Wikipedia:Peer review/Willie Mays/archive1

Willie Mays

I've listed this article for peer review because I'm thinking of nominating this for Featured Article status. I've never done a Featured Article before, though, so I don't know whether this is close or has a lot of errors. Any comments are appreciated!

Thanks, Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:14, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

NOTE: when you close this peer review, please be sure to remove it from Template:FAC peer review sidebar. And please consider adding the sidebar to your userpage so you can help out at Peer review! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:21, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia

My general advice for FA aspirants is at User:SandyGeorgia/Achieving excellence through featured content. Although it is oriented mostly towards medical editors, the generalities and advice apply across the board. The additional links are must reading!

• The WP:SIZE of this article is 14,000 words; that means you will have an uphill climb to get reviews and support. Many FAC reviewers disagree with me, but I never support articles that are above about 8,000 or 8,500 words, as they become maintenance nightmares, take more than half an hour to read, and might not make good use of summary style (see the advice in my essay). A natural sub-article to shorten the content here might be Willie Mays in the major leagues; splitting it thusly would allow you to seek TWO FAs instead of one, and make each of them more readable.
• Citation error: Koppett, Leonard (1967). "A Thinking Man's Guide to Baseball". New York: E. P. Dutton. pp. 226–27. ISBN 978-1199112378. Missing or empty |url= (help)
• Take care with IMDB, not a reliable source; can better sources be found?
• Review the External links, eg, Willie Mays article, Encyclopedia of Alabama ... FAs are supposed to be comprehensive, so we should only be linking to things that provide information that for some reason cannot be included in an already comprehensive article ... why would we link to another Encyclopedia, and what do they say that we can't? Sample only ...
• There are 18 uses of the word however; see the top of User:SandyGeorgia for help with this scourge of Wikipedia :)
• There are 30 uses of the word also, almost always redundant-- see the Tony1 writing exercises linked in my essay.
• Review MOS:LQ, eg, I am unsure about ... "I don't like to talk about 1960," Mays said after the final game of a season in which the Giants, preaseason favorites for the pennant, finished fifth out of eight NL teams. "A bad year."
• The article may be somewhat overquoted; always good to say as much as we can in our own words.

I am unsure these days who are the best baseball writers, but I highly suggest you consider dividing this into two with summary style, and search through WP:FA for recent FAs in baseball to see if you can find a sports writer to go through. VERY fine start, and I look forward to reading a shortened version. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:21, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Giants2008 would you have time to look in here? Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:29, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Therapyisgood might you be interested in weighing in here? Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:55, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

• I will say in general the article needs to be summarized more, some of the refs need work (compare style in ref 199 to 208 for capitalization style), the ""Say Hey Kid" and other nicknames" section could easily be a note on the introduction to "Say Hey Kid" in the lead and cut down. "During his career, Mays would charge a hundred dollars per on-air interview, more than the standard twenty-five dollars at the time. However, he would split the money four ways and give it to the last four players on the Giants' roster" not sure what this means. Notes also go before references. Therapyisgood (talk) 11:17, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

• My input is similar to Therapyisgood's. There's a lot of good content here, which I appreciate as a baseball fan, but I would attempt to condense some of it and make some trims of non-essential items. I'd start by attempting to get the article down to 13,000 words and then see how much more can be cut. Things like the All-Star game and barnstorming sections could stand to have truly important things incorporated into the rest of the body; I'm not convinced that they need separate sections, and think that they are good candidates to be summarized further. Looking elsewhere, the amount of money he charged for interviews strikes me as an extraneous item that can safely be cut. The section on his nickname is another thing that could stand to be summarized, and some of the extra content may be suitable for a footnote instead of being included in the main text. Some allowances can probably be made regarding the length, as Mays is a key figure in baseball history, but getting the fat out will only help you make a case for keeping the rest. I agree with Sandy that IMDB isn't a suitable source; if you can't find a better source for any of that content, those items should probably be taken out. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:42, 14 November 2020 (UTC)