Talk:Michael Schumacher/Archive 6

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Legacy section - POV strikes back

With all due respect to User:Qwerty1936, this new section he introduced, with the title of Legacy, right after the Other incidents section is a step back on all the work other editors have done. That controversy section was filled with POV, bias and weasel words. It was re-written. Now, look at this:

Legacy

The next few seasons will undoubtedly be labelled the 'post Schumacher era' as the retirement of a front runner, for the last decade, kicks in. An immediate change will be at Ferrari, where a new team setup is already being formed. Kimi Raikkonen has been brought in and was widely thought to be a straight swap for Schumacher and be the number 1 Ferrari driver. However, the emergence of Felipe Massa as a Grand Prix winner has put this into question. With all the controversies throughout Schumacher's career, his lasting legacy as the greatest driver in history may have been compromised. His record has no peer and this suggests he has been the most outstanding racer, who ever competed in the sport. However, many former champions have said his 'win at all costs' attitude may favour drivers such as Fangio and Senna as the gratest driver of all time. Damon Hll and Jackie Stewart have recently criticised Schumacher and Hill claimed that F1 will be a better spectacle without him. It is undeniable though, that Schumacher has been the most successful driver in the history of the sport and his retirement will leave a huge void. It remains to be seen if the sport maintains the same level of interest post Schumacher. The rise of Fernando Alonso suggests he could be the dominant driver of this generation, and replace Schumacher, but the latter's flair and thirst for victory may mean he is unreplaceable and leave a lasting legacy, whether it bepositive or negative.

Italics mean unneeded or not relevant to this article. Bold means POV, Bias Bold and Italics mean weasel words, or not backed by references

I am going to delete this. Either it is written according to the Wikipedia guidelines, or it is not the best for the article. Let's aim for FA and leave our opinions behind. I too believe Schumacher was the best, but I am not putting that into the article, because it's just my opinion. Cheers abd don't take it personally. And I've seen other contributions of yours. You should create a blog and write all that. It's good stuff. It just doesn't belong in Wikipedia. This is about facts...--Serte * Talk * Contribs 11:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

British media

"Some Formula One reporters and analysts have noted the media's, particularly the British media, attempts to vilify Schumacher and diminish his accomplishments using such controversial incidents.[39]"

Is this section really justified? The reference uses the world vilify, but is there proof of "particularly the British media"? And if the British media is really worse than any other nation's media perhaps we should trace it back to the Hill incident. Mark83 23:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The article refers to the British media in particular: "Today, Schumacher is reaping the rewards of his hard work at Ferrari and it is painful to see the tight upper-lipped British media maul him like this." Although this is true, I'm not sure about the status of such thing in the article.--Serte * Talk * Contribs 23:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I've played with the words a bit. I'd say the sentence 'Schumacher has been vilified in the British press for such incidents' is pretty much true, and can probably be verified. We could stick 'elements of ....' in there, actually, which would be more accurate. I haven't yet, because that's not what the current ref says.

This Nair guy also ref'd in the same section actually makes an interesting point that Schumacher doesn't always get the credit he deserves, almost because of his domination. I'm not sure Nair has the standing to be used as a ref for this though - does anyone have a better one? I think I can remember Mark Hughes making similar comments in Autosport at some point. 4u1e 13:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

There's a piece here from Mark Gallagher (an F1 insider, for want of a better term....) at Pitpass.com, which puts a similar view to Nair's. What we're really talking about here is a 'Perceptions of Schumacher' or 'media reactions to Schumacher' piece - but I don't know if we have enough references to pull it off.--4u1e 07:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

1991 etc

I should be able to ref the 1991 Schumacher-Jordan-Benetton piece - there's a lengthy section on it in 'The Piranha Club' by Timothy Collings. Might take a couple of days to get round to it though. (You may have noticed that I'm not always the promptest of contributers!) 4u1e. 3 November

I've found a ref, but it is not as good as I wanted. It's still ok for now. It'd be very cool if you find references for the other statements with [citation needed]. They are in the Benetton years and it is difficult to find references online about them. There is one in 2005 about a statement by Schumacher. I've searched a lot, but didn't find it. We'll probably have to remove it. Cheers --Serte * Talk * Contribs 19:08, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I've had a first go - there's a lot of other stuff I've left out. Moreno actually won a court case to keep his seat, but (according Eddie Jordan, who is not the most reliable of witnesses) accepted a payment of $500,000 to give it up to Schumacher. I didn't think that was directly relevant, but I should put something in the 1991 Formula One season article. I've also ref'd the bit about Benetton only having traction control from partway through the season - it came from a lengthy discussion with Ernham above. Cheers. --4u1e 15:31, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I've also found a ref for the 2005 'weapons' quote. The wording in the article was wrong, so I've amended it to match that given in the reference (The Guardian online). Cheers. --4u1e 15:51, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Controversies and Criticisms

The current wording of the first paragraph has a few problems. It current reads:

Some Formula One reporters and analysts have noted the media's, particularly the British media, attempts to vilify Schumacher and diminish his accomplishments using such controversial incidents.

• 'Some Formula One reporters and analysts' is weasel words.
• It does not match what the references used say.

