Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Peer review/2005 Texas Longhorn football team

2005 Texas Longhorn football team

Numerous editors have contributed to this article to help it become one of the best and most thorough college-football related articles on Wikipedia. I believe it meets the criteria to be a Featured Article and I am requesting a peer review prior to submission for FA consideration.

This article previously had a peer reveiew for GA and some valid questions were raised. I believe I have addressed all of those by changes to the article or by explanation on the article's talk page. All other questions that have arisen on the Talk page have been addressed. I have also run the semi-automated peer review script to look for potential problems. I have decided to go for FA status rather than another attempt at GA status because the GA process does not seem as suitable for longer articles.

The article is very well referenced, with 121 in-line sources, all of them meeting WP:V and WP:RS. It has undergone a thorough copyedit to look for any spelling, punctuation, formatting, or other problems. Care has been taken to include links to football terms that may be confusing to the non-football fan.

In following the Oklahoma Sooners nomination, I see that there were some objections raised to what was perceived as an overly-positive tone of the article. I am not sure I agree with that comment about the OU article, but I have taken care to review this article to ensure that every positive claim made about the 2005 UT team is attributed to a reliable source.

Another thing that may arise is the question of length. It is difficult to be complete and still concise, especially while taking the time to provide background for a reader who may be less than familiar with the subject matter. Knowing that summary-style is favored for long articles, I did break out most of the content on the 2006 Rose Bowl into its own article. I look forward to further suggestions as to whether any other sections should be broken out or if the length is now appropriate for the subject matter.

I am eager to hear the opinions of other editors on these points, and any others that are raised. I look forward to your thoughts. Johntex\^talk 00:17, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

RockMFR

• A few things I immediately noticed- the paragraph beginning with "The official website of UT football" is entirely useless trivia, should be cut out. In the Ohio State section, it says "two storied programs" - cut out "storied" as it is just fluff. That particular line also does not need three references. --- RockMFR 19:01, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your review.

For the first comment, I included that paragraph because I believe it is interesting that the UT football program designed a logo specifically to commemorate the win. That is why the description of the logo is included. Johntex\^talk 03:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

For the second comment, I am mindful that some people who read this article may not be that familiar with college football. Therefore, I felt is was important to point out that UT and OSU are often considered to be among the sports best programs. This knowledge is important to an understanding of why it was a big deal that the two teams faced off against each other. The references cited support the use of the term "storied" to describe the two programs. Johntex\^talk 03:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia

• Why isn't this peer review linked from the talk page? That would make it easier for editors to find their way back here. I was well into typing out a very long list of things that needed to be addressed in your footnotes/references, when I hit an unmarked PDF in a footnote that killed my computer, so I lost everything - that's why you're supposed to identify PDFs :-) So, all I can say is that there are numerous errors in your footnotes - some of the links are dead (you can try to find them in the internet archive), some of them don't have publisher or publication date, some of them have no information at all (I recall something about ESPN that gave no other information and no article link), and some use inconsistent format (most have author last name first, some don't). There was more, but I can't remember it all - so, pls check all your references, and please identify PDFs. Readable prose size of your article is 27KB; there shouldn't be any size objections. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you SandyGeorgia, for your excellent proof-reading and for the improvements you have made to the article. I have now linked this peer review from the article talk page. I will go through the references again for consistency and completeness. Johntex\^talk 03:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Another issue is to figure out how to deal with the copyright violations on MackBrownFootball - they use PDF copies of copyrighted media stories, which is a no-no. You should attempt to locate the original sources, to avoid copyvio issues. Per WP:EL, Wikipedia shouldn't link to sites that violate copyright. A number of the sources I looked at on MackBrownFootball were PDF copies of newspaper articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this comment. There is no evidence that MackBrownFootball is violating any copyright. To the contrary, I think it is best to assume good faith and proceed on the understanding that they have permission to host these article reprints. It is very normal for athletic programs to seek and receive permission to host such articles. Therefore, they are not a copyright violation and there is no problem under Wikipedia policy to link to that website. I have no objection if someone wants to search for the original articles elsewhere, but my experience has been that the UT website tends to keep these articles available at the same URL for far longer than most newspapers. Therefore, I don't think it is very productive to look for alternate links. Johntex\^talk 03:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• The final paragraph needs a copy edit - I didn't review the other prose - it has missing punctuation and sentence fragments:
  • Yince Young's departure set up a competition between Colt McCoy and Jevan Snead to see who would lead the 2006 Texas Longhorn football team. McCoy won the starting job and threw a freshman-record 27 touchdowns This touchdown pass was McCoy's 27th touchdown pass of the season. That tied the national record for touchdown passes by a freshman. in route to a 10-3 season for the Longhorns in 2006. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I wrote this when I was up too late at night. I am not sure this paragraph belongs, since it is about the 2006 program. My initial thinking is that including something who replaced Vince Young and what the 2006 result was provides some longer-term view of the team. I will correct the paragraph and leave it in for now, pending other commetns. Johntex\^talk 03:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

