Wikipedia:Featured article review/New Jersey Devils/archive1

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

Review commentary

The article was promoted in November 2006 and has not been kept up to featured article standards. I'll outline below some specific issues, but overall there are a lot of citation issues, dead links, and prose problems.

1.a. well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard

A copyedit would help here. The writing style seems just slightly outdated and has not been kept up with since the FAC was passed, specifically all of the information about the team that has been plugged in since 2006. Examples include:

"Martin Brodeur, their longtime goalie signed to the team for two additional years, and ended speculation that his career was over. He will enter his 21st season, after turning 40 on May 6, 2012, during the Stanley Cup Playoffs second round, game 4 against the Philadelphia Flyers." -- this has passed by now?
"Goalie Johan Hedberg and rookie goalie Keith Kinkaid were used when Brodeur was injured however neither of them performed well enough to help the Devils put anything together."

1.b. comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context

Article doesn't neglect any major facts, as I'll explain a few points down.. it instead has too much information in many spots.

1.c. well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate

For some of the older history, it's okay. Anything from 2001 through present time, have to say no.

1.d. neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias

Some spots need attention.. for example "The team would now be playing right in the middle of the New York–New Jersey–Connecticut tri-state area, home to the three-time defending Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders, as well as the very popular New York Rangers." --- "the very popular New York Rangers"?

1.e. stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process

No problems here.

2.a. lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections

Doesn't look too bad, however per WP:LEDE it shouldn't have any citations in it. All of the info is covered and sourced in the article.

2.b. appropriate structure: a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents

I believe this is still pretty OK, compared with all of the other NHL team articles. I do wonder, though if any of the "Team identity" or "Players and personnel" subsections can be combined?

2.c. consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)

No, for the most part. A good chunk of sources are not consistently formatted, many aren't even slightly formatted.
Many spots in the article are currently not sourced at all, mainly in the "2001–2007: A third Cup and the lockout" and "2007–2013: Move to Newark and Return to the Finals" sections. The first three paragraphs in the 2007-2013 section don't have a single source, as well as two paragraphs in the middle, and the final two paragraphs at the end of the section.
There are sections that are completely unsourced, such as "Home arenas", "Affiliate teams", and "Television and radio" and a very good amount of "Players and personnel"
Many dead and problematic links

3. Media: It has images and other media, where appropriate, with succinct captions, and acceptable copyright status. Images included follow the image use policy. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.

Looks OK, but could use a review from someone more experienced with images.

4. Length: It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style

No, in some places. Excessive details on each season aren't necessary when we're dealing with an article that should cover the team's history. For example, the biggest paragraph in the entire article is currently a very detailed play-by-play of how the team did in the 2012 playoffs. All of that belongs on the article for the team in that season.

I don't believe this article would even pass a good article nomination in its' current state. A lot of work needs to be done here. Gloss 00:34, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See instructions at WP:FAR; you only raised the concerns on article talk two days ago.[1] Is there an earlier FAR notice? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:33, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like some of the other listings at FAR/FARC didn't even get a talk page notice, so I wasn't sure how strictly that part is being followed. Forgive me if I jumped the gun. Gloss 02:00, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of any other FAR that did not have a talk page notification. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:35, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The one you nominated (Gas metal arc welding), doesn't look like it had any concerns raised on the talk page since 2011 before you nominated it for FAR. So I was going to jump right to the FAR since this article did have concerns raised about it being an FA with this thread also in 2011: Talk:New Jersey Devils#Recentism, but I added another notice a few days ago since I didn't know how recent the notice had to be. G loss 00:05, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gloss, older notifications are okay - the idea of the talk-page step is to see whether there are people willing to step in and help get the article up to standards without a full review. But the section you point to is not so much concerns about it being FA so much as a suggestion that a new article could be created from this one and brought to FA status. I think we'll put this on hold for a few days. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, not a problem at all. Again, my apologies. G loss 01:13, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Gloss did let us know at WP:HOCKEY, so there is that. I won't make any promises about fixing it up, but I will try to give the article a read over today or tomorrow to see how much work is required and whether I want to bring it back to FA level at this time. Reso lute 15:23, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. I've just copyedited the lead and the Kansas City/Denver sections, and no, I don't believe the FA status can be saved without a tremendous amount of work. I could copyedit the entire thing, but massive amounts of the article are completely unsourced and I really don't have the inclination to do the kind of research necessary on this article. I would happily support someone else if they were to take that work on, however. This article truly is a relic of another era in Wikipedia's history. Reso lute 23:57, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

