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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 08:07, 19 April 2014 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Arthur Gould (rugby union)

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Arthur Gould (rugby union) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Nominator(s): Shudde talk 04:24, 22 February 2014 (UTC) and FruitMonkey (talk · contribs)[reply]

This article is about the famous 19th century Welsh rugby union player. Gould was probably the stand-out player of his time, and represented Wales 27 times – an enormous number in an age when Wales averaged two or three matches a year. His fame and popularity prompted a "testimonial" on his retirement -- he was gifted the deeds to a house -- however this caused significant conflict between rugby administrators of Wales and England over the issue of professionalism. We have spent about 6 months getting this article up to standard, and it benefited greatly from a peer review conducted late last year. We hope you enjoy the read, and welcome feedback and comments. -- Shudde talk 04:24, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:Arthur_Gould.jpg: what was Thiele's date of death?
  • File:Arthur_Gould,_Newport.jpeg: "This tag can be used only when the author cannot be ascertained by reasonable enquiry. If you wish to rely on it, please specify in the image description the research you have carried out to find who the author was"
  • File:Arthur_'Monkey'_Gould_portrait.jpg: why does rugby-pioneers have the right to release this image under a CC license? The markings on the photo itself suggest that another organization held the original copyright
    • Like File:Arthur_Gould_print.jpeg they believe it's PD (see [3]). However it looks like the image is from the page of a book (see [4]), and the image does seem to have been reproduced quite widely. If the copyright was held by "Hudson & Kearns London" then all I can find is this biography about one of Burgess family. However I think that it was only published by Hudson & Kearns, and that the copyright was held by "Siedle Bros" Photography (based in Newport). I think this is most likely, however I've not been able to find much out about the Siedle Bros other than the information here. So I'm not sure how to proceed. -- Shudde talk 10:27, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Wales_rugby_team_1895.jpg: the website is not the original author; the current tag requires the original author, their date of death, and a US PD tag
    • I'll email the website about this. -- Shudde talk 10:05, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have a book, The Who's Who of Welsh International Rugby Players (1991) which uses the exact same image. The only difference is the name in the bottom left hand corner. In the image we have it appears to say Lascelles (maybe connected to Welsh newspaper editor Henry Lascelles Carr?), though in the book image it seems to say D Jones & Co. The book credits the image to the 'Auty Collection'. FruitMonkey (talk) 11:27, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • I emailed Frederic Humbert and look the photo was taken by "Symmons & Thule" (see [5]). However a google search has not uncovered any information at all about Symmons & Thule. I have updated the description page however. -- Shudde talk 09:26, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Arthur_Gould_print.jpeg: again, why does rugby-pioneers hold rights to this image? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • They don't have the rights, and say on their website that they believe it is in the public domain. I've updated the description page. -- Shudde talk 10:05, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, but if the author is unknown how do we know they died more than 70 years ago? Given the date it's possible they did not. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:31, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Nikkimaria: I have not been able to determine the author. I contacted the person who scanned the image (from [6]) and he says there is no author information on the postcard. He has other versions of the postcard (for example [7]) but none have any author information. What do you think is the best course of action here? -- Shudde talk 11:18, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: Are you satisfied with our comments here? Is there anything further you need us to try and address? Thanks. -- Shudde talk 10:48, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Resolute
I participated in the peer review for this article, and felt it was close then. Looks even closer now:
  • I think it would be useful to note the date of his debut in the lead. ("After his debut in yyyy, he was never dropped....". It helps put the scope of his career in context.
I have added the year of debut. FruitMonkey (talk) 19:16, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the paragraph about his brothers, you refer to Arthur as "he/his" in all cases but the one where you note Bob was capped 11 times for Wales. That makes it somewhat confusing as to who is actually being spoken of.
I believe I have addressed the offending pronoun, please correct me if this is not the case. FruitMonkey (talk) 19:16, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The paragraph about the 1890 Newport invincible season uses the word "season" seven times in extremely close succession. It becomes rather repetitive.
I would go with annoying and repetitive. I have removed three 'seasons', I hope this has not damaged the understanding of the paragraph. FruitMonkey (talk) 19:16, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • At the very end, you refer to his brother as "Edward Wyatt Gould", but only as Wyatt in all other instances. I'd suggest removing "Edward" for consistency.
Now referred to as Wyatt Gould. FruitMonkey (talk) 19:16, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Checked several of the online sources. Found no issues.
A few relatively easy fixes, I think, and I'll be happy to support. Resolute 23:54, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, FruitMonkey. I'm happy to Support this article! Resolute 01:21, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Feedback from Cliftonian
I'm very sorry not to have got to this sooner. I took part in the peer review for this article and am now pleased to be able to review it for FA. I'll jot down thoughts as I give it a fresh read-through.