CJC47

Nice article, here are my criticisms:

1. Too many citations in some places. I realize the goal of being well sourced, but statements like "This meeting was also the first-ever match-up between the two storied programs" don't eally need 3 citations. Pick the most important one.
2. The game capsules need to be more on point. The OSU capsule doesn't even talk about what happened in the game, the Rice capsule, has one line. Both have a paragraph or more of pregame notes. Baylor and Kansas need to be expanded, as does the Big 12.
3. I think it is missing something about Mack Brown getting the big game monkey off his back against Oklahoma and by winnning the title.
4. Preseason needs to be expanded... talk about what was going on in CFB at the time USC is the big dog, but was TX the favorite to be there? etc...

Thank you very much for reviewing the article and for your feedback.

I would like to disagree only with your first point. I'm a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check and our goal is for each citable fact in Wikipedia to have multiple citations. This way, if one source becomes unavailable or is called into question, there is always another source to back it up. Even though that fact may seem simple, the phrase "storied programs" has been questioned so multiple sources seemed prudent. I wonder if other people might want to lend their opinion about this point?

I thank your other points are very fair and good. I will work on them.

Thank you again for your help. Johntex\^talk 03:32, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've now put some work into addressing criticisms 3 and 4. (Please let me know if it still needs work) I'll be back to work on number 2. Johntex\^talk 04:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe I have now addressed all these points, excpet number 2. I am still working on expanding the game summaries. Johntex\^talk 08:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Update - I have now made significant expansions to the first 3 game summaries (Louisiana Lafayette, Ohio State, and Rice). I will continue to work my way through each game section with expansions. Johntex\^talk 05:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Update - Missouri and OU now expanded. Johntex\^talk 08:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Update - I expanded the game summaries but that led to a long article. Consequently, I am splittong some of the informaiton off into sub-articles per WP:SUMMARY. Johntex\^talk 20:40, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

VegaDark

• "With 5 rushing TDs scored in the Rose Bowl, Texas has 55 for the season, setting a new single-season record (52; 1969 and 1970)." School record or NCAA record?
• "The 2005 Texas team set a new single-season total yards record with 6,657, passing the 2003 team (5,709)." Once again, school record or NCAA record?
• Image:UT Longhorn logo with Texas.gif needs a fair use rationale. All of the current images used that have fair use rationales need to say "I believe this is fair use in the 2005 Texas Longhorn football team article because..." it has to specifically say what article(s) it is believed to be fair use in.
• It's scout.com, not scouts.com, for when you mention that the game is considered a classic in the opening few paragraphs
• Is the Big 12 conference template really necessary at the bottom of the page? It is my understanding that if the page isn't linked in the template, then the template shouldn't be there. That template should really only be on the university and athletics pages for each school, aka 24 pages total. All facilities, individual teams, etc. can still be in the Big 12 conference category, but it doesn't need that template.

Hi VegaDark, these are all excellent points. I will put time into fixing them this weekend. Thank you very much for taking the time to review the article. Best, Johntex\^talk 06:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe I have now addressed all these points. Johntex\^talk 08:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Caknuck

1. The "List of accomplishments" section has several GLARING omissions... No mention of the four players who were named to the AP All-American team. No mention of Vince Young winning the Davey O'Brien Award or the Maxwell Award. No mention of Michael Huff winning the Jim Thorpe Award.

2. The final paragraph of the intro lists the six Longhorns selected in the 2006 NFL Draft. They area again listed in "After the season" section. I'd suggest mentioning that six were picked in the intro, but waiting until the end to name them. After all, that's where the cites are.

3. Devoting a whole paragraph to the UT Web site championship logo is WAY overboard and may be deem crufty. I doubt it will be viewed as "encyclopedic" during a FA review.

