Talk:1972 New Zealand eight/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Zawed (talk · contribs) 00:32, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I will review this one, comments to follow in next few days. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 00:32, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Ínitial comments

• Images appear to have appropriate tags

• By the way, the impetus for writing the article came from me spotting photos on Flickr from the 1971 European Rowing Championships. The photographer was happy to change the license and off I went. That's where the infobox photo comes from. Schwede66

• Dupe links: 1971 European Rowing Championships in linked twice in the lead as is Rowing at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's eight. For the latter, I suggest removing the first instance as I think it is more logical, referring to the specific event, whereas the first use is the more generic Olympic gold medallists.

• Reworded the 1971 occasion to link to the series, and found a different spot to point "Olympic gold medallists" to. Schwede66

• External links check out OK
• No DAB links

Lead

• "in identical composition": probably not required for lead (also perhaps not the best wording)
• "unlike many of the other rowing nations that New Zealand competed against." For conciseness, suggest rephrasing to "unlike many other nations competing in rowing".
• "Brundage also awarded the Taher Pacha Trophy for" Suggest "Brundage also awarded the Taher Pacha Trophy to the team for
• "The most vivid memory by most New Zealanders is not of the Olympic race itself": I feel this is a bit editorial/opinion. Suggest revising the first sentence of this paragraph to focus more on the surprise playing of the NZ anthem. Something like: "During the medal ceremony, much to almost everybody's surprise'..."

• All done. Once the "vivid memory" had been removed, it made sense to bring the lead into chronological order. Schwede66

Background

• "The coxed four was technically a spare, the rowers were to have travelled to be": this doesn't read quite right, it seems as though there is a missing word. I suggest rephrasing slightly to "The coxed four was technically a spare, the crew had travelled to be
• "Members of the 1968 coxed four made another four members"; use of members twice in same sentence. Suggest starting the sentence with "Most of the crew of the 1968..."
• "and Robertson embarked": which Robertson, rower or coach?

• All dealt with. Schwede66 19:00, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

More comments to follow. Zawed (talk) 09:58, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

1971 European Rowing Championships

• "important stepping stone for the Olympic preparation.": this doesn't flow quite right; suggest "important stepping stone in the preparation for the 1972 Olympic Games at Munich."
• In conjunction with the above, the current "prior to the Munich Olympics" could simply be "prior to Munich."
• "It was decided for Watkinson to revert...": who decided? Also suggest "...decided Watkinson would revert..."
• "But he had been coached by Strachan at St. Andrew's College in Christchurch and without being personally known to one of the selectors,..."; firstly who were the selectors? Robertson, Rowland, and Strachan? It may be better and more concise to simply say "Although coached by Strachan at St. Andrew's College in Christchurch and known to all but one of the selectors,..."
• "from the previous team": suggest "from the 1970 crew"
• "Hurt, and although": suggest "Hurt who, although" (to make more clear we are referring to Hurt). If you go with this, delete the he from "he worked out."
• "Italian Donoratico boats were inferior...": inferior to what?
• "European Rowing Championships venue at the...": because venues is used in the previous sentence, I suggest rephrasing, perhaps "European Rowing Championships, held at the..."
• "Everything about the East Germans made them the big favourite. They were the incumbent...": Suggest "The East Germans were the favourites, being the imcumbent..."
• "...across all sports until 1993.": the cites that end this sentence are out of order, [4] should be first.
• "Joyce explains that": to put into past tense, "Joyce later explained..."
• "they'd": avoid contractions, "they would"
• "During the whole race...": "Throughout the race..."
• "The New Zealanders won...": Because New Zealanders is used in previous sentence, suggest "They won..."

