Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2020 World Snooker Championship/archive1

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

The article was promoted by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 23 October 2020 [1].


Nominator(s): Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 15:09, 6 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the 2020 edition of the World Snooker Championship - an event disrupted twice by the COVID-19 pandemic changed dates and was eventually a test event for an audience to be in attendance which lasted for a single day.

Ronnie O'Sullivan won his sixth world championship, defeating first time finalist Kyren Wilson in the final. One of my favourite recent events, due to the quality of play at times, a maximum break made by John Higgins and one of the best days of snooker in the semi-finals where both matches went to a deciding frame. Please let me know what you think! Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs)

Support from Hurricane Noah

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Will review this tomorrow. NoahTalk 23:29, 6 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am so sorry for not getting to this. I have been busy with a lot going on right now. I will leave comments today after my college class. NoahTalk 17:17, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]


That is everything I noticed with the prose of the article. I do have another FAC up if you would be interested. It could use someone outside the field to help make things more understandable in places if it isn't already. NoahTalk 00:34, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Source Review: BennyOnTheLoose

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  • "...World Snooker Tour, a subsidiary of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association..." is in the lead but not in the article body and is uncited. (I'm not sure that subsidiary is the right word, as Matchroom Sport is the controlling entity of World Snooker/World Snooker Tour (link) -as well as being one of the broadcasters!)
  • Background: "The 32 players for the event are selected through a mix of the snooker world rankings and a pre-tournament qualification round" not verified in the cited source.
  • Background: "Stephen Hendry ... seven times" seems to all be supported by the BBC source, so the Global Snooker source archived in 2012 can be removed here.
  • Format: "This was the 44th consecutive year that the tournament had been held at the Crucible, and the 52nd successive world championship to be contested through the modern knockout format" - not verified by sources cited.
  • Qualifying stage: "The final round of qualifying was played on 27 and 28 July, with matches played as the best of 19 frames over two sessions." is uncited.
  • Second round: I've added a Snooker Scene source for this being O'Sullivan's 28th appearance and a record. This is redundant as there is already a source, but I think it's more easily to verify against than the Eurosport broadcast. Happy for either ref here to be removed to avoid overkill.
  • Qualifying: I checked a number of results against the reports in Snooker Scene, no issues found. Although Snooker Scene is more reliable than snooker.org for results IMO, I'm happy to keep snooker.org as the source in the article as 1. snooker.org is the more easily accessible of the two and there is no consensus against using it; and 2. Snooker Scene doesn't include all of the nationalities and seedings for qualifying.
  • Made some minor changes to parameters, hopefully uncontroversial.

Assessment against criteria:

(1c): 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; Yes BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 14:41, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(2c): consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes? YesBennyOnTheLoose (talk) 14:41, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Other comments:

  • The first World Snooker Championship in 1927, with the final held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England, which was won by Joe Davis. - word in bold should probably be removed.
Support for promotion. I can't see any outstanding issues with sources or citations. (I must acknowledge the exhaustive review by Rodney Baggins here). The article appears to me to be suitably well-researched and comprehensive, and is definitely improved since I reviewed it for GA a few weeks back. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 14:41, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Epicgenius

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I should note that I plan to claim WikiCup points for this review. epicgenius (talk) 16:51, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lead:

  • The event was one of the first to allow live audiences since the outbreak of the pandemic - I would say "the onset of the pandemic". While I don't think "outbreak" can be confused for a noun here, it still sounds strange.
Done Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 16:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • 16 players reached the main stage of the tournament - This immediately follows a semicolon, so I suggest either spelling out "16" or saying something like "of these, 16"
Done Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 16:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • This was O'Sullivan's 37th ranking event win of his career, the highest of any player. ... This was Higgins' tenth career maximum break and his first at the World Championship; aged 45, he became the oldest player to make a maximum in a professional competition. - In my view, having two sentences in such close succession begin with "This was", is pretty awkward. I would consider combining the sentences Ronnie O'Sullivan won his sixth world title, defeating Wilson 18–8 in the final. This was O'Sullivan's 37th ranking event win of his career, the highest of any player. However, I can understand if that isn't desirable.
Done Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 16:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Background

