Talk:Howard Webb/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: BigDom 21:09, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Will review the article now. BigDom 21:09, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   Spelling good, grammar average. Some of this is written in a journalistic style, rather than an encyclopaedic style.

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

   Lead section does not summarise the article per WP:LEAD and is not long enough. Layout is terrible, especially the completely unnecessary {{footballbox}} templates throughout the article, which clutter up the page and present no information that would be better written as prose. Text is full of words to watch; weasel words (e.g. "Respected analyst Alan Hansen", "by some pundits"), puffery ("salvaged a respectable draw", "As the criticism rolled in so did the praise", etc.). The table of cards per season uses italics in some columns for no apparent reason. Overlinking is rife throughout the article, as are extremely short paragraphs. Early life and Personal life should be merged into one section. Nothing to worry about with regards to fiction or lists.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   Quite a few of the references have either not been formatted, or have been formatted inconsistently. A few of the citations lead to dead links (for example, refs 21 to 25, 27 and 28, 73 to 81 and probably more). Ref 44 does not back up its sentence.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   Many good reliable sources, including newspapers and well-known websites such as ESPN and BBC. However, ynwa.tv does not appear to be a reliable source and not sure about femalefirst.co.uk either. The "cards per season" table is not referenced so isn't verifiable.

   C. No original research:

   Looks ok, apart from the weasel words and unsourced material mentioned above

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   Contains all the sections that you would expect; his rise through the League system (although the information about his Northern Counties East League career is completely unsourced), the Champions League final, domestic cup finals and World Cup final.

   B. Focused:

   The article goes into ridiculous detail for some of the matches, listing twice the players who were booked/sent off (once in the template and then again in the accompanying text). Other problems include pointless trivia (the names of the goalkeepers sent off by Webb), and seemingly arbitrary inclusion criteria for "notable" matches.

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   A whole section dedicated to criticisms of Webb hardly makes for an unbiased article. However, the rest is written in a good neutral tone.

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

   No edit wars as such, but there does seem to be a problem with editors adding information about a match that he/she considers notable, only for another editor to deem in non-notable and remove it soon afterwards.

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   Two pictures, both correctly licensed from Flickr

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   Both images OK

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Unfortunately there are just too many MoS and sourcing problems for the article to pass in its current state.