- Reference 49 (www.cbc.ca 'Top 10 Michael Schumacher moments') says, referring to the 1994 Adelaide incident, The German driver was vilified in the British press for causing the crash – critics claimed Schumacher, knowing his car was already damaged, intentionally drove back on to the track to try and take Hill out – and the Schumacher-Hill rivalry was born.. It later says, in reference to the 1997 incident, With the Damon Hill incident from 1994 still fresh in everybody's memory, Schumacher was crucified by the press for trying to knock Villeneuve out of the race. (Note, by the way, that this piece is not a very accurate summary - no-one accused Schumacher of driving back onto the circuit to take Hill out!)

- The opinion piece by Vinesh Nair from Sify.com ('Schumacher bashing, a habit of sorts') is about the 2004 season, not one of those covered in the 'Controversy and criticism' section. The article is a bit long to quote directly here. My understanding of it is that that the first para proposes that the reason for the 'sad Schumacher bashing' is that he is not English. The second para suggest that this is why the story heard is how Schumy is hesitant to go on a all out battle with other drivers on the track rather than in the pit lane, and that you would need an Italian writer report his stunning performances accurately. Most of the rest of the piece describes various performances from Schumacher. The second to last para notes his involvement in developing Ferrari. The final para says it is painful to see the tight upper-lipped British media maul him like this. It really is his choice to see whether he has to pass other drivers on the track or in pit lane strategy

• The current version of the sentence conflates two different points made in the references. The first reference supports a statement that Schumacher was vilified in British media for the 94 and 97 incidents. The second one supports a statement that one commentator feels Schumacher's achievements are unfairly downplayed in the British media not because of 94 and 97, which are not mentioned, but because he is not English.
• attempts to vilify sounds like a smear campaign - and does not appear in either article.

Based on the references we currently have, I suggest the current sentence should be replaced with: Schumacher has been vilified in the British media for his involvement in title-deciding collisions in 1994 and 1997. Vinesh Nair, Formula One correspondant for Sify.com, has suggested that Schumacher's later achievements have been downplayed by the British media because he is not British

• I think 'sections of the British media' would be more accurate, but that's not what the current ref says.
• Vinesh is talking about 'English' not 'British', but I think he actually means British. I haven't noticed any downplaying of the achievements of Jackie Stewart, Jim Clark, David Coulthard etc because they are not English :)

I have changed the article as suggested --4u1e 08:36, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

TAG?

Quoting from the article:

Benetton was not fully competitive in 1993, with the more advanced and powerful Williams of Hill and Prost or the advanced "TAG" electronic package found in the McLaren of Senna.‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› 

If someone can specify this TAG wikilink as it links to a disambiguation page, it'd be good.--Serte * Talk * Contribs 14:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Done - it now links to Techniques d'Avant Garde. Bretonbanquet 14:20, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --4u1e 15:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Shorter Article

I've been bold and deleted the helmet section, as I said above, it's the weakest candidate. We're still up at 79kb (which is around 56kb text, according to Serte above), so I think we need to get a bit more radical. I previously suggested 1998 British Grand Prix (Controversies....) - I don't think this is all that controversial, as regards Schumacher himself, and could therefore be deleted. What do others think?

Well, I'd say 56kb if you take the results table out. If you don't count the references, which aren't readable prose, it'd be even smaller, because this article has more than 70. I agree with the helmet thing, I don't really know what more to reduce, so we have to make choices. Your suggestion for the controversy is good, I wouldn't like to, but maybe we have to do it. I'd also try to remove redundancies in the text, making the text more simple and smaller. Cheers--Serte * Talk * Contribs 16:20, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

That is a problem with the cite templates - they use up more space. I don't know what policy is on that. I'll leave the 1998 bit for a while and see if anyone objects to its removal. --4u1e 16:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I've made an astonishing discovery. I opened a txt file with Notepad and copied all the code for the page in there. It was 80kb. Just as it says when you edit the article. Then, I opened the article just for reading and copied to notepad only the text parts, and even left all those [1] of the references there. Just didn't copy the table and the references, external links and such. I even copied the Formula One records. I save the file, go check the proprieties and... only 32,4 KB. That's amazing and we have to use it as an argument when FAC comes, because it's not our fault that the table occupies so much and we aren't going to delete references for the sake of space... Cheers--Serte * Talk * Contribs 16:46, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I honestly don't know what the policy is for that. Any more expert views? We could try fishing for views in the peer review? 4u1e

From WP:SIZE "Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 6,000 to 10,000 words, which roughly corresponds to 30 to 50 KB of readable prose. Thus the 32 KB recommendation is considered to have stylistic value in many cases;" "Specifically, for stylistic purposes, readable prose excludes: external links, further reading, references, footnotes, see also, and similar sections; tables, list-like sections, and similar content; and markup, interwiki links, URLs and similar formatting."

Readable prose should be 32 kb. If you take out of this article the tables (complete results), the see also, external links, the footnotes and references, you get those 32kb. Let's do fact check on what's needed and apply for FA. This is a very argument and it is going to be an issued raised on FAC.--Serte * Talk * Contribs 14:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

In that case we're OK for length, aren't we? I'd still suggest going through GA before FA - the waiting list looks quite short at the moment, and I've found it valuable before in terms of getting more views. 4u1e

When do we do it, then?--Serte * Talk * Contribs 16:13, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The the creation of the unique helmet sounds important enough to include, for sure. For more than the nonsense about "team orders" which have been around in F1 for ever.Ernham 20:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

You're right Ernham, team orders were always legal and accepted in F1. The interesting point here is that Ferrari's use of them to assist Schumacher (completely legal and with plenty of precedent) became the factor in 2004 which resulted in the FIA banning them. Definitely a significant controversy - which does not mean of course that Schumacher was in the wrong. --4u1e 20:50, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Weather (spelling?) you like it or not, those controversial incidents are a big part of Schumacher's career and fairly or not, he'll be remembered for them too, not only for the 7 titles or all the records.--Serte * Talk * Contribs 21:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Adelaide Incident

This has recently been expanded a little (Hi, Skully!). Can I propose that we cut it back again?

