Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Belgium national football team/archive2
- 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 Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 14:31, 24 December 2016 [1].
- Nominator(s): Kareldorado (talk) 19:06, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
This article is about the joint 10th oldest national association football team worldwide, a team that achieved an Olympic gold medal and topped the FIFA World Rankings. The needed attention has been paid to the description of all of the team's aspects throughout its long history, and to illustration with suitable images. In a prior FAC, it received plenty of positive feedback, but ultimately several issues related to prose and referencing came up. In response, intense efforts further smoothened the text and lifted the references to a very high standard. I feel confident that this article is FA-worthy now, but of course, any suggestions to further fine-tune its text or lay-out will always be welcome. Thank you for your comments! Kareldorado (talk) 19:06, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Looks very good. Support. A few points:
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I haven't gone further in because I got bored not being able to find glitches. :-) Must remember your username. Tony (talk) 07:27, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
- (reacting to just 1 point) I certainly agree about the flagicons, although it seems to be the de facto standard on all national footbal team articles to display the biggest win / loss in that way (even on the Featured Articles). Their 'chaotic display' and small relevance in an infobox (in my opinion) led me to gain some consensus to remove the parameters from that template in the past, although that was later undone. Instead of removing it, perhaps we can try launching a tidier way by removing the flagicons on this and other Featured Articles, and then try getting consensus to do it on all NFT articles. –Sygmoral (talk) 15:51, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
- Hi, thanks for the feedback and your exercises on better writing. Very soon I will reply to the points you came up with. Even though you stopped scanning I do invite you to keep going, since you brought up a couple of new things and are likely to find more points no one else would retrieve. The prose should be vivid enough to keep you reading. :-) Regards, Kareldorado (talk) 18:31, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
- Sygmoral, good idea, thanks. Tony (talk) 09:21, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
- Support. Having positively reviewed this on previous occasions, I still consider this an examplary article and a canon for other articles to follow. Excellent piece of work and an encyclopaedic standard. Good work. Parutakupiu (talk) 15:28, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
A few further and minor issues
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Remarkable for a second-language speaker. Tony (talk) 09:38, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks, in fact even third-language speaker, after French. :D Well, your copyediting exercises and the input of native-English-speaking copyeditors surely helped me a lot! Kareldorado (talk) 17:03, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
- Support on comprehensiveness and prose. Nought else to add really. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:06, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
- Comments: I've followed the evolution of this article with great enthusiasm. Karel has done an excellent job. Nonetheless, I still have a critical eye for a few points that I think can be addressed for this FA review prior to supporting the nomination.
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Hi MarshalN20, I considered the issues you came up with as 'resolved' (and therefore stacked them in the Resolved box just above), but could you please return to give this nomination a support or oppose? Regards, Kareldorado (talk) 21:53, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
- Support - While I still disagree with some aspects of the article, it's important to keep in mind that Wikipedia is a work in progress. The current state of the article is, regardless of my minor disagreements, certainly of featured quality.--MarshalN20 Talk 18:33, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks, Marshal. It is OK to disagree here and there; I hope that later on we can keep the discussions ongoing to keep on striving for perfection. Thanks for the useful sources you indicated me, not in the least Henshaw's work. Happy editing, Kareldorado (talk) 18:42, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Coord notes
- I didn't see an image licensing review above, not a source review for formatting and reliability -- you can request those at the top of WT:FAC.
- Housekeeping: we had a spotcheck of sources for accuracy and avoidance of close paraphrasing in the previous nom and there appeared to be no major concerns so I don't think we need repeat that here. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:21, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Comments from Edwininlondon
Hi Kareldorado, sorry for being so late with my comments. Although the article looks better than at FAC1, I'm still not convinced it meets FA. My comments, starting with the lead:
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- the paragraphs in the lead lack focus: the results are mentioned in all 3 paragraphs. They should be combined, all in the first: gold medal at Olympics, 2nd place 1980, 3rd in 1972, 4th in 1986. And that they topped the FIFA ranking between Nov 2015 and March 2016.
