Talk:Mets–Phillies rivalry/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 10:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Review coming ~~post haste~~ whenever I feel like it. (Hey, not being snarky, it just might be a day, it might be two days, it might be three days. But it probably won't be any more than that ;) Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 10:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick-fail assessment

The article completely lacks reliable sources – see Wikipedia:Verifiability. - Obviously not a problem.
The topic is treated in an obviously non-neutral way – see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. - Nothing sticks out.
There are cleanup banners that are obviously still valid, including {{cleanup}}, {{wikify}}, {{NPOV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{fact}}, {{clarifyme}}, or similar tags. -
The article is or has been the subject of ongoing or recent, unresolved edit wars. - Article has hardly been edited by anyone but the nominator over the last month
The article specifically concerns a rapidly unfolding current event with a definite endpoint. - N/A, further updates will obviously be needed as this topic has no endpoint at all, save for one of the teams going out of business.

Proceeding with full review. Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 01:36, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick impressions

There are 20 citations in the two-paragraph lead. WP:LEADCITE states Because the lead will usually repeat information also in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material. Leads are usually written at a greater level of generality than the body, and information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source Certainly 20 citations in a lead seems an awful lot. Only three are repeated in the body of the article, but are citations in this bounty perhaps redundant to other citations?

Any chance there's a free-use picture of McGraw doing something other than pulling up his shirt and showing off his beer gut?

The first three images being right-aligned seems off, as all face away from the text. Suggest moving two of them to the left Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 01:51, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

KV5's replies

I will take a look at the lead to see which citations are redundant and post additional notification here when that has been completed.

I have not been able to find another free-use image of Tug McGraw, aside from his plaque from the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame. If you feel that would be more appropriate, I'm OK with switching it out.

The reason for the right-aligned images is because I don't want the images to break the section headers. I could probably move the Bunning and Schmidt images to the left side without much issue, so I'll fix that now. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 02:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's unlikely that I'd fail the article for any of these matters. If there's no better pic of McGraw, then so be it (a picture of a plaque might run into problems with a FAC). It's just kind of an unintentionally hilarious picture. The article just seems visually unbalanced with almost all the images on the right. In the past, my screen has proven to be different from most people reading Wikipedia (such that alignments that seem weird for me are fine for others, and vice versa), so it's entirely possible there's nothing wrong there.

I'll start with the criteria-based rundown now, but my next edit to this talkpage is probably not going to come for a few hours. Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 02:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm actually a little too tired right now to fine-tooth the prose; that'll have to come later

Image review

Images all have ALT text - great! I'm no maven when it comes to ALT text, but I do have a handful of suggestions to perfecting it:

I would specify handedness when applicable. The ALT text for the images of McGraw, Wagner, Hamels, and Pedro don't specify whether they're right or left-handed, making it seem an incomplete description of the image. Arguably the Rollins image could also specify this (left-hander's batting helmet).
The ALT text for second of the two images of Pedro Martinez that are one on top of the other should probably mention that it shows the same man was the image above it. WP:ALT specifies that ALT text for a further image of someone already described can simply refer to that person directly.
Approximate age should given. I like to use "mid twenties," "late forties," etc, though that might not actually be best as it may not be information verifiable to someone looking only at the image.

Captions are excellent. No suggestions. Licensing also looks good: File:Tug.jpg would probably need a date attached to it at FAC. No problems here for me, but if you're looking down the line, I'd suggest taking care of that.

KV5's replies

All of the image concerns have been (should be) alleviated. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 14:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

The Checklinks tool reveals two dead links: sources 81 and 89.
It's technically not required (nor are citation templates in the first place), but I'd advise using ISO 8601 style if you're looking eventually to take this to FAC. In any case, the date forms need to be consistent; several references use day-month-year, while most use month-day-year. I'd recommend the latter (if you're not going to convert them all to ISO 8601, as it should be the style used in the article prose.
The books that are cited all seem to have substandard capitalization in their titles - does this actually reflect their titles?
Since references 109 and 110 are the same book, might it be better to put that citation in the "Bibliography" section and refer to specific page numbers with the inline citations, as is done with Kashatus and reference 108?
To what extent is the Max Blue book used as a reference?
(new) Possible problem at a future FAC with reference 89, as it requires registration for the full article. Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 08:18, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Overall, looks pretty good. Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 06:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

KV5's replies

The two deadlinks are gone: one has been replaced, and the other has been removed since it was one of two references sourcing the same statement.