My reasoning is as follows:

• Given the nature of Wikipedia, this incident appears in several places.
• The wording of the various versions differs, as does the level of detail.
• The most detailed version should be in the 1994 Australian Grand Prix article, which has nothing at present. I think this article should go into the full depth of the incident, not only because this is its more natural home, but also because it's a more neutral place for it.
• The Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher articles should both have a brief, neutral description - in fact they should both have the same description. Both articles have less space to spare to go into the full depth (because they have to cover other things) and both are more prone to being edited in a POV manner by fans/anti-fans of the drivers.
• A brief, neutral description should also go in the 1994 Formula One season article. This would perhaps focus more on reaction to the incident, not the collision itself.
• At the moment what we have is the most detailed account in the Damon Hill and 2004 season articles, although the details differ between them. Michael Schumacher has the next most detailed description, and the actual race article has nothing at all.

What do you think? Can we work across the four articles to get a balanced approach? Cheers. 4u1e. 6 November 2006.

Yeah, sorry. I just didn't like how it was written in some places. Plus a few things that I thought needed to be explained for those who aren't F1 fans or who haven't heard of this incident. Of course the main problem for me is finding out why people though Schu's car was damaged, personally, the proof can be seen prior to the incident, after he hit the barrier, because if you look Schumacher is steering his car to the left - curious, as this action appears to keep the car in the straight line. Anyway, once again, sorry for any troubles that I have potentially caused. I'll try and do a detailed report on the incident in it's respected article.--Skully Collins 11:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

No worries. (As they say in Oz). I'd be grateful for your help in agreeing a definitive (short!) version which can be used in both the Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher articles - meanwhile the 1994 one can cover all angles in much more detail than can be spared here. Keep up the good work!. 4u1e

I don't really like that "suggesting that his car was damaged". Doesn't look very encyclopedic. Cheers--Serte * Talk * Contribs 14:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

That's one of the bits I think should be covered in depth in the 1994 Australian Grand Prix article - it's very hard to summarise it briefly and in a neutral way. My suggestion is that we leave it out from here, going more or less back to how the para was yesterday. 4u1e

Billionaire?

A lot of web sites and news stories call him a billionaire. However I've searched for an estimate of his fortune and the only one I've come up with so far is $800m/£420m/€626. [1]

A lot of the sites quoting billionaire have "according to Euro Business". Anybody know more about that? Mark83 14:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

According to: [2], his salaries ALONE over all the career were worth more than £300m and he was earning up to £60m in merchandising (i assume advertising as well) in its height.

[3] also says 800 million dollars and that he donated 50 million dollars in the last 4 years.

[4] lists Schumacher annual play as $56m. --Serte * Talk * Contribs 15:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

We can't use estimates based on his income to justify the term 'billionaire' - that would be WP:OR. For all we know he's wasted it all on wine, women and song. Or charitable causes, for that matter. Does the ref for the $80M salary not cover this point as well? --4u1e 19:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it is enough anyway. When do we apply for GA, my friend? :P Cheers--Serte * Talk * Contribs 19:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is that, provided we either reference or remove the remaining {{fact}} tags, and provided the article remains stable then it would pass GA now. GA assessments are done by just one person, so it depends to a certain extent on who does the review. Some people are a bit touchy about having items up for review in more than one place at a time, so if we're going to put it up for GA then we should probably take it out of peer review - I think we've probably got all the comments we're going to get anyway.

As far as FA goes, I think there are two major things: Continue to refine the writing (it's supposed to be 'brilliant'!) and work on the references. I know most of the article is referenced now, but I think for FA more of the references should be from hardcopy (see Brabham, for what I hope is a good standard of references to aim for) and less of them should be the slightly dubious syndicated stories from non-specialists that we've all been using enthusiastically to date!--4u1e 22:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I think the lead needs re-writing to be a summary of the article. I think there are still things in the lead that don't appear in the article. --4u1e 22:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

That "popularized sport in Germany" thing it's in the lead and it's not developed in the article. Because of that, I once moved it from the lead to the Formula One career section so that the lead does not talk of something that is not present in the article. However, it was put back in the lead even though:

1. -It is not mentioned in the rest of the article
2. -Makes the lead too big.
3. -Isn't really that notable. Every country where there is a successful sportsman, the importance of the sport tends to increase, and more kids start practicing and such. It's not that much of a feat to be in the lead. If we reach a consensus on this, it would be good to just move on and get this ready. As to references from books... I have none about Schumi, nor F1, so I won't be able to contribute with that, but after having all ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.›  done and prose re-checked I'd put it in for FAC anyway and see what they say.--Serte * Talk * Contribs 23:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think GA is a good idea. It will provide new perspective(s) for us to work on to improve the article. FAC not for a month or two - the article is far from stable. Give it a while and those with only a passing interest will move on. (I don't mean any disrespect to any editor btw). As for the "popularized sport in Germany" bit. I think it should be moved from the intro, BUT kept in the article. I think the important part is that he made the sport popular in a country where it wasn't previously. i.e. vs. making a popular sport more popular. And the only reason there was conflict over the passage was due to a certain editor who is revert-happy and prone to hurling the word "vandal" about.Mark83 23:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm in favor of keeping in the article as well, that's why when I removed it from the lead I put it in the Formula One Career section. If 4u1e agrees on this too, we could change it and hope nobody disrupts consensus obtained thorough conversations in the talk page.--Serte * Talk * Contribs 23:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I also agree that the popularising F1 in Germany should go in the main body of the article. I'd keep a brief mention in the lead too, if there's room, but there may not be. There's a couple of other minor 'orphan' points in the lead that can be worked into the main text as well (GPDA and 'first German driver to....').

