The image Image:SinclairC5.jpg is tagged as being under the Creative Commons Attribution license, but does not indicate the creator. This needs to be fixed, or the image needs to be deleted.~~
--Carnildo 19:48, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Image sources have been added to all the images you mentioned, and the SinclairC5.jpg image was tagged wrong, it has been replaced with the promotional tag. — Wackymacs 20:20, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Object, good work but some improvements could still be made. The lead should be longer and more than one section. There should be more descriptive section headings for the history section than simply date ranges. The long and thin financial data column needs to be better placed. I would suggest having it as a side bar to the history section. See for instance how I did this with a long thin table at voter turnout. The article also seems lacking in some areas. It needs to be more on the company today, how many employees, what it is working on etc. The article is too focused on the company's products with very little on corporate structure, leading figures, or facilities. Specific figures, such as most of the financial figures, should be sourced with footnotes. The table especially needs a source. - SimonP 01:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestion of putting the finance table as a sidebar to the history section, this has now been done. — Wackymacs 15:53, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Object—Lots of prose problems. Just a FEW examples at the top:
- 'founded Sinclair Radionics, a company developing hi-fi products'—so the company was already developing these products WHEN it was founded?
- Is a calculator a hi-fi product?
- 'In 1965 the "Micro-FM" debuted as "the world"s first pocket-size FM tuner-receiver", but was poorly acclaimed due to technical difficulties, though in the far-east illegal clones of the product were being produced'—many problems:
  - why 'but'? Are you contradicting the first clause in some way?
  - better to insert 'it' after 'but'
  - punctuation needs a thorough audit for clarity and ease of reading
  - 'though' (better 'although') comes after 'but', and I can't see why it's yet another contradiction of what precedes it—you need to spell out why 'poorly acclaimed' (better 'reviewed'?) somehow makes the illegal cloning surprising. Or break up the sentence to avoid these false contrasts.

How did this ever find its way straight into the FAC list? Withdraw, rewrite, possibly resubmit. Tony 05:49, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Object - A company information box should be added to the article. Cedars 09:25, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A company information box has been added, and I'm working on the prose problems and other grammar issues. I'm also trying to add more info about the company itself, and will look into moving the financial data table to the side of the article rather than in it's own section. Some more references are going to be added too.— Wackymacs 19:07, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good work. Though the company type field is very important and still not filled in yet. The revenue field should also be filled in but because the success of this company was largely in past years you may want to use historical data. "N/A" could also be used if you so desired. Cedars 01:11, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I put N/A in the company type entry, because it is almost impossible to find out if they are LTD, PLC or sole trader. For the revenue entry I added the data for 1984, Sinclair's best financial year, with a revenue of £77.69 million. I think the company infobox is now done. — Wackymacs 17:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]