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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1924 Rose Bowl/archive2

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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 not promoted by GrahamColm 10:03, 15 December 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

1924 Rose Bowl edit

1924 Rose Bowl (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 03:58, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go again. I am nominating this for featured article because, like last time, I believe that it meets all the criteria for becoming a featured article. It has received a peer review and a copyedit. At the previous FAC, there was one support, and two reviews that had been addressed. I want this to be TFA for January 1st, the 90th anniversary, so I really need this to pass on this try. Again, this is the first step in my attempt to get Navy's bowl games up to a featured topic.

From last time, The 1924 Rose Bowl was the first time either of the participants, Washington and Navy, ever participated in a postseason game. It was a first for many things, including radio broadcasting. Washington was predicted to come out on top, but Navy led in nearly everything (except the score). It would be 30 years until Navy came back to bowl games, while Washington returned to the Rose Bowl in just two years. There are currently just 10 bowl games at featured article status, none of which are at least 15 years old. This article is on the short side compared to them, but since its been nearly 90 years since this occurred, info is pretty scarce. All comments appreciated. Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 03:58, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review: Admiral caption should end in period, but licensing is all fine. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:14, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added a period to the image's caption. Thanks for the review, - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 18:51, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Toa Nidhiki05
Comments from Toa Nidhiki05
I'll be doing a full overview of the prose in the article as well as checking for duplicate links. Toa Nidhiki05 22:14, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Lede
  • I would reword about the game organizers selecting a team from both coasts, because they didn't choose Navy - Washington did. As it reads right now, it could create the mistaken belief that the committee selected both teams. Toa Nidhiki05 22:44, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I tried to clarify that.
  • 'Four plays afterward, Navy tied the game on a 12-yard touchdown pass.' You mean Washington, right? Toa Nidhiki05 22:44, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yep. I have no clue why I wrote that.
Team selection
  • 'Navy's sole loss in the 1923 season came in their annual game against Penn State, which they lost by 21–3 remove the 'by' here. Toa Nidhiki05 22:44, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Removed 'by'.
  • 'Navy tied 0–0 with Army in the 1923 Army–Navy Game;' change the semicolon to a comma. Toa Nidhiki05 22:44, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changed to comma.
Aftermath
  • Washington is listed as having an 8-1-1 record elsewhere in the article, so why are the two non-counted wins counted here? Toa Nidhiki05 22:44, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed. 8 wins. Not 10.
  • Early in the article, the crowd of 40,000 is implied as being small, but here it is considered to be very high. Which is it? Toa Nidhiki05 22:44, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neither. Ticket sales were high. I tried to clarify that.

Overall, this is a good article. A bit on the short side and with some minor prose issues, but I'd be fine with supporting once these issues are fixed. Toa Nidhiki05 22:44, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. I've tried to address all of your concerns. Much appreciated, - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 03:18, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Good job on the fixes, I'l' go ahead and give my support. Toa Nidhiki05 13:48, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Although the article refers to Tesreau's broken leg, I didn't see any reference to the incident during the game that led to the break. Was it broken during the game (which is what I assume), or was it damaged at some earlier time? Could the boils (which I suppose must have been fairly severe to lead to medical advice not to play) have been symptomatic of an undetected fracture that had somehow become infected in this pre-antibiotic era? The main question I'm asking, which the article doesn't seem to answer, is "how did Tesreau break his leg?" RomanSpa (talk) 22:16, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In all the sources I found, there was no mention of when or how Tesreau broke his leg, just that he did. I forgot to include in the article that the boils were on the non-broken leg, so I added that to clarify for everyone. Thanks for bringing that up, sorry I can't fix your main question. - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 04:05, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments –

  • Game summary: The first paragraph of this section has four citations to reference 19 and none to other sources. Without them, four cites is a bit of overkill; you could probably get away with one or two.
  • Removed two of them.
  • First half: The last five sentences here have four "completed"s that I am counting. A little more variety would be nice; maybe another word could be found for the extra point attempts ("converted"?)
  • Changed two to "converted".
  • Aftermath: The semi-colon in the first sentence here should probably be a regular old comma instead. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:40, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from WWB—I had reviewed this article during its last time at FAC. I'm a college football fan (go Ducks!) so the topic is a familiar one to me, however my primary focus is readability, clarity of language and copy-editing type issues. The article has improved from when I first read it, although it was already in good (literally, GA) shape. That said, I do have a number of questions and comments, and then a few general questions near the end, before I could declare support:

  • Introduction—Two questions:
  1. I'm a little puzzled by the sentence calling "this installment the second game played in the Rose Bowl"—does that mean second bowl game, or second football game, period? Was UCLA playing in it during the regular season at this time?
  2. I may have asked this before, but what is the standard for writing "east coast and west coast" as this article does, or "East Coast and West Coast", as I would expect to see? Capitalization notwithstanding, I wonder if the terms may be vague to non-U.S. readers, so I'd suggest clarifying as "of the United States" (or maybe even wikilinking each).
  • I tried to clarify on the second game part, and it appears that capitalizing "East Coast" and "West Coast" is correct, so I made the changes.
  • Team selection—Same question about capitalization of "east coast" and "west coast" here. (Later in the article, I find "east" and "west" alone, however these bother me less.)
  • Fixed. Explanation above.
  • Team selection#Navy—Should there be a comma following "season" in "the last game of the season played on November 23"? It seems to me like a natural subordinate clause, and reads a bit funny without it.
  • Agreed. Added a comma.
  • Pre-game buildup—Reads somewhat awkward with the phrases "the evening before the game" and "the night before the game" in quick succession. Simply removing "the game" from the second occurrence may help this.
  • Fixed "the night before the game".
  • Pre-game buildup#Navy—Two questions:
  1. Three repetitions of "season" in the first two sentences; could this be rewritten slightly to be more economical?
  2. Saying that "Navy's defense had stopped running plays during the regular season, but had trouble defending pass plays" could be read (incorrectly, I'm sure) as saying that they stopped every running play. Better to say they had "successfully" done so?
  • Changed one of the "season" occurrences, clarified on the defense issue.
  • Pre-game buildup#Washington—"Washington's defense ... being much larger." Might be helpful to say the players, on average, were much larger.
  • Added that it was an average.
  • Game summary—The "most elaborate at that time"—compared to other college football bowl games, I presume? Whatever the case, I'd prefer this be a little more specifically worded.
  • Tried to clarify.
  • Game summary#First half—At end of first paragraph, change "100 yards of offense" to "100 yards gained" to avoid repetition of "offense"?
  • Done. Changed to "gained".
  • Statistical summary—I think we'd discussed this before, but "out threw" seems to me like it should be one word. Random House, via Dictionary.com, seems to agree. Not a big issue, though.
  • I agree. Changed.
  • Aftermath—Two things:
  1. I would replace "the 'Streetcar Named Desire'" with "A Streetcar Named Desire"—better to use the play's full proper title, and italicize it per convention.
  2. It seems contradictory to say that the "1924 Rose Bowl ... had very high ticket sales" when the article previously says that sales were "much lower" than the Tournament committee expected. I'm not sure what the solution is.
  • Changed to A Streetcar Named Desire, and tried to clarify the ticket sales by attempting to fix it in the game summary section.
  • Research—Two questions:
  1. I decided to search Google Books for "1924 Rose Bowl" and found at least one source with information about Washington's kicker playing through a broken toe. Oddly, it names a different kicker—Les Sherman, as opposed to Leonard Zeil. Is this a conflict of sources, or is one mistaking the punter for the placekicker? Besides that, anything else worth mining from Google Books?
  2. Related to the above, I wonder if you might say something about your research process to give an indication of how thorough you were. Are there any potential sources of information about which you are aware but haven't explored?
  • On the Les Sherman issue: I also saw a few sources which said that he played with a broken toe and was the kicker. However, the vast majority of sources say it was Ziel (messed up the spelling in the article, need to fix that) who played the game. In fact, part of this is an interview with Ziel about the game and later life. I don't know if anyone played with a broken toe, and since most of what I found supports Ziel, I'm going to leave it like that.
  • On my research: As far as I can tell, I have tried to exhaust all useful sources. I started out with a simple Google search, went on to check Google News, went through Google Books, searched at sites like Questia and Highbeam, went to the local library and used their database, and asked one of my family members, who collects Navy athletic memorabilia and related items, if he had anything related to the game. I haven't found any additional sources which offer really anything else that can be added to the article. Basically all of them just state that Navy and Washington played to a 14-14 tie in the 1924 Rose Bowl. - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 04:45, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And that's all I've got for the moment. Happy to follow up when you're ready for me to look again, Awardgive. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:33, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the long explanations, but I wanted to make sure I fully answered the questions. Thanks for the review (again). I'll get around to helping with C-SPAN in a little. Thanks again, - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 04:45, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked over the changes and they all look good to me. I'm also satisfied that your research was very thorough. I just wanted to make sure that you'd had the chance to look through a database like Highbeam or Nexis. I'm happy to support promoting this article to FA status. Good work on this. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 23:04, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – Having previously reviewed the list here, I was asked to return by Ian Rose, no doubt to expedite this FAC's removal from the bottom of the page. I went and copy-edited the article, and the prose is quite a bit better now than it was before. There are a few more wikilinks to football terms, less passive voice, and a few more scores and such to help the non-football fans keep up with the writing. There aren't that many details on the game, which is not all bad because that means less jargon to confuse people; since this is from almost 90 years ago, I believe that it is still comprehensive, and the research summary above reassures me in that regard. Before I support, I wanted to point out that the next-to-last sentence of the lead's first paragraph, on the Rose Bowl's history, doesn't appear to be covered anywhere in the body, which is not optimal. Can a similar sentence be placed in one of the early sections? Giants2008 (Talk) 03:34, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I tried adding a short bit about the game being replaced to the beginning of the "Team selection" section. I hope it fits, and I'm ready to make any fixes if necessary. - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 07:32, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – Thanks for doing that. I adjusted a sentence in that area to fix a little prose glitch that was left over, and think that the article meets the criteria now. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:07, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the fix and the review. I forgot to change the wording when I updated, sorry about that. Thanks again, - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 06:41, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Quadell

This is a strong candidate, and I'm glad to see the improvements Giants2008 made. I have identified a few issues.

