Wikipedia:Peer review/Netball and the Olympic Movement/archive1

Netball and the Olympic Movement edit

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I've listed this article for peer review because it could use some additional guidance in terms of what content is missing, ideas for pictures, how to improve organisation, and compliance with Manual of Style. I'd like some additional insight into if, given the issue that it is hard to find additional sources for information, it might eventually be able to be featured. (Please note that I won't be online as much between April 4 and May 3. No hurry and I won't be able to quickly address comments.)

Thanks, LauraHale (talk) 20:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this and other netball articles. I knew almost nothing about netball before reading this, and think it needs some more background and history to be clearer. Here are some suggestions for improvement. Ruhrfisch comments

The lead is not really a summary of the whole article, which is should be per WP:LEAD. The first section is on bias, but there is nothing on this in the lead that I can see. There is also nothing in the lead that says this is primarily a women's sport or that the Olympic recognition is for the women's sport (indeed I am not sure it says anywhere in the article explicitly that Olympic recognition is for the women's sport).
As someone who knew next to nothing about netball before encountering the series of articles you are working on at PR, I was a bit mystified by this article, which assumes the reader knows pretty much what netball is. I would start the body of the article with a brief history and description of netball (who playes it, how, since when). I would also give a brief history of the modern Olympics - these need only be a few sentences each for a paragraph or two, but I think it would really help to provide context for the reader.
If this is done, the Bias against women's sport section might be retitled as something like "Background and bias against women's sport" (I assume the background will only be a paragraph and thus too short for its own section).
Another way to approach this might be to make the section into more of a "History of bias against women's sport" - give a breif history of netball and description, then start with the modern Olypics and how there were no women allowed at all in the first games, and only 11 in 4 sports in the second games. Could sya that male athletes and events for men have always outnumbered female athletes and events for women. It might help to organize the section more chronolgically.
Language is OK but if this is going to try and become a WP:FA it will need a copyedit to polish a lot of rough spots. One example The sports Rugby sevens and golf, primarily played [by?] men, were chosen for inclusion in the Rio Olympics ahead of netball.[1] Seems to be missing a word (by). Also it is not clear from the sentence if only the men's version of sevens and golf are to be played at Rio, or if there will be women competing in these sports too. Finally, I would add the year 2016 Rio... as not everyone instantly knows what year the Rio Olympics will be.
Another example (from the lead) of how the writing could be improved (in this case tightened): It has never been played at the Summer Olympics, but recognition means that it could be included at some point in the future. could just be It has never been played at the Summer Olympics, but recognition means that it could be included in a future Olympics. or even simpler just It has never been played at the Summer Olympics, but recognition means that it could be in the future. or perhaps even just It has never been played at the Summer Olympics, but recognition means that it could be.
For an image, how about File:MalawiFijiNetball.jpg with a caption something like "Although it has never been played in the Olympics, netball has been played in the Commonwealth Games since YEAR (here Malawai vs Fiji)."
The quote boxes are OK, but the quotes really don't seem that encyclopedic in tone - they (especially the second) seem more like quotes from a newpaper article profiling a team than a neutral encylopedia article. Your mileage may vary ;-)
The article is told from a fairly pro-netball point of view. Are there any critiques out there by people who say it should not be an Olympic sport? Is the Tiddlywink Society grousing about netball being recognized when they are not?
I would try to tell the story of the process that led to Olympic recognition a little more coherently. As it is now, the article says

In 1995, netball became a permanent Olympic recognised sport.[10][11][12][13] after a twenty year period of lobbying[11][14] and a two year probation period.[13] This makes it eligible to be played in future Games.[15][16] ...

What if it were instead something like this

In 1975 the FILL IN THE BLANK and other organizations began a concerted lobbying effort to win Olmpic Recognition for netball.[11][14] Netball was given a two year probation period in 1993, and in 1995 netball became a permanent Olympic recognised sport.[10][11][12][13] Recognition makes it eligible to be played in future Games,[15][16] although no Olympics through 2016 (Rio) have included netball.

