Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Milestone home runs by Barry Bonds

Milestone home runs by Barry Bonds

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page. The closing editor's comments were: 10 days, 6 support, 1 oppose. I'm still not sure about the significance of the topic, but I'm clearly in the minority. Promote. Scorpion⁰⁴²² 19:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am cleaning up Barry Bonds in hopes of nominating it for WP:GAC this offseason. I have removed three large lists from the page. I have encouraged User:Maple Leaf to look at WP:WIAFL and clean up List of Barry Bonds 73 Home Runs, a chart he had added to Barry Bonds. He is making progress. I had asked User:FPAtl‎ to do the same with this list and a list of Ballparks Bonds has homered in. He declined the invitation. I have removed the latter list as inaccurate and have been cleaning up this list myself. I hope it is interesting enough to get support. I am willing to address all changes. I was considering adding citations for each statement in the notes column, but was unsure whether this would be overciting since all of them are one click away from the link in the home run count column beginning with #600.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 18:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment That is an awfully small lead. As well, I have concerns about criterion 1a3, which basically says that any lists where the listed things have no articles are excuseable if it covers a Topic of Significant study and this seems rather trivial to me. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 18:12, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply I beefed up the lead a bit. Is that sufficient? The existence of the following articles should get us past 1a3: Home run, Barry Bonds, 300-300 club, 500 home run club, 600 home run club, 700 home run club, List of Major League Baseball home run champions, List of Major League Baseball Home Run Records, List of top 500 Major League Baseball home run hitters and Major League Baseball home run milestones.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 18:28, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - How so? None of them are FLs, and none of them are lists of a select few home runs hit by one man. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 18:29, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - The guideline you refer to says "contains a finite, complete and well-defined set of items that naturally fit together to form a significant topic of study, and where the members of the set are not sufficiently notable to have individual articles". It is quite natural to consider the milestone home runs (round hundreds and major career total records) as a group. Baseball historians and wikipedians consider such accomplishments notable as evidenced by articles. WP:FL takes discographies of individual singers as a serious subject. Thus, lists of accomplishments by one person are quite commonly considered here.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 18:48, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - Yes, but discographies all pass 1a3 because all of the albums have their own page. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 19:58, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per 1a3. These other WP lists you mention don't help me think this is a "a significant topic of study". Instead, it confirms that there is no end to the baseball trivia on WP. The important and encyclopaedic point is that he is a record breaker, and the few significant dates where records were broken are worth mentioning, in prose, in the article. The so-called milestones are merely inventions of baseball nerds (or whatever the term is) and the precise details of each one belongs on sporting fan sites rather than in an general encyclopaedia IMO. BTW: the discographies should have links to each album or single article. Colin°^Talk 19:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply Thanks for taking the time to look at the list. I have added a paragraph with citations so that you may better understand the importance of this list.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 20:12, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Some of what you've added appears to only apply to the 3rd/2nd/1st place thresholds rather than the x00 "milestones". Also the sentence "In fact, players are even sensitive to the way in which their paraphernalia is displayed." is, rather, specific to Bonds and the controversy (which deserves brief mention). You should wikilink the date field in the refs. I'm sure the recent events got significant media coverage but did the pre-660 thresholds appear outside of detailed sports pages? Does anyone need to know who was pitching, where and his exact age for all these events? Oh, I probably don't want to know the answer to that one—it'll just depress me :-) Colin°^Talk 21:05, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - There was extensive coverage of both his 300th and 400th home runs because they made him a member of the 300-300 club and 400-400 club. All players take time to assemble a set of spikes and bats to be displayed in the hall. I will see what other links I can come up with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TonyTheTiger (talk • contribs) 21:50, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ok, you've convinced me. Could you fix the couple of issues I raised above, fix the redlink and the spelling and generally polish the lead text a bit. Colin°^Talk 23:15, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for your support. I have linked the dates, fixed the redlink that was due to a typo and found two spelling mistakes. I have another redlink that should have an article though now.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 01:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I could use additional feedback on additional issues: Should I have the section Career home run leaders or just the link to the main article in a see also section? What is the proper title for this page? Should I add home runs from the 2001 season such as 60, 61, 62, 70, 71 and 73 and possibly 50, 53, 66, & 67 (see Barry Bonds' Incredible Season)?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 14:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support After reviewing the criteria, this is worthy of being a Featured List. The title is sufficient but it may be worthwhile to add some of the home runs from the 2001 season. I would add 60 (to acknowledge that he was only the 5th to reach that figure), 70, 71 (the record breaker) and 73 (the last of that season). Maple Leaf 16:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply Thanks for the advice. I think that is a good set of milestones.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 20:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support The list fulfills all the criteria. Good job. Chris! _ct 19:37, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm glad to see something that I made get recognized as good finally. -- FPAtl (holla, holla, holla) 19:43, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another Comment This liststill seems to be pretty ill-defined as to what a milestone is, because wouldn't all of his record breaking home runs be milestones? -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 23:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply Which other milestone home runs do you think were breaking news. I am considering adding #114, which made him the 12th member of the 30-30 club. I am also considering #332, which gave him 40 although he only had 31 of his 40 stolen bases at that point in the season. Aside from that, I am not sure what other significant records are omitted. The only other one I think merits serious consideration is #222, which was the culmination of his first home run championship.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 18:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - It seems like OR and POV to me, because it is all based on what a few users think counts as a milestone. Now, if TSN and Sports Illustrated had their own lists that you based this off of, that would be one thing. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 21:08, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - I don't think it need be OR if TTT can define a "milestone" as e.g., "a home run that moved the player into a new well-known category of achievement, or otherwise received extraordinary news coverage". The former is an objective threshold and the latter can be justified from sources. If TTT or Maple leaf were inventing their own thresholds, then that would be OR. Colin°^Talk 21:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Object An article about Barry Bonds that goes on and on about his 'greatness' but manages to avoid even a single mention of the alleged drug abuse that has dogged him for the last three years? It is unstintingly positive in its tone about Bonds, but where's any notion of the asterisk, the controversy? This appears to be incomplete and biased, to say the least. ---Peripatetic 10:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply This is not an article about his greatness. This is about his milestone homeruns and why they are notable. His greatness makes them notable, not his controversies.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 15:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Perhaps it could be mentioned in the lead that he is a controversial figure due to claims of steroid use, but I don't think any kind of extended mention or devotion to the topic is needed in the article. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 19:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]