Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cyclone Taylor/archive2

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 archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 15 February 2020 [1].

Cyclone Taylor edit

Nominator(s): Kaiser matias (talk) 17:05, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This was at FAC a few months ago, but owing to some prose issues was archived. After some delay I've fixed it up, and had a second person go over it (credit to @Giants2008:). So now I'm here again, and will be ready to address any issues. I'll also ping the other reviewers from the first FAC: @Nikkimaria, Kosack, Canada Hky, and SandyGeorgia:. Kaiser matias (talk) 17:05, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kaiser, I am traveling, but have a brief moment for a quick look. The first section I went to has grammatical and prose issues:

Frank Patrick would later use his close connection with Sir Richard McBride, the Premier of British Columbia, to get Taylor's position transferred west, and helped Taylor get promoted to senior immigration inspector.

Tense changes in the middle of the sentence; this was the same sort of problem I saw earlier.

This is really problematic:

Taylor spent considerable time on the ship as it sat in the Vancouver harbour: with the passengers unable to disembark or given additional supplies, Taylor took on the role of supervising everyone until it left back for India on July 23, the passengers refused entry into Canada.

Though ... though ... and an overly long convoluted sentence:

Though reluctant to go overseas, he wanted to help out and was willing to do whatever was necessary, though shortly after his enlistment it was announced that immigration officials were deemed a vital job and exempt from service, so Taylor was discharged from the military and spent the war working in Vancouver.

It looks like a better copyedit may be needed. That is only a quick glance at one section. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:32, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you here. I'll go through it once more in the next few and try to clean up the wording again. Kaiser matias (talk) 02:18, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – As stated above, I cleaned up some things in the article, although I don't offer a warranty that I got everything. There are a few items I noticed in the process that are worthy of consideration:

Hockey career: I'm presuming there was no issue at the time with a "strictly amateur" player being given spending money by his team, as the early part of this section implies?
His height and the comment about him being of average size at the time appear in both the Ottawa Senators and Legacy sections. Since Sandy wanted it earlier in the article, perhaps it should be taken out of Legacy so we don't have redundant content?
Marriage and family: This is a long shot, but is anything about Joan Taylor's figure skating career worth expanding on? That's potentially interesting if the sources offer any details. Giants2008 (Talk) 23:19, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Sarastro edit

Leaning oppose on sourcing: I did some spot checks on "Early Life" and found several issues. (I used Cyclone Taylor: A Hockey Legend by Whitehead which is available to view at the Internet Archive "library") I suspect many of these are minor, or simple errors, but one or two seem to me to misrepresent the source slightly. Additionally, I found each of these issues in just the first two paragraphs. Even if they are minor issues, it concerns me greatly to find so many in such a short section. I stopped after the second paragraph. I'm inclined to oppose this outright, and would require considerable reassurance that the remainder of the article does not contain similar issues before even thinking about looking at prose. I'm open to reconsidering if someone can explain how the source supports the claims - part of the problem may be my hockey ignorance. Sarastro (talk) 09:26, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"The exact date of Taylor's birth is uncertain, though most sources give it as June 23, 1884.": We cite this to Whitehead 1977, which gives the date of birth as 24 June 1884, and does not support the uncertainty of the date. We should probably be using the Zweig article (which I can't view).
"Mary stayed at home and raised the children": I'm struggling to find that in the source. I'm also wondering should we be mentioning his father's drinking?
"Taylor was named Frederick Wellington after a local veterinarian, who was a friend of Archie; Taylor's biographer Eric Whitehead states that on the day of Taylor's birth the two men were fishing, so Archie decided to name his son after the elder Frederick.": This is a slightly awkward sentence, especially "after the elder Frederick". But looking at the source, the information is not simply from the biographer, it is a direct quotation from Taylor who is quoting the veterinarian. Also, it is a little more complicated than we state here, but probably too detailed to go into. What if we cut this back to "Taylor was named Frederick Wellington after a friend of Archie" and move the story of the fishing trip to a brief note?
"The Taylor family lived a modest lifestyle in Listowel": This seems a little more than what the source says, when Taylor simply says that his family were poor. It might be a touch pedantic, but unless I've missed it, he doesn't describe their lifestyle.
"Though he had first skated at the age of five on ponds near Tara, it was in Listowel that Taylor learned to play hockey.": The reference given does not support where he learned to play hockey: the reference to Tara checks out on page 12, but the information that he learned hockey in Listowel is on page 14. Also, "it was in Listowel" sounds a little too much like a dramatic documentary Voiceover. Why not something simpler like "Having learned to skate in Tara, Taylor first played hockey in Listowel"?
"Taylor was one of the most skilled on his team": Where are we getting this? The source says "Nor could his bigger, older teammates have kept with him stride for stride had he wanted them to." Even if we argue that this means he was the most skill, it only refers to his first game for the team.
"This greatly enhanced Taylor's name across the province, and several teams were interested in having him join them.": Where are we getting this from? I can't find it in the source on the pages given.
Incidentally, it would be good if possible to use some sources other than Whitehead for his early life. I also note that nearly half of the references are to Whitehead 1977, and when Whitehead 1980 is included, by my reckoning 60 out of 136 references are to the same writer. This is not necessarily an issue, but I wonder if we could use a few other sources as well? For example, are there any other general sources that could be utilised? Sarastro (talk) 09:26, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coord notes edit

As well as noting the concerns above, I see there hasn't been any activity by the nominator for ten days, and this suggests there won't be any for a while, so I'm putting this one to bed. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 11:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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