Talk:Greg LeMond/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Azx2 (talk · contribs) 05:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Intend to formally review article now. Azx2 05:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

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

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This is excellent writing/researching and documenting that complies with the good article criteria.

1. It is reasonably well written.

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

   Prose is clear and concise, quotes are referenced/cited and no apparent plagiarism. Article summary is especially strong, though one sentence strikes me as the possible target for editing: "LeMond was born in Lakewood, California, and raised in ranch country on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range,[1] about an hour's drive from Reno, Nevada." Is the detail of the driving time from Reno necessary - that level of detail - in the intro summary? If you believe it is, OK, all I say is it's one of only examples of awkward wordiness in the prose that stood out to me. Oh, and w/ respect to phrase "winning in dramatic fashion" - whilst I am inclined to absolutely agree that the win was dramatic in its fashion, and even Phil Ligget has said as much, perhaps there is a quote you can excerpt and cite to avoid any suggestion of puffery there? The same with "After his storybook 1989-season..." - again, it is factual for sure, but be on guard with a quote to extract such a phrase from and prepare to cite it if you want to be considered unfallible in this regard.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   Excellent use of sources, and no original research. If you choose to leave in the reference to LeMond's suffering anemia in 1989 Giro, which is something documented in the Sports Illustrated article, it may be valuable to the reader for you to pull more from that particular reference into the actual article. But because you've cited the anemia story, you've avoided an OR. Make sure the format of your references remains consistent, however, and that you do not double or even triple-list a source in the citations, when you could be naming a single source and then referring back to it. (Example: Citations #47 and 48)

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Seasons 1982 and 1983 may be of interest to reader such that you wish to provide more information than is currently documented, but this is not mandatory and I recognize that the article might be considered "long" by some as it is. But the current length should not deter you from building out those two seasons such that they're proportionate to 1981, for example - if you think they merit it. You might also consider shifting some of the material from the LeMond Cycles business sub-section to the separate article on LeMond Cycles (not necessarily to the separate anti-doping controversies article though), starting with "The two parties first found themselves at odds in July 2001..." though again, this is not necessary against the GA criteria, and it's clear to me how and why those paragraphs could be of interest to the reader in this article itself. I also want to highlight for specific praise your collaborative effort to remove material pertaining to anti-doping controversies to a separate article, and to summarize that for the reader. I think you have done a wonderful job here - truly wonderful and very effective. There is a synergistic effect b/w the material in the LeMond Cycles section I make mention of and the anti-doping controversies summary, so again, I don't think you need to split those paragraphs off, but if you decided not to delete some of the quotes from reference citations that are adding to the article "size," then those paragraphs could be targets.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   I believe you handled especially-well the intro to the Racing Career sections, clearly establishing that LeMond was genuinely considered one of the most talented professional cyclists ever while still remaining neutral in your point of view. As it stands I don't see any POV issues.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Clearly there is stability and the current cadre of editors are predisposed to seeking consensus for any material even remotely controversial (such as the mention of iron injections and what that might imply about needles and doping). Only suggestion is to maintain this vigilance and to handle any potential conflict (which I don't see brewing) on the Talk page.

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):

   Excellent use of images and this aspect of the criteria has been nailed perfectly. I applaud you all for the improvement of the article in this particular area compared to its previous iterations. There are certainly no deficiencies w/ respect to images (and I am especially impressed by your collaborative process of seeking out public images and negotiating with the creator to secure proper CC licensing, via flickr, for ex.), but it would be nice if you could obtain an image from even earlier in the athlete's career, showing him perhaps as an amateur still, and also a contemporary image that shows him engaged either in his sport (riding the bike) or practicing another (like perhaps the fly fishing).

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Well done. Good luck with your future work on this article - it certainly is reasonable to imagine your continuing to improve it to the point of obtaining featured-status.