Lead and infobox

  • We say in the infobox he died in Newport but not that he was born there
  • "He won 27 caps for Wales, 18 as captain, and critics consider him the first superstar of Welsh rugby" I would prefer "He won 27 caps for Wales, 18 as captain, and is often considered the first superstar of his sport". (He wasn't just a superstar of Welsh rugby, but of British rugby too)
    • The sources seem to specify Welsh (rather than British). You may be right, but I'd rather stick with what the sources say. Maybe @FruitMonkey: has an opinion here? -- Shudde talk 09:03, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • It would give me the greatest of pleasures to state that, and I think looking back with fairly neutral eyes we could say he was a superstar of British rugby, but all the sources I can find that use the word superstar, and there are several, all smack the word Welsh or Wales into the same sentence. I'd keep Welsh there. FruitMonkey (talk) 20:49, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Gould could side-step and kick with either foot" Sorry to be pedantic but strictly speaking anybody can do these things, what made Gould exceptional was that he could do them very well. I would suggest rewording slightly to "could side-step and kick effectively with either foot" or similar
  • "Following the withdrawal of their regular full back, Newport RFC selected Gould, aged 18, to play for the team. After this debut in 1882 he was never dropped from the side, for whom he played regularly until his retirement sixteen years later." Why not "Following the withdrawal of their regular full back, Newport RFC first fielded Gould in 1882, when he was 18. He was never dropped from the side thereafter and played regularly until he retired in 1898."
  • "that tournament's match against England established Gould as a great player and captain." in whose opinion?
  • "By the time Gould retired he was the most capped Welsh centre – a record he held until 1980 – with 25 caps in the position." I would change these dashes to commas myself, I think they would do just as well in this context
  • "The Gould Affair" I don't think this needs the quotation marks around it, or the upper-case letters on every word; I think "... known as the Gould affair that saw Wales withdraw ..." would do just as well
  • "on Welsh Football Union (WFU) support of a testimonial" perhaps "on the support of the Welsh Football Union (WFU) for a testimonial"
  • "constituted professionalism – which they claimed breached the sport's by-laws" why not simplify to "constituted professionalism and breached the sport's by-laws"?
    • Not sure this is correct, I think there was a dispute over whether it was professionalism, and whether the IRFB had any authority over the issue. I'll leave this as is I think. -- Shudde talk 09:03, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Shudde is right here, as the laws laid down were very vague. The laws stated that no "player who shall receive from his club or any member of it any money consideration whatever, actual or prospective, for services rendered to football for the club for which he is a member." Now the money came not from the club but a public subscription, (hard to prove in those days where the money came from and if they were members of Newport RFC). Also it turned out that England had done exactly the same thing by gifting Richmond captain William Bromet a £50 plate for services to Richmond the year before. Bromet was not punished. FruitMonkey (talk) 20:59, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The WFU subsequently withdrew from the IRFB, but were readmitted twelve months later after agreeing that Gould would not be permitted to represent Wales again." perhaps contract to "The WFU withdrew from the IRFB in protest, rejoining a year later on the condition that Gould would not represent Wales again."
  • Perhaps put just a little sentence at the end very briefly saying what he did after his rugby career, and saying "He died in 1919 at the age of 54" or something like that

Early years

Club and county history

  • I'd put a comma before "ca. 1890" in the caption and before "1891–97" over the box with the scoring record
  • Done. -- Shudde talk 09:55, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "as: 159 tries, 66 conversions, 61 dropped goals and a single penalty, over 231 appearances" You don't need the colon after "as", the sentence makes sense without it
  • Fixed -- Shudde talk 09:55, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • " – the second one resulting from a smart pass by Gould" again you could use a comma here rather than a dash (you could also trim "resulting from a smart pass" to "following a smart pass")

1885–89

  • "in order to include" you could trim to "to include" ("in order" doesn't add anything)
  • "Wales lost two goals to nil" shouldn't this be "Wales lost by two goals to nil"?

