Jump to content

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Michael Gomez

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 User:SandyGeorgia 02:24, 3 July 2008 [1].

Michael Gomez

[edit]
Nominator(s): Vintagekits and Risker


Self-nominator : I'm nominating this article for featured article because I've been working on this article for a couple of years now and feel that it meets all featured article criteria. It is well written, complete with images, and very well cited. Hopefully you all agree and we can add another FA to the lot! Its my first ever FA nom so User:Risker has been steering it through the riggers of the FA challenge, especially with respect to getting the referencing up to the required level. I am hoping to have it the FA on 21st of June which is Michael's birthday and the date of his next and probably last ever fight. thanks--Vintagekits (talk) 13:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Because I wasn't terribly familiar with what would be considered a reliable source for an article on a boxer, I asked Ealdgyth to do a pre-FAC check. The results of her review are on the article's talk page. There are "reliability" rationales written up for most of the sites she queried; a few have been eliminated as a result of the copy-edit and her check, and a few more mainstream media sources added. Risker (talk) 14:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "in knockouts.[1][3]His" – a space is missing
  • "round. [3]" – remove extra space
  • Why is "Family and youth" made up of small, stubby paragraphs?
  • "head.[13][6][14]" – place refs in ascending order
  • "Year". [2][16][18]" – remove extra space
  • There are actually a few times when there are spaces before references. Remove those spaces per WP:FOOTNOTE.

Gary King (talk) 16:40, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Otherwise sources look okay. Links all checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Both websites are listed by a Daily Telegraph journalist as being in the top ten websites for boxing information, here. --Vintagekits (talk) 21:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looks borderline acceptable to me. I'll leave this out for others to see (since a lot of folks aren't boxing fans and won't know the sites that well). Like Risker said, I checked over the sites before it was nominated, and the replies are on the talk page. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Neutral Support. Not a bad article by any means, but with serious prose and structural problems that undermine it. I have laid these out below, but be aware that there are only representative problems and the whole article needs to be thoroughly reviewed against these suggestions. Once done, I would be happy to review again.

  • The lead is difficult to read because it is broken into a number of very short paragraphs. Try merging these paragraphs together to reduce their number to three or four at the most and then copyedit it to reduce the information to the most important facts. Don't try to tell his life story in the lead, just give an overview of the article accessible to a reader with no background information. For this reason, it is not necessary (although I personally don't object one way or another) to have sources in the lead as anything stated there should be presented in greater detail below and thus will be sourced in the body of the article.
Lead is much improved, although as mentioned above the sources are not strictly necessary. The third paragraph is a bit of a mess chronologically and many of the sentences don't really seem to lead on from one another, try connecting them a bit better, "Of his 17 fights between February 2001 and March 2008, 16 ended in knockouts." shoudl really come at the end of the paragraph--Jackyd101 (talk) 11:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

*Prose has major problems. I have listed some of them below, but be aware that these are representative problems rather than a complete listing, and if you miss some other reviewers will swoop on them. Go over the article thoroughly to make sure these are dealt with throughout and look at User:Tony1 for his excellent essays on how to improve prose.

  • "and continues to live in that city." - This is an example of redundancy - you don't need to say "in that city" as this is clearly only to avoid saying Manchester twice in one sentence. Try simplifying the prose, such as "He moved to Manchester, England with his family at age nine, where he still lives."
  • "and was the first Irish boxer" - missing word, should be "and he was"
  • "The first cracks in Gomez's career" - Unless cracks is a technical boxing term, this is a cliche which should be avoided at all costs.
  • "On 21 June 2008, Gomez is due to fight in what is seen as possibly his last" - his last what? I know it means fight/bout/match etc. but it should say so explicitly for clarity's sake.
  • "From birth, his upbringing was both turbulent and uncertain." - Cliche and doesn't gel with surrounding sentences. This might be as simple as the insertion of a semi-colon.
  • "Gomez had hit one of the men," - "the men" doesn't read right, because you haven't explicitly mentioned any men. Try "an assailant" or similar instead.
  • "After an initially shaky beginning in the professional ranks" - Redundancy, "initially" and "beginning" mean the same thing in this context.
  • "then went on a" - too simplistic, think of a better way to say it. (i.e. "then began a")
  • "Gomez handled Jickells" - handled has more than one meaning and is a little colloquial, try using defeated instead.
  • "crushing left hook" - unless crushing is a technical term (in which case link it), lose it as it is opinion.
  • "John Munroe, who was sitting ringside, was called over by Ian Darke, at Gomez's request to verify his theory. This turned in to a war of words" - war of words is bad cliche, but the problem here is that the uninitiated have no idea who Munroe (or later Warren) are. Introduce them with their job title (i.e. coach John Munroe) and link them if possible. In fact, that whole sentence is so confusing I can't work out what it is trying to say.
  • "Although Bognar was shaken Gomez was unable to make his power count." - Short simplistic sentence crying out for a second clause.
  • "Gomez wanted to rematch against Bognar, and five months later in July 2001, the pair had a rematch" - rematch twice in one sentence?
  • "in what turned out to be a short and explosive encounter" - Prose is clumsy, and there's that word explosive again.
  • "to put Bognar down" - like a dog? If its not a technical term, avoid it.
  • link KO the first time it is used.
  • "Lear inflicted damage to the nose of Gomez, whose nose began to bleed heavily from the sixth round" - many things wrong here.
  • "At the end of the eight round" - eighth? check spellings throughout.
  • "and the manner in which the fight ended," - having asked for more clauses, here there are too many. Try incorporating the first two.
  • "In what was becoming a predictable pattern in Gomez's career" - unecessary opinion.
  • "A war of words" - again, unless its a technical term, this is a cliche.
  • "Behind the scenes, however, all was not well in the Arthur camp." - cliche
  • I'm going to stop the prose review here. There are plenty of other serious prose problems both before and after the cut off point, but this illustrates the biggest problems ou should watch out for when copyediting and gives you pointers right through the text.
  • "has often been involved in controversial and explosive fights, with 16 of his 17 fights between February 2001 and March 2008 ending in knockouts." - I don't know a huge amount about boxing, but this sentence seems to indicate that any fight which ends in a knockout is therefore controversial and explosive, which I'm pretty sure isn't true. I think I know what the article is trying to say, but the sentences needs to be revised for clarity.
  • The whole third paragraph of the lead seems to be something of a prose list, i.e. a disconnected listing of interesting things, rather than a coherent narrative that connects key facts and events. This is one of the issues that I think needs addressing per my first comment above.
  • The fifth, sixth and seventh paragraphs of the lead go into surprising detail about specific fights. This should be reserved for lower down the article, keeping the lead a brief summary.
  • "The Armstrong family - Linking to Armstrong has no value unless it is a specific link to that particular family (i.e. like Kennedy family).
  • If his name was Armstrong, why is he now Gomez? This has to be explained much earlier, and Armstrong used when referring to him before the date he became Gomez.
  • "His mother had taught him to shoplift as a child and he was involved in petty crime throughout his youth in Manchester." - This is probably sourced by the refs at the end of the paragraph, but just to avoid any BLP problems about a potentially controversial claim, I would give this its own citation.
  • "Gomez lives with his childhood sweetheart Alison and their three children in Manchester.[10]" - This is in the wrong place. In fact, throughout the article discussions of his family life and ring persona etc. are rather randomly interspersed with his biography. The article needs reorganisation to give the biographical parts better narrative flow. I suggest moving the other discussions to sections of their own. In addition, there should be no parargraphs this small. Paragraphs should be as long as they need to be, but are rarely less than three sentences. Small paragraphs break flow and look very untidy.
  • Unless his ring persona was devised in 1995 (in which case you should say so), that section is in the wrong place.
  • "all-out action style" - Is this a technical term? If so, link it, if not, find something that it can link to to explain what it means exactly.
  • "In 2007, a film of his life entitled The Michael Gomez Story" - why is this in Background? It belong much, much further down the page.
  • "Jody Latham, who also plays Lip Gallagher on Shameless and the part of Gomez's best friend and fellow boxer Michael Jennings is played by Emmerdale's Kelvin Fletcher" - Unless the characters they play on those shows has anything to do with their roles in the 2007 film, they should not be mentioned. Simply give the actors names and leave it at that.
  • Don't begin a section with "Soon after, Gomez relinquished" - Sections should grammatically stand alone, so say soon after what, or just remove the first two words.
  • "However, others pointed to his well publicised troubles out of the ring." - Who, how and why just for starters.
  • "Reports also circulated that Gomez was having trouble in his private life and that he had been stabbed in a street fight" - Is this a different stabbing to the one above?
  • "perceived as having been through" - by who; name them or their publications.
  • "The match was turning into a" - tense slips out of alignment here.
  • "Joe Calzaghe pulled out of his arranged fight" - so what? He isn't mentioned earlier as being involved.
  • "After the McDonagh fight Gomez had retired from boxing" - tense
  • "Following two comeback fights against journeyman opposition" - overlinking, this is at least the fourth time you've linked journeyman.
  • "threatened to steamroller" - is this a technical term?
  • "Soon after referee Mickey Vann stopped the fight" - In whose favour?