  • but was postponed until 1 July to 16 August as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. - I suggest "but was postponed to between 1 July and 16 August" for consistency with the other half of the sentence, and because "until 1 July to 16 August" sounds strange.
Done Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 16:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The tournament was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred, as it has been since 2015 - "as it had been" should be past tense
Done Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 16:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Internationally, the event was broadcast by Eurosport in Europe and Australia,[18] by Superstars Online, Zhibo.tv, Youku and CCTV in China, by NowTV in Hong Kong, and by DAZN in Canada, the United States, and Brazil - In this case, you should add semicolons to break up this serial list, since each list item also has commas. I.e. Internationally, the event was broadcast by Eurosport in Europe and Australia; by Superstars Online, Zhibo.tv, Youku and CCTV in China; by NowTV in Hong Kong; and by DAZN in Canada, the United States, and Brazil
Done Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 16:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • A reduced audience was to be admitted to allow for social distancing - I'm not sure, but should the sentence clarify that social distancing required more space between people?
Hmm, I have linked it - to me its enough to say there was a limited audience due to the pandemic. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 16:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tournament summary

  • health concerns over the coronavirus - I would be consistent in using "coronavirus", as the rest of the article mentions "COVID-19 pandemic", and it may not automatically be clear that these are the same.
They... aren't the same thing? Coronavirus is the branch of disease as I understand it, whilst COVID-19 is the specific disease. Whichever, but I've changed. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 16:33, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, these are different things. The specific coronavirus being mentioned is the one that causes COVID-19, which was my concern. The current wording works fine. epicgenius (talk) 16:50, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ding had not played in any tournaments since the COVID-19 pandemic - since the onset of the pandemic? (Only because the pandemic is still ongoing)
  • Two 50-minute frames were won by King, leading to a deciding frame - I suggest using active voice just to be consistent with the rest of the paragraph.
  • Williams potted the black, and also the respotted black to win the frame - there should probably be a comma after "the respotted black".
  • The pair were reprimanded by referee Jan Verhaas, however, Clarke was followed out of the arena by McGill. - is there a particular reason that McGill followed Clarke out of the arena? Also, this should probably be in the active voice too.
  • Wilson, however extended - there should also be a comma after "however" because that word is used as a qualifier for the text that follows it.
  • The penultimate frame saw McGill be trapped in a snooker, - This wording strikes me as strange: it raises ambiguity about whether McGill was becoming trapped in that frame, or he was already trapped. I think you can change the word "be" to "become", in the case of the former, or remove it altogether in the latter instance.
  • He also stated that his shot choice was due to not being able to control shots out of snookers the same as Selby - I'd rephrase this too, particularly the wording "not being able" (there should probably be a noun there instead of a verb) and "the same as Selby". E.g. "He also stated that his shot choice was due to his inability to control shots out of snookers the same way Selby did".

Qualifying

  • Originally organised for all matches to be best-of-19 frames, the first three rounds were played as best-of-11 frames, with only the final round being played as best-of-19 - There might be a dangling modifier here. I'd add a word such as "although" in the beginning, e.g. "Although all matches were originally organised to be best-of-19 frames..."
  • Also, two invited players from the World Women's Snooker Tour, Ng On-yee and Nutcharut Wongharuthai, declined to participate due to COVID-19 safety concerns - I would move "also" to before "declined". It sounds strange to begin a sentence like this with "also".

@Lee Vilenski: These are all the prose comments I have. epicgenius (talk) 17:24, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Rodney Baggins

