Talk:History of Atalanta BC/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: David Fuchs (talk · contribs) 18:35, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

 In progress Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:35, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, David Fuchs. Just a heads-up, the article is as long/detailed as it is (I hope this doesn't make reviewing too difficult) because I seek to eventually bring it to FA. ComplexRational (talk) 15:29, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@David Fuchs: When can I expect your first comments? ComplexRational (talk) 23:09, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Hey, sorry for the delay, work got a bit hectic through the weekend! Anyhow, overall I think it's a pretty solid article thus far. Comments as follows:

Thank you for these comments. I'll post my replies as I work through them. ComplexRational (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• General:
  • In view of the entire article, I'm not sure summary style is really being practiced; for a lot of the article, we get blow-by-blow details of each season, and considering in many of them there aren't any major events discussed (they don't get relegated or promoted, they don't win whatever championship, there isn't some major turnover in leadership) it feels like these could be condensed. This gets worse with the recency bias (the first 90-ish years gets 5000-ish words; the last <30 has 60% as much prose covering it.)

    Pending I'll give this some more thought and a complete reply later. I had a feeling this might come up; the problem is that many (accessible) sources only cover events of the last 20–30 years and indeed many of the club's more noteworthy events happened during this time period. Overall trimming of such details, though, may be doable. ComplexRational (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

    I definitely understand it's a bit harder to summarize recent details (especially when the sources we have can't directly be used for those summaries like a book history) but I definitely feel that it's a bit too heavily-weighted. I imagine much of its yearly performance is covered in other articles besides the history so I think you can rely on those pages for further though hopefully not exhaustive detail. It might help to focus more of the periodization of the history (like the subsections already do)—introduce the management, the players of that era, and briefly summarize their competitive performance. Unless they get to a championship or the like, individual games are likely not relevant, and you can combine stuff like "Atalanta made cup appearances in 69, 70, and 72" to take one sentence what might take three or more otherwise. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 14:29, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

    I've been working to eliminate some superfluous details, such as scores of inconsequential matches, and I'll see if I can find sources that can give better summaries. It turns out that the season articles are quite lacking in information—many of them give rosters and statistics but no more—and fewer than 20 of the club's 110+ seasons (and none before 1995) even have articles. Although I'll keep trying to condense and trim unnecessary detail, as well as address the weighting issue later, it's worth noting that there's nowhere on en.wp with further information. ComplexRational (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  • Leaving aside whether or not some of the notes are needed, many of them aren't actually cited.

    Pending ComplexRational (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

    All the endnotes (after I cut out several) hopefully address some natural question in the preceding sentence, and now all of them are directly cited, repeat or reference information elsewhere in the article that is directly cited ([d] and [i]), or describe some significant change in the system or clarify an unfamiliar term, e.g. goal quotient (not used in Italy nowadays) and the pre-2017 points record not corresponding to the highest league finish (since three points to a win was introduced). Let me know if any of the notes need more specific fixes or are unnecessary. ComplexRational (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  • Condensing the prose would also help with another problem I struggled with, having to keep track of names that repeatedly disappeared from the narrative to reappear much later (owner Ruggeri, for instance, gets name-checked and introduced at the beginning of the 94–08 section, and then disappears save for one mention for nearly 1000 words until he shows up dying.

    Fixed for Ruggeri, who I reintroduced in the 08–16 section. Pending for others. ComplexRational (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  • Why is there a {{clear}} template creating a huge gap of whitespace in the "transitional years" subsection?

    Pending I was trying to avoid MOS:SANDWICH for the images. The only other solution I considered was shrinking the image, but even that depends on display resolution, as the images are relevant specifically to that section. I'm open to any suggestions you may have. ComplexRational (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

    Temporarily fixed Eliminated the {{clear}}, not sure about the MOS page, especially if that section will be condensed. ComplexRational (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• Prose:
  • In the 1990s and 2000s, Atalanta again moved several times between Serie A and Serie B, the second division It's weird to me that the second devision is formally named here after we've referred to the second (and third) divisions before this point in the lead.

    Fixed? I removed this formal naming. I was unsure because the second division was only called Serie B since 1929. ComplexRational (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  • its remnants were absorbed into rival club Bergamasca, which would establish a football sector the use of "sector" here threw me. Is this another club? A league? A better word should probably be used.

    Fixed Added a link to sports club and renamed "sector" to "team". At this time, the club had teams in different sports. ComplexRational (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  • which Italy entered in 1915, Atalanta took part in several friendly tournaments. Because the first-team players had gone into battle, they were contested by youth players.[22] These included the Coppa Lissone because of how this is structured, I wasn't really sure what the Coppa Lissone was initially, since the proximate subject suggests that the players included the Coppa Lissone, not the tournaments Atalanta played in.

