Wikipedia:Peer review/Chamois Niortais F.C./archive1

Chamois Niortais F.C.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… I think it must be close to at least GA standard, because it is very similar to the Margate F.C. and Leek Town F.C. featured articles. So just looking for general comments and improvements that could be made to nominate the article for GA.

Thanks, -- BigDom 14:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: An intersting history of a little-known French football club. My biggest problem was my lack of understanding of the French league football structure, which like the English, I imagine, will have changed several times during the club's 80+ year history. With a little more work, however, this could easily become a Good Article. Detailed comments are as follows:-

• Alt text: this is supposed to enable a blind or partially sighted reader to visualise the image. Alt texts such as "Chamois Nortais logo" and "14 men pose for a team photograph" are uninformative, and need to be rewritten.
• Lead
  • "They play at..." Specify "they", e.g. "The club plays at..." or "Chamois Nortais plays at..."
  • Link "home kit" to Kit (association football)
  • "...following the Second World War" → "after the Second World War"
  • "They achieved promotion to Division 3 in 1970 and stayed in the division for the following nine seasons." OK, that takes us to 1979. What happened between then and 1985 when they were promoted to Division 2?
  • "They played in Division 1 for the only time in the 1987–88 season, but were relegated, finishing one point behind RC Lens." Presumably they first had to be promoted to Division 1? The "finishing one point behind RC Lens" information is overdetailed for the lead.
  • Third paragraph: the information seems to be organised illogically. First, the match result info "after a 0–0 draw with Pacy Vallée-d'Eure" is again overdetailing for the lead section and should be removed. Secondly, you should say how the club got into the Championnat National before recording that they were relegated from it. As I understand it, the Championnat National is the third tier in French football; in the previous paragraph you only indicate that the club was relegated from Division 1.
• Early years
  • "subscripted"? The word is "conscripted"
  • Committees are formed or elected, rather than "created"
  • "Throughout the 1930s, the club continued to grow in size" – in what respect did its size increase? More players? More members? More supporters? Needs clarifying
  • "seventh-place" rather than "seventh-placed"
  • General point: it would be helpful to the reader if some brief explanation of the structure of French football, as it existed in the 1920s and 1930s, was included somewhere, perhaps in this section.
• After the Second World war
  • General point: I am struck by the fact that the war itself, in which France was occupied by German forces, appeared to have no impact on the club. Thus, in 1940 the big news is of the signing of a Czech international; in 1943 the club helps found an amateur league, then wins some competition for three successive seasons, taking us beyond the war. Surely, the war must have affected the club in some way, and that would be as important a part of its history as its various movements between leagues and divisions.
  • Getting confused: they were founders of something called the CFA in 1943, but we now read that they "rejoined" CFA in 1948-49. When did they leave it? Is the "Division d'Honneur" the same thing as "DH Centre-Ouest"? If so, perhaps one name could be used?
  • Citations lacking for second part of second paragraph
• Professional status
  • "The promotion to Division 2 meant that the club had to become fully-professional for the 1985–86 season." No hyphen in "fully professional". You also need to say why this was so, along the lines: "According to the rules of the French Football Association, the promotion to Division 2 meant that the club had to become fully professional for the 1985–86 season."
• End of an era: this is a journalistic rather than an encyclopedic heading. I would suggest you use something more factual.
• Colours and badge
  • First paragraph is uncited
  • All-white kit: in what circumstances is this used?
• Stadium
  • You say: "At present, the stadium has five stands". You then name four, and go on: "The four stands..." etc. What about the fifth?
  • Also, it's confusing to be told in the lead that the stadim has a "capacity" of 10,898, only to learn in this section that the ground record is 16,175
  • "reminiscent of..." - "typical of..." might be more accurate.
• Supporters
  • First three sentences are uncited, and don't really go beyond what's stated in the lead. Also, I don't think the information about local rivalries is relevant to this section.
  • "uni" is the French word for "united", not "kingdom", which in French is "royaume"
  • "The group is strictly apolitical and non-violent..." Presumably the "group" is the supporters' organisation. One would not expect a supporters' organisation to be political as such, and its violent elements would be unofficial and uncondoned. So ather than describing it as "strictly apolitical" etc., I would simply say "The organisation has no history of violence or extremism, and works closely with..." etc. (assuming this to be true, of course!)
• Managers
  • Avoid wordiness: For example, "there has been a total of 31 different first-team managers" could be "there have been 31 first-team managers".
  • "longest-ever serving" → "longest-serving"
• Sources: all French-language sources should be appropriately marked.

As I am unable to watch all my peer reviews at present, please leave a message on my talkpage if you want to raise anything with me, or if you would like me to look again. Brianboulton (talk) 19:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments -- BigDom 13:41, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Latouffedisco comments: As a Frenchman, I do understand mostly the problems of league levels etc..., so I will try to help to be more precise. Introduction: link to Centre-Ouest lead to a Burkinabé region. It is not a real French region but a subdivision made by the FFF to organize lower league levels. As an amateur team prior to WWII, I can understand the club was not really affected by the war, but Niort was a city in the bad side (see the map), so I don't really know. On the contrary pro clubs were really affected, as it was abolished in 1943. There is nothing on the strange name of the team. "Chamois" should be explained, in my opinion. The name was given by Mr. Boinot who was the director of this factory [1] who made "chamoiseries", a kind of tanner. You just say "local chamois leather factory owner" but without mentioning the question of the name. Division 3 was formed in 1970, not 1971. "Upon the restructuring of the league system, the team joined the newly-formed Division 3 in 1971". Should be corrected. "the promotion to Division 2 meant that the club had to become fully-professional for the 1985–86 season". No, Division 2 is only fully professional since 1993, but Niort had to be fully professional if they wanted to get promotion to Division 1/ligue 1. However, good work, for this little-known side, that's great.--Latouffedisco (talk) 10:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)