Talk:The Boat Race/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Harrias (talk · contribs) 16:58, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

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Overall, this article falls well short of the GA criteria, most obviously regarding referencing: it is very under-referenced, with lots of facts presented without anything to back them up.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   The article is broadly well-written and complies with the MoS requirements set out in the GA criteria.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   The article is under-sourced throughout. A large number of facts and opinions are presented without a source to back them up, especially in the "Competitors" and "Results and statistics". Many of those references that are provided are not written out fully, variously missing author's details, publication dates, access dates and in the case of ref #11, everything but the link and the title, a generic "The Boat Race".

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   In the history section, an undue amount of attention seems to be given to the races since 2000.

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 and other media, where possible and appropriate.

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

   The use of images is generally good, but the copyright tags are not complete on all of them: File:1841 Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.jpg for example requires a United States public domain tag in addition to the license provided.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   In my opinion, this article currently falls well short of the GA guidelines. I would look at adding more information on races into the history section; hopefully the creation of articles on each year's race should help find more that can be usefully added in to this, and should help to avoid the appearance of "recentism". The list of race winners would probably be better presented in a separate "List article", with more of a prosaic summary presented in this article. Most importantly though, a lot of work is needed on adding references for the information given. Generally, I would quick-fail an article that has fallen this short because of the amount of work needed, but given the length of the GA backlog, I'm happy to leave this review open for a while to allow you to do what work you can. As more work is completed, I am happy to present a more detailed review as needed. Harrias ^talk 16:58, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Criteria 2a

• Ref #1 is lacking any details other than the title.
• Ref #2 has double speech-marks. Link to The Daily Telegraph.
• Ref #3, use {{Whatdotheyknow.com}}.
• Ref #5 needs a page number.
• Ref #6 is lacking any details other than the title.
• Ref #7, link Daily Mail, to maintain consistency with other references, format name as Mount, Harry.
• Ref #9 is lacking any details other than the title.
• Ref #10, link BBC Sport, no need to state "website".
• Ref #11 is lacking any details other than the title.
• Ref #12 requires an access date, and I'm not sure that "The Race History" is an appropriate publisher title.
• Ref #13, link The Observer, no need to state "website".
• Ref #14, link BBC News, no need to state "website".
• Ref #15, link The Independent, to maintain consistency with other references, format name as Peck, Tom, add access date.
• Ref #17, the publisher title should be the same as for ref #12, and I'm not sure the page title is right for this one.
• Ref #18, add author details, link Sydney Morning Herald.
• Ref #19, link The Observer, to maintain consistency with other references, format name as Bull, Andy, and get rid of the "at Mortlake" bit.

I will stop there, but 16 of the first 20 references need work, and the rest look to follow along the same lines. Harrias ^talk 09:03, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Response

Please note that ref numbers have jumped around a bit.

• 1-10 complete 06:17, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
• 11-20 complete 06:43, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
• 21-30 complete 06:58, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
• 31-40 complete 07:13, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
• 41-51 complete 07:25, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

@Harrias: All done. @Harrias:: Please continue with the review - - NickGibson3900 ^Talk 01:11, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Criteria 2b,c

Thanks for your work on the above. Sorry for my absence, real-life got kind of hectic. What you've done to the references in place looks pretty good. However, what is still very much lacking is a sufficient number of such sources. Essentially, everything in the article which isn't self-evident should be referenced. In some cases a whole paragraph or even two paragraphs could be cited to one source, in other places one sentence might require two separate sources. Realistically, in a good article, I would expect to see at least one reference per paragraph (with occasional exceptions). At the moment there are whole sections, let alone paragraphs, particularly in the History section, that have no references at all. Harrias ^talk 09:34, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@NickGibson3900:, forgot to let you know I'd crept out of my hole and commented further. Harrias ^talk 10:32, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

@Harrias: Thanks for this. I will work on the refs over the weekend -NickGibson3900 ^Talk 10:51, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Responses

Thanks for the review. I have started working on references and images and hope to have them finished in the 7 day timescale. NickGibson3900 - Talk - Sign my Guestbook 01:36, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Harrias: I have fixed the images, would you care to check them? NickGibson3900 - Talk - Sign my Guestbook 01:56, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Now I have done the references as well. Requesting review of criteria 6A, 2A, and 2C NickGibson3900 - Talk - Sign my Guestbook 07:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC) I have also split the results tables into a separate article. NickGibson3900 - Talk - Sign my Guestbook 10:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Harrias: Hi just a friendly reminder about this GAN. NickGibson3900 ^{Talk Sign my Guestbook Contributions} 08:06, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

More

@Harrias:, I now believe the History section is referenced up to GA standards. Where else should I focus on? - NickGibson3900 ^Talk 01:46, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

There isn't a requirement to cite every paragraph or section, though as the information in each section/paragraph would have come from a reliable source, it is helpful and reassuring to readers and researchers to regularly cite the sources used, even if the material isn't likely to be challenged. Material that is likely to be challenged does need citing for a GA listing - likely challengeable statements are those which appear to be editorial opinion, such as "The question whether the Boat Race crews are up to the standard of international crews is difficult to judge", large claims such as "The race which took place on 30 March 1895 became the subject of one of the world's first motion pictures directed by Birt Acres", and essential facts such as "The course for the main part of the race's history has been from Putney to Mortlake, but there have been three other courses".

In addition to improving the inline citation, attention may be given to the layout of the article. The History section contains some short sub-sections which inhibit the flow. Just based on the History section it looks to me that the article is not broad enough to meet GA criteria 3a. It appears to be a less of a history than a random selection of events, with little to guide the reader as to why the 1877 dead heat and 1987 mutiny both get three paragraphs, while the 1959 mutiny only gets three short sentences. Also, why does the history jump from 1877 to 1959 then to 1987 - what happened in between theses dates. What changes, improvements, developments occurred?

The lead could do with some attention as it doesn't quite summarise the main information in the article. As a general guideline, the lead should summarise the main point(s) from each main section and sub-section. If there is a lengthy section which isn't mentioned in the lead, either it needs to be mentioned, or the section cut from the article as not essential.

The course section is media rich and quite detailed. The presentation in small boxes with coordinates and lots of small media images is not helpful, particularly on a mobile phone where the text is somewhat squashed. This section is perhaps too focused, and consideration could be given to splitting out that section into a standalone article where space could be given to allow the text and images to be read more comfortably, and to have an overall prose summary of the course in this main article.

The article would also benefit from a coverage of the rules and process, and how this has developed, and something on the equipment. See Formula One for some ideas.

As the article is currently inadequately sourced and lacking in coverage of main aspects, I have moved the classing from B to C. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:49, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@Harrias and SilkTork: I have withdrawn the nomination - NickGibson3900 ^Talk 02:22, 18 October 2014 (UTC)