More comments to follow (apologies for dragging this out). Cheers, Zawed (talk) 09:01, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

All dealt with. And don't worry – we are all volunteers. Good feedback. Schwede66 22:29, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

1972 Summer Olympics

• "Whilst there was an expectation that the crew was to be kept, there was considerable uncertainty about it and Gary Robertson had already resigned to the doubt that Storey would take his seat before his name got read out." This is a long sentence and I find there is a contradiction in that crew expected to be kept but there was considerable uncertainty. I suggest rephrasing: "Whilst there was an expectation that the crew would stay together, Gary Robertson was personally uncertain of his place and believed that Storey would take his seat."
• "Cole tried to get back into the team but did not manage to unseat anybody; the team remained the same as the one that rowed in the previous year." Suggest rephrasing for succinctness: "Cole tried to get back into the team but was unsuccessful. Ultimately the team remained unchanged from the previous season".
• "The organisers..": I initially read this as the regatta/Olympic organisers, but I think you actually mean the team management?
• "a shell from Donoratico": RE shell, do you mean a hull? If not, is there an appropriate wikilink?
• "a 2–second margin": I'm not strong on MOS stuff but shouldn't be "two-second margin"?
• "...the sad news was received that Earl's father had died on his way to Munich.": a little emotive; suggest: Earl received news that his father had died on his way to Munich."
• "affecting different lanes with different intensity": to avoid undue repetition suggest "varying intensity"
• "the 1968 Olympic champion" shouldn't be champions, since the crew is made up of several individuals.
• "500 metre pieces on the regatta course": pieces doesn't quite make sense to me; is that rowing parlance for sprints?
• The "We're bloody good" quote, shouldn't it be cited to a specific page in Reflections of Gold? Zawed (talk) 09:10, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Aftermath

• Note 55 is missing year and page.

Individuals

• The format of Note 57 appears to differ from that of Notes 56 and 58; shouldn't date of publication be bracketed for consistency.

I made the odd change where I thought it easier/obvious to do so, but check you are OK with these. Otherwise, that is my review more or less complete. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 09:54, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Great. Your little tweaks were all good. I've worked through the list of remaining items. "Shell" is indeed a specialist term and it's appropriate to wikilink that. "Pieces" is rowing terminology, I believe, but there does not appear to be anything wrong with replacing that with "sprints".

Now to your varying citation items. The "We're bloody good" quote is a tricky one. It is referenced by note 27 that precedes the quote but I guess that is not entirely self-explanatory. The issue is that template:Cquote doesn't make allowance for full citations; I remember scratching my head at the time how best to provide the reference. Given the limitation of the template, do you think that it's ok? If not, what would you suggest we do? Note 55 contained a formatting error that I fixed; thanks for spotting. Notes 56 to 58 are a mixture of template:cite web and template:cite news, but the difference does not stem from that but the fact that note 57 does not have an author. The templates format the references differently when there isn't an author. I have to admit that I had never noticed that before and it does indeed look a bit odd, but I don't think that there's much that you or I could do about that. I look forward to your feedback on those issues.

On a side-note, I'm currently in Auckland and both yesterday and today I went past the Maritime Museum where the Karlisch is on display. It bugs me that on both occasions I did not have the time to go inside to take a photo. Schwede66 07:24, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

RE the quote, it doesn't have the graphic quote marks of the current template but how about this format? The note here is [27] in the article.

We're bloody good and they [the opposition] had better know they [the New Zealand eight] are bloody good, because it's too late for them to do anything about it.

— Rusty Robertson, Reflections of Gold

If you go with it, the other quote should be in this format for consistency. RE notes 56 to 58, I hadn't picked up the lack of author as an explanation, sorry. They will be fine as they are. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 08:37, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I've dealt with the quotes as per your rather good suggestion (thanks). Not sure why you can't see the graphic quote marks; I've checked with three different browsers and can't detect any problems. Schwede66 19:37, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

All good, adding GA template.

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Looks good, passing as GA now. Good work! Zawed (talk) 07:49, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Zawed. Your review has added some good value. That’s much appreciated. Schwede66 10:04, 7 May 2018 (UTC)