    Fixed Reordered the sentences. ComplexRational (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  • following the loss of the Maglio del Lotto field, we didn't mention the proper name of this field the last time we brought up the field when it was sold, now we are here... why?

    Fixed As far as I can tell, the field was referred to simply as "Maglio del Lotto", so I tried reworking the text to reflect this. ComplexRational (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  • The club also welcomed its first foreign players at this time, Hungarian center-forward Gedeon Eugen Lukács and mezzala Jeno Hauser. what's the nationality of Hauser? In the next paragraph it's made clear he's from Hungary, but that's not the case when first introduced.

    Fixed Introduced both as Hungarian in the first sentence. ComplexRational (talk) 03:53, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

  • (This was the same level on the pyramid as the Seconda Divisione, where the previously named top-flight Prima Divisione was renamed Divisione Nazionale.) I have no idea what this pyramid is, or why this parenthetical is really here.
    • Likewise, are flights and groups synonymous? This is one area where the article really presumes too much knowledge of how football works and its terminology.

      In progress I added a brief explanatory note and a couple of parenthetical definitions. Flights and groups are not synonymous; rather groups are sub-divisions of flights. This is a particularly difficult period to explain because some of the proper names were reused to refer to different things, so the intuitive continuity does not actually exist. I'll see if I can explain this better without digressing too much from the main focus. ComplexRational (talk) 03:53, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

      If possible you might just consider a generalized term if there's something you can use that is understandable to a layperson but isn't going to be mistaken for a technical term to an expert. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 14:29, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  • I think there are parts where the article starts veering towards puffery with phrasing (especially the end of the 1920–1940 section and following) with phrases like a reputation it still boasts today and standout victories or he last of whom was named among the revelations of the 1953–54 season

    In progress I took care of the examples you named here, will work through others in the next days. ComplexRational (talk) 03:53, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

  • If the league was suspended in 1943 how was there a championship? Feel like if they still managed to have games you need a more precise timeframe for when play was suspended.

    Fixed Added more information with another source; how does this look? ComplexRational (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  • I will say with an eye towards FA quality as that's a target you want to hit, you're going to need to probably address a lot of the pseudo-paragraphs that only contain two sentences or so—they suggest either the statements are better merged with another topic, cut entirely (per my comments above on summary style, these are the approaches I recommend), or fleshed out.
    • Likewise, while I think the prose is fine for GA-quality, there's a lot of redundancies that can be cut and improved flow opportunities, e.g. this passage: However, the Italian Football Federation announced that it would only allow one club from Bergamo to participate in the 1919–20 Prima Categoria.[28] Both Atalanta and Bergamasca were eligible to participate, though a strong rivalry existed between the two clubs. This rivalry quickly precluded any cooperation or agreement, necessitating a competitive playoff to decide the fate of the two Bergamo clubs. You could easily simplify this by any number of formulations, such as The Italian Football Federation announced only one club from Bergamo would be allowed to participate in the 1919–20 Prima Categoria.[28] Atalanta and Bergamasca were both eligible, but the strong rivalry between necessitated a competitive playoff to decide which would participate.
• Media:
  • I don't really feel File:Atalanta 1930-present.png is a very good lead image to run with; it's a lot of data in one graph, and it's difficult to parse. I think something more evocative of the history of the team would work better, and you can introduce the graph with more useful captioning later on when you have more context for the team's performance.

    What would be evocative of the team's history? As far as major events, only the 1963 Coppa Italia triumph comes to mind – would commons:File:Atalanta BC - Coppa Italia 1962-63.jpg be suitable (or alternatively, this image in the body, with the current image of Gardoni and Domenghini in the lead)? ComplexRational (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

    Also, what would you suggest is the best place for the graph? I'm thinking maybe at the very end, next to the endnotes, though the (available) images are mostly concentrated in the later sections as-is. ComplexRational (talk) 22:57, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  • Given that Italy doesn't have protection under the law for freedom of panorama for architecture, I'm not sure File:The outside of the Gewiss Stadium in 2020.jpg is actually licensable under a free license.

    Fixed Since the Gewiss logo is fairly prominent, I see how this may be the case – that's a problem to investigate on Commons. In the meantime, I replaced this in the article with File:Gewiss Stadium dall'alto.jpg, a more distant bird's eye view with nothing prominent that would be subject to copyright. Changed the image again, licensing looks okay. ComplexRational (talk) 03:53, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

  • File:Caniggia atalanta.jpg is a derivative of File:ClaudioPaulCaniggia.jpg, which doesn't look to meet free use criteria (it's supposedly taken "by a friend" with no indication permission was granted.)

