Wikipedia:Peer review/Clarke Carlisle/archive1

Clarke Carlisle

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I believe that it must be fairly close to Good Article standard, so just looking for any general comments and improvements that people might have to get it to GA.

Thanks, -- BigDom 21:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• One quick drive-by comment - "As of 2009, Carlisle lives in Ripponden with his wife, Gemma, and his two children" Stating "his children" as opposed to "their children" could be read as implying that they are his children but not his wife's (i.e. they are from another relationship). Can you confirm either way.....? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:25, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, changed to make it clearer. -- BigDom 20:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: Pretty well done. Most of my points involve relatively small fixes. The main thing to watch is to be sure that the article makes good sense to readers who don't have a large knowledge of English football. Thus, be careful about using team nicknames, or too much association of clubs with their grounds. It is also necessary to have some clarity on the structure of English league football and the various name changes for the league divisions.

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• Lead:

• General point: perhaps the lead is overdetailed. It needs to summarise Carlisle's career, but it isn't necessary, for example, to quote each transfer fee, the number of appearances for each club, etc. This information belongs in the body of the article rather than in the lead.

Taken out some details

• "He attained 10 A-grades at GCSE..." As the last person mentioned was the father, "He" needs to specified as "Carlisle"

Changed

• New paragraphs should always specify the subject rather than beginnin "He...", as do the second and third paragraphs. To achieve some variety of expression you could rephrase the opening of the third paragraph: "In August 2005 Carlisle signed for Football League Championship side Watford, for a sum of £100,000."

Done

• On the question of fees, does "before moving to Queens Park Rangers for a fee of £250,000" mean that Carlisle received £250,000 as his fee for moving? Similar query with regard to other fees mentioned in the text.

No, it means the new club paid his old club £250,000. I didn't really see the problem, do you have any ideas about how to make it clearer in the article?

• Football club nicknames ("Seasiders", "Hornets") are known only to the football fraternity and give a tone of sports journalism to what is supposed to be a neutral encyclopedia article. I suggest that you don't use these nicknames or, if you do, initially identify the clubs which they are associated, and theresfter always use the more formal name ("Blackpool", "Watford" etc).

All chnaged to formal names

• "While at Loftus Road" requires a link to make sense and it is unnecessary detail in the lead. Why not begin the sentence: "Here, Carlisle won three caps..."

Changed it

• The number of games he missed for "the club" - would that be England under-21 or QPR?

Changed to Queens Park Rangers

• "thanks to an alcohol problem" is inappropriate. "because of an alcohol-related problem" would be OK

Changed

• Explain or link "free transfer"

Done

• Give dates for his first Watford season, presumably 2005-06

Done

• Personal life

• "From an early age, he was encouraged to follow Christianity by his parents" This sentence is not followed up anywhere else. Assuming he adopted these beliefs, are they in any way relevant to his football career?

Added a bit more

• "He is an ambassador for the Kick It Out scheme, which campaigns for inclusion and equality in football,[1] and he is currently on the Management Committee of the Professional Footballers' Association." These are interesting facts which indicate some personal breadth of character yet are only mentioned this one brief time, with no further details. There should be at least some indication of what his work for the PFA involves (and, indeed, an explanation of what the PFA is). I don't think that "Personal Life" is the appropriate section for this information.

Split an "Outside football" section into "Personal life" and "Other work"

• Youth career and Blackpool

• Explain what "Bloomfield Road" is, likewise "red card". Links should not generally be used as a substitute for basic prose identifications.

I think I've done this

(From this point I am saving time by doing minor fixes myself)

• Queens Park Rangers

• "The following season was riddled with personal problems for Carlisle, who had developed an alcohol problem, but continued to play for a number of months." Needs redrafting to avoid repetition (problems/problem) and better flow: "In the following season Carlisle developed personal problems, including an alcohol addiction, although he continued to play for a number of months."

Changed

• A footnote or similsr should explain the renaming of divisions in te Football League, or readers won't know what to make of Football League Championship.

Added a couple of footnotes

• Leeds United

• "...but was sent off..." Explain what this means – previously you referred to the red card.

Changed

• Elland Road: I emphasise that it is not a good idea to refer to football clubs by their grounds, as this information is only known to those knowledgeable about British football.

Changed it

• Watford and Luton

• "...did not book Carlisle during the match..." "book" needs explaining

Explained

• "but despite a man-of-the-match performance..." Needs clarifying if this is a formal award, and whether it refers to Carlisle,

Clarified it

• Burnley

• Why three citations to support his signing for Burnley?

Removed one

• Multi-clause sentence: "He stayed out of the team for the whole of February 2009, making his return to action on 3 March 2009, starting in the centre of defence in the 1–0 win over his old team, Blackpool, at Bloomfield Road." Needs splitting

Edited

• International career: Suggestion - there isn't really a "career" here. "International appearances" would be more apt.

Fair point, changed

I have done various minor copyedits which you can check out from the article history. I am not watching my peer reviews at the moment (and anyway I'm away from 20th to 27th) but if you want to raise anything with me, raise it on my talk page. Good luck with the article. Brianboulton (talk) 23:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the comments, very helpful. -- BigDom 11:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)