1890–93

1894–97

The Gould Affair

Later life and legacy

That concludes the prose and content aspects of the review; I will look at source formatting etc another time. Overall the article looks pretty solid in my opinion with all of the "meat" of an FA present; just needs a bit of final polishing and tweaking on the way. I hope the comments above help. If there's anything else I can help with at all please let me know. Well done so far on this great article, which was a pleasure to review. Cheers and keep well. —Cliftonian (talk) 17:58, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Cliftonian. I'm travelling at the moment so will get onto these in the next couple of days. -- Shudde talk 22:56, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot @Cliftonian:. Always appreciate your feedback. Sorry I couldn't reply to your comments more promptly. I think I've addressed most of your comments, but there are a few things there FruitMonkey may have to look at. Let me know if there are any remaining problems. -- Shudde talk 10:49, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have seen this but don't have time to continue the review right now, I will be back in a few days to continue. Cheers, —Cliftonian (talk) 18:00, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, have finished my second run-through above. Well done guys, I think we're nearly there. —Cliftonian (talk) 14:58, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Source review from Cliftonian
  • Reference footnotes look good to me, except the text used to link to the full references is a bit unorthodox in some places. For example see the "Wyatt Gould" footnote that on first appearance seems to be sourcing the statement to Wyatt Gould himself, but actually directs below to sport-reference.com. Generally we use the author surname or, failing that, the publisher or website name or something like that, not a description of the page, for this kind of reference.
  • Why aren't the news sources in the small "reftext" as well (use {{refbegin}} and {{refend}})?
  • I don't think you need "The" in The University of Warwick
  • Where is Ansells Ltd based? Ditto John Wiley & sons (capital "S"?) and Robson Books.
    • Ansells states 'England', but they were a brewing company based in Birmingham, but I have no proof that is where it was produced. Robson is a blank, but the Dummies books are in Ontario, so they have been filled in. And yes, it's 'Sons'. FruitMonkey (talk) 19:28, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • You have quite a lot of places where the publisher is given as the web address rather than the actual publisher. For example it should be BBC rather than bbc.co.uk. You have quite a few like this (espnscrum, swanseafc.co.uk, sports-reference).
  • New York Times should be under work, not publisher, and it has The at the beginning. Also put accessdate.
  • Put commons box higher up, directly under the "Footnotes" header, so people will see it

I hope this helps. Cheers and well done again guys. —Cliftonian (talk) 15:54, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hey. I've addressed those remaining comments except your first one: I have used the author name where there is one; otherwise for the news articles I've used the publisher, but for the web references I've gone with the title. This is for two reasons: because many of the citations share the same publisher (for example ESPN) and because using a title will hopefully make identifying the sources a little easier on a mobile device. If you have a better preference for the web sources (that don't have authors), let me know and I'll be happy to oblige. Thanks for your review. Appreciate it. -- Shudde talk 10:22, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • No problem at all. I'd be happier with putting perhaps the publisher then the title ("Newport RFC: Bert Gould Profile", "ESPN: Arthur Gould") or something like that? Apart from that everything looks good now. This nitpick doesn't stand in the way of me giving this article my support for featured article status. —Cliftonian (talk) 11:04, 4 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: Just having a last read-through before supporting. I was a peer reviewer, and have been waiting for a few more comments before writing here. Sarastro1 (talk) 11:42, 22 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Would the "Early years" section be better named as "Family and early years" as a substantial part is about his family.
  • "Gould ran in two of his team's three tries against the wishes of the Newport captain, Charlie Newman, who kept shouting for Gould to "Kick, kick!"": As written, it sounds a little like the captain didn't want to score at all. Maybe "Gould ran in two of his team's three tries, disregarding the instructions of his captain, Charlie Newman, who kept shouting for Gould to "Kick, kick!"" or similar.
  • "Gould was not a regular member of the team, and instead played almost all his club rugby in England.": This may confuse the reader as we just said that he was never dropped by the team. Could we clarify why he did not play? Maybe a change of emphasis: as he played in England, he was not a regular for Newport.