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Just in the process of finishing this off, so will place my comments here within next 24 hours. I'll do some general tidying and non-contentious copyediting afterwards. Rodney Baggins (talk) 18:25, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So, I think I just about met my self-imposed 24 hour deadline! Here are my comments on the main article. I do still want to take a closer look at the sources so I'll get back to you on that. Rodney Baggins (talk) 17:52, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Lead
  • Change "The tournament was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association and the World Snooker Tour," to "The tournament was organised by the World Snooker Tour, a subsidiary of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association," ?
Background
  • Only the final of the 1927 WSC was held at Camkin's Hall, not the whole thing, so I think this sentence is inaccurate. Would this make more sense: "The first World Snooker Championship took place in 1927, with the final held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England; Joe Davis won the title."
  • General background runs into sentence "The previous year's championship was won by England's Judd Trump..."; as we're now talking about the 2019 event, it's a bit confusing. We need to either explicitly state "The 2019 championship was won by England's Judd Trump..." OR use this sentence to start a new mini-paragraph?
  • I find it rather confusing that we call the organisation the "World Snooker Tour", as in "World Snooker Tour chairman Barry Hearn" but then in the next sentence we refer to the actual World Snooker Tour. Could we get away with just calling him the "World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn"? In fact, do we actually need to mention him by name in relation to this announcement? Could we just say: "World Snooker [Tour] announced..."?
    • Kettle = worms. I agree, it's a silly rebrand and causes exactly this issue. However, we can't just change the name of the organisation because it makes no sense. Arguably however, Barry is also the chairman of the Tour as a whole. I've removed his name, however. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 07:14, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link 2019–20 snooker world rankings in "the latest 2019–20 snooker world rankings"?
  • Move Seed (sports) link up to first mention of seeding in Format section? i.e. "with seeding given to players" instead of "for the main draw as seeded players" lower down.
  • At end of Format subsection, "played as best-of-19 frames" should be "played as the best of 19 frames", and "played as best-of-25 frames" should be "played as the best of 25 frames". This is because "best of 19 frames" literally just means "the best out of a total of 19 frames"; the "best of 19" bit does not modify the word "frames", and since "best of 19" is not a compound modifier there is no need for any hyphens. However, "a best-of-35-frames match" at end of paragraph is correct because the hyphenated "best-of-35-frames" is a four-part compound modifier for the word "match".
  • Maybe add a sentence above the prize fund list to introduce the list? Something like "The total prize fund was £2,395,000, of which the winner received £500,000." Then you could remove the "Total: £2,395,000" entry from the list which I think looks a bit out of place.
Qualifying (1)
First round
  • "After the performance, Williams said..." — sounds a bit odd, maybe change to "After his victory, Williams said..."?
  • In para 4, "Between frames 9 and 13 there were four century breaks in a row." — strictly this should be "frames nine and 13" but I didn't change it as obviously it gives two different numeral formats in close proximity, might look odd.
  • Maybe add this sentence at end of section: "Kyren Wilson received a bye through the first round, after Anthony Hamilton withdrew from the event at the end of qualifying." because at the moment his bye is not mentioned until we get into the 2nd round section. (see below)7
Second round
Quarter-finals
  • "Selby commented that he had lost confidence at reaching that stage of the tournament again." — Not sure this is very clear, do you mean he had lost confidence that he could reach that stage of the tournament again? Or are you saying that he had lost confidence once he got to that stage? (I think it's the first, in which case please reword?)
  • "Trump was contesting the Crucible curse" — Not sure "contesting" is the right word here. Maybe change to "facing the Crucible curse", meaning he was "up against" it?
  • "no such player had retained the championship" sounds odd — maybe change to "no player had retained the championship in defence of a maiden world title." or simply just "no player had successfully defended a maiden world title."
  • "Scot Anthony McGill and Norway's Kurt Maflin" > do we really need to accentuate their nationalities here? On first reading this, I thought "Scot Anthony McGill" was the guy's name, as Scott is itself a first name!
Semi-finals
  • Shouldn't we mention at start of section that the semi-finals used a single table setup (with the sessions alternating between the two matches)? And should we not explicitly state that the first semi-final was between Kyren Wilson and Anthony McGill (to match the statement "The second semi-final was between Mark Selby and Ronnie O'Sullivan." lower down)?
  • The World Snooker source used in paras 2&3 (ref.166: "Wilson Beats Champion Trump") is about the Trump/Wilson QF, not the Wilson/McGill SF. For example, it certainly doesn't say anything about the record combined score of 103–83! Maybe this source should be used in para 2 of QF section and we could do with a different source here?
  • I don't think "wracked" is a word. Did you mean "whacked" or "rapped"!?
  • "broke down" is snooker jargon and is not included in the glossary, so maybe we shouldn't be using it here?
  • Selby quote in last para is a bit long-winded and repetitive, maybe cut the last bit out, i.e. "I felt he was being a bit disrespectful to me and the game, not many players would just get down and hit them at 100 mph when you put them in a snooker. Some would look to work it out or put you in trouble. It just felt like he was doing that throughout the match..."
Final
  • "This was O'Sullivan's sixth world title and his 37th ranking event victory, the most of any player." — Last bit sounds awkward to me. Possibly change to "This was O'Sullivan's sixth world title and his 37th ranking event victory, a record number of ranking titles." or just "This was O'Sullivan's sixth world title and a record 37th ranking event victory."
Qualifying (2)
  • Could we rename this section "Qualifying stage" as there is already a section further up called "Qualifying" (under "Tournament summary") and it would be consistent with "Qualifying stage centuries" subheading in next section...?
  • Fixes needed per previous comments (if you agree): "organised to be best-of-19 frames" > "organised to be the best of 19 frames"; "played as best-of-11 frames" > "played as the best of 11 frames"; "final round being played as best-of-19." > "fourth-round matches played as the best of 19 frames."
  • Likewise, "Best-of-n frames" in table headings should be "Best of n frames" per previous comments

