Talk:William Regal/GA1

GA Review

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GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

I have to say that this article is just not ready, it has several major issues.

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:
See further

B. MoS compliance:
See further
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:
See further

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
See further

C. No original research:
With problems in both Verifiable & Cited it's hard to say yes here
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:
It does cover the major aspects both work & private

B. Focused:
See further
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Looks neutral enough
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Just looking at the last 50 edits for the page there are quite a few reverting going on, I'm not convinced it's stable. Also there are close to 200 edits this year alone, another strike against it.
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
Looks fine

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Looks fine
Overall:
Pass or Fail:
I've found too many problems with this article to pass it, even too many to put on hold I feel. Have a look at the comments, address the various issues, take your time to make sure you've gotten it all right and then submit it again, it's not a bad article overall but it has issues that keeps it from being a good article.

In some sections I just had too many comments to make it work in the review template so I split them into sections below.

Prose quality

I have several issues here, some general, some specific these are just what I came up with before my brain said "no mas!"

Do not use contractions in the text
"Bill Dundee served as his manager under the name Sir William, and he won the Television Title four times." - hmmm I read it like Sir William won the Television title four times? This sentence is a mess with Run-on sentence issues.
in the Commissioner (2000–2001) it's stated that he was a villain, then "self-proclaimed" then he became a villain again - doesn't make sense, never stated that he turned face or why
Intercontinental and Tag Team Championship rivalries (2002–2005) section: Maybe explain why he needed sugery? it'd be nice to know if it was a nose job or for medical reasons or what.
same as above: "every member of The Un-Americans lost their matches, causing the group to separate later in the night and break away into separate groups." could stand to be reworded.
same as above: "regained the titles twenty-four hours later, thanks to an impromptu match set up by Chief Morley after Regal and Storm had put Bubba through a table." Comma issues makes the sentence clunky.
Raw General Manager (2007–2008):"On the August 6 edition of Raw, Regal became the new General Manager", maybe the qualifier "Permanent" would have helped here.

MOS Compliance

Lead: I'd like to see consistency, it's either all sourced or not sourced at all IMO.

Layout: Generally okay, althought it wouldn't hurt to have left adjusted one or two of the pictures to give it a more dynamic flow.

Jargon: I see you've tried to go the "hero/villain" route with face/Heel - you weren't consistent as I saw the term used once or twice. Other words such as squash & job are used but not explained what they mean in this context, which can be an issue since both "Squash" and "job" have totally different means in wrestling than in general. The concept "tag team" could have used a link first time it's used, just to be nice.

Words to Avoid: Looks to be okay.

Fiction: Here is the clincher - 90% of the wrestling section is written totally "in universe" with the major problems being: Titles & matches are won and lost, never is it hinted at that it's not technically a competitive contest. Feuds are presented as real, personal and not the scripted storylines that they really are. It doesn't have to say "SCRIPTED STORYLINE" every single time but it'd be nice that it didn't actually look like Regal developed a genuine friendship with Eugene etc. His roles as General Manager, not once is it explained that it's an on-screen role and that he doesn't actually hold an executive position at WWE. I could go on but I think by now you're getting the picture.

List Incorporation: Complies to the WP:PW MOS so that's fine.

Verifiable

Big problem here, the majority of the sources, I'd estimate about 66% of them are Primary sources, in other words the WWE writing about the WWE, it needs to be reliable secondary sources - especially since the subject is still alive. the occasional WWE.com source would slide but not to the degree it's used here. While the book is generally an okay source it is also a primary source, Matthews on Matthews, and as such I'm a little reluctant to accept it as a source for the controversy over his match with Goldberg and why he was fired. It's potentially biased and it'd be good to have a second independent source back it up if possible.

Cited

A lot of stuff is cited and cited correctly with inline citations and everything, but there are places where there's nothing - bupkis. List of examples I stumbled upon (not a total list)

Early career section: No sources on the part that's actually about his career.
World Championship Wrestling (Second run; 1999–2000): No sources at all
Commissioner (2000–2001): I don't see a source on his time in MCW or the Benoit match being the reason he was called up to the WWF full time.
Commissioner (2000–2001): I'm having a hard time seeing how much ref [3] covers of Matthews part in the invasion angle, clairfy here please?
Intercontinental and Tag Team Championship rivalries (2002–2005) his first IC run and the use of Brass knucks isn't sourced at all.
Section on Eugene just cites the title win, not his change from heel to face or anything else.
No sources from REgal & Tajiri winning in Japan to the end of the section
Rivalries with Scotty 2 Hotty and Paul Burchill (2005–2006): ONE source in the entire section??
King Booker's Court; reunion with Dave Taylor (2006–2007): Again a little light on the sources for such a long section.
Raw General Manager (2007–2008): liberal use of [24], sometimes twice in a sentence? don't generally repeat a citation in back to back sentences and definitly not within the same sentence.
same as above: "He later turned face for one night only while on a European tour, by facing Randy Orton in a match to try and show him some respect." his intentions and such need a source, especially since it's presented as Matthew's own idea and not part of the storyline.

Focused

This is a most definite fail here, his WCW days gets hardly ANY coverage in fact a 5 year period gets less text than "Rivalries with Scotty 2 Hotty and Paul Burchill (2005–2006)". His latter WWE sections go way overboard at times resorting to "week to week" recaps instead of reducing it to the major points of a storyline/feud/angle - It could benefit from more summary, less week to week recap. detail overload in the wrestling sections from "Intercontinental and Tag Team Championship rivalries (2002–2005)" and forward.

Oh and - maybe have a uniform rating of the article? I see "Start" and I see "C". Shouldn't it also be "B" rated before you go for GA??

Hope this is helpful. MPJ-DK (talk) 09:55, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]