Similarly, controversy is not mentioned in the lead, and should be - regardless of whether Schumacher is right or wrong, maligned or malign, those incidents are one of the things people 'know' (think they know?) about him and should be mentioned there. Is there room to squeeze his influence in turning Ferrari round into the lead as well? I'll start having a go at it - as always feel free to reverse changes and discuss here! 4u1e 12:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Had a first go. Feel free to rip it apart. 4u1e 13:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

It's too long - I know! Can we lose, for example - the nicknames (move to section with Regenkonig etc) and Presidency of the GPDA? 4u1e 13:28, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't even check the page as it is right now, I'm reading this first, but anyway, (to me) feel free to move the presidency of the GPDA. I didn't even remembered that when I started working on the article and I feel it's not major to be in the lead and would be better in other part of the article.--Serte * Talk * Contribs 17:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I've seen it now. Too big as you said.

1. -I'd either move or reduce the part of winning with benetton and transformation of ferrari. You say he won two championships with benetton and that he moved to ferrarri and made a big transformation but do not even mention what he did there: winning 5 championships. it's too big.
2. -Rmv GPDA
3. -maybe all the germany thing
4. -Schumacher has been accused of unsporting behaviour on the track. - Isn't this POV or weasel? Has been accused? By whom? That part needs re-writing. Go with the facts: he was involved in two championship deciding collisions and was disqualified once. Nobody can argue with that.
5. -on retirement, remove "after winning the Italian Grand Prix, " as this is not very important and is stated later on the retirement section. Lead is not for details

Some of the stuff may cost to delete, but the lead is not the article: the things will stay in the article, it's just that some things are more important than other to introduce the subject to people who don't know much about him. Cheers --Serte * Talk * Contribs 17:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable - let's have a go.....--4u1e 17:55, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

OK - v2.0 now done. I think that's short enough now, WP:LS says 3-4 paragraphs, we now have four. --4u1e 18:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

No more ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› 's. Let's GA this? --Serte * Talk * Contribs 19:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Go for it! --4u1e 20:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Fashion sense

Schumacher is well known to have an, eh.. "interesting" choice in clothes. A possible addition or far too trivial? Probably the latter. Mark83 00:42, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Who's to say whether his taste is good or bad? (I know what I think, but fear I may not be NPOV on this one) I know the article's meant to be comprehensive, but I reckon we'll get away with leaving that one out! Cheers

You should read this month's F1 Racing - damning evidence :-) I know I brought it up, but I think best leave it out. Mark83 08:51, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Popularity thing

WRT to the thing about popularity. I would have to say that Ralf Schumacher was 19 by the time his brother became WDC and Heidfeld also was a teenager by then. Can you back up your assertions that SChumacher specifically caused a boom in the skill level and talent pool of racing drivers. What about participation rates for young drivers. At the moment it implies he specifically causes more success for Germany at the highest level. He is not a racing coach nor does he run an F1 academy. He has definitely increased popular viewing, but has he increased grassroots participation? At the most we should note the grassroots increase. It is inapporporiate to claim that he is responsible for success of other elite drivers. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 03:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

On the one hand, you cannot prove there is causation with just a correlation, just like you can't prove that winning more WDCs than anyone other driver makes schumacher by default the greatest driver on that criterion alone. It's one fact of many, though, and the veracity of the claim is unquestionable, and it is in fact suggestive that schumacher indeed had some effect in bringing more German drivers in formula one. Do you really think schamucher just increased the popularity of the sport in Germany only to WATCH it? It's pretty hard to argue with all the talented German drivers in forumla one right now. Perhaps you want to wade through 50 years of F-1 WDC statistics and see if you can come up with 3 Germans in the top ten in any other era?Ernham 03:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