The Blue was an accidental copyover from another article, and the Threston book has been converted to part of the bibilography. As to title capitalization, I try always to copy the titles directly from Google Books to maintain formatting, so as far as I'm aware, the technically incorrect capitalization is as it appears in the books.

Everything else here should be resolved, I believe. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 12:50, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Prose review

The lead does not fully address the contents of the article. It adequately describes the rivalry or lack thereof up through the beginning of the 21st century, but does not address it from that point. Certainly I think it's notable to mention the Mets' 2007 collapse in the lead.
The term "Phold of '64" is not present in the citation that follows it. Quotes must be directly cited, so either this needs a citation or wording that doesn't use this particular (peculiar) term.
Why didn't McGraw pitch for the Mets in 1968?
Several times the names of stadiums are used in place of stating Philadelphia or New York. This is only clear if you know that Veterans Stadium was and Citizens Bank Park is in Philadelphia, and Shea Stadium in New York. For at least the first instance of each of the stadium names, this should be made explicitly clear. In particular, a sentence like On September 27, 1989, the Phillies faced the Mets in their home finale at Shea Stadium is problematic.
Unsourced quote in the "1989–1990" section.
Why is John Franco's quote in the "1991-1994" subsection appended with [sic]? Am I just missing the apparent error?
I know I already said the captions were great, and for the very large part they are, but why do Samuel and Wagner's pictures specifically include (pictured)? I'm not sure why it's necessary there but not in all the other, similar pictures.
"2005–2006: The rivalry intensifies" subsection could probably use more than one citation.
Some overlinking with team names being linked repeated times in the article.
Diacritics for Rodríguez are missing.
Before the arrival of the Mets in Philadelphia Some context for this? Does this refer to a specific season? The Mets' first-ever season?
Why is Red Sox-Yankees rivalry a specific internal link given here? Is it simply because it's not given in prose, like Cardinals–Cubs rivalry and Dodgers–Giants rivalry are? Just sticks out as odd.

Fairly small number of points for an article of this size. Good job. Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 08:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

KV5's replies

Addressing some of the questions asked above:
Phold of '64 isn't meant to be a quote; it's simply a descriptive term that's used. That being said, I added a reference.

I do not know why McGraw didn't pitch for the Mets in 1968; the source doesn't give any details. I don't know that it's particularly relevant to the rivalry.
Found some further info: apparently McGraw was demoted to the minors due to an argument with Mets manager Wes Westrum after Westrum tried to get him to stop throwing the screwball. Like I said, though, don't know that it's a relevant point. If you think it's important, I can add some info and the source.
The minutiae of why isn't important, but it might be good to say briefly that he was in the minors (and not hurt or with some other team). 03:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

John Franco's quote – the [sic] is because the book uses [butt] in the quote. I didn't want it to appear as though it had been censored for Wikipedia; it was censored at the source.

The picture captions include (pictured) because the player in the image is not the only player mentioned in the caption. I was trying to be as unambiguous as possible.
That makes sense. Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 03:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The link to Yankees/Sox – yes, that is the reason. If it's more appropriate, I can just change that to a link to List of Major League Baseball rivalries.
Okay. I'm sure it's just fine MOS-wise. It just seems a little odd to me to have a section header for one wikilink. Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 03:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other issues should be resolved, or mostly resolved, to this point. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 14:20, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Went ahead and made the remaining changes myself. Well done, good article. Alex finds herself awake at night _{(Talk · What keeps her up)} 04:22, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]