- I found the lead pleasant to read, but have to admit Manchester City's lead (also FA) looks more straightforward than the current of Belgium's NFT or, for instance, that of the Peru national football team (no offense, Marshal). I have tried to rewrite it, please tell me how you like this:
The Belgian national football team has officially represented Belgium in association football since their maiden match in 1904. The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) is its supervising body; at the global level Belgium's team is governed by FIFA, at the continental level by UEFA. Most of their home games are played at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels.
Periods of regular Belgian representation at highest international level, from 1920 to 1938, and 1970 to 2002, have alternated with mostly unsuccessful qualification rounds. From the quadrennial major football competitions, Belgium's national team has participated at the end stages of twelve FIFA World Cups, five UEFA European Football Championships, and three Olympic football tournaments. The most notorious results were their Olympic gold medal in 1920, ending as European vice-champions in 1980 and their fourth position at the 1986 World Cup. Other notable performances were topping the FIFA World Rankings (from November 2015 to March 2016), and the wins against four reigning world champions: West Germany, Brazil, Argentina and France. As of 2016, Belgium competes in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
The 1960s and early 1970s were the period of Paul Van Himst, the most-praised Belgian footballer of the 20th century. After his national player career, Belgium experienced two golden ages with many gifted players. Belgium has long-standing football rivalries with its Dutch and French counterparts, having played both teams nearly every year from 1905 to 1967. The squad has been known as the Red Devils since 1906; its fan club is named "1895".
Kareldorado (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
- the first paragraph has info that I think belongs elsewhere: "The squad is under the global jurisdiction of FIFA and is governed in Europe by UEFA—both of which were co-founded by the Belgian team's supervising body, the Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA)". This would be appropriate in the RBFA's first paragraph, but not the team's. I'd move it down. Same for the stadium they play in. Okay in lead, but not in first paragraph.
- I agree about that I over-emphasised the RBFA, but disagree about the stadium. Their stadium is their "playground", ever since 1930. Kareldorado (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
- "Belgium's national team have .." --> The opening sentence uses the singular for team ("has officially represented") but here you use plural.
- I agree why you disagree. I'd opt for singular to be consequent. See my newer version above. Kareldorado (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
- "supporters' group" --> fan club?
- Check! See my newer version above. Kareldorado (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
- The current coach should be mentioned in the lead, methinks
- Ok, but would it fit better in paragraph 1 or 3? Kareldorado (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
- Coming back to this point, I think mentioning him is not absolutely necessary since it does not add anything to the infobox at the right. Of course, some facts from the infobox are mentioned in the lead as well, but these are wrapped up in some additional information or help making the lead narrative. Kareldorado (talk) 19:31, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
- Something about world Cup 2018 qualification should be in the lead as well
- Ok, but would it fit better in paragraph 2 or 3? Kareldorado (talk) 18:48, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
- Keeping Marshal's advice in mind that the third chapter can help to 'bring the past to the present', I would mention this in the third part. Kareldorado (talk) 19:31, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
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The rest of the article: the structure doesn't work for me. Rivalries is closely connected to the history, but are far apart. Management before home stadium is questionable. The Actions section (odd header) is misplaced and too long compared to other sections, given its relative weight.
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I'll do more later. Edwininlondon (talk) 18:16, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
Comments – I read through the article and must say that I am very impressed by it. Having made several copy-edits, I have only a few comments to make.