This extensive list of problems does not, I'm afraid, come close to dealing with all of the article's problems, which are rooted in its prose and unclear structure. I suggest at least three thorough copyedits by three seperate editors and a restructuring to ensure that the first half of the article has a clear narrative. I think the sourcing is good and I like the images, and with some work this article could come a lot closer to FA standard.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking about it, if you want I can give the article a thorough copyedit myself later this week. I'll have to take an axe to certain parts, and I don't know much about boxing so someone will have to check I've not messed up any technical stuff, but if you're interested I'd be willing later in the week (a bit busy the next couple of days). I don't know if he's still around, but I know you were friends with User:One Night In Hackney who is an excellent prose writer, so if he is still here see if you can get him to take a look as well.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments, Jackyd101. I agree with much of what you are saying, particularly with respect to the flow and organization. I'll point out that one of the reasons the article is well sourced is that pretty well every descriptive statement comes right out of a reference source; hence, explosive punches and fights, and crushing left hooks and threatened steamrollering. "He threw an explosive punch" is much better prose than "His punch was described as explosive by Joe Blogg, boxing expert." The second sentence tells us more about the reporter than the subject. Referees stop fights, but not in favour of one boxer or the other; that is the decision of the judges. Gomez has been with his childhood sweetheart for about as long as he has been boxing, and they had their first two children before he started his professional career so, chronologically, that sentence is probably in the right place. The article is a BLP of a person who has lived a life full of extraordinary situations (both negative and positive), and my initial focus was on ensuring the claims were thoroughly but not excessively sourced (I reduced the references by about 40%); by the time I'd done that, I suspect my eyes had glazed over and I missed many of the points you have made. I am all in favour of other eyes and copy editors working on this article; as with all articles, however, it must remain true to its reference material, which in the case of this particular sport, tends to be quite descriptive and to use terminology that might otherwise appear hyperbolic. I don't think ONiH is around any longer (at least not officially), but perhaps Vintagekits has a way to inquire directly. I do encourage you to take a crack at it, and I'll give it another pass tonight or tomorrow as well. Risker (talk) 01:48, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your point about this article sounding like the references it comes from, but Wikipedia is not part of the sports press and as a result Wikipedia articles need to phrase things differently based on encyclopedic prose. This means that subjective adjectives such as "crushing" should only be used when part of a direct quote or when crushing is a technical term - this does not mean that the article should be boring, such is the fine line on which brilliant prose rests. If you plan to keep the whole article chronological (which is fine), then you have to better integrate details of his personal life into the article. At the moment they seem tacked on. The only BLP I saw as potentially being a problem was that thing about his mother teaching him to shoplift - thats pretty controversial and so should be directly sourced.--Jackyd101 (talk) 07:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I'll have to delay my proposed copyedit to the article, I'm going to be much busier than expected this week. If its still under review here in a weeks time I might be more able to help. I will continue to monitor the article however and if it improves I will be happy to strike through comments and reconsider my !vote. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 09:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another thing, "Gomez lives with his childhood sweetheart Alison and their three children in Manchester" - it quoted him in the paper as referring to his "wife and three kids" this morning. If he is married that should be clarified.--Jackyd101 (talk) 19:37, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh really? I have actually been trying to confirm that, the best I had was an interview in November where he called her his fiancee. Is there a link you could provide?