4. The article mentions Young declaring for the draft, but fails to note that he had previously stated his intention to return for a senior year (most notably on The Tonight Show). Warrants mention.

5. Further to what VegaDark mentioned about the images... We cannot use the magazine covers in this article. Per the copyright disclaimer, they can only be used in articles about the magazine, not about the person (or team) depicted thereon. Plus, the Texas Football cover image has the incorrect copyright tag.

6. The Big 12 Championship section mentions the victory gave the Horns a "...fourth consensus national championship in football." This is wrong. The consensus championship wasn't awarded until after the BCS title game. After the Big 12 title game, Texas was still ranked second.

7. Finally, I suggest amending the schedule table to indicate which games were conference games.

Let me know if you'd like additional feedback. Caknuck 23:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Hello Caknuck, thank you very much for reviewing the article. I will be working to address all your points except your point number 5. Fair use images are not limited only to articles about the image. This is a common misconception. The policy states "...specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text". They are therefore not limited exclusively to an article about the magazine. Instead, they are limited to articles OR sections of articles where the image is specifically discussed. The entire article does not have to be about the image or the magazine.

For an example of this, please see Battle of Iwo Jima. The whole article is not about the flag-raising picture. The whole article is not even about the flag raising event. Never-the-less, we can justify using the flag-raising image in the article. We also have fair-use justifications provided for using this one image on several other articles as well.

In the case of the UT article, all the images are specifically discussed in the article. Therefore, they can all qualify under fair use. Johntex\^talk 06:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, regarding point 3, I am listening for other comments on this. You are the second person to say it should go, but I still think it adds something to the article. Pehaps the use of the capitalization (which is found in the original) is making this paragraph stand out non-proporitonaly. I will edit that, but I am not deleting the paragraph at this time. If more people say they don't like it, it will be easy enough to delete later. Johntex\^talk 08:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe I have now addressed or spoken to all your points. Please let me know if you notice any other areas for improvement. Thanks, Johntex\^talk 08:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

4u1e

I've already commented on the length of the article on the talk page, but I had one other semi-related point to make and this seems to be the best place to do it. I don't know that there's a guideline for this anywhere, but the article is seriously overreferenced. Which is a pleasant surprise in a way, and certainly better than being under-referenced, but brings its own problems.

To take an example, see the paragraph which begins: "Ohio State recovered three turnovers in Texas territory..." (in the Ohio State section). The second sentence "The five field goals by Josh Huston tied an Ohio State school and stadium record." has three references, only one of which (52) is needed to support the point being made. The next sentence "He now shares the record with Mike Nugent (at North Carolina State, September 19, 2004) and Bob Atha (vs. Indiana, 24 October 1981 in Ohio Stadium)" has two references (41 & 43), but can be covered entirely by 41 alone, already used in the previous sentence. I suggest the five references used for those two sentences can be replaced by using 52 at the end of sentence two and 41 at the end of sentence three. Ref 43 covers both sentence one and sentence four of the para, so why not just put it at the end to support the whole para? That way you still have three refs supporting the whole para, but using only three footnotes instead of the current seven. I don't think this would make the original information any less easy to find, in fact it might be easier because the direction to the most relevant reference is clearer.

In addition to more precise direction of readers to the most relevant reference, there is also a (minor) saving in overall article length (not relevant in terms of the guidelines, but it would help a little for those on dial up for whom a 150kb article can be slow to load). Finally, footnote numbers can be intrusive for some readers, and definitely more so where there are several in a row. I suggest this approach can usefully be applied throughout the article.

I note the point made above about each citable fact having multiple citations. What can I say? I think this is wrong. If your source is a reliable one and the fact is non-controversial, what is the value in doing this? The requirement for citations at present only actually requires that "Precise attribution is required for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged.". Of course if it is controversial, then multiple sources are needed to give the various views, but much of what is referenced in this article is not controversial.

