Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Joey Barton/archive1

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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 00:10, 12 March 2008.

Joey Barton

Check external links

I believe this article is now up to FA status; it is well-referenced, comprehensive and as far as I can see meets all the required criteria. It has already been through a Peer Review and been worked on by copyeditors. Sir-Nobby (talk) 21:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Yeah, per the link above, check for dead links, you've got at least five right now.
  • Four short paragraphs in lead should be more like three fatter paragraphs.
  • Infobox has no year information for his time at Everton. Any chance of finding some?
  • "attended football matches as a supporter" - sounds a little too formal...
  • "various sports" - such as?
  • "YTS" expand the first time it's used for non-expert readers.
  • "His first reserve team appearance" - against whom? Any idea how it went?
  • under-17 and under 19 - consistent hyphenation needed.
  • "He was promoted to the first-team squad in the 2002–03 season." - do you have a citation for this?
  • " had his shirt not gone missing after leaving it on the substitutes bench at half-time." - this sounds bizarre! So he couldn't play in a plain shirt? What prevented him?
  • "with a run of seven consecutive starts." - citation?
  • "Barton left the City of Manchester Stadium in anger on April 17, after not being named in the team to play Southampton.[21] He completed the season ..." - these sentences don't make for good prose, just feels like a collection of facts in a paragraph at the moment.
  • "paid £120,000" - was this also a record (since the last fine, 60,000 was too)...?
  • Sporting Chance is for men and women.
  • Expand FA on its first use.
  • "publicly showed his disapproval." - how?
  • [73][75] could be moved to the end of the sentence.
  • Are five external links, including one to an unofficial fansite, really necessary?

Hope these are of use. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:26, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to comments

  • Replaced all dead links.
  • Changed lead to 3 paragraphs.
  • It seems impossible to find any year information for his time at the Everton Academy.
  • Changed to "Barton went to football matches as a supporter".
  • The link just says he represented his school at eight different sports, can't find any information on what sports they were specifically.
  • No further info on his first reserve appearance.
  • Now has consistent hyphenation.
  • I don't think players can play in plain shirts. It certainly is bizarre, but that's what happened.
  • Changed to "Barton left the City of Manchester Stadium in anger on April 17, after not being named in the team to play Southampton.[21] However he featured regularly in the 2003–04 season, which he completed with 39 appearances and one goal", so the two sentences link.
  • I've just removed the word "record" altogether, regarding the fines. Maybe at the time it was a club record but the link doesn't fully explain. Changed Sporting Chance so it's now described as for both men and women.
  • Expanded FA and YTS to "Football Association" and "Youth Training Scheme" respectively. *Changed to "publicly stated his disapproval".
  • Moved references 73 and 75 to end of sentence.
  • Removed two external links - the unofficial fansite and the premierleague profile. Sir-Nobby (talk) 13:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment The grammar needs attention and I have made some suggestions. [1]. Also, when I read the article I felt the neutral point of view was allowed to slip with the use of words like "bizzare" and "even". I would also like to know "After impressing" - whom, and what is wrong with driving a car at 2.00 a.m.? I reserve my vote for now.--GrahamColmTalk 16:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the suggestions. Would "unusual" be a better word to use than bizarre? He impressed Kevin Keegan (the manager at the time) enough for him to offer Barton a new contract at the club. The article doesn't suggest there's anything wrong with driving a car a 2.00 am, (although as a professional athlete he'd probably be expected to be resting at that time) but it's not unusual for the time of incidents such as these to be stated. It's also additional information. Sir-Nobby (talk) 17:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, sorry. This is a good article but it's not at FA standard yet. The prose needs some work, (it's often tabloid-like and non-encyclopedic), and I'm still concerned about the neutral point of view. For example " who had provoked Barton by verbally abusing him and kicking his shin" (my italics). As it stands, I would not like to see the article on the main page.--GrahamColmTalk 12:05, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Some of these questions are due to my ignorance of English football websites, so please excuse my ignorance! Ealdgyth | Talk 20:55, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, great start but prose doesn't meet 1a. There are lots of grammatical issues and some jargon problems. I've called out some examples below, but the whole article needs a copyedit.
    • Jargon alert: "His appearances in the senior side gradually increased over the following five years and he made more than 150 for the club." What does senior side mean? Likewise, "made more than 150"? Write to a general audience, not a football audience.
    • Ditto for "club level". I'm assuming that youth, senior, and club are different levels of competitive play, but please at least wikilink them for the ignorant masses.
    • "...including a fight with teammate Ousmane Dabo that caused the end of his City career." Whose career? Barton's or Dabo's?
    • "When Barry Poynton, an ex-Everton scout, heard that his former club had released Barton, he invited him to trial at Manchester City." He.. him.. who?
    • Many sentences begin with "he" or "his", many times concurrently.
    • Jargon alert: "Over the next two years, he successfully made the transition from the under-19s to regular reserve football."
    • "His first senior goal came two weeks later in a 0–2 win..." I have seen this in other football articles. Do you always give scores like this in the UK? I mean, in the states, "your" score is always given first. So you would say you won 2-0 or lost 0-2.
    • Lots of stylistic but ungrammatical comma use - do not use commas to separate clauses that don't stand on their own.
Many more exist - please get a thorough copyedit. --Laser brain (talk) 04:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Joey_Barton/archive1&oldid=1138464647"