Wikipedia:Peer review/Alabama Crimson Tide football/archive1

Alabama Crimson Tide football

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've been working on and off of the article for several months and would like some feedback on the current progress. Originally, the article was mostly full of lists, but myself and a few other editors have turned it into text with references.

Just a side note, I'm aware that the Gene Stallings section could use a few more references, and have been trying to get myself to do it for some time.

Thanks for your time, Latics (talk) 09:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Philcha

Coverage

• Looks enough, in fact the article looks rather long, and this may be why you had to wait for a review. --08:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• Most of section "Notable games" is also in other parts of "History", and the other parts are more interesting because they describe the key personalities. I'd incorporate the 5-6 items from "Notable games" is in other parts of "History" and then removed "Notable games". As well as length, "Notable games" is a long list and not an attractive way to start the main text. --Philcha (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• Most of "National championships" covers the same ground as NCAA Division I FBS National Football Championship and that should be removed from Alabama Crimson Tide football or summarised as a paragraph of about 5 lines. --Philcha (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• Most of "National championship seasons" is also in other parts of "History" and be removed. --Philcha (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• The big table looks impressive until one realises that it records only the highs and not the lows, i.e. it's not objective. I'd remove it as it is not objective, adding the lows would make the table too long and the parts of "History" about the coaches cover the highs and lows already. --Philcha (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Structure

• "Head coaching history" looks like a summary of the "History" section, and I'd make it the first sub-section of "History". --Philcha (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• I'd incorporate "Conference championships" into "Head coaching history" at its new location. You might also notice that other schools bumper up their own numbers. --Philcha (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• You also need to add one or more citations to support "Conference championships". --Philcha (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• The complete list of "First team All-Americans" is rather long and I'm sure you hope it will growth quickly. I suggest you make it a separate list article now. --Philcha (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• If you find the changes in the structure rather daunting, you might make a copy of the article in a sub-page of your User page and try it there - I sometimes use sub-pages for the same purpose. If you do so, post HTML comments round each image so it's unlikely to deleted. --Philcha (talk) 09:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

References

• Rather statements appear unsupported by citations. In some cases moving an existing citation may do the job, while in other cases you'll need new citations (or removed the * Rather statments appear unsupported by citations. In some cases moving an existing citation may do the job, while in other cases you'll need new citations (or removed the unsupported content). Some examples in the early sections, you should check the whole article:
  • "Wade led the Crimson Tide to two more national titles before taking the head coaching position at Duke in 1931."
  • The whole paras about Frank Thomas and Harold "Red" Drew.
  • "Alabama was victorious in the bowl game, a 21–15 victory over Illinois." --Philcha (talk) 09:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
  • The citations to "The Record Book" need pages numbers, e.g. for "... Alabama was a combined 103–16–1 in the decade, a .863 winning percentage." --Philcha (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Prose

• Several cases of WP:PEACOCK. In case you should remove the whole sentence that includes the WP:PEACOCK phrase, as the next sentence provides the facts and makes a strong impression without the WP:PEACOCK phrase/sentence. Examples:
  • "... Thomas as head coach and led the team to a respectable 54–28–7 record over the next eight seasons ... "
  • "Winning eight conference titles and three national championships,[2] very few teams were able to defeat Bryant and the Crimson Tide. </>Alabama wasrecorded a combined 103–16–1 in the decade, a .863 winning percentage.[12]"
  • "and snappedended a losing streak versus rival Tennessee".
• Redundant phrases, examples:
  • "Thomas led the team to continued success and two more national championships before health issues forced him to retire ..." - to continued success is vague, what was his record?
  • "Alabama was gained victorious in the bowl game, a 21–15 victory over Illinois."
• Poor choice of words/phrases - examples include:
  • "... the winningest college football coach ..." - "winningest" is not standard English.
  • In "... Ray Perkins replaced Bryant, who he played under in the early 1960s ...", "who he played under in the early 1960s" is ungrammatical - "under whom he played ..." is better.

Images and other media

• Check that each image/media clip complies with Wikipedia:Image use policy. If a image/media clip is not free, you must:
  • Justify the item at all - "remove" is the default.
  • Add at the items File description page a Fair Use Rationale for the use of the item in this specific article. --Philcha (talk) 16:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• If you accept my suggestions I made on coverage and structure, you'll need to move images/media around. Item should be next to the text that describes the subject of the file. For example I'll not sure that File:Joe Namath.jpg corresponds to the text in the same (sub-)section. --Philcha (talk) 16:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

After all the content in the main text is resolved

After coverage, structure, references and the severest prose issues:

• Use a tool such as Link Counter to chedk for dead links in citations, and citations where required parameters as missing. If a link has died, you can often get a backup from the Internet Archive - see instructions at User:Philcha#Links_that_have_died. --Philcha (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• Use a tool such as checker of redirs and disambiguition links in the article being reviewed --Philcha (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• Check that the lead complies with WP:LEAD, especially contains no content that is not expanded and referenced in the main text, and that the items in the lead show the importance as in the main text - except that the lead can't mention everything. --Philcha (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
• Ask one else to copyedit the article - very editors can copyedit their own work, even if they are good at copyedit others' work. --Philcha (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

General

• If you are aiming to take an article to GA / A / FA review, you should check the WP:WIAGA GA / A in the relevant WP Project / FA criteria and resolved all issues these raise before you nominate the article for GA / A / FA review or for a Peer Review in preparation for a GA / A / FA review. If you aren't aiming for a specific review level, I suggest you act as if you're aiming for GA - FA is much more stringent and A is usually a bit more stringent. --Philcha (talk) 16:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I hope these comments are helpful. I look to see how you get on. --Philcha (talk) 16:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Starting... Might take a while, but I'm working. Thanks for the feedback. :) – Latics (talk) 20:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)