From a glance, I'm quite concerned about the amount of unsourced content. In fact, when an article contains multiple completely unsourced sections/subsections, that alone is an automatic fail for GA. Snuggums (talk / edits) 01:43, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Um, but you all are commenting on a FAR page that is not at FAR, because it's on hold. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:52, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It won't be on hold forever and I find it unlikely much changes between now and then. If it does change, my only comment has been to note the amount of work required. SNUGGUMS' comment is similar. Reso lute 15:31, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I can't disagree with the basis of the FAR and thought the article was in a shoddy state when I first learned there was going to be an FAR. I've begun to work on improving it and have finished a couple of the history sections. My schedule here and elsewhere is full, but I'm going to try devoting more time to polishing up the rest of the article in the hopes of being able to pull off an improbable save. Giants2008 (Talk) 03:39, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Confident in your ability to restore-- please ping when we should have a new look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:25, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Image review. I have nominated File:KovalchuckMapleLeafs.png for deletion. The others seem OK. DrKiernan (talk) 20:00, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just to give everyone an update, I've just about finished citing the history sections and am going to start working on the other sections. Progress has been slower than I had wanted, but it's getting there. Giants2008 (Talk) 18:02, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Giants2008, we are approaching two months now ... how is it going? Should we move this to FARC just to keep the process on track? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- If you all think it needs to be moved to the next stage, don't let me stop you. There are still a few areas that I want to add cites to anyway. Giants2008 (Talk) 23:02, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

Primary concerns raised during the review include verifiability, comprehensiveness, and length (wrt summary style). Maralia (talk) 15:34, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The citation situation is looking much better. Giants2008, could you give us an overall update? Thank you for all the work you're putting in here. Maralia (talk) 00:52, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- I've been too busy recently to do much to the article, but I think it's almost there. There's still one paragraph that I know of that ends without a cite, so that still needs to be fixed. Things should clear up for me within the next week to 10 days, and I'll try to wrap up my work on the article then. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:08, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I'm not seeing any obvious problems, and judging from the lack of delists, neither is anyone else. DrKiernan (talk) 09:06, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – After some more copy-editing and sourcing, by myself and others, I think the article is finally there. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:01, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, Giants, what a ton of work you have done! I'm looking through now; on this ...

= current Devils player

see WP:COLOR on accessibility issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:43, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It looks grand to me. @Gloss: the nominator. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:47, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This has definitely improved. Aside from Sandy's comments on accessibility, the only issue I can see is how "Fans" is too short to warrant a separate section (only two sentences), and I'm not sure it's even notable enough to include. Snuggums (talk / edits) 22:50, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: I went ahead and removed the "Fans" section since its significance was questionable and was too short for a separate section. Looking through again, should "Hall of Famers" be in list form or prose? Snuggums (talk / edits) 03:29, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno ... defer to others ... I usually object pretty strongly to any sort of listiness in articles, but that one isn't grating on me. I do wonder if the section heading "Hall of Famers" is too colloquial, and if it should just be "Hall of Fame"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:41, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I don't have nearly as much free time as I had in January when I opened this up. On a quick scan, it looks much better. Good job, Giants2008. I don't see any major issues left, but again, I don't have the time or energy to look deeply into it. G loss 02:49, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging DrKiernan, Giants2008, Maralia, and Resolute for input on whether it's better to use list form or prose on sections like "Hall of Famers". Snuggums (talk / edits) 04:57, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I like the flow at Calgary Flames. Following that format, I changed the section header to "Hall of Fame honorees", made it a subsection of "Honored members", and took a stab at rewriting it in prose form. I think it's an improvement; take a look? Maralia (talk) 06:42, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It does look better now :). I can now confidently say keep as the article has no outstanding issues. Snuggums (talk / edits) 06:47, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote the Calgary Flames article, so naturally, I prefer prose. ;) But it would always come down to being case by case, as prose for a team with only a handful of Hall of Famers is easy. When you get into the dozens like Montreal and Toronto, it becomes impractical. In those cases, a prose introduction with a list is better. Reso lute 15:00, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Maralia's improvement was reverted, so we now have redundant prose in the list ... everyone's entry reads similarly. If a list is preferable to prose, at least it has to be written better. Oknazevad, since there seemed to be consensus here, pls discuss. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:42, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As I said in my revert edit summary, it just comes off as a dijointed wall of text; it's really too long for one paragraph. It still reads like a choppy list. And there is no flow between the sentences; each sentence stands on its own too much. If they were each separate paragraphs it would deal better with the flow issue, but each would be a fragmentary bit that might as well have a bullet point. So that's exactly what they have. In short, the prose read terribly. It works better as a list. oknazevad (talk) 02:07, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I preferred the prose, personally. Can I try making the flow a little better? Giants2008 (Talk) 02:12, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For everyone's benefit, I have a cleaned up version of the text at User:Giants2008/Sandbox. I must say that it looks reasonable to me and didn't seem to flow too badly. It was also three paragraphs, not one. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:11, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Others may want to wordsmith, but it is quite nicely done, and a considerable improvement over the boring listy prose now in the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:25, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I put it back in a few moments ago. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:24, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I attempted a fix at the WP:COLOR problem by adding an asterisk on the colored fields. If that is settled, then I'm a Keep. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to make a similar edit to yours yesterday and saw this. Thanks for doing that! I lost my network access temporarily and couldn't edit here, so it worked out for the best. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:12, 5 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, excellent progress and congrats to everyone for pulling together on this. --Laser brain (talk) 01:43, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Closing note: This removal candidate has been kept, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:46, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.