The rest to follow. Sarastro1 (talk) 11:42, 22 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a few changes as per your comments. Let me know what you think. -- Shudde talk 22:38, 22 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And the rest: I'll be happy to support once these comments have been addressed. Sarastro1 (talk) 09:33, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Gould lost his first match as captain, losing by two tries to nil at home, but this was the first of 18 caps he earned leading his country.": Not quite sure that a "but" is justified here given the connection between the two ideas.
  • "Gould lost the team captaincy for the first match to Frank Hill": Do we know why?
    • Simply put, no. My own opinion is that Hill won the match as captain against the Maoris and Wales decide to switch to four threequarters. Gould came back from abroad and was given back his captaincy but lost the next two games. So start of the next season they give it to Hill to see if he can recreate winning ways. Wales still lose so they revert to Gould. But there is no written proof. FruitMonkey (talk) 10:32, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The tournament was a failure for Wales, losing all three matches.": As written, the tournament lost all three matches. Maybe "...who lost all three matches"?
  • "The 1893 Home Nations Championship was in stark contrast to the previous year for the Welsh": I don't think the Championship can be in contrast to a year; maybe "The result of the 1893..."
  • "Played at the Cardiff Arms Park, the pitch had been kept from freezing over the night before by 500 braziers dispersed across the playing field.": As written, the pitch was playing at Cardiff Arms Park.
  • "This led to a slippery ground, with conditions further hampered by a strong wind": Can conditions be hampered? Perhaps "This led to a slippery ground and the conditions were made more difficult by a strong wind" or "This led to a slippery ground; the players were further hampered by a strong wind"
  • when Percy Phillips received quick ball": May confuse the general reader.
  • "Gould requested that the pack heel the ball back quickly in the scrums, to give the backs the ball quickly and allow them to run at the English": Too many "backs", "balls" and "quickly"s in this.
  • "The fund could be seen as a professional fee to Gould, henceforth making him ineligible to play for his country.": Not sure that "could" is the right word here. Either "was" or "could have been" would fit better.
  • "In a move that was seen as an act of hurt pride": Seen by who? Players? Journalists? The public?
  • My only other comment is that we establish at the end that Gould was famous, and a household name. This does not not necessarily come across in the main part of the article. Is there any way that we could show his fame a little earlier? Sarastro1 (talk) 09:33, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not sure how we can address this one. I can try and find some quotes regarding matches in which he played -- press reports etc. Other than that I'm not sure. He was definitely famous; the fact he played for, and captained, Wales for so long would make have made him a household name in the principality.
    • Not a problem then. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:04, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Other than those points upon which I've commented. I should have addressed the remainder of your comments. Please let me know if you have any more problems/questions. Thanks a lot for your help with the article. -- Shudde talk 10:45, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support: There is still one point which needs addressing above, but assuming that one is sorted, I'm happy to support this now. I think it comfortably meets the criteria and reads very clearly to tell an interesting story. I think congratulations are needed for all those involved. (Note: I was a peer reviewer and have done some copyediting of this article) Sarastro1 (talk) 21:04, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Comment: @FAC coordinators: Just a note to say that Cliftonian has kindly completely a source review, but that spotchecks for close paraphrasing etc have not been completed. I'm assuming the co-ordinators are going to want those spotchecks so have added a request at WT:FAC. Hope this is okay. – Shudde talk 03:32, 5 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Shudde, sorry for not responding sooner. As your last FAC, less than a year ago, was spotchecked, I think we can do without one this time round. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:56, 19 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't seen full back as two words - I'd always see/write "fullback" or occasionally "full-back" - maybe this is an Australian or Rugby League thing....?
The Welsh backs continually exposed the three threequarter system used by the English - "repeatedly" better?

Otherwise looks good. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:21, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy with any of fullback, full-back or full back. "Full back" was used before I started contributing to the article so just continued with it for the sake of consistency. Unsure if there is any preference among the three in British English. I've made the other change. Thanks for the comments. -- Shudde talk 05:53, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
ok - made it fullback. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:16, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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