Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Freddie Mitchell/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 not promoted by Ucucha 16:09, 28 March 2012 [1].

Freddie Mitchell

Nominator(s): Eagles 24/7 (C) 21:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe that after working on this article for several months, it is now ready to be looked at as an FA. While I am currently competing in the WikiCup, this article will not be used for it. Eagles 24/7 (C) 21:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup judge note: the majority of this article was written in 2011, so it is not eligible in this year's competition. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 00:26, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The nominator has already noted that. Inter change able|talk to me 18:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some editors will not review WikiCup FACs, so I was hoping to make certain these editors realize it is not one. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – First off, glad to see a new face at FAC, as we can always use more of those. Here are my early impressions after reading part of the article. If I can find time, I'll try to come back for another look later.

First off, the reliability of sourcing as a whole seems reasonable, but what makes Deadspin (ref 169) a reliable source? If I recall, it's a blog, which isn't generally reliable. Does the author have any special qualifications?
"and he voiced his frustration on and off the field." From a technical standpoint, he only voiced frustration off the field. On it, the article only says he made gestures, which isn't voicing anything. If he yelled at Donovan McNabb at some point that would be different, but the article doesn't say that.
The lead is best done with at least some facts from each of the sections in an article. At the moment, there's nothing from the personal life section. You should be able to glean at least a sentence from the section, which is of a reasonable size.
~~Early years: Minor point, but I'd spell out RBI, as the FAC people like it when all of the abbreviations are defined.~~
College career: As an FAC regular, I've seen sports article after sports article after sports article get called out for having too much jargon in it. Since I'm a sports fan, I often fail to detect issues myself. One that I am worried about here is whether the average (non-sports) reader will understand the concept of redshirting. Maybe adding something saying that he didn't play that year would help to clarify things.
~~Redundancy here: "Starting in place of the injured Farmer for his first career start". We have "Starting" and "start"; try modifying it so there's one fewer of these.~~
~~There's a massive paragraph describing his 2000 season that weighs in at 20 lines on my widescreen. This is really long and can surely be chopped in two so it doesn't look like a massive wall of text.~~
~~What is the Fred Biletnikoff Award for? I'd expect it to be for best receiver in the country, but that's the type of fact that should be included so the reader doesn't have to click on a link.~~
~~"Mitchell caught what appeared to be a touchdown in the corner of the endzone". Minor, but I thought end zone was two words.~~
The one general comment I have so far is that there seems to be an excessive amount of detail regarding his performances, at least in the college section. It looks like every game from the 2000 season is included in some way, which strikes me as a little bit of overkill. I know comprehensiveness is desired, but it's questionable to me whether a routine seven-reception, 65-yard performance is significant enough to be mentioned.
~~Pre-draft: "Mitchell was also criticized by scouts for his small frame and character concerns." The scouts had the concerns, not Mitchell, right? Prose is a little ambiguous on that at the moment.~~
~~Is there a known reason why Mel Kiper downgraded Mitchell in his draft projections?~~ Giants2008 (Talk) 03:32, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Deadspin: The article (I've just learned) was written by Will Leitch, who is the founder of the website and later wrote for the New York Times.
Re: excessive minor statistics: this was also brought up in the peer review for the professional career section. I'll work on it.
Re: character concerns: I'm not too sure how to rearrange this, but I've given it a shot.
Re: Kiper: I would guess it's because of other players' draft "stock" rising after their Pro Days or something, but I don't believe there is information on the true details.
Besides these, I believe I have addressed your concerns. Thanks for the review. Eagles 24/7 (C) 04:29, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've now appropriately addressed Mitchell's "drop" down Kiper's draft board in the article. Eagles 24/7 (C) 19:40, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments, leaning oppose: This looks a very comprehensive and generally well written article, which covers his career very effectively. So far, I have only read the first couple of sections in detail. However, I have some concerns about a few aspects at the moment. My main worry is that this is probably fantastic if you are a football fan, but not if you are a general reader. My knowledge of American Football is slim, and I found parts to be hard going. An FA needs to be accessible to the general reader (although not every single aspect of the sport needs to be spelt out), and we are not quite there yet. However, it should not be too difficult to sort out one way or another. (I think a few of my comments echo those by Giants above, but I only realised afterwards) --Sarastro1 (talk) 13:09, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

