Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Harmon Killebrew/archive1

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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 by SandyGeorgia 14:16, 11 September 2010 [1].

Harmon Killebrew[edit]

Harmon Killebrew (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Alex (talk) 05:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because 1) it has already attained Good Article status. 2) It went through a massive overhaul not too long ago to add information and copy edit what was already there. It has good length, images and references. 4) It is a notable person. Alex (talk) 05:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments -
  • While I appreciate the fact that sometimes you need to use web.archive.org links, they should be so marked in the references. They should not be exclusively used, if the site itself is up, because it is an additional hoop to jump through to get to the information about the reliablity/etc. of the site being used. If the site is no longer available, then it really really needs to be noted that the site link is to a web archive not to the original.
How might one go about noting the archive.org in the references? Where might one suggest putting it? Alex (talk) 16:13, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Using the Wayback Machine is a good place to start. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • That being said.... why'd his homepage go down? And why should we trust a autobiographical site (that no longer exists!) for information about the subject of the article?
I believe his site went down because he replaced it with http://www.harmonkillebrewfoundation.org. Alex (talk) 16:13, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We need to have somewhat better sourcing for this than a now-deleted autobiographical webpage. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One of the factoids that references the defunct website now references a current website. Still working on finding links for the other three. Alex (talk) 18:34, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All information that relied on the defunct website now has references from current and/or better sources. Alex (talk) 20:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Replaced it with the source whence that article originally came. Alex (talk) 18:59, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Newspaper/magazine/journal titles should be italicized. (See current ref 14, the sporting news isn't... probalby others also.)
Fixed the Sporting News one. Alex (talk) 16:13, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Baseball Cube is an established online statistical baseball resource. Alex (talk) 16:13, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We need something more than that to show it's a high quality reliable source, which is required for FAC. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a search of the Google News Archive. [2] Baseball America, for one, referenced it. Alex (talk) 17:57, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two pages, with many of them passing mentions is not exactly impressing me that it's being used often by other reliable sources. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Baseball-Reference links to it at the bottom of each player's user page. (for example: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/n/newmaal01.shtml). One could deduce that if Baseball-Reference trusts it, it is reliable. However, looking at what The Baseball Cube is used as a reference for, we could easily switch it out with Baseball-Reference with no ill effects.Alex (talk) 18:32, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I replaced The Baseball Cube links with Baseball-Reference links. Alex (talk) 19:16, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decide if you're going to italicize website names or not. You've got Baseball reference italicized but not Retrosheet, etc.
Retrosheet is not italicized because it is marked as the "publisher" of the source, while Baseball-Reference is italicized because it is marked as the larger "work" of the source (the source whence the information came). If anything, it might be wise to remove Baseball-Reference.com as the "work."Alex (talk) 19:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right now it "looks" inconsistent, suggest following the second idea. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:37, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Alex (talk) 20:17, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Current ref 73 (Harmon Killebrew...) lacks a publisher
Fixed. Hopefully. Alex (talk) 16:13, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Current ref 74 (Danny Thompson ...) lacks a publisher
No publisher could be found. Alex (talk) 16:13, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hint... it's going to be the foundation that puts on the gold tournament. (grins) Ealdgyth - Talk 17:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did find some references to a Danny Thompson Memorial Foundation, so I believe that will suffice. Alex (talk) 18:08, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • You use the Harmon Killebrew Foundation as a reference, so it shouldn't be in the external links. Likewise his stats from the Baseball reference.
Fixed. Alex (talk) 18:47, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This looks to be a self-published work, why is it in the external links? Does it really add anything in addition to the stuff in the article? Or is it a spamish link?
It seems to provide extra biographical information about Mr. Killebrew. Alex (talk) 16:13, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but it is selfpublished and if it was that good, wouldn't you use it as a source? I'm seeing it more as a way for this person to sell copies of their book. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It could be removed, it really doesn't bother me one way or the other. Alex (talk) 18:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I decided to remove it. Alex (talk) 19:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article prior to a nomination." As such, make sure the primary contributors are notified next time. Granted, myself and Wknight are now aware of this and it was more a baseball collab effort to begin with. I'll take a look though, I think there's some things that needed fixing first. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 14:16, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: This is not a full review by any means, but three suggestions:

  • The introduction does not need all the statistics. The characterizations or summaries are sufficient if supported in the text below, as yours seem to be.
  • There are two uses of "currently" (in this article, in sentences with nearly identical content). "Future-proof" the article; it should still be accurate ten years from now even if you walk away from it tomorrow. "Currently" is a word which should not be used. If you don't want to use the "as of" formulation (which does seem strained), you can, for example, state that he moved to Scottsdale in 1990, and leave it at that.
  • He has "23 grandchildren", not "23 grand children". Kablammo (talk) 12:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Fixed these, plus linked some terms in the lead that weren't but shouldn't be. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 20:36, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment "In the early 1990s, he married Nita.[75] Their family consists of 9 children, 23 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren.[78]" so in 15-20 yrs they have greatgrandkids already. The first and second wife info appear to be mixed together incorrectly YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 05:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: While the article is looking pretty good, it's not yet ready to be promoted to Featured Article. A lot of common baseball terms aren't linked, and terms/stats/jargon that can abbreviated at various points in the article aren't (AL). Most of all, some of the prose is rather confusing, either by omitting details (e.g. why Killebrew missed playing time) or by jumbling together various season summaries before going through the years individually (e.g. 1961-1963). I would aim for a more focused season summary approach like was done with Mariano Rivera and Stan Musial - in many cases, the Killebrew season summaries jump back and forth to various other years. Some of the prose just needs to be condensed and copywritten a little more thoroughly (e.g. "On that date, Twins third baseman Rich Rollins made a poor throw to Killebrew at first. In trying to save the play, Killebrew's elbow was dislocated when he and the runner collided and Killebrew was out of action until mid-September"). Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 18:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Another point to make is that some of the citations are curiously constructed. Many of the Baseball-Reference citations do not indicate they are from Baseball-Reference, instead only referring to the publishing company, Sports Reference LLC (this is insufficient). Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 18:31, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]


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