F1 is not a normal sport. It is an extreme sport, and is very dangerous. I like F1, but I have never ever tried go-karts at all, whereas I do enjoy having a hit of cricket and kicking a ball around from time to time. Success does generate TV ratings, increased merchandise and also grassroots participation. I agree and encourage you to add stats with respect to this increase in grassroots participation, merchandise sales , etc, - this is definitely true, I would suspect that interest in spectatorship would be more than the number of people deciding to drive around in a sagnerous manner. As I pointed out before, Ralf and Heidfeld were alreay fully grown by the time Schumacher was successful (and I think Rosberg is due to his dad), so to allude that he is highly responsible for elite level success when he is not a coach, manager etc, is stretching it. Also in the 1990s you had Frentzen, so that's two. Were you also aware perhaps awarethat BMW is *believed* to have a policy of favourable German drivers for perhaps commerical reasons, same as Honda for Japanese drivers? Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 03:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I am merely stating a fact, one that does not conclusively prove schumacher has increased F-1 participation, but does in fact suggest he has. I've stated the fact, not the conclusion. The reader can speculate how they chose, but the fact is still a fact, and it is applicable to the argument of Schuamcher's increase in popularity of the sport. In short, I fail to see any logical issue whatsoever anyone would have with the inclusion of that information. We could speculate all day for possible others reason for the increase, but this wiki is about Schumacher. Ernham 03:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Since I dug out my trusty calculator, I hammered on the statistics on this popularity issue. The mean frequency of Germans in the top 10 prior to the entrance of Schuamcher into Formula one was .175(layman's terms: that only one German would generally make the top ten approximately every 6 years of formula one.) The standard deviation was .44. In Schumacher's last year, with 3 Germans in the top ten, the right tail of the assumedly(n>40) normal distribution of this statistic has a probability of .00000000059. Layman's terms: The chance that 3 Germans would make the top ten purely by coincidence is .000000059%. In scientific AND layman's terms: no way in hell did that happen randomly.Ernham 12:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm losing track of this argument, but for what it's worth - I think the original comment had some validity. The current crop of drivers would be drivers anyway - but Michael's success is responsible for the current high profile of motor racing in Germany, which I think may well have produced the financial backing which has put those drivers where they now are. -- Ian Dalziel 18:11, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The removal of this section was deplorable, smelling or jingoism. Here's Vettel's words himself "In Germany, F1 stands for Michael Schumacher. What he did for the sport in Germany was fantastic and it was very good for all of us young drivers who came up the ladder. For sure he opened up some doors for all of us."Ernham 18:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

You cannot argue the math. You cannot argue with a German driver's own words. Do not remove the section again. Ernham 18:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Brawn, Byrne, Todt at Ferrari and previously

I've just removed the comment "The same members that Schumacher brought to Ferrari from Benetton, however, had no success in creating a competitive racing team prior to the hiring of Schumacher." from the article.

This seems to cover Brawn and Byrne (explicitly) and Todt (implicitly - since it is not clear in the current wording that he arrived at Ferrari before Schumacher and recruited him to the team).

Looking at their biogs on www.grandprix.com we can see that:

Todt had a long and extremely successful career managing Peugeot Sport (2 world rally championships, 4 Paris-Dakars, 2 Le Mans 24 hours and 1 World Sportscar championship).

Ross Brawn had moderate success designing for Arrows in 1987 and 1988 - fourth place for Arrows is a pretty good result! He also designed the Jaguar XJR-14, which won the 1991 World Sportscar Championship (beating Schumi in a Sauber-Merc on the way!), was very competitive in IMSA racing in the States the next year and formed the basis of the TWR-Porsche which won a couple of Le Mans in the mid-1990s. (You'll have to take my word for the last two bits - I'm sure I can verify if anyone queries it).

Rory Byrne had some success at Benetton, who won a race most years up to 1994.

The removed sentence doesn't really seem to match the facts. Admittedly they hadn't achieved success on the scale that they subsequently would, but then, no-one has :) --4u1e 00:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Dummy assessment against GA criteria

The Good Article criteria can be found here.

Going through one by one (in reverse order, cos I find it easier):

Images: Pass, in my view. Images are not a GA requirement, but if present must be appropriately tagged, as these are. There are improvements that could be made, however:

• No pictures from early career.
• Pictures are a bit 'samey' (i.e. lots of pics of Schumi in a red car) - more interesting pics are hidden down at the bottom of the article. We should consider moving them around to get more variety in tone.
• Captions are present, but not very interesting. We should think how we can use them to draw readers in - the Japan 2006 pic could say something like "Schumacher at the 2006 GP shortly before the engine failure which virtually ended his chances of an eighth world title". And so on. See WP:CAP.

Stability: Fail, at present. Not surprising this, and will hopefully improve as we get further away from the current season. Nothing to worry about at present.

Neutral Point of view: See WP:NPOV. Fail I believe we have problems here, and would fail the article at GA on this one. Problems are mainly of assertion (i.e. asserting a particular point of view, rather than simply stating the facts) and in fairness of tone (i.e. facts may be stated, but are 'coloured' by the language around them). Some examples:

• 'Scumacher impressed the paddock' & 'After his impressive debut'
• 'Despite Hill having the superior car, he struggled to keep pace with Schumacher'
• 'Despite this bold and risky move' (joining Ferrari)
• The whole second paragraph of 'Ferrari years' presents quite an argumentative approach to its topic - better to simply state the facts and quote some relevant views.
• 'Some fans argue that it was not only bad luck that prevented Schumacher from winning the 1998 world championship' (Following section probably goes into more detail than is required here.
• 'Schumacher started 2006 well'
• 'Some believe the claims of Schumacher's "poor sportsmanship" are little more than sour grapes in a sport that has become increasingly competitive.'
• 'Schumacher's critics allege that, knowing his car was damaged, he intentionally drove his car into Hill's in order to take the Briton out of the race.'
• 'However, this was not the first incident of the sort in F1 history, and while Schumacher was judged to have been at fault, others have escaped punishment for similar situations.'
• The whole of para 4 under 'Sportsmanship' is argumentative - from both points of view. There's some good and interesting material in there though.
• 'Nevertheless, team orders are at times practiced by many teams and, despite bans by the FIA, can be executed discreetly.' The relevant point is simply that they were not illegal at the time of the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix.
• The whole second to last para of 'Team orders' seems constructed to support the use of team orders - not neutral or necessary in my view.

