Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Didier Drogba/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 archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 8 October 2014 [1].

Didier Drogba

Nominator(s): Davykamanzi → talk • contribs • alter ego 01:32, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The article is about an Ivorian professional footballer. He is best known for his career at English Premier League club Chelsea where he won three league titles, four domestic titles and the UEFA Champions League in 2011–12. He is the club's fourth highest scorer of all time, and his country's all-time top goalscorer.

The article's initial FAC nomination was not promoted because there were several issues with how it was written and referencing, and since then it has been through a peer review. As of this revision all the issues that surfaced during the previous FAC and the peer review have been addressed, and I believe the article is now ready to be featured.

Comments from Tezero

It dispirits and frustrates me when FACs are archived for lack of activity, so I'll lay down a review here. Keep in mind, for better or for worse, that I know and care very little about soccer, even less than the average American. (I mainly edit and review video game-related articles here, but I've never played Super Mario Strikers even.) These are a few initial comments that by no means constitute a complete review; they're just things that jump out at me. Feel free to annoy me if I somehow forget about this nom.

""will be leaving the club when his contract expires at the end of June"" - why does this need to be in quotes? Especially awkward when the sentence only adds "2012" afterward. Paraphrase or something.
In this entire subsection, there's a little too much "On such and such a date, so and so happened" wording. I mainly notice this in band/musician articles, and it really gets tiring to the eyes, so try to find more varied sentence structures or otherwise introduce the dates in different ways. (Of course, being from Freedom Land, I'm obligated to shed tears at seeing day before month, but I'll have to let that slide here...)
The section "2009–10" has some massively uneven paragraph lengths; see if you can reorganize or repartition information to flatten this out a bit.
In the section "International career", the paragraphs are moreso just quite short on average. I count ten, and I think it could easily be five or six.
"cease fire" - I think it's one word or hyphenated, either one.
"In September 2011, Drogba joined the Truth, Reconciliation and Dialogue Commission as a representative to help return peace to his home nation" - What did he do there? This whole paragraph just kind of tells the reader that he made peace over and over again without a whole lot of details, though I do like the anecdote at the paragraph's opening.
Sources 35 and 130 (The Daily Telegraph and ESPN) are dead links.

Tezero (talk) 08:09, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Davykamanzi, are you still active in this nom? Tezero (talk) 04:32, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Tezero: I haven't really been following the subsequent revisions of the article since I nominated because I've been very busy of late outside Wikipedia but I would say that I'm still active in this nomination. Davykamanzi → talk • contribs • alter ego 12:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, please fix these when you get around to it, and then ping me or something. Tezero (talk) 06:41, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Sarastro

Oppose: Sorry about this, but as a starting point I don't think the sourcing is quite there. I've looked at the lead and the first section and a few things jump out. This oppose is not set in stone, but I require some convincing. There is a lot of good stuff here, but it needs some work to get to FA.

Why are there citations in the lead? The information should be in the main body and cited there. Although not really one of the FA criteria, it is usually better not to have citations in the lead.
Is didierdrogba.com a reliable source? I cannot tell from looking at the site who wrote it or where its information comes from. At best it is an autobiography and may not be entirely trustworthy, but I'd like more information about it.
The early life section uses several sources which have much more information than is presented here. If the above source IS reliable, it contains details about his education, family and other things neglected here. For example, a couple of sources say why his parents moved him to France. But similar detail is available in the newspaper sources cited. This is quite a big issue for me. This is information that should be in the article.
What makes vitalfootball.co.uk a reliable source? Who writes it? It looks to be fan-written from a quick glance.
I also have reservations about TheChels.co.uk
The current ref 148, "Christ-Freddy DROGBA", links to a homepage, not to anything about Drogba.
Ref 193 does not have any information other than a link (publisher, date, etc) and is a redirect of some kind.
Glancing quickly through the rest of the article, it looks to be a little too focussed on 2008 onwards. While the early seasons are covered in a summary, these later dates slip into "On XXX, Drogba did XXX" form, which is a little too much like WP:PROSELINE. FAs should avoid this and give a more general summary.
Finally, I wonder how comprehensive this article can be when it does not refer to any print sources. A quick search of Amazon reveals a 2007 biography of Drogba and a 2008 autobiography. Perhaps there is nothing in either book that is not already in the article, but for this to meet the FA criteria we need to show that it has consulted and represents all the main sources.

These issues come from a very quick look at the article; a closer look might well reveal more. Sarastro1 (talk) 10:53, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment -- This has been open six weeks and doesn't appear to have any prospect of achieving consensus to promote anytime soon. Davykamanzi, I'd recommend you take the time away from FAC to address all the issues noted and perhaps ping Tezero and Sarastro for further input, if they're willing, prior to a renomination here when you have more time to address any comments as they arise. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:37, 8 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, 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. Ian Rose (talk) 11:37, 8 October 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.