The first paragraph of the lead could do with being a little stronger. As someone who has never heard of him, I would expect the first paragraph to let me know more about his achievements, and more of an overview of his career, not just the first years of it.
Also, I think the lead goes into too much detail over his career, at the expense of other aspects of the article, such as Early years and Personal.
For idiots like me who aren't too familiar with the sport, maybe link "reception", "touchdown", "touchdown pass"?
"and caught only twelve passes the entire year": I'm assuming this is bad, but maybe it could be made a little clearer (e.g. "considered poor for XXX")?
"After Freeman left before the 2003 season, Mitchell became the slot receiver once again." Not quite sure about "after…before" here. Maybe "After Freeman left prior to the 2003 season…" or maybe even "Mitchell became the slot receiver once again during the 2003 season, after Freeman left".

Early years

"Mitchell earned The Ledger second-team all-area honors": Not quite following what it was that he earned here.
If he was drafted, what happened to his baseball subsequently?
"Mitchell visited the University of Florida, Florida State University, the University of Miami, and Michigan State University before he committed to the University of California, Los Angeles to play football for the Bruins.": Seems over-detailed to me, but if this is significant, it could do to be spelt out.

College career

Reading this section, I am a little concerned that it is almost impossible to read, if you do not understand football terminology, without following a lot of links, which is rather distracting and discouraging. For example, "He had one rushing attempt for 30 yards on a reverse, 78 yards on three kickoff returns, and 17 yards on three punt returns." is almost impenetrable for me, even clicking on "reverse". While I obviously would not expect every part of this biography to spell out rules and terminology, for a FA it is better if the reader can discover most of the relevant information without clicking and clicking. And each term would only need to be explained once, and then used freely throughout the rest of the article. This is the way that most current sports FAs operate.
"Mitchell sat out the 1997 season for the UCLA Bruins by taking a redshirt." Although this is linked, I think it would help the reader more if it could be explained briefly in the text without having to follow a link to discover what "taking a redshirt" means.
"four catches for 108 yards and one touchdown pass (79 yards) from quarterback Cade McNown": Again, without expecting a description of the rules of football, I think that here, where this terminology is first used, a long-hand explanation of what this means would really benefit the non-specialist reader.
"one rushing attempt for 30 yards" Link?
"He was named the Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Week for his efforts in the game": Again, it would be nice to know what was this award, for what reasons was it given, and by whom was it awarded, without clicking links.
"after a "remarkable" recovery": Who said it was remarkable? Press? Doctors? Team-mates?
"Mitchell and Poli-Dixon worked out with Minnesota Vikings receivers Randy Moss and Cris Carter": Does this mean trained, or worked in a gymn, or something else?

General

Although I have not read the complete article, I notice that there is no section on "style" or "technique". Most sports FAs have something about this; even if there is not a dedicated section, there is information throughout the article (I apologise if it is there and I haven' seen it). For example, what was his style of play? Why was he successful? How did contemporaries rate him? What did the press or other critics say? I'm not sure listing awards is enough as these do not comment on his play. Scanning through, there seem to be some bits from coaches, etc, but I am not getting an impression of how he played or what people thought of him.--Sarastro1 (talk) 13:09, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, I'll try to address your concerns. Eagles 24/7 (C) 18:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In response to your suggestion for a "style" or "technique" section, American football is not cricket. Of the three American football biography FAs (Tyrone Wheatley, Scott Zolak, and Jim Thorpe), not a single one has this section, as there really is no "style" or "technique" for American football players. Maybe quarterbacks, but certainly not wide receivers such as Mitchell. Eagles 24/7 (C) 22:49, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, but I wasn't thinking just about cricket. Many baseball and ice hockey articles that I have reviewed have this section, but as I said above I would not insist on an actual section. However, there must be something on his technique, or what made him good. Was it speed? Catching ability? Throwing (Sorry, I'm probably just betraying my ignorance here!)? What were the skills he practised which made him effective? Please feel free to argue! --Sarastro1 (talk) 22:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll see what I can find and I'll get back to you. Eagles 24/7 (C) 23:02, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's been 18 days since this comment. Any progress to report? We can't leave articles at FAC indefinitely, and this is slipping toward the bottom of the page, so there needs to be some kind of response soon. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:04, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I've been busy IRL. I'll be working on the article again tomorrow but may end up withdrawing if I can't find more time. Eagles 24/7 (C) 03:20, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have addressed several points in the comments above. Eagles 24/7 (C) 20:05, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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