I'll come back and go through the other three criteria later. I'll emphasise again that this isn't a formal review for GA, just my take on how it would go. I do carry out GA reviews on other articles though, so hopefully I have some idea what I'm doing! :D Cheers. 4u1e 23 October 2006

Broad in coverage: Pass Includes family life and activity outside F1 - good.

Accurate and verifiable: Fail Variable. Some bits very well referenced. Others are sketchy - Benetton years, Most of the Ferrari years up to 2005 (which includes some quite contentious statements), Records, Most of the 'Controversy' section (again - contentious). There may also be a problem with the quality of some of the references. The reference for the rather um, bold statement that "the 2005 rules changes were entirely targetted to ending the domination of Ferrari and Schumacher" is a throwaway line in an unattributed (i.e. we don't know who wrote it) article from the Associated Press, not a noted authority on F1. --4u1e 06:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well written: Fail Some changes needed per WP:MoS. See the automated comments from the Peer Review for these, here. A lot of these are quite quick to fix.

Not sure where to put this, but the balance of the piece is wrong. As many of us have noted, the 2006 season summary is much, much longer than the others - it probably still needs to be cut to half to one third the length - any material that can't be used here probably belongs in the individual race reports or the 2006 season summary. The controversy/sportsmanship/team orders sections are very long in relation to the rest of the piece as well and could do with editing down. Cheers 4u1e

Forking

With such a long career and many incidents, twists, turns, I feel that the article needs to be forked rather than simply chopped up with half the article thrown away. What are the logical ways of steamlining into components? Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 00:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Not entirely sure I agree, article seems a bit repetitive and wordy and can I think be shortened significantly without throwing anything important away. Quite a lot of it has turned into season summaries of each year he had competed - covering rather more than Schumacher himself - and the 'extra' material could be transferred to the relevant F1 season summary, if it doesn't appear there already. Similarly removing the argumentative material I mention above and sticking simply to the facts would produce a worthwhile reduction. I don't think it can get down to 32k, but 45-50 ish ought to be achievable.--4u1e 05:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Accumulation records

I can see what is meant here, but think it will just be confusing for a reader new to the topic - it's not even discussed all that often in the specialist press. I think it is better to leave the lead simply to say 'has won more races etc etc' and then go into how this compares to others - including the win to race ratio - in the main text under 'records'. The lead is also getting a little long at 6 paras, so could do with trimming anyway. --4u1e 05:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Helmet

Talking about helmets, I heard until 2002 he wore Bell helmet, he upset them and S.P.O.R.T.S. Europe about that deal with Schberth, i have got some extra info about this here. For all these who wants some extra info, I already added bits about the helmet he wore as I used to own a few Minichamp brochure which features them. Willirennen 12.50 24 Oct 2006

Is the helmet really notable and important enough to be on the article? It's nothing personal, it's just that the article was very very big, almost 100kb, it is being reduced a lot, like removed quotes at the retirement section, reduced the season 2006 section and all. The helmet is taking space, and I'm not sure that it qualifies as being important enough to be here. That's more technical information, which maybe doesn't have a space on Wikipedia. If we put the helmets, why not adding his suits or his shoes and such? Still, I'd like to see what other users have to say about this. Cheers and thanks for the contributions :)--Serte 15:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Some of the material was in the article anyway - I just split it out as a seperate header - partly to provoke such debate. It has to be said that there is room for material on the helmet in the Damon Hill (FA) and Gilles Villeneuve (GA) articles. I don't think it's particularly critical however, and - if pushed - can go. However, personally, I'd like to see the wordiness of the 2006 season and Controversy/Sportsmanship/Team Orders bits addressed before we conclude that we have to dump it. 4u1e

Another thought: How about an image of his helmet like the one in the Fernando Alonso article - Would that give the same info in a better way? 4u1e

Wealth

Although Schumacher is refered in the lead of the article as the first billionaire athlete, there is little reference about it in the text, only a few trivia stuff. Do you think there should be a section about this, his wealth, and publicity he's made just to show the impact he had as a sportsman?--Serte 14:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions for Controvery etc section

Can I float a suggestion for this piece? A lot of its length is down to the 'framing structure' and to editorialising about the meaning of the various incidents. Can we pare it down to a single section under 'Controversy' (or similar) with brief factual accounts of:

• 1994 Allegations of cheating with Benetton
• 1994 clash with Hill
• 1997 clash with Villeneuve
• 1998 British GP
• Team orders - centered around 2002? in Austria
• 2006 incident at Monaco

Given that the 'getting a push' topic seems to have argued itself to a standstill - the current wording suggests that it's a non-issue - I suggest that it could be left out.

Does that fly as a suggestion - or am I going to get shot down in flames? (Retires to bomb shelter and pulls tin hat down over ears). 4u1e

KABOOOOMMM!! All kidding aside, I totally agree with you. It's time to finally put those controversy and incident sections organized. Those parts are the worse of the article. They are not very well-written and need POV to be totally eliminated. I'm on to it. --Serte 16:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to re-write the whole section on a personal page, but my main difficult is really finding reliable sources and how to use them. I mean, many many people criticize Schumacher for what he did in 1994 but it's impossible to find a reference for "many people". Also, there are fans that claim he was innocent, such as in [5]. Whatever I write looks to me like POV anyway, so it's really hard. What are the facts? Schumacher closed the door? You could claim he didn't, he just made the manouver as it should be made. You could claim Hill shouldn't try to overtake there.