    Fixed Commented out, will search for another appropriate images for this section. ComplexRational (talk) 04:26, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

  • File:Daniele Turani II legislatura.jpg: No explanation of why this is licensed under a CC license (if that's an official license from the government, it needs to be made clear.)

    Temporarily fixed Commented out for now, will investigate this further. One of the links to the government page didn't work; I'll see if I can find anything. 04:26, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

  • The license on File:InaugurazioneStadioBergamo.jpg is impossible to verify if we don't actually have the date it was taken, or the years the photographer lived.
    • Ditto for File:Atalanta 1913-14.jpg.

      Temporarily fixed Commented out both images for now, will investigate this further. 04:26, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• References:
  • Since they're relied on heavily, you're going to need to demonstrate at FAC how Corbani 2007 and Losapio 2020 are high-quality reliable sources. I can see Cobrani more easily than I can Losapio, with the book jacket reading as rather breathless and sensational rather than a more sober reporting style (I also don't see any discussions on WP on the reliability of TuttoMercatoWeb, which might tie into this.)
  • With the other references, what makes sources like Mundo Albiceleste, calcioatalanta, SuperNews, TuttoAtalanta, Goal, Gazzetta Fan News reliable?

    Note Mundo Albiceleste is no longer in use. I'm checking if there are book or newspaper sources (with more established reliability) that can be used as supplements for the others. As far as reliability, I'm unsure what to do besides check editorial quality (which seems okay for calcioatalanta, TuttoAtalanta, and TuttoMercatoWeb, and since these share authors and review, either all are reliable or none are) or investigate on a case-by-case basis for specific statements (where reliability requirements are stricter). Is it worth asking at WP:FOOTBALL or WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard? ComplexRational (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

    • Since you do want to take this to FAC at some point, I'd recommend checking RSN and the football project to start (I know the video games wiki project has a source index, I presume football would have one to start as well?) The difference between reliable and high-quality reliable sources is beyond the purview of a Good Article nomination but it'll save you work in the long run if you address that now. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:53, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

      @David Fuchs: The only thing WP:FOOTBALL has appears to be this collection: Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Links#Italy, most of which are statistics pages. I'd also say this is quite incomplete – most of the main Italian sports media (Gazzetta, Corriere, Tuttosport, calciomercato, tuttomercatoweb, etc.) is not mentioned for good or for bad, and there are at most two links for each of the three most-supported Italian clubs. (In the past, another editor told me that transfermarkt is considered unreliable for being user-generated – I purged those references long ago.) Also, RSN archives don't seem to have anything – neither the main media nor club- or time-specific sources. I guess I'll just have to ask. For the GA review, though, could you provide specific examples of where sourcing may be inadequate? ComplexRational (talk) 22:53, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

      I would say at the minimum you need to demonstrate with each source that they've got some sort of editorial process and oversight. To take Tutto Atalanta, for example. The headlines (at least translated) read more sensational than sober, not a great sign; clicking around articles reveals that many of the articles on the front page are attributed to editorial staff instead of an actual byline, not good either. There's no editorial masthead as far as I can see, though there is a "Publisher and Managing Director" named Lorenzo Casalino listed on the bottom of pages (who doesn't exactly seem like a bonafide journalist himself.) In short, it doesn't seem like it's got a significant-enough step up from just being a blog. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 00:41, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

      @David Fuchs: I apologize for being relatively slow in responding. Due to RL matters, I don't know if I'll have the time to review and replace every source and make other necessary fixes, at least not at a reasonable pace to continue the review. Should procedure call for it, I may have to withdraw the review until I have time to commit to improvement of the article – which might not be for several weeks, at least. Before doing so, if possible, I would appreciate some more specific pointers for improvement (in addition to some things you already mentioned) so that I can slowly polish the article and re-nominate when I have time again. Thanks anyway for the feedback you provided so far. ComplexRational (talk) 19:48, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

      • Okay, I've failed the article for now then. In terms of specific pointers, I don't think until the referencing and general layout stuff gets settled there's much specific feedback I can give. Once you've trimmed it down you might ask the guild of copyeditors to take a pass to address grammar and such. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:38, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

  • You've got inconsistent formatting with regards to using publisher or website/work fields with most references. Consistency with capitalization, etc is also an issue.
  • Reference spot-check forthcoming.

--Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 13:49, 19 January 2022 (UTC)