(End)


Further comments from Rodney Baggins (5 Oct)
  • There's a slight error in the semantics of this sentence in the lead: "It was the 44th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship was held at the Crucible, and was the final ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season." The two clauses don't sit naturally together in the sentence. The subject of the first clause is the year 2020, but the subject of the second clause is the 2020 event, so grammatically speaking they cannot share the opening "It". (I notice same thing in 2019 article). Not sure what to do about it. Maybe break off first clause as a single sentence: "It was the 44th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship was held at the Crucible." followed by "The final ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season, the tournament was originally scheduled..."?
  • I still think the 1927 sentence in Background section sounds awkward. The first clause needs to state explicitly that the first WSC was in 1927, i.e. "The first World Snooker Championship took place in 1927..." My suggestion for the whole sentence would be: "The first World Snooker Championship took place in 1927, with the final held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England, and the title was won by Joe Davis." or even "and the first world title was won by Joe Davis."
  • In Qualifying stage, it says: "This was the first time in 17 years that Carter did not play in the main stage of the event"... It was actually 18 years since he last failed to make it to the main stage (last knocked out in qualifiers in 2002), so we're counting from 2002 to 2020. It was 17 years since Carter first made it to the Crucible (in 2003) but that's not what we're saying here. Anyway, might it not be clearer to just change this to say "first time since 2002". In fact, I'd change the sentence to "This was the first time since 2002 that Carter had not qualified for the main stage of the event."
  • I still think it's odd that we don't mention Wilson's bye in the First round section, since that's the round that it applies to, and it's currently not mentioned until we get into the Second round section. I certainly think the sentence needs rewording because at the moment it says "Anthony Hamilton withdrew and met Martin Gould" which isn't true. Suggest expanding to: "Kyren Wilson met Martin Gould in the second round; this was Wilson's first match of the main draw, having received a bye through the first round when Anthony Hamilton withdrew from the event at the end of qualifying."
  • I would say it's quite a fundamental piece of info to say how many tables are being used in the arena at each stage of the main draw. When the dividing screen is removed for the semi-finals, the atmosphere in the arena changes as all eyes are on the one match, and the commentators tend to make quite a big thing of it. The single table setup is mentioned in the 2017 article and the number of tables is included for each round in the 2018 article (that one even has a cuegloss link in Semi-finals!) I'm thinking we should retrospectively add this info to 2019 and also include it in 2020, and make the articles consistent. I'd be happy to sort that out if you agree. What do you think? (I notice that we do mention the eight-table set-up in the Qualifying section.)
References (6 Oct)
  • Why do all the Sporting Life refs have UK set as their location? It looks a bit out of place. The BBC Sport refs don't have it, for example.
  • It looks like the Eurosport archives aren't working. I just get a blue screen with a message saying "Eurosport is unavailable in your region" – or is it just me!? Examples: refs. 14, 31, 57, 74, etc. etc.
  • Ref.15: This sources the new dates (31 July to 16 Aug) but says nothing about the tournament being "the last of 17 ranking events in the 2019–20 season on the World Snooker Tour," which is the statement it is tagged against.
  • Ref.7 & Ref.45: Why are these two BBC Sport articles in a different format to all the others? The URLs have both got an /amp branch in them for some reason and they look different to the others. What does the amp bit mean? Why not just use [2] and [3]? Is it something to do with the archives for the original URLs being problematic?
  • The RTE refs (42/113/117) have no work alias parameter. I did try adding website=rte.ie, but Benny deleted it (I think because there was already a publisher param and you shouldn't really have both?) Maybe we just need to get rid of the publisher param altogether or change it to work=RTÉ ?
  • Refs. 57/70/71/76: These articles were all live reports that used the same URL ([4]) and this URL was then reused for the article on the final "...Ronnie O'Sullivan Beats Kyren Wilson" It appears that the four articles just used this URL temporarily while the matches were in progress, hence all titles have "World Snooker Championship LIVE – " at the start. So they can't really be used. Unless you can find some archives that were captured for the specific dates, but Eurosport archives are looking a bit temperamental.
  • Ref.143: This source fails verification because I can't find the quote anywhere in the report or the video. I think we need another source for the statement: "Although O'Sullivan had won four of their six previous meetings, Wilson had won their latest encounter in the semi-finals of the 2020 Welsh Open."

