Talk:Monk McDonald/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Sarastro1 (talk) 21:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

There are quite a few issues at the moment. The main areas stopping it passing are 3a and 3b. Refs are OK and check out, but there are a couple of places where the ref does not support the text which I've given below.

Lead

• "For his collegiate and coaching career was inducted in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame." Seems to be a word missing.

Revised.

Collegiate career

• University of North Carolina needs linking in this section as well as in lead.

Revised

• This section calls him a "star athlete" but does not really indicate why he was a "star". The source does not call him a star, it says "he starred..." which is slightly different. Starred in this sense can mean appeared in and did well, but does not necessarily make him a star, which implies the best or one of the best. Sorry if I've not made that clear!

Revised.

• What about his playing record and achievements other than being given awards? Who else said he was good? What was he good at (i.e. in terms of technique or ability)? Are there any other stats?

I added another source that said he is "generally considered the best all-around athlete" that ever played at North Carolina, but they didn't give any stats on his achievements. I will keep looking and see what I can find.

• "McDonald was named all-Southern Conference in both 1922 and 1924" This does not make sense. What is this award and is the winner actually called this; i.e. is it "McDonald was the all-Southern Conference in 1922"? If so, I think it needs expanding so it makes sense to the casual reader. And what is the Southern Conference?

Revised

• Minor prose issues: Two consecutive sentences beginning with "while", two beginning "in".

Revised

• "before attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for college". For college seems redundant in the sentence.

Revised

• "While McDonald was only 5 ft. 7 in. he managed to play quarterback in football, shortstop in baseball, and guard in basketball." This suggests that there is a connection between height and being able to play these positions. I'm not entirely convinced and the source does not seem to suggest a connection between the two pieces of information.

Revised

• Sorry, fussy MoS nitpick coming up. I think there should be a comma after 7 in, and should be 7 in, not 7 in. per MOSNUM. And the first instance of units should be spelt out in full (i.e. feet and inches) as per here.

Revised

• "he batted over .300 and helped lead the team to a 19–2 record in 1922." I think the "batted" and "19-2" need linking for those unfamiliar with the terms.

Revised

• Link Patterson medal?

I don't think we should. I doubt it will ever get an article of its own and to leave a red link suggests that it should. While it is a notable award for North Carolina athletes, I doubt it needs its own wikipedia page.

1923–24 undefeated basketball season

• "Even though the Tar Heels went without a head coach for two seasons," Didn't the previous sentence say this?

Revised.

• "have his number retired" Link or explain?

Revised

• This section seems to be entirely about the team and not McDonald: all it says about him is that he was captain in 22/23 and he was one of the several talented players. This is not focussed on McDonald.

Revised.

Coaching at North Carolina

• "Even though McDonald has just graduated from North Carolina, had played on the championship 1923–24 team the year before, and had started to attend medical school full-time, McDonald became the next head coach after Shepard's departure." This is a run-on sentence which could be split. And "even though" does not really work for me. What is the connection between McDonald's graduation, playing in 23/24 and attending medical school with his appointment as coach? If it was unusual, or one of the things made it unlikely he would be a good coach, this should be spelt out.

I revised it to just focus on the fact that he just graduated and was also in medical school at the time. I hope that fixes it.

• "North Carolina would eventual lose to the Harvard Crimson basketball team": I assume this is a typo for eventually, but the sentence may read better as "but North Carolina eventually lost to".

Revised

• "Although UNC would lose another four games, North Carolina went through the regular season unbeaten when playing at home in the Tin Can." As North Carolina and UNC are the same team, why are both names used in one sentence? And does this mean they were unbeaten in all their home games?

Revised.

• Lots of "North Carolina"s in this section which makes it a little hard to read. Could other terms, like "the team" be used for more variety?

Revised.

• "there were still many seasoned veterans on the team including Cobb and Dodderer." I can't quite see how this is relevant to McDonald, unless there is some connection not stated here such as how he used them.

It was just suppose to show that he took over a team with a lot of talent so that helped him out.

• I know it's linked, but could we make explicit what the Tin Can is in the article?

Revised.

• Is the table for his coaching really necessary as he only coached for one season?

NI like it to make it consistant with other coaching articles so I would vote to keep it.

Post-coaching career

• "McDonald gave up coaching after one year and continued with medical school": continued in medical school?

Revise

• This section is very short and the sentences are very choppy.

Revised.

Other

• DABlink to Matt Doherty

Revised

• Checklinks is showing a problem for the link to ref 9 but I can't see it myself!

NeI am not sure what you are referring to. Please explain.

• Persondata needs filling in.

Have added more persondata but may not be able to complete all of it.

• Any images? His career was partly before 1923 so I'd imagine there might be something.

I take a look around but I am skeptical of finding anything that is not covered by copywrite.

• Are there any more details about his life, such as parents, early life, later career? At the moment, it's so brief about him, even in his sports career, I'm not sure it would qualify as covering the major aspects. However, if nothing else exists, I am open to discussion.

Not that I could find. At the time, college athletics wasn't as big a deal as it is today so there is not as much coverage about this person even though he was an outstanding player and coach.

I'll put this on hold for a week. If any of the information is not available, I'm happy to discuss this further. Let me know if there's anything I've not made clear (which is possible tonight!). --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. There is a lot to digest (and I am pretty busy in the real world). I will try to work through this list as quick as possible. Remember (talk) 10:40, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

This seems OK now. I think the prose could still do with a little work, and I notice there are a few things in the dictionary of North Carolina biography which could be included in the article, but I believe it's good enough for GA. My main issues were with 3a and 3b and I believe these have been fully addressed.

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail: