Talk:Joe Mauer/GA1

GA Review 4/3

I’ve currently failed the article on the account that it has some major issues with at least two of Wikipedia’s Guidelines for GA-Status articles.

Well Written – Fail – First, the article’s lead should be merged together, as opposed to having one statement, explaining who he is, and then a background information. The high school career section is well written (with the exception of the last sentence of the first paragraph), but contains some patches of crude wording, ex:

Born ….., Mauer was a three-sport athlete, baseball, football, and basketball, for St. Paul's Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders. He was even good enough to make it into a Sports Illustrated issue as a "Face In The Crowd". – Consider reworking those two sentences, to say “he played baseball, football, and basketball for x school. His earlier career earned the attention of SI ect.

The professional career section should not be broken apart, consider merging the single sentence/ lines with the main body, ex ” Following his injury-shortened 2004….” or “After going 2-for-4 ….”. ect. Also consider integrating the Trivia section into the main body of the article. Very few GA/FA status articles have Trivia sections – also it will get rid of those redundant “Mauer this, or Mauer” that. Other than that, the article is very informative when it comes Mauer’s baseball life.

Factual Accuracy – Fail – While most of this article is well references, there are some parts that could use an additional references. Ex, the first three paragraphs of his professional career, and the last two sentences of the H/S career. Use the multi ref tags if needed. The 2006 season portion is almost bullet proof in terms of references. Not to be tedious, but make sure all the reference tags come directly after the period. Also, reference 19 should be like the others.

Broad – Fail - While the article goes into great detail about Mauer’s professional and early career, it lacks information about his personal life, or early life. Your Trivia section seems to have a good portion of information about that kind of thing – consider converting it into paragraphs and making it a personal life section. Consider expanding it if you can, perhaps add his personal interests, and any encyclopedic off-baseball activities.

NPOV – Pass – Neutral point of view for a majority of this article. If possible, consider adding some sourced criticism or praises from baseball critics. Though that’s not really needed though, it would make the article a little broader.

Stable – Pass – No signs of edit wars.

Images – Fail – The SI image lacks a fair use rationale and source information. Currently, Wikipedia’s Copyright Gurus have dubbed almost all SI covers as replaceable, unless they are extremely significant. Once that image is removed, the article should be solid in terms of images. Consider looking on Flickr for free fair use images.

Once you make these changes the article should be more than well-prepared for passing another GA review. If you have any questions, or need help please fell free to drop a message on my talk page. Once again, this article has a lot of potential; good work on the references. Good luck and thanks for the contribution -- ShadowJester07 ►Talk 22:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The first sentence says he is a major catcher in major league baseball. That's a little redundant as well.Hsox05 16:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]