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If these issues are resolved, I'm inclined to support FA status for the article, as it was a great read throughout. Well, not the part about the 2014 World Cup round of 16 game, but then we shouldn't have kept it tied that long anyway. Giants2008 (Talk) 20:34, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the constructive remarks. I agree the prosaic level of the current lead is higher than the proposed one, however, Edwin did bring up some relevant concerns. I'll start with slight modifications. This weekend, I will try to implement your proposed changes. As a small consolation about the particular sentence, I make you remember that the first ever US–Belgium encounter ended in a dry 3–0 win. :) Kareldorado (talk) 20:40, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
- Support – I'll accept the explanation provided for the repeated wikilinks, in the interest of expediting the FAC. While I'd still prefer to see some of them cut, the article is strong enough overall that I won't prevent one nit-picky issue from further delaying my support. I hope to see more of your work at FAC in the future, if the level of this article is any indication. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:11, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for your support, Giants. You did make a constructive remark with regard to overlinking. I'll run through the links soon, allow double links for very important concepts, and try to avoid multiple linking and double links for less important concepts. Kareldorado (talk) 17:18, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
- Done. Kareldorado (talk) 18:57, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
- Support – I'll accept the explanation provided for the repeated wikilinks, in the interest of expediting the FAC. While I'd still prefer to see some of them cut, the article is strong enough overall that I won't prevent one nit-picky issue from further delaying my support. I hope to see more of your work at FAC in the future, if the level of this article is any indication. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:11, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Image check - all OK
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Unfortunately there are some problems with image usage in this article, I fixed several of them, these 3 points should be OK now:
However, a few images cannot be used in their current form or need further checking:
These 4 images should be replaced or removed, if the mentioned problems cannot be resolved otherwise (all other not listed images are checked and OK). They could always be re-inserted, if these issues can be fixed later. The management portraits would be nice to have, but none of the affected images seems really essential to understand the article. GermanJoe (talk) 03:09, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
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GermanJoe, as you might have noticed I wiped out the four problematic images and inserted three 'new' ones: the illustration at subsect Side Activities, the alternative picture of Martínez, and the Euro 1980 final line-ups at subsect UEFA European Championship. Do you see any image issues remaining, or do you consider all images to be OK now? Kareldorado (talk) 12:52, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
- Kareldorado, all new images are usable and correctly licensed. Thanks for these fixes, I have updated the status above - all OK. GermanJoe (talk) 13:16, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
Source review - spotchecks not done
- FN15, 30, 31, 34, 39, 145, 224: page?
- FN15&153: the source with missing page was redundant, so I dropped it.
- FN30&31: problematic. I don't have access to the book in ref 30 now. The fact that this quote is written in the book with ref 30 (Guldemont, 1978) is given in ref 31. At the time I read that magazine, I thought the page number of the article would not be that important. For now, I substituted this sentence with another sentence.
- FN34: the source lacks numbers. Can I point to the particular (numberless) Google Book page somehow, you think?
- FN39: same as FN34
- FN145: the entire book deals about this.
- FN224: this source was used in the Euro 2000 Wikipedia article, but without page number, so I'll drop it. Kareldorado (talk) 19:03, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
- If you're citing sources that lack pagination, you should provide some other means of narrowing down where in the book we should look for this information - for example, using section name or number. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:07, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
- FN59, 174, 201: newspaper name should be italicized
- Ok, I corrected this. Kareldorado (talk) 19:11, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
- Don't think FN80 is necessary
- The colours of the Belgian may seem quite obvious... for now I will leave it, but if someone else also objects I will drop it. Kareldorado (talk) 15:53, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
- Why does FN101 have a location when the other newspapers do not?
- No idea. Someone else introduced this reference, but I don't see the need of mentioning the location and therefore dropped it now. Kareldorado (talk) 15:53, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
- The use of FN118 here seems to be OR - it demonstrates that an album by that title exists, not that it has any relation to the subject being discussed
- This relation seems extremely plausible, but I cannot find a source demonstrating this. Because of this (and also because it is a minor side remark) I will drop this part. Kareldorado (talk) 15:53, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
- Website names are sometimes being italicized, sometimes not
- This is not intentional, but purely depends on whether Wikipedia's template italicises that type of source (newspaper/magazine/"regular" website/...) Kareldorado (talk) 18:06, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
- Since Lulu.com is a self-publisher what makes McColl a high-quality reliable source?
- Good remark. I just replaced this reference and the one mentioned just after it by a reference to a catalog from the Belgian National Archives, which refers to its own source. Kareldorado (talk) 15:53, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
- A number of your Google Books links are broken. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:35, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
- Ok, I fixed them. Kareldorado (talk) 20:52, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for this thorough review, Nikkimaria. According to Ian Rose's comment above, a spotcheck was not needed again following the one in the previous nomination. Kareldorado (talk) 15:53, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
- I finished with answering your remarks, Nikkimaria. Feedback would be very welcome. Kareldorado (talk) 19:58, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Coordinator note: Before we promote this, I just want to check with Nikkimaria that the changes to the sources are OK. Also, did we check whether Edwininlondon was happy with the changes made? Sarastro1 (talk) 23:57, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, fine by me. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:04, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, fine by me. Edwininlondon (talk) 10:25, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
- Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro1 (talk) 14:31, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.