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Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of Test cricket records/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list removal nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was kept by IMatthew 00:05, 24 August 2009 [1].

List of Test cricket records edit

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Notified: WT:CRIC, Moondyne

I am nominating this for featured list review because it has changed substantially from when it was promoted in August 2005, and how it appears today. That isn't a bad thing by itself, but a few stylistic and formatting errors have crept in, and while the FL criteria has been updated and expected standards improved, the page hasn't moved along at the same pace.

  1. The lede needs rewriting to meet Criteria 1 and 2. Lists don't start with "This is a list of" any more, for example. Instead of the sentence, "Records for the short form of international cricket, One Day Internationals, are at List of One-Day International cricket records, that list of records should be linked in a See Also section. There is no discussion about any of the cricket records such as who has hit the most sixes or whatever (I'm not a cricket fan).
    • Removed that sentence. I shall work on writing a lead over next couple of days.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpeeling (talk • contribs)
  2. Some tables could do with being updated to being sortable (I don't think this was possible in 2005), such as the first "Team wins, losses and draws" table. There's also no need for a "Rank" column, because the teams are ranked by the "% Won" column.
    • Sorted that table, are there other tables which need doing?
      • I think only that 1st table is suited for be sortable. Its mostly inapplicable on the others. –Moondyne 07:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. In the following two tables, there are some city names in small text, but what does it mean? Is it where the team is based? Where the games were played? I don't know because there is nothing to explain any of the tables.
    • They are the locations of the Test matches which started/ended the run. I have added notes to that affect.
      • Will work on this now. –Moondyne 07:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Looking at other tables, what does "903-7 d"" mean? Is the hyphen correct or does the figure indicate some sort of range, in which case it should be a dash.
    • There is a listing notation section at the top of the page which should explain that.
  5. In the individual records section, names such as Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting are bolded, which violates MOS. Date ranges use the emdash instead of endash, which also violates MOS.
    • Done.
  6. In the "Highest proportion of runs in a completed innings total" section, it says 165 is a record was in the first innings of the first ever Test match, and has never been beaten, but a couple of rows down, there's a score of 167.
    • 165 out of 245 is a larger proportion than 167 out of 261.
  7. When we get to the Individual records (bowling) section, the tables are so badly formatted that they now creep past the border of the page. It's causing problems on my screen resolution, so I hate to think what it's doing for people with a 17" screen at 800x600. The page doesn't print out right either (click "printable version" in the toolbox and then "File>Print preview" in your browser) as it leaves off the bottom quarter of the page. Finally, some sections have three tables side-by-side, causing a fair bit of readability problems.
    • It looks OK for me but I shall fix the three side by side tables, are two tables on one line OK?
      • Reverted to single table wide layout. –Moondyne 07:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  8. The references are formatted in a weird way. Each table says "Source: Cricinfo.com. Last updated: 18 August 2008." instead of listing them in a references section. Some sources claim to have not been updated since 2007 or 2008. These need looking at to make sure that things haven't changed. There are also seven external links, but only one reference in the reference section.
    • I have formatted from embedded links to references. I shall double check whether everything's up-to-date at the end of the current Ashes Test although I expect it to be mostly fine.

I think if the page formatting gets addressed it will go a long way to making it safe from demotion, otherwise I don't believe it offers readers something that we can confidently say "This is our very best work". Matthewedwards :  Chat  02:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With the exception of #1, the lead, all of the points raised have now been addressed or explained. I have tidied and formatted as well as removing a few tables which were, IMHO, a bit obscure. –Moondyne 08:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dabs; please check the disambiguation links identified in the toolbox. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
done I didn't know that tool existed and had often wished for something similar. You learn something everyday. –Moondyne 01:44, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lead is rewritten. –Moondyne 00:24, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Wow, it looks nothing like it did before (positive). Great job! One thing off the bat: there was a recent discussion about Howstat's reliability at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of international cricket centuries by Sourav Ganguly/archive1, and consensus was that it was not considered reliable. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well I'm of the opinion that the proportion record is too trivial and should be removed, but if it's kept there is a Cricinfo ref for that. The other Howstat ref is currently on the progressive Test runs record and there isn't a direct Cricinfo replacement. There is this but it's a few years out of date and doesn't include Tendulkar so a better, more up to date link would be this however it's from Cricinfo Blogs which may not be considered a reliable source. Ric Finlay, the person writing the blog, gets several mentions on Google News for being a statician and according to the blurb on the sidebar of the Cricinfo Blog link he's one of the leading Australian statiscians/scorers, if that has any affect on the reliability. --Jpeeling (talk) 22:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • fixed Agreed and removed. Its an oft-quoted record only because Bannerman set it in the 1st Test and it remains unbroken to this day which is a little unusual. Other than that it had always seemed slightly obscure to me. –Moondyne 12:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • There was no response with regard the reliability of Cricinfo Blogs so I have gone ahead and replaced the other Howstat reference with the link I mentioned above. --Jpeeling (talk) 20:21, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image needs alt text. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments –

  • "The duration of Tests is currently limited to five days but this has varied through Test history often decided by the host country's board." Awkward sentence at the end; might help to introduce some punctuation.
    • Added a comma but it still reads awkwardly to me. Working on this. I have now changed the second half of the sentence to say the type of variety rather than who decided it, I believe it reads better. --Jpeeling (talk) 11:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Change comma after "between England and Australia in March 1877" to a semi-colon.
  • "as well as cricket boards looking to maximising revenue." "maximising" → "maximize".
    • Cricket articles generally use Commonwealth English. –Moondyne 12:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think the main point of the comment was to remove the -ing so it actually made sense, I did that but kept the English spelling of maximise because of the above. --Jpeeling (talk) 11:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "is Australia having won 332 of their 712 Tests." Comma after Australia.
  • "Baring the ICC World XI". Typo.
  • "and was a part of the record fifth and six wicket partnerships." Should it be "fifth and sixth", or is this how cricket writers put it?
    • Done those four.
  • There are punctuation needs throughout. More commas could be used in certain spots, and semi-colons could replace a few commas.
    • Added a few commas. Will continue to look at this.
  • A couple of record headers use spaced em dashes, which the Manual of Style discourages. The easiest solution is to make them unspaced.
    • Switched to ndashes.
  • References from newspapers should give the publisher in italics. An easy way of achieving this is to use the work= parameter in the cite templates. Giants2008 (17–14) 23:34, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Shouldn't test cricket be linked somewhere?
  • "in his one and only Test" -> "one and" is redundant.
  • Don or Donald Bradman? Pick one and stick with it.
  • "(in the inaugural Test Match)" - in general in this list, this sort of thing is made into a note.
  • Notes which are complete sentences really ought to end with a full stop.
  • I think John Ferris' dual nationality needs a reference/explanation.
  • A note explaining the difference between a season which spans two years and a season which spans just one would be appreciated for non-cricket-savvy readers. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:53, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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