I have almost no idea what this means One attempt was made in 1989, when Olympic recognition was sought for the West German World Games.[17] This failed.[note 2] (the note does not help). How are the West German World Games an Olympic event? More detail is needed.
In general, this would be more interesting if there were more details about who did what and when.
Could the Media coverage and National chapters section be combined - both are only one paragraph
More specific examples would help in Media coverage.
In general try to identify who says something or whose opinions or quotations are being provided - there is a large block quote in Olympic Recognition, but it is not attributed (According to Tracy Taylor, author of Netball in Australia: A Social History... Please see WP:MOSQUOTE
Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:38, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bill william compton's Comments:

In the lead, the phrase "but recognition means that it could be included at some point in the future." is POV pushing and argumentative. It should not be in the lead, but if it were to remain, it requires a footnote.

Link to "International Olympic Committee (February 2008). "The sports on the Olympic programme". http://www.snoc.org.sg/nsa.php. Retrieved 26 March 2011." is broken.

Given the IOC action to limit the number of sports to 28, the sentence "This makes it eligible to be played in future Games.[15][16]" is misleading. Fn 15 is a primary source, you need a secondary source. In fn 16, the only discussion of netball is at page 143, which does not support the statement either. Fn 16 is an analysis of just one news outlet which may not be representative of whether Netball can be included in the Summer Games.

The sentence "The IFNA has made Olympic recognition part of its long term strategy towards continuing to grow the game.[18]" - is misleading. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics#Respect for Olympic trademarks and nomenclature.

For the same reason, please remove the article from the category "Olympic recognised sports"

"Parliament of New South Wales, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 21 September 2004, columns 11179–11179, (Alison Megarrity)." is a primary source and an opinion piece. I doubt that it is accurate and there is no reason to believe the person making the speach is particularly knowledgable about the Olympic movement. It must be treated as a self-published source, because there is no peer review of its contents.

There is POV pushing in "has moved netball away from a model of women's sport and more towards a male model of competitive sport." What makes one believe that there are separate "male" and "female" models for organizing sports? Do you mean "amateur" and "professional"? The sentence does not fairly summarize the quotation below it, but rather casts a POV spin on the quotation and the issue.

I would remove the two quotations in boxes. Again, they come across as POV-pushing.

The pictogram in the infobox should be removed. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics#Sport_pictograms. We need to follow WP:MOSICON. The pictogram is WP:OR and if it is retained it should bear the caption, "One Wikipedia editor's conception of what a netball pictogram could look like."

Many sentences could be easily reworded to remove argumentation and POV pushing. For example, "Exclusion of netball from the Summer Olympics is part of a pattern of exclusion of women's sports.[2]" could be "Many women's sports are not included in the Summer Olympics.[2]" Or "While primarily a sport for women, netball allows for mixed teams,[3][4]" could be rewritten "Although most netball competitions are for women-only teams, netball allows for mixed teams,[3][4]"

Please avoid drawing general conclusions from sources that are based on one person's opinion. For example, Fn 1 which is a BBC report of an interview with one netball player gets transformed into the general statement "The sports Rugby sevens and golf, primarily played men, were chosen for inclusion in the Rio Olympics ahead of netball.[1]" Just because Ms. Mentor views the facts in a particular light does not mean that Wikipedia should report them in that fashion. Rather, the article should let the reader know that the sports for both the 2012 and 2016 Summer Games have been determined, and netball is not one of them.

The article is written on the assumption that there should be an equal number of men and women competing at the Olympic Games, but there is no indication as to who has subscribed to that view. What comes first, sponsorship and spectator interest or inclusion in the Olympics? Again, there is a lot of POV in the article's treatment of this dilemma. The article should be rewritten to just say what happened and when without speculating on what should have happened and what will happen.

The table is not supported by the fn 5 reference given.

That's it for me, I hope that helps.. --Bill william compton^Talk 11:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]