Talk:Leinster Rugby/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Shudde (talk · contribs) 02:15, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'll review this one. -- Shudde ^talk 02:15, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'll start the review shortly, but I thought I'd just say how I normally conduct these before starting. I may or may not finish the review in one sitting, so I'll explain my thinking so you have an idea what I'm doing! Normally I go through and just add comments as I read the article, I'll read the lead last, but otherwise go through in order in which it's written. My comments are not necessarily just about the Good Article criteria, but if not, I'll probably try and make that clear – I figure if I'm going to review an article, I may as well give any feedback I can, rather than just that related to the GA criteria. I'll review the images and sources last. If I find any cases of copyright violation or close-paraphrasing (see Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing) I will fail the article rather than place it on hold.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me. I see this as a collaborative process. We both have the same objective – to get this article to Good Article standard. -- Shudde ^talk 02:26, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

History

"In amateur days, the four Irish provinces played against each other in the Irish Interprovincial Championship and also played touring international sides. " -- this is not backed up by the source
"The first Interprovincial matches between Leinster, Ulster and Munster were held in 1875." -- a number of problems here, this is a copyright violation ([1] archive of the dead link) and doesn't relate to the previous sentence clearly.
in fact compare the wikipedia article The first Interprovincial matches between Leinster, Ulster and Munster were held in 1875.[5] At this time, the matches were played with 20 players a side. Leinster lost to Ulster by a converted try and beat Munster by one goal to nil. Since then there has been a match between these teams annually, with Connacht joining the fold in 1885. to the source (here) that says The first Interprovincial matches between Leinster, Ulster and Munster were held in 1875. At this time the matches were played with 20 players a side. Leinster lost to Ulster by a converted try and beat Munster by one goal to nil. Since then there has been a match between these teams annually, with Connacht joining the fold in 1885. – clear and serious copyright violation here
Actually the page that's taken from is still up, just moved address to http://www.leinsterrugby.ie/branch/about/index.php -- I'm going to have to fail the article. With a copyright violation like that I can't have confidence that more don't exist. I will continue to provide feedback though because I've already started, but I'm sure you understand why I can't place this article on hold. -- Shudde ^talk 02:41, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing with review