  • I made some copyedits as well. Feel free to revert and discuss if you disagree with any of them.
  • Thanks. They look great.
  • Semicolons have their uses, but when too many sentences use semicolons too closely together, it can be a distraction for the reader. In this article, semicolon usage seems to be bunched up. The lead uses five. Both the "Team selection - Washington" section and the "Aftermath" section use three in a single paragraph (though I changed one to a colon). Some variety here would improve the prose.
  • Tried to cu down on semicolon use. There are now no more than two per paragraph.
  • The "Team selection - Washington" section has two sentences in a row that start "Washington's next game was..."
  • Changed one of the beginnings.
  • There are a few repetitions which should probably be fixed.
    • For instance, a footnote says "However, [Washinton's] first two games were against sailors from the battleships Mississippi and New York, and were not considered to be part of the team's official schedule". The article body also says "Washington opened their season with victories over teams from the battleships Mississippi and New York; because these teams did not represent colleges, they were not considered an official part of Washington's schedule."
    • Removed the footnote, it did seem repetitive.
    • For another example, one section says "Washington chose the Navy Midshipmen [to be their eastern opponents], who accepted the invitation", and another sections says "Washington asked Navy to represent the east."
    • Cut down the repetition.
    • Again, we learn that "Navy's special teams were considered by critics to be... about even with those of Washington", so we are not surprised to read in the next section that "Washington's special teams were considered to be... about even to those of Navy."
    • Cut out the "about even to those of Navy."
  • In the "Statistical comparison" chart, I would think you should spell out "First" instead of "1st", and should not capitalize the second word in entries. (But if there is a football standard I'm not aware of, then that's fine.)
  • Spelled out "first", but the rest of the table is based on the one from 2000 Sugar Bowl.
  • When you say Washington's 1923 season was "the second best in school history", do you mean up to that point or until the present day?
  • Clarified.
  • I don't understand the final sentence, regarding making teams responsible for ticket sales. "The strategy has been used since, with only a small number of tickets allocated to the Tournament for each yearly edition." Has it been used once or twice since, or every year since? And what does "allocated to the Tournament for each yearly edition" mean?
  • Clarified. It means that tournament officials have only gotten a few tickets since 1924.

I look forward to your responses. – Quadell (talk) 15:40, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll get to these this afternoon. Nobody close the nom, please. Thanks, - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 16:02, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've tried to address all of your concerns. Thanks for the review, awaiting your response. - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 05:24, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support. All my concerns have been addressed. I believe this article meets our FA requirements and should be featured. – Quadell (talk) 14:33, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review and the support. - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 15:19, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I'm not all that impressed with the writing, frankly. I think it's a middling GA, but might need some rewriting to meet criterion 1a. From the lead:

  • "between the independent Navy Midshipmen and the Washington Huskies, a member of the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC)" Unnecessary failure to use parallel structure.
  • I honestly have no clue what this means.
  • Just throwing this in here as I skim the FAC page—what the reviewer means is that the conference descriptions aren't handled the same way in the same sentence for both schools. It's commonplace in grammar that if you're describing two things in a sentence, the same description form should be used. One proper way to handle this, for instance, would be to say, "... between the Navy Midshipmen, an independent team; and the Washington Huskies, a member of the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC)", introducing both schools in the same way in the same sentence. Personally I don't think it's such a big deal, but as the reviewer thinks as such, I thought I'd help clarify this for you. Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 13:09, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The game took place on January 1, 1924, at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California, and closed the 1923 college football season." Awkward. Better: "The game took place on January 1, 1924, at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California, closing 1923 college football season."
  • Fixed
  • "The game was played in front of a crowd of approximately 40,000 people"
  • Fixed.
  • Also "was played" and "ended" again misses parallel structure for no good reason.
  • Again, don't understand this.
    Outside comment: I think Laser brain means that it's bad form to combine active and passive voice in one list. (So for example, "The dog growled, was petted, and wagged its tail" should be reworded, since "was petted" is the only clause in passive voice.) Personally, I think it's a very minor issue in this case, but it could be rewritten as "The game opened in front of approximately 40,000 people and ended in a 14–14 tie" or "The game was played in front of approximately 40,000 people, and it ended with a 14–14 tie" or something. (Edit conlict: Laser brain explained below.)
  • "The 1924 game was the tenth edition of the Rose Bowl, which had first been played in 1902. Following the inaugural game's blowout score, football was replaced with chariot races until 1916. The Rose Bowl stadium had been constructed the year before, making this installment the second game played in the arena." The narrative here is very unclear. Are you using the terms "edition