(deindent) Can't find a link, but the ref would be: Davies, Gareth A. (June 18, 2008). "Kahn contest 'surprises' Gomez". Daily Telegraph Sport, p. 19. He is quoted as saying at the end of the article "... I've got a beautiful wife and three kids." That should be good enough I think. I see you have made big changes to the article, it looks much more impressive. Unfortunately I will be in Dublin until Sunday and am unlikely to have access to a computer. I will however make time re-review the article once I return.--Jackyd101 (talk) 20:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would this be the one? Amir Khan contest 'surprises' Michael Gomez Giants2008 (talk) 03:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thats it.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:49, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New comments from Jackyd101

I have completed a copyedit and re-review. I see most of the comments above have been dealt with but for simplicity's sake I have decided to strike them all out and start again below. This new, shorter list covers the problems that the article has, some that were covered above and haven't been adequately addressed and some new ones. I have also done a prose copyedit on the article and it has improved since I last read it but I would recommend further copyedits if they can be obtained. Congratulations on the many improvements in the article and I am much closer to supporting than previously. Well done.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:26, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Gomez won seven straight fights before fighting for his first title belt" - Is there an alternative to one of the "fights/fighting" here?
  • changed second usage to "challenging for his first title belt"
  • "was also named "Young Boxer of the Year"" - by whom?
  • The award is given out at the annual luncheon of the British Boxing Board of Control; however, I cannot find a full list of winners to link to this. Gomez winning the award is mentioned in several sources, including some that aren't used in the article like a 2000 BBC report; it seems the British media regularly refer to the various awards handed out by the BBBC (boxer of the year, overseas boxer of the year, contest of the year, etc) but don't identify who gives it out - perhaps someone more knowledgeable about British boxing can help here. I'll give Vintagekits a poke.
  • "In the ninth round Gomez was stopped after referee Dave Paris" - presumably the fight was stopped, not Gomez specifically.
  • good catch, reworded the sentence
  • "The relationship between Arthur and Gomez would continue to fester, when Gomez attended Arthur's next fight against Ugandan Michael Kizza in Meadowbank, Scotland." How does this indicate their festering relationship? Did Gomez shout rude things at him during the fight or something?
  • Apparently it is some form of boxing etiquette that is over my head; I've reworked the paragraph to eliminate the emotional level.
  • "the highly anticipated domestic clash became a war and from round one was a savage brawl" - if war is a boxing term then link it, if not find a better one. Also link brawl to the boxing term.
  • "brawl" is linked earlier (on "brawling") but I will link it again. I can't find a WP link for "war" but the expression seems to be very common, so I might be able to find it in an online boxing dictionary. Will check, or reword if I can't find it.
  • "threatened to steamroller Johanneson" - steamroller is still there. This is not an enecylopedic term and needs to be changed.
  • replaced with "overpower"
  • The article still goes from the Johanneson fight being stopped straight to Gomez demanding a rematch. Explain that he lost the fight and why, mentioning this business in the following paragraph about Gomez dropping his hands.
  • "Gomez demanded a rematch and said that Vann had stopped the fight early." - Gomez wasn't complaining that it had been stopped early, but that the referee's actions had (in his opinion) caused him to lose. This should be clarified.
  • For the above two comments - I've merged the two paragraphs and restructured what was in the last paragraph to juxtapose Gomez's discussion of the referee's actions with the sentence about the referee stopping the fight.
This is better, but I still don't think it is fully clear what the implications of the referee stopping the fight were to a person (like me) who is not knowledgeable about boxing. It could use a sentence explaining that this decision caused Gomez to loose the fight.
  • "Gomez lives with his wife Alison and their three children in Manchester." - This is in the wrong place, I suggest moving it back up to where his wife is mentioned earlier (as his "lifeliong companion").
  • Hmm...tough call. It refers to his present situation, and you'd expressed concerns about it being up in the "family and youth" section before because it broke the timeline (which I thought was a good point on your part). It seems to flow better there, right after he is quoted about how boxing has brought him his wife and family; sort of a way to wrap up where his years in the ring have led him.
You are right, this should stay where it is. I would however mention when Alison first appears that she is not just his lifelong companion but also specifically his wife.
  • The stuff about the film made in 2007 comes after his fight against Kahn in 2008. Obviously this is chronologically incorrect and I suggest moving it to the relevant point in his career.
  • It's placed at the end because the release of the film is reportedly scheduled for November 2008, which would make it the next (verifiable) significant event in his career, and is comparable with discussions of unreleased films/television programmes in articles about other sportsmen (and actors, for that matter).
You are correct, my mistake.
Summarizing, the following have yet to be addressed:
  • Seeking some form of confirmation of exactly who names the Young Boxer of the Year
  • See if an appropriate online boxing dictionary defines "war" and if not, reword that sentence