Facts:

• Schumacher was one point ahead of Hill in the championship with one race to go.
• Schumacher was leading until lap 20 [6]
• Schumacher crashed into the wall hitting with the right side hills. (What was it? A mistake? a twitch?)
• Schumacher managed to get back on track with Hill just behind him pressuring
• Hill tried to overtake, but they crashed. (What can you say about this? Schumacher crashed onto Hill? The opposite?)
• While Schumacher quitted (?) right there, Hill completed the lap, went into the pit stops where he retired due to the damages made to his car during the crash being unrepairable.

I'll do my best effort on making something out of this that satisfies guidelines. By the way, can youtube videos be used as a source?--Serte 17:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Youtube is a bit dodgy - firstly because the legality of what is on it is often suspect (How come there's video of the incident there in the first place? Who owns the copyright?) but also because to a third party little of what you see will seem 'evident'. It's still your (my, whoevers) judgement as to whether Schumacher drove into Hill or vice versa.

regarding neutrality of the Adelaide incident, I think neutral wording would look something like:

"On lap XX of the race, Schumacher went off the track at turn XX, hitting the wall with his right rear tyre. He returned to the track at reduced speed. Hill, who had been closing on the German before the incident, caught him at turn XX. As they approached the corner, Hill moved to pass his rival on the inside. Schumacher turned into the corner and the two collided. Schumacher's car was tipped up onto two wheels and eliminated on the spot, while Hill was withdrawn shortly afterwards by his team due to damaged front suspension. A Reliable Witness has said that Schumacher took the normal racing line for the corner, although Numerous Pundits have blamed the German for the incident, which gave him his first crown, claiming that he must have known his car was damaged."

Where A Reliable Witness and Numerous Pundits have yet to be identified. To make any potential bias on my part clear, I tend to be pro-Hill, so my version might not be quite neutral. My belief, for what it's worth, is that Hill wasn't quite close enough to risk nipping inside there and should have held back, while Schumacher was travelling too slowly to really regard the corner as 'his' and should not have turned in. Both at fault, although Hill's error I regard as more honest.

Your trouble of course is in locating the appropriate quotes at the end to give the opposing interpretations. I'd be a bit wary of web references for this - has anyone got a decent hardcopy race report, or a book on Schumacher or Hill (Skully Collins has some on Hill, I think)? See WP:NPOV#Undue weight for the guidance on how to balance opposing views. Thedummy version given above assumes that the view is fairly evenly split, which may not be the case. --4u1e 20:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't be more unbiased than this: User:Serte/schumicontroversies. Say what you think about it. I wrote it as to replace the current controversy section which is too big and not NPOV at all.--Serte 21:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Damon Hill BBC Radio Five Live interview

Does anybody think any of this would be suitable (Hill's perspective):

Victoria Derbyshire: Damon, just remind us what happened between you and Schumacher in Australia.

Damon Hill: Em, well, we were racing, I didn’t, I wasn’t aware that Michael had actually gone off the road and damaged his car and so when I saw him coming back on the track I though he had just escaped again from another near spin. And so he was struggling to get up to speed and I went to overtake him and it’s pretty clear that he drove into me to prevent me from getting through and by virtue of that he won the world championship. But that was really sort the first big incident in his career but it sort of set the tone of his whole career really. Em, and what was slightly disappointing I think was that the, from time to time when things have happened it does appear that there has been slight favouritism towards those kind of, that kind of, or at least blind eyes turned to that kind of tactic.

Victoria Derbyshire: But did that show he was a cheat, or that he was desperate to win or he was just an extremely determined competitor and that’s what you need to be a world champion?

Damon Hill: Yeah, expect in Monaco this year it was concluded that he did actually do something deliberately to spoil the opportunity of Alonso to get to beat him to pole position, so he’s not only…, and there have been other incidents as well where the teams he’s been driving for have been had up for blatantly cheating, ignoring black flags, all those kind of things have been part of his career. Mark83 21:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Wheel to Wheel

We were looking for a reference for 'many people consider'. Alan Henry's book 'Wheel to Wheel' contains the following: "many F1 insiders regarded the German as solely responsible for the collision which resolved the outcome of the 1994 World Championship" (p. 117) --4u1e 06:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

English

Minor point: UK English or American English? We have both at present. I would vote for UK English, but technically we ought to check what was used in the first 'proper' version of the article and stick with that. 4u1e

The MOS states "If an article is predominantly written in one type of English, aim to conform to that type" and British English is predominant. Also it's a European subject (both the man and effectively the sport). Mark83 14:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I've had a look at older versions and they appear to be UK as well, so let's take that as the standard. So - tire > tyre and all the other favourites. Cheers. 4u1e

