Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mets–Phillies rivalry/1

Mets–Phillies rivalry

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Result: Kept. There is no agreement that the article does not meet GA criteria. Concerns regarding neutral wording are advised to be worked out on the talkpage. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 22:29, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article attempts to establish a relatively long history for the Mets-Phillies rivalry. However, many of the items listed as incidents of the rivalry are not supported by reliable sources. For example, the first section is a perfect game thrown by a Philadelphia pitcher against the Mets in 1964. And, while the event is sourced, none of the sources contend that this event was the beginning of a substantial rivalry. Another event listed in the article is the trade of a popular New York pitcher to the Phillies. Again, the event itself is sourced, but none of the sources suggests that this contributed to the two teams disliking each other. I believe that most of the information presented within is the product of revisionist history and original research. A conclusion is being brought forth that the sources do not suggest. Thus I believe the article should be stripped of its "good" ranking. Thank you.Ultimahero (talk) 07:34, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with some of Ultimahero's criticisms, though mine are more limited in scope. The article does indeed attempt to stretch sources to imply that a rivalry between the Mets and Phillies has been ever present. As a lifelong Mets fan, I do not remember that to be the case, nor, as Ultimahero rightly points out, do the citations in the article seem to support that conclusion. I do believe that there has been an intense Mets-Phillies rivalry in recent years, and the article warrants existence and an emphasis on recent events for that reason.

However, my other fear is that the supposed "history" of this rivalry is also infecting other articles. I noticed on several other Met rivalry pages such as Mets-Braves rivalry and Mets-Yankees rivalry that the Phillies were being referred to as the Mets "primary rivals" when there was no citation for such an assertion. To be fair, I deleted those mentions and they were not reverted. However, on the page for New York Mets, I tried to trim down what I saw as an excessive blurb and undue weight on this rivalry, and was heavily reverted by User:SNIyer12 on the basis of the GA status of this article, as if that somehow precluded edits to an entirely different article.

However, I do assume good faith of all involved. In particular, I have had nothing but good experiences with User:Killervogel5 who I understand to be one of the primary editors of this page. I would support giving the editors a chance to address these concerns before rushing to strip the article of its GA status, because I do believe they worked hard to get the article in the conditions it's in and, at the end of the day, it is better than many of the other rivalry pages. Not being entirely familiar with this process, my understanding is that GA standards are a bit lower than FA standards anyway, but I do believe these are concerns that should be addressed. TempDog123 (talk) 07:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: What we need are clear examples of where it is beloved that this article fails WP:WIAGA. If those are not forthcoming then the inevitable result is keep. Have the primary editors been informed of this discussion? Jezhotwells (talk) 22:29, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I listed the the section on 1964 perfect game. No source suggests it as contributing to the rivalry in any way and yet the article presents it as being a foundation. That is clearly original research. Good article criteria number 2 is "Factually accurate and verifiable". Clearly much of the info on the page fails at this point because the articles asserts things not concluded from the sources. There are many other things we could point to: Tug McGraw and most of the info prior to the last few seasons, as well as the "causes" section all fails this criteria. Please check the sources for yourself if you wish. And, yes, this has been presented on the article talk page.Ultimahero (talk) 01:06, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There does seem to be one POV statement (which I have tagged), but I don't really see many specific instances. Can you present them? Jezhotwells (talk) 01:49, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have. The whole "perfect game" section has nothing to do with the supposed rivalry. The event happened, and it's factually accurate. But no source quoted by the article lists states that this event contributed to the rivalry in any way. The conclusion that this helped shape a rivalry is original research. Please check the sources and tell me if you see a single instance of this game being presented as the start of a rivalry. The conclusion is original research and fails the "factually accurate and verifiable" criteria.Ultimahero (talk) 02:27, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see that the section actually says that this was the start of the rivalry, it is just background. The sentence "The 1964 season was memorable for the Phillies and forgettable for the Mets." is POV as uncited and should be rewritten neutrally. The next section, Tug McGraw suggests that there was rivalry between the teams: ...McGraw, in the victory parade after the World Series, told New York fans they could "take this championship and shove it." In my opinion the best thing would be to tag, explicitly POV statements and discuss on the talk page. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:09, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're right that the article doesn't specifically say that the perfect game contributed to the rivalry. However, the very fact that it's on the page suggests to the reader that it was the earliest manifestation of the rivalry. Let me explain what I mean: Let's say that there's a Wikipedia article on the tsunami's that occurred in 2004. And, let's say that on this article there a section titled "causes of the tsunami", under which there's a list various seismological and natural factors that could have contributed to that tsunami. Now, imagine that under the "causes" section there was a paragraph about George W. Bush being elected to the US Presidency. Even if that paragraph didn't directly state that Bush's election caused the tsunami, doesn't the very existence of said paragraph in the context of the article suggest to the reader that Bush being President had something to do with the tsunami? It heavily implies it, regardless of whether or not it directly states it. That's what I think the discussed section do to the Phillies-Mets rivalry article. Their mere existence on the page suggests that they had something to do with the rivalry, even though none of the sources conclude that they did.

I don't know if you're a baseball fan or not, but this rivalry didn't really come about until the last few years (some of the sources used on the page will say just that.) Two teams can play each other for a long time but that doesn't mean that they have a rivalry. (The Dodgers and Cardinals have been around a long time but no one would say that they have a rivalry.) Essentially, what the article has done is retroactively gone back through Baseball history and pulled out any moment of significance between the Phillies and Mets and presented them as being important milestones in the rivalry. But the fact remains that no source says that these events actually created or contributed to any rivalry. That makes so sections original research because the are presenting an original conclusion. Simply labeling a few statements as POV is insufficient; most of the sections themselves don't belong on that page.Ultimahero (talk) 03:19, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]