Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Magdalena Neuner/archive2

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 20:57, 20 February 2010 [1].

Magdalena Neuner[edit]

Nominator(s): EnemyOfTheState_|talk 01:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it meets all featured article criteria. The article has been nominated before (here). I slightly restructured the page recently and made some improvements. With the Winter Olympics coming up, I think it would be nice to have a FA of an athlete competing in Vancouver. EnemyOfTheState_|talk 01:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. No dab links or dead external links. Alt text is present, but needs work: see WP:ALT. Alt text needs to be verifiable from the image itself to the average reader, but the average reader cannot see from any of the images that it is Neuner who is photographed, nor that the photo was taken during a World Cup. Ucucha 13:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Changed Neuner to female biathlete and World Cup race to biathlon race. EnemyOfTheState_|talk 14:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - WP:ALT#Verifiability requires that alt text can be verified from looking at the image itself by a non-expert reader. I cannot see from the first image that this is a biathlete during a biathlon, and there are similar problems in the other images. Ucucha 03:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - Changed the text again. EnemyOfTheState_|talk
      - Looks good now. I don't think the flags should have alt text, but that appears to be a problem with the templates. Ucucha 22:14, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        That's not a "problem" with {{flagicon}}; it is designed to work that way. If you don't want alt text, then don't use {{flagicon}} near the wikilink to Germany (i.e. duplicating the link). Use {{flag}} to render the country link and flag together. But please don't bypass the standard flag templates to do something differently. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 01:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        I don't know any way to use the standard flag templates to do what was wanted here, namely something like this: " Oberhof, Germany", where the flag is purely decorative (as it repeats the "Germany" in the text) but the desired wikilink is to part of Germany, not to Germany as a whole. Rather than wrestle with the templates I think it's better in this case to drop the flags, as they're not appropriate in that list. Also, the wikilinks to the countries aren't appropriate either. (It's a list of ski competition locations, not a list of national teams or anything directly relevant to flags.) I made this change accordingly. Eubulides (talk) 03:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        That's probably the most sensible solution. Flag icons are greatly over-used on this project, and this page certainly doesn't need them for that purpose. There is no additional navigational improvement by putting flags in front of World Cup locations. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 05:59, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Note I did not check the non-English sources. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – One of the primary criticisms of the article in the first FAC was that there was an overreliance on statistics sites as sources. Has anything been done to address this concern? On a quick glance, it appears that stat databases still make up the vast majority of the references. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 01:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- They do make up the majority of the sources, mostly because I put a reference with a link to the official results page behind all mentioned races in the career section (50 or so). English language sources for biathlon are difficult to find, so I gladly took those, thinking what could be a more reliable source than the sport's official governing body? I don't believe these statistics are used to source any controversial statements, they are pretty much exclusively used to confirm race results. I suppose I could replace some of the references with German sources, but I don't see how this would really be helpful. Generally, I don't think I can find enough adequate sources (particularly in English), if I can't use these official statistics. EnemyOfTheState_|talk 02:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - There's one thing you don't need a stats site to source, and that is Olympics results. Considering that she has won a silver medal already, an update would be useful. Speaking of the Olympics, I happened to find this article, which calls her "Germany's biathlon pin-up". Has she done any modeling work in Germany that would cause her to be thought of this way? Giants2008 (27 and counting) 01:10, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - She hasn't done any professional model work (other than advertising or promotional shoots), not sure what earned her the description pin-up there, but as you can see with that 29 picture gallery, she is often photographed, and in general is a 'media darling' in Germany. I have updated the result of the first Olympic race. EnemyOfTheState_|talk 11:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - I'm concerned that not much substantive work has been done to address my objection from last time. It's been updated, for sure, but it's still just a narrative of event results, largely sourced to primary sources. I don't think it's sufficient to meet 1b or 1c. "[B]ut she is also noted for her volatile shooting performances in the standing position" is extremely tantalizing, as it hints at some actual discussion about her strengths, weaknesses, training strategies, and so on. But, we're only rewarded with 2-3 sentences on the matter, interrupted by a seemingly unrelated sentence about the gun she uses. I do not see the connection. EnemyOfTheState, what can we do to work on this? --Andy Walsh (talk) 17:56, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm sure more could be included about her shooting, but like I said above, I don't think I can find better sources for most race results than the sports governing body. I'm also unsure how to rewrite the career section, making it more 'interesting' by possibly shortening it, but still satisfying the criteria comprehensiveness. EnemyOfTheState_|talk 20:32, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well, we don't need better sources for race results. We need the better sources so we can introduce more text that's not strictly about race results. Make sense? --Andy Walsh (talk) 20:37, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - I added more text (changes) to offer some perspective, and there no longer is a paragraph with only statistics sources. But I honestly couldn't come up with too much that wouldn't be total fluff. ~~I still have to include something about her shooting problems~~. I have also included 4 more sentences regarding her shooting difficulties. Not sure if you wanted even more text, but the length of the skiing and shooting section would get pretty disproportionate that way. EnemyOfTheState_|talk 13:39, 20 February 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.