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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chicago Bears/archive1

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Chicago Bears

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This article is about the NFL franchise, which is one of the original teams in the league. It is an interesting article that I had a hand in working on. It is already a Wikipedia Good Article and is well-written and cited. It also has daughter articles that provide details to the summaries placed on the main article. It is expanded enough to meet the requirements set by the NFL WikiProject. This nomination is a semi-self-nomination since I worked on it but not the only contributor. Thank you, read, and enjoy --Happyman22 18:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It just doesn't look nice...and for newcomers to Wikipedia, it might be confusing for them to click on something and not have it appear...makes a bad impression. Of course, one or two is okay. -Osbus 19:24, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Not going to oppose now since I'm not seeing anything seriously wrong, but the article is rather rough around the edges, isn't quite up to FA quality yet in my opinion. Examples:
  • "the tragic story of Brian Piccolo" - doesn't attempt to explain the story or why it was tragic, kind of confusing to anyone not familiar with the subject. I know it goes into it in sufficient detail further down, but the first unexplained mention is early in the article.
  • "After the firing of Mike Ditka at the end of the 1992 season, the Bears have been on a downward slide" Uncited POV claim, also they make the playoffs as a favorite to go to the SB in 2005. Apparently that downward slide stopped somewhat... but the paragraph makes it sounds like they're real bottom feeders still. The main problem is that it's drawing conclusions from raw facts twice in that paragraph, a FA no-no.
  • "The Bears moved into Soldier Field in 1971 after Wrigley Field, which was the Bears' home field for 50 years, became too small to hold an NFL event" An FA shouldn't have parts that are likely to make a lot of readers go "Why is that? I'd like to know more about that..." but the article leaves them hanging. This part should say why Wrigley Field was too small. Another example is "perfected the T-formation system" - a paragraph about the system that never says what the system actually is.
  • Probably should do a little bit more to establish notability to non-Americans, and non-US football fans. For example, mention "Superbowl Shuffle" more prominently, 1985 Bears role as probably the iconic team of the 1980s and presence in pop culture, etc. "The Bears in popular culture" section is a good start, but could be fleshed out a bit more to explain the actual signifigance.
  • Had a lot of style mistakes (per MoS) and included some awkward sentences. Going by the "I'm not a great copy editor" rule of thumb, there are probably a lot more lurking still, though I did attempt to fix the ones I noticed.--W.marsh 04:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, woot woot. Great article, great team, great prose, great article. Phoenix2 08:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for now. Mostly fairly minor issues, I've changed a couple of particularly minor ones myself.
  • Franchise history - The mention of the rivalry with the Green Bay Packers disrupts the flow of the section. It seems odd to go from an incident in 1989 to events in the 1940s. Is the rivalry notable enough to have its own subsection or article?
  • Videotaping the "Super Bowl Shuffle" the day after a loss is perhaps unfortunate, but it is not irony.
  • I presume the term "one-upped" in the phrase "The Packers have also one-upped the Bears from time to time over the years" is either an Americanism or American football parlance. Either way, to a non-American reader it means little. I assume it is something to do with one-upmanship.
  • The phrase "A trip to the playoffs in 2005 season might have signaled hope that the Bears might turn around their ill fortunes." is POV, as is the phrase "Mercifully, this design lasted only one season" in the uniforms section.
  • Stadium - "Some people viewed the remodeling as a mistake" is an example of weasel words.
  • The use of abbreviations for positions in the list of Hall of Famers is confusing if, like me, you are unfamiliar with American football terminology.
  • Retired numbers - "The Bears also rank third in all of professional sports in retired numbers behind the New York Yankees and Boston Celtics". Does this mean US professional sports or worldwide? A citation would be helpful.
  • The Broadcasters section adds little encyclopedic value, and IMO should be removed. Oldelpaso 11:09, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have reworded the history section so their is less of a POV, and I have nominated the article to be placed for Peer Review.
  • The article has been edited to meet some of the requests made above and has been renominated for feature status

--Happyman22 02:13, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Why was the edit-box blank when I hit 'edit'? Support with provisos ...
    • Numbers: it's cooler to spell out numbers less than 10, unless there's a good reason not to. However, at the top, there's a reason to do the reverse: "The Bears have played in over 1,000 games"—this would be easier to read as "a thousand games". I strongly recommend using an n dash rather than a hyphen for ranges; e.g., "14–16" rather then 14-16". Same for scores (73–0), and 1922–present, etc. Do a control-V on all of them—there are many, and it will improve the appearance.
    • "an agreement that was reached by Halas and Sternaman with Staley"—Do you mean "an agreement that was reached between Halas and Sternaman, and Staley" (it's the better of two awkward options).
  • "newly-penned"—No hyphen after an -ly word.
    • Linked years: 2002 is a useful piped link to NFL in that year; but please delink the unpiped plain years as blue nuisances.
    • "down trend"—Do you mean "downward trend".

Could do with a quick run-through by a copy-editor. Tony 08:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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