So, that's everything from me. Cheers for now, Rodney Baggins (talk) 11:16, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The London Evening Standard source is still in (now ref.143) and the live Eurosport broadcast (ref.100) You did say you'd removed these two but seem to have forgotten? I can look at the single-table setup issue at a later date. Other than that, I'm happy to support if you just sort out those two outstanding refs. Rodney Baggins (talk) 21:25, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Should all be gone now. Busy night ;). Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 21:43, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you have my support for this article now. I'll do some further copyediting later, but generally it's looking good. Rodney Baggins (talk) 10:51, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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Images look OK except for File:World Snooker Championship 2015 Logo.png. Although it is probably below TOO in the US, the UK has very low standards for copyright protection. I've nominated it for deletion on Commons, but it could be local uploaded as PD-logo (enwiki only pays attention to US copyright laws). (t · c) buidhe 19:40, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Homeostasis07

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Lead

^ There's an unnecessary repetition of "it" in this sentence, and is there any way you could quantify what a "ranking event" is here? I was confused about the term until I read Snooker world rankings (which is linked to later in the 2nd paragraph of the lead). So it may be a good idea to add that link to 'ranking event' here, and remove the link in the 2nd paragraph?

^ Reads like it's missing a comma after Tour.

Background

  • "The first World Snooker Championship in 1927, with the final held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England, which was won by Joe Davis."

^ Could be more simply reworded to "The final of the first World Snooker Championship in 1927 was held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England, and was won by Joe Davis." I see this sentence was mentioned by another reviewer above, so I hope my rephrasing is to both of your liking.

  • Couldn't find anything to complain about in Format, Coverage or Prize fund sub-sections.

Qualifying stage

^ That is, unless you know of someone intending on creating 2019/20 Challenge Tour Playoff? Since there's no corresponding article for the 2018/19 Challenge Tour, I doubt one will be created anytime soon.

    • Well, there was no playoff in 2018/19, so it won't have been created. The playoff itself is notable enough for an article of its own merit, so I don't see the need to remove it. Also see WP:REDLINK for where its suitable to retain links to articles to promote them being created like in this case. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 21:10, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Will review subsequent prose sections later, as the article gets quite technical from this point onward. Having said that, there's quite a bit of WP:Overlink in the 'Main draw' section. I'd understand if you want to link every name during the first round phase, but there's no need to link the same names over and over again in subsequent rounds. It seems the 'Highlight duplicate links' tool isn't working anymore, so I'm afraid this will need to be done manually. I know this is a tedious task. So let me know if you want me to chip in with link removal at any point. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 00:58, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tournament summary

  • I honestly found myself becoming bored reading line after line of 'player 1 was ahead until X happened, then player 2 took the lead until Y happened, with player 1 winning the game by [X score]'. But I guess, as a sports article, this style of prose is similar to what's found in any other sports FAs: goals and points and scores and events which had an impact on the overall game, etc. Like I said elsewhere, I genuinely don't know anything about snooker, but even for me, this section was easy to follow. I particularly liked what you did in the Ronnie O'Sullivan vs Mark Williams paragraph in Quarter-finals. No typos jumped out at me either.

Qualifying

  • If you've followed a template, then please disregard this point, but wouldn't it make more sense for this section to be included above the Tournament summary? The qualifying stage of the main tournament took place concurrent to the qualifying stage for the amateurs, right?

I accept your responses to my previous points. Will be happy to support this for promotion soon enough. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 23:28, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Co-orninator comments

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Hi Laser brain - is this enough commentary on this nomination, or should I seek additional input? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 08:36, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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