General comment on the history section. Everything here should be clearly referenced. If multiple consecutive sentences are referenced by the same source, then the citation only needs to be included following the last of the sentences. However if it's the last sentence of a paragraph, then that should have a citation regardless.
It's not been made clear that Leinster is a union composed multiple clubs, and that the province represents these clubs. This should be made clear early on -- not everyone reading this article will have any idea about this.
You need to go through and scrub the entire article of any copyright violations. Rewrite the article in your own words, and make sure to avoid close-paraphrasing.
I'm not sure why the provincial club and school competitions are discussed here, or is this article on the entire Leinster Branch? If it's on the branch then a lot more information needs to be added on other aspects of it's function and responsibilities. If a separate article does not exist on the Leinster Branch of the IRFU, then it may be worth creating the article.
Amateur period -- maybe it should be made clear early in the history section that rugby union was amateur from it's founding. The amateurism thing will pop out of nowhere for some people.
Also you should be explicit about when professionalism was sanctioned, rather than saying mid-1990s.
Generally, I think that the pre-professionalism history in the article could be expanded a little bit. Especially regarding the Interprovincial Championship matches.
Before the days of professional rugby union, there was further emphasis on Irish club rugby as opposed to the provincial game. During these times the provincial sides were purely representative sides and games were far less frequent than now. Between 1946 and 2002 the sides would meet annually to contest the Irish Interprovincial Championship and on rare occasion would be tested against touring international sides. When rugby union was declared 'open' in 1995, these four teams became the four professional teams run by the Irish Rugby Football Union and therefore much of the history of the side has been made in the modern era. -- this whole thing needs to be referenced.
Leinster became a professional outfit in the mid-1990s. -- this needs to be clearer. When exactly? How was this decision made. There is nothing about what the team did between 1996 and 2001.
More needs to be said about how the Pro12 (Celtic League) came into existence. As well, there is nothing about their early European matches.
The Leinster mascot is "Leo the Lion". needs a reference
In 2002–03, they became only the third team in the history of the European Cup to win all their games in pool play. -- see nothing about European Cup matches had been mentioned up until this point. Readers have no context. When did the competition start and when did Leinster join? How had they done up until that point?
The second paragraph of Leinster Lions (1990s–2005) is not adequately referenced.
Leinster improved during the 2004–05 season -- of what competition? Celtic League or European Cup?
The section Title misses (2004–07) is very short. Maybe expand it, or merge it with another section?
The next two seasons of the Celtic League were to end in near misses for Leinster, as they lost out on the 2005–06 and 2006–07 league titles on the final day of the season. These seasons also saw progress in the European Cup. In 2005–06, Leinster progressed to the semi-final but were eliminated by Irish rivals Munster at Lansdowne Road and they reached the quarter-final the following year where they were beaten by eventual winners London Wasps. -- paragraph is completely unreferenced.
Section European and domestic success (2008–Present) has a number of single sentence paragraphs. These should be expanded or merged.
Current standings tables in team articles (rather than season-by-season articles) are not permitted. I'll remove it (see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rugby union#Transfers on club articles).
Previous seasons -- I'm not sure these tables are clear. I would not have them collapsed, and would consider simplifying them. They're very hard to follow. I look at the Season standings section in Crusaders (rugby union) it's just a lot easier to follow. Maybe consider trying to clean these tables up a little bit.
Honours -- these need to be referenced. You can probably incorporate the information in the notes here, will no reason not to have it directly above or below.
More copyright problems. Legend has it that the harp was adopted Leinster Symbol in the 17th century when Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill flew a green flag with a golden harp from his ship, the St Francis having anchored it at Dunkirk. O'Neill later returned to Ireland to help the Irish Confederation whose headquarters were in Kilkenny, Leinster. compared to Legend has it that the harp originated as the Leinster Symbol in the 1600s when Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill flew a green flag with a golden harp from his ship, the St. Francis as she was anchored at Dunkirk. The Leinster connection came when he returned to Ireland to help the Irish Confederation, which was headquartered in Kilkenny. from here. -- scrub this please.
Other sentences of Colours and crest need to be referenced adequately.
I'm going to skip past Stadia and Supporters sections now. Hopefully my comments above may guide you as you what may need to be done within these sections.
Have a look at the WP:WIAGA criteria 1b, the article needs to comply with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Embedded lists. In summary, you need to try and delist the sections Notable players & staff and Personnel honours and records where you can. My advice is to look at something like Wales national rugby union team (which is a Featured Article). Not how in the Wales article Notable players is not a list, but rather a prose section with criteria. My advice is split off some of the notable players stuff, or decide a criteria for how players are "notable". For example is their a team hall of fame? Same goes for the records section. Would be better to split into a separate article (like List of Wales national rugby union team records) and instead have a paragraph summarising the notable records (like Wales national rugby union team#Individual records). Hope this is clear. If you need any clarification on what I'm talking about feel free to ping me.
Head Coaches (Professional era) make sure this is referenced. Also consider simplifying. (see Wales national rugby union team#Coaches).
The lead does not need citations unless they're for something particularly controversial, or a direct quote.

References

The references should really be consistently formatted. Bare URLs are more-or-less the worst way to add a reference. Consider using citation templates such as {{citation}} or {{cite web}} as these make formatting a little easier. For news articles {{cite news}} is quite good.
Many of the references are dead links. These are permitted, but if you can fix links for pages that have changes address, or you can find archived copies (such as at web.archive.org) that would be great. Makes verification easier.

Images

File:Heineken Cup Final 2009 Programme.jpg -- this does not have an adequate fair use rationale for this article and should be removed.
I have not checked the other images, but make sure they're appropriately licensed.
Is there not a public domain image of the team from the 19th century around? This would add greatly to the article.

Summary

It's a shame this article will fail, but there are serious copyright problems. I'm not sure who/when they were added but that is inconsequential. Please go through the article and carefully check that there are no more. I'll make a few changes to the article for you, so please excuse me for that. The other piece of advice I have is dig around and see if there are some books (or a book) out there on the team. That'll help with referencing, and will maybe give you some more material to add to the article. If you have any further questions feel free to ask me on my talk page. I would recommend a peer review before you nominate the article for GA again -- they can linger at WP:GAN for ages, and it sucks when after such a long wait the article gets failed. A peer review would reduce the chances of that. -- Shudde ^talk 03:45, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]