Talk:Iowa Hawkeyes football, 1889–97

Request for Improvement

I see your request at Wikipedia:Requests for feedback I will attempt to do so...

In the lead paragraph summarize all the sections as well as introduce the subject by covering these areas...Some you already have covered in your lead...but I added all that the listed concepts for WPLead.

• 1. Context - describing the category or field in which the idea belongs. State facts which may be obvious to you, but are not necessarily obvious to the reader Ie define league..interuniversity...American football... rule exceptions anomalies, particularities...interuniversity changes that the modern reader may not know were in force in the 10 years of 1889-1890...age...men/ladies...football...trophy to be achieved..method of round robin playoffs to achieve top status...division area if any..{coaches and yearly statistics of team are covered in article) ...do any team players win player of the year in this era...or player achievement awards of any type...or do players stand out without awards, but perhaps went on to great achievements from starting in the years here....State that the post secondary Grinnell College football team was named... Pioneers... to keep the two schools separated.
• 2. Characterization description.- appearance, age, gender, educational level, vocation or occupation, financial status, marital status, social status, cultural background, hobbies, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ambitions, motivations, personality, what the term refers to as used in the given context.
• 3. Explanation - deeper meaning and background...in that era were there a bizzillion teams in the league, or when you list home and away wins,losses and ties do they cover the everybody in the league that year...was there another conference or division to play if one achieved the most points on your yearly charts?.
• 4. Compare and contrast - how it relates to other topics, if appropriate...ie other teams, schools, years, events, awards.
• 5. Criticism - include criticism if there has been significant, notable criticism...injuries, good years, bad years low spectator attendance

I have a silly question how did they travel from game to game in this era? Singly by horse, horse and buggy, stagecoach, train, vehicle...did it take long, how did they do studies, and how did the length of trip in miles/km and hours affect practice and study times available and who to compete with...

You could also add a wiki link to History of Iowa Hawkeyes football nothing else from what links here looks like it should have a reciprocal link from your article...

From What is a good article?

• Criteria 1 .... It is well written as per grammar (quality of writing)...no spelling errors...
• Criteria 2 .... It is factually accurate and verifiable... There are a couple of paragraphs missing citations.
• Criteria 3 .... It is broad in its coverage and covers major aspects of topic... Some areas from above may improve article?
• Criteria 4 .... It is neutral... looks good as well. This is NPOV.
• Criteria 5 .... It is stable no edit wars... looks good as well, historical facts are standing without dispute.
• Criteria 6 .... It contains images... These are missing, no idea of players sporting team colours, uniform style changes, school sport field changes during this era.

Next would be to analyze and compare your article to...Featured article criteria

Also check out... Guide to writing better articles

I have never given a comment about improving an article before...I hope this is helpful...You have selected a section or descendant of the main article about the Iowa Hawkeyes, and a unique time period when they were in their fledgling years...Good luck with your quest to improve it. If you disagree with this review, and think the article was incorrectly reviewed then you can ask for remediation at WP:GA/R. If you have any other questions or comments, drop me a line at my talk page. Good luck, and happy editing!SriMesh | talk 04:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

That is utterly ridiculous. First, I don't believe it's necessary to mention that football is played by men. Second, just how well-documented do you think the game was in the nineteenth century? There's no chance in hell of finding the sexual orientation of an entire roster from 110 years ago, even if some pervert with a gridiron fetish wanted it. More importantly, are you (SriMesh) in fact of the belief that Iowa was part of a billion-team league which played a round-robin schedule, as you stated? Round-robin means that every team plays every other team. In that case, Iowa would have played either 999,999,999 or 1,999,999,998 games each year. How would that lead to, for instance, an 0-1 record in 1889. Besides these things I mentioned and the many other laughable points you make, I am flabbergasted by your "silly question". Football teams in the nineteenth century consisted of dozens of players. Do you actually think that the Iowa players played a game, changed, jumped on horses, and galloped off to Minnesota? Have you ever heard of a train? Finally, do you actually expect someone to calculate the speed by which the team traveled between games? How in hell is that relevant? It sounds to me like you expect a full-scale investigation of the Iowa program using every resource in existence in the world; the nature of the game of football, personalites of players that played a century ago, how travel speed affected study time...I'm obviously not taking you seriously, but I am simply amazed at what you've come up with here. Wow. Iowa13 03:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)