Thanks for your copy edit and your comments, I'll try to get this wrapped up in the next day or so. Risker (talk) 05:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nicely done. I've left some comments above and struckout stuff I'm happy with. Good job, the article looks a lot better.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the only thing remaining in the above list is the "Young Boxer of the Year" thing. Any luck on finding out which body gave him this award?--Jackyd101 (talk) 07:35, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's taken a lot of reading of boxing articles (I may never recover!) but I have found that it was handed out by the British Boxing Writers' Club in both 1995[2] and 2007[3], but nothing specifically for his year. I think it is probably reasonable to assume it was given out by that organization when Gomez won it. My inclination is to add this organisation's name to the article, and place the links in this paragraph into a comment on the talk page of the article. Comments? Would that work for everyone? Risker (talk) 17:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Seems reasonable to me. --Laser brain (talk) 17:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Me too. Congratulations, it took a long time to go through all of my comments above, but in the end you have earned my support. Nice job.--Jackyd101 (talk) 17:34, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your feedback. I've added it to the article with the comment on the talk page. Risker (talk) 18:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - I will not nitpick that much, however there are a few things that might need tweaking:

  • In the "Ring persona" subsection there is this statement: "a reference to his Mexican-sounding chosen name", this should be changed to "a reference to his Hispanic-sounding chosen name"; Gomez is actually a very common surname, it is seen throughout Latin America and Spain, it is not more "Mexican-sounding" than "Rodriguez" or "Rivera".
  • I get a felling that the article may overuse the term "belt", this seems particulary notable in the "Early professional career" section, remember that boxers actually fight for the championship that the belt represents, not the belt itself.
  • As far as the references go, I would like more newspaper footnotes but most of the pages used are familiar to me, so I'm not going to push that.

That should do it for now, I may provide further comments once these are attended. - Caribbean~H.Q. 04:55, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. I have watched this article grow over a long time; it is the result of long and laborious hard work. It now meets all FA criteria. Probably, the most complete biography of the subject available in print or on the internet. Wikipedia is fortunate to have it. If I have one minor quibble - it's that I would like to see a concluding paragraph outlining his achievements, contributions to the sport and hopes for the future. In my opinion the page does not need further copy editing; I look forward to seeing it on the main page. Giano (talk) 21:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - Giano's going to be mad at me, but I don't believe this is ready. I second Jackyd31's concerns about the lead and prose, and add these.

  • Background, Family and youth: Are links for wheel and lamp post necessary? And why is youth linked?
  • North Manchester link goes to North Manchester, Indiana.
  • Trouble outside of the ring: Why is pavement linked? Don't even get me started on heart.
  • Early professional career: Gomez as a single name doesn't need a link. Jackyd31 complained about an Armstrong link, and this is another example of that.
  • Move to super featherweight: "walking away with the title on a points victory over 12 rounds." Try mentioned what type of decision it was. These little details are important for any quality article.
  • In the next sentence, it says that Gomez was undefeated. Clarify that it was during that year, because you don't want confusion with his early-career defeats.
  • "and a successful defence" is incorrect grammar, since three opponents are named.
  • Intercontinental or Inter-Continental? Both are used.
  • Bognar fights: "suffering from flu" Should a or the be added?
  • Does Wikipedia have a seperate link for flash knockdown? Jargon such as this should be linked if possible, although I don't see a page here.