Grammar

I am not surprised this is a FORMER featured article candidate, some of the sections arevery badly structured and the use of the word he is over used. there are common use of brackets in the article although some are necessary for translations should be completly avoided here is an example from he article.
The penalty (for overtaking Alex Wurz under safety car on lap 43 of 60) should have been issued within 25 minutes but Ferrari were informed 6 minutes after the limit had expired
In this example the reason the penalty was issued should be explained before this point and not put in brackets.
The word he is over used and should be replaced with Schumacher, also the use of his first name in the main body of he articl should be avoided.
The biggest problem with this article is sentence structure and grammar.
Here is an example
The move, embarrassing for F1 fans and media, was done after the very last corner of the last lap of the Austrian Grand Prix. This led to a public outcry by spectators in the grandstands;on the podium a visibly embarrassed and bewildered Schumacher ushered Barrichello onto the top step in an attempt to calm the irate crowd.
First major grammatical error is the use of the semi-colon it must not be used any-where in the article except the pronounciation at the very beginning. The phrase 'embarrassing for F1 fans and media' should be better structed and should not be a statement on its own. a better structure would be to remove it completly from the section. The podium setion is also poorly structured as it is written as if the person is Schumacher, we do not know what he was thinking or the complete reasons for the decision to swap places on the podium. The section should be written by saying things such as the aftermarth of swapping places was revealed to try to calm the crowd a citation of this would also be required.
These are just a few points to improve the article grmmar and structure are the main points but citations are lacking in some areas as well so more are required as well.--Lucy-marie 10:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

We're working on a shortened and less POV version of the Controversy/Sportsmanship/Team Orders section at the moment, this will replace many of these problem areas. 4u1e 12:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a Wikipedia policy barring (correct) use of the semi colon except in first paragraphs! Mark83 14:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I've been following this article from afar for a bit now, and I must say it has improved considerably over the last week or so. It reads less and less like fan journalism and more and more like an encyclopedia entry every day. Still has some way to go, but it's definitely better. Just my twopence'. --Ramdrake 14:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

And it will be even better in the next few weeks I hope. At least I'm working hard on it.--Serte 14:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Not to disrupt your work, but one of the editors just changed the measurements of a sponsor logo from metric-only to US-first metric-second measurements. If you are adopting the UK style, shouldn't metric measurements at least come first? Just a thought.--Ramdrake 15:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I did change, but didn't remember of that. Anyway, I believe it's not the same thing. We're not adopting an UK style, I guess. We're just using UK English which is the European English. And the Europeam measures are cm, not inches. You may disagree. The best solution is to include the two types of measures.--Serte 15:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

For terms like championship, driver's championship, constructors' championship, should we use capital letters or not as there is no standardize way at the moment. If we want to go for FA, we should standardize it --Cyktsui 10:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Changes to results table

Results table has recently been changed, but no longer matches the Key - could someone who knows more about the tables than I do confirm whether these changes match the WikiProject F1 standard? Cheers. 4u1e 16:07, 25 October 2006

There is a key?--Lucy-marie 16:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Just above the table there's a link to click on. It's probably best to revert to the agreed colour scheme for the table, but possibly raise your ideas for changing the scheme at WP:F1.

I've also reverted your last change re 24 races etc (Sorry!). My logic is that the 24 races is an inclusive number up to the last race where you don't retire, i.e. Malaysia. What do you think? Cheers. 4u1e 16:14, 25 October 2006

ok thanks what do you think of the colour changes made to the grid?
I think that having it upto the malaysian gp implies he retired at the malaysian gp so saying brazil implies he retired at the brazilian gp. I also think that it is 23 not 24 races i may have miss counted though--Lucy-marie 16:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I reverted back againt because I agree with 4u1e. And I've counted several times and it is 24 races. The reason in which I believe Malaysia should be there is because what we're talking about is races in which he didn't retire. "Most consecutive race finished without retirement: 24 (from the 2001 Hungarian Grand Prix, until the 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix)" So, we should put Malaysia because that's the last race he finised without retiring. That's what I think.--Serte 16:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Err, how about using the word "including" (as in "until and including the 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix"? Slightly more cumbersome, but no chance for a misunderstanding there... Just a suggestion.--Ramdrake 16:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely 24 races (I counted three different ways and came up with the same result each time :-)). Hungary is race 1, Malaysia is race 24. The sentence involved is 'Most consecutive races finished without retirement: 24 races'.

Hungary to Malaysia are 'consecutive races finished without retirement'. Brazil cannot be included in that definition because he did retire there.

We could put 'inclusive' in the sentence if you feel it is really unclear that he did not retire in Malaysia (i.e. 'Hungary 2001 to Malaysia 2003 inclusive'), but I really don't think it's necessary. 4u1e 16:28, 25 October 2006 (I've been trying to get the above posted for the last few minutes, but you guys keep editing it!)

Shift results table to a template?

Removing the results table brings the article size down from 85 to 62 kilobytes. What about putting it in a template? That way it will not appear any differently but I think this would cut the article file size?? And if anybody listed it for deletion arguing it should be kept inside the article we could make the argument that it is a special circumstance (i.e. the amount of information on this page plus the fact that it's one of the largest driver results tables). Mark83 19:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

A template for Complete F1 results could be a good thing, not only for this article but for all F1 drivers articles. However, I think you got to have very good skills at templates, which I don't. I know the basics only. However, the main thing that might complicate is that every year there are different schedules and such, so a template for this would still require everybody to put the races, the results, and such. Don't know about the colours though. Cheers--Serte 20:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. A generic results table would be almost impossible to write! I just mean copying and pasting the table into Template:Michael Schumacher career results (or similar) and then when you add {{Michael Schumacher career results}} in the right place on this article you get the full table but with a reduced article file size. Mark83 20:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I see now. I've made an experiment and it is quite simple to do it. Don't know if there wouldn't problems as you said in the beginning, don't know if there are special circunstances for these cases. If it's approved, I approve as well. Cheers--Serte 20:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)