It's a good, thorough article, but I feel it's (mildly) damaged by the referencing approach used. Please take this as constructively meant criticism, I know how much work goes into putting together such a comprehensive article. Cheers. 4u1e 05:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• I thank you very much for reviewing the article and for discussing the references. I still believe mutliple references are useful and I would be very much opposed to removing any of them. I appreciate that they add a little length to the article. I think that is a small price to pay for good sourcing. I appreciate that some people may see multiple footnotes as ugly clutter (I do not - I see them as beautiful reminders that the article is well sourced). To me, the main points are:

1. One source is not ideal. I have seen over and over again where someone questions a source, for whatever reason.
2. A single source can be harder to verify. Web links change. Books go out of print. Etc. Having more than one source helps mitigate the risk of this.
3. It is impossible to know ahead of time what might be challenged. There are so many different ways of looking at the world, someone can dispute almost anything. The easiest time to find and add sources is when working on the article in the first place. It is far harder to go and find them if a dispute comes up.
4. Adding multiple sources gives the reader that many more places to go look if they want to learn more about the topic than what we have included.
5. Wikipedia policies evolve. It used to be that articles existed quite happily with zero or few sources. Happily, this is changing. Articles now get challenged if the sourcing is too weak. This will probably continue to evolve. What may be adequate today may not pass muster tomorrow. Look at how many FA's get demoted not because the article got worse but because the standards got higher. I would like to know that an article can survive for 100 years and have us be proud of it the whole time.
6. Also, 100 years from now - it may be that none of the original sources are still available. At least at that point the reader can know we once had 3 sources. Who knows, it could be useful informaiton for the archealogical/anthropologist/sociologist of the future just to see what sources we used.
7. Serious research works, do use multiple footnotes, where mutliple sources support the same fact.
8. One of the biggest complaints about Wikipedia is that it is under-referenced. Let's start changing that. If we somehow could get a reputation for being incredibly well referenced, wouldn't that be wonderful?

Thanks again for taking the time to review the article. I appreciate your criticisms, even though I do not agree with them. Johntex\^talk 22:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to consider my points seriously. My only response to your arguments is that my suggestions for that paragraph don't remove any of the sources used, they just place them more accurately in relation to what they are being used to support, beneficial in itself and with an incidental benefit in (slightly!) shorter articles and a less distracting reading experience. I think that defuses almost all of your points (perhaps not 8). Perhaps over-referenced was the wrong phrase - what I mean is over-footnoted. Cheers. 4u1e 06:46, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. If we combine multiple footnotes into one, how would we handle a footnote that is used more than one time? Would it get incorporated into multiple footnotes? For instance, what if we have:

Sentence 1.[1][2][4]

Sentence 2.[1]

Sentence 3.[2][5][6]

Sentence 4.[7]

Sentence 5.[6]

Sentence 6.[7]

Would we now change this to:

Sentence 1.[1]{incorporates the old [1][2][4]}

Sentence 2.[2]{incorpoares the old reference [1]}

Sentence 3.[3]{incorporates the old [2][5][6]}

Sentence 4.[4]{incorporates the old [7]}

Sentence 5.[5]{incorporates the old [6]}

Sentence 6.[4]

Is that the way it would work? Do you know if your suggested format is already in use and if it is already an accepted practice? Thanks! Johntex\^talk 20:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe the actual degree of footnoting is more of a personal preference. You're probably fairly familiar with my personal approach (which is obviously the best one!) after reviewing BT19, see Brabham for a longer article on the same lines (which probably need revising, cos I've re-written much of the text). I'm in a slightly different situation to you, in that working on older stuff I can usually work from books. What I try (nearly always fail) to do is find single reference (one or two pages) that covers all the facts in one paragraph in the article and just put one footnote at the end. If I can't find a page that covers the whole para, I'll add the smallest number of other footnotes to other refs at the appropriate points. Where there are several points of view, or I'm trying to establish a general belief, I may use several refs in one footnote, but I try to avoid it, because it's lengthy. See footnote 13 to Brabham. For the example para I picked through above, there don't seem to be many places where several references are needed - in most cases one of the several references given would cover the points being made, still sticking to one ref per footnote. When I said you wouldn't lose any footnotes, what I meant was that as it happens, to cover all of the points made in that sentence, you still need all the refs you currently use, but you probably only need to footnote each of them once. Does that make sense? Is my approach the right one? Dunno - like you I've gotten an article to FA, so it can't be that bad, but I wouldn't dream of pushing it on others! 4u1e 16:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Article promoted to FA

The article was promoted to FA on September 8 2007. Therefore, I think we can close this peer review. If you have other suggestions for improving the article, please see: Talk:2005 Texas Longhorn football team. Thanks to everyone for your help with the article! Johntex\^talk 05:40, September 9 2007 (UTC)