I also noticed some peacock and POV words, so this is far from a full list. The most important thing is to get some writing help, hopefully in time to benefit this candidacy. Giants2008 (talk) 02:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to all for the copy-edit feedback; I have been working on revising the article in accordance with the many recommendations you have made, and plan to have it out of my userspace and into the article before I go to bed tonight. After I have posted it, I will ask those of you who made comments to please review the (hopefully) improved article. Risker (talk) 20:01, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The article has now undergone a significant rewrite to address the issues that were highlighted by several reviewers, and I will contact those who had concerns or opposes to ask them to take a second look. I will note that there will probably need to be some content added on Sunday or Monday, as Gomez will be in a major boxing match Saturday night. Risker (talk) 06:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: I've done minor grammatical tweaks, and I've trimmed a few "purple" passages. I hope my translations from sportswriter to English were accurate, and I hope the author(s) will correct me if they were not. The minor grammatical rough spots I found were mostly due to the evil of footnote codes (people end up with comma splices when they have to type in ref=thisthisthattheother and then close; by that point, they can't remember whether they had an independent or dependent clause back there). I'm not a general fan of living person biographies as FA's, but that doesn't hinder my saying that this fits the criteria. Also, as a complete aside, I wonder if this fellow wasn't the model for "Micky" in Snatch (film): he, too, is a feather weight brawler, and the timing fits pretty well. Just a thought. Geogre (talk) 12:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, this is the guy that inspired the character.--Vintagekits (talk) 14:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Heads up - video is NSFW and you may need to cover the ears of any nearby youngsters. :-) Risker (talk) 14:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After the extensive re-write, I've returned for a second look. Here are more comments.

  • Ireland is linked in the lead, but England isn't. Either link both or neither.
  • Done
  • Is "knock-out" correct. I only ask because knockout is used as one word before this part.
  • Done
  • I still think the lead could be improved. The third paragraph is longer than the rest of the lead combined, and the fourth paragraph is a single sentence. I recommend splitting the third paragraph and merging the single sentence into the resulting fourth paragraph.
  • Fourth para has been extended with an additional sentence on the result of the fight
  • Background, Family and youth: Is Alison's maiden name known?
  • It isn't mentioned in any of the references; her given name is mentioned in only two.
  • Early professional career: "He chose the his ring name".
  • Oops. Corrected.
  • Still see "Gomez defeated Jickells with ease", which may be POV to some.
  • Reworded.
  • Move to super featherweight: I still would like to know if the Manjarrez fight ended in a unanimous decision.
  • Can't find the information in any of the reference sources, and have done an online search for anything else, without result. After doing some reading on quite a few fights involving a range of boxers, it seems that news reports tend not to include detailed information on whether the judges' decisions were split or unanimous unless there is a controversy,.
  • "with another run of six wins and successful defence of the British super featherweight title against Dean Pithie, Carl Greaves and Ian McLeod." Successful defence looks awkward to me, although this could be the British English. Should defence be made plural?
  • changed to "with another run of six wins, and successfully defended his British super featherweight title..." to improve comprehensibility
  • "Gomez's trainer Brian Hughes retired Gomez" Redundant. I would go with "Gomez's trainer Brian Hughes retired his fighter". Also, Hughes' first name should probably be removed from the next paragraph.
  • Done
  • "and was convicted of four drink-drive offenses." Is "drink-drive" correct in British English? Perhaps pipe a link to Driving under the influence.

Looks much better, and I dropped my oppose above. Still needs some work, but the re-write has improved it. Giants2008 (talk) 18:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments, all addressed. Risker (talk) 02:59, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Alex Arthur fight: The is normally not used as the first word of a section header. This should be titled Alex Arthur fight.
Fixed
  • Hyphen for "highest profile"?
According to my grammar book, it is correct ("two or more words modifying a substantive and used as a single adjective" - McGraw Hill Handbook of English, 4th ed.)
  • "Gomez proved his critics wrong when on he arrived at the fight".
Fixed
  • Paragraph five of the section is strangely ordered. The two previous knockdowns should probably go before the KO itself.
Reworked the paragraph
  • WBU world title: "in his next two fights over" Picky, but I think "over" should be "against"
Yes, I agree. Fixed.
  • The quote from Gomez here needs an inline citation.
Removed, it wasn't in the references and the one place where I found it wasn't a reliable source
  • "defense.[28][29]Alvarez" needs a space after references.
Fixed
  • "Gomez beat the count" I'm concerned about count being jargon. Do we have a link that illustrates a referee's 10 count?
Wikilinked to Professional boxing#Scoring
  • "with Gomez leading according to pundits" Which pundits?
The pundits from the three reference sources at the end of the paragraph.
  • Return to the ring: Third paragraph is one sentence. I recommend combining this with a surrounding paragraph.
Combined as suggested.

Giants2008 (talk) 20:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Giants2008, edits made.
  • Still in Return to the ring: Comma after "promised to knock each other out". While on the subject, why are there so many pre-fight predictions and general bragging from all sides? It's not like this is something unusual for boxing; comments like these are made before virtually every big fight. I could understand this treatment for Muhammad Ali but not so much in this case.
Fixed the sentence. As to the number of predictions for this fight particularly, one has to expxlain why this was reportedly a "highly anticipated fight" (according to the reference sources).
  • Don't needs Carl Johanneson's first name twice in this section.
It was actually there three times, the first time in reference to CJs' fight with someone else (left in place), the second time as part of a list of potential fighters (left in place because the other fighters had their full names, for ease of reading), and the third one removed.
  • Vital question: Why did Mickey Vann call the fight? Was Gomez considered to be unsteady on his feet or taking punishment? I don't trust having Gomez's opinion alone because no fighter thinks they should be stopped by a referee no matter how hurt he/she is.
Added "unsteady on his feet" as it is described by one of the reference sources.
  • Amir Khan fight: Refs 52 and 53 have an extra space after punctuation.
Corrected
  • "and cut Gomez above the eye before the round ended." Which eye? Surely this will be in the post-match report.
Left eye, added
  • In the second paragraph, something is wrong with the last two sentences. It looks like this is supposed to be two quotes, but only one is given. Why would Khan admit he has a glass jaw? Also, why is certainly needed in the last sentence if not part of a quote?
Ah yes, a little bit of drive-by IP editing that I'd missed. Quote corrected, and the rest of the (unreliably sourced) addition removed.
  • Shouldn't the pre-fight predictions and quotes by Gomez be moved to the start of the paragraph? It works much better there.
Ordinarily, I would agree with you. In this case, the one thing that was consistent in all of Gomez's pre-fight interviews was his discussion about his family; it doesn't take much reading between the lines to see this was intended as his last fight. Hence the placement of this section after the fight itself, so that it can lead into the "what's next" of the film. It also allowed a more logical placement of the statement about his family, which would have been as out of place in a paragraph before the fight—it's a relevant fact but needs an anchor.
  • Is Gomez's quote about the film cited later in the paragraph?
Yes, one of the later references is where he says it, but I have added a ref for the quote as well.
The final part is a little rough as of this review, but that is predictable after the recent changes. I still don't like the lead and think that part of the third paragraph should be combined with the fourth paragraph to improve balance. That's all from me. Giants2008 (talk) 18:38, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for all of your comments, Giants2008. I've responded to your above points, and have played around with the lede as well. Risker (talk) 06:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: The lede and final section of the article have been updated to reflect the outcome of the Khan fight. All of the references used are mainstream media, so should not be a concern. Risker (talk) 05:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on images

  • Support My son is an amateur boxer (teenager leagues) so I get an education from him on the sport all the time. This article is well written, comprehensive and well sourced. Great job! Just a note - the sentence preceeding reference number 53 does not seem to have the quotation marks in the right place. The reference cited only seems to quote part of that sentence, not the entire thing.NancyHeise (talk) 06:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments regarding images:
Flag icon removed. As noted above, I have emailed Vintagekits about the photos; he's a little preoccupied right now dealing with an arbitration enforcement issue, but he is aware this needs to be addressed. Thanks. Risker (talk) 03:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Issues resolved. --Laser brain (talk) 03:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "He was forced to change his name by the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC)" He had to legally change his name, or is more of a "stage name" used only in his career? Please clarify in the prose.
Good question, I don't think it has ever been addressed in any of the reference sources. I will check with Vintagekits, I hope he knows.
    • "... and he also suffered a reversal to Danny Ruegg." Unsure what this means.
Removed this phrase, it isn't needed and could be confusing to readers.
    • "During 1999, Gomez won four title belts, was undefeated during the year ..." No need for two "durings".
Reworded.
    • You don't capitalize some terms consistently.. "WBO Inter-Continental Super Featherweight" and then "WBO Inter-Continental super featherweight"
    • "... but Bognar recovered from this knockdown and kept Gomez from closing in with his southpaw jab." Confusing.. could be either person's southpaw jab.
Reworked the sentence
    • "Gomez sought a rematch against Bognar, and five months later in July 2001 the pair met again, this time in Manchester, resulting in a quick victory for Gomez." A quick victory is a fourth-round KO after being knocked down himself?
Removed the word "quick"
    • You alternately use the possessives "Gomez's" and "Gomez'". The former is correct, please check throughout.
Fixed
    • You have an unspaced em dash in one place and spaced one in another place.. please make consistent and use either unspaced em dashes or spaced en dashes for pauses in text.
I went through the article twice, and had someone with fresh eyes read through it, and neither of us could find spaced en dashes (although I know at one point another editor went through and put several in). Could you please point out where you saw them, and I would be happy to change them to the unspaced em dash format.
I fixed it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:18, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Quotes have been revised, with a couple of sentences reworked to put the quotes at the end. It's not entirely clear to me how logical punctuation deals with the quoting of a full sentence in the middle of another sentence, and this isn't the place to have that discussion.
Responded to everything I could, but need to follow up on the legal name vs. ring name issue. Thanks. Risker (talk) 03:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Risker, since the nom is MIA, can you ping Laser and Giants for a new look? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Will do, Sandy. I see LaserBrain showed up of his own volition. Risker (talk) 03:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I left my final round of comments above. Giants2008 (talk) 18:38, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With the nom MIA, who's doing these changes? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note here that the nom is currently indefinitely blocked. --Laser brain (talk) 18:05, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Risker has done all of the recent work here. If he isn't going to handle these I may take care of them myself. Giants2008 (talk) 20:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll keep going on this. The "indef" is indefinite in the true sense of the word, the current debate is whether or not it will be time served or extended, but I will leave that to other admins to sort out. In the interim, I have been in contact with Vintagekits and have straightened out a few things. In particular, the rights for the images is currently working its way through the OTRS permissions line-up; it may take a few days because it is moving through a circuitous route due to some email problems, but it is coming. I'll get to the rest of the suggestions shortly; just a little occupied right now. Thanks. Risker (talk) 21:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And Giants2008's latest comments are addressed. As well, I have reworked the sentence that referred to a fight as a "war". On reviewing the references, it's pretty clear that he still uses the surname Armstrong, so there is no reason to believe it was a legal name change; I've thus reworked the sentence about him assuming the Gomez surname to indicate it is a professional name. The rights tags on the images are borderline per El Cobbola, but information is en route to OTRS permissions. I think I have covered everything from all the various comments. Risker (talk) 06:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - When this first came here I didn't think it had a chance. A lot of work has been put in to keep this going, and I commend Risker for not giving up on this. I do believe this meets standards now. Giants2008 (talk) 18:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your kind words, Giants2008. They are very much appreciated. Risker (talk) 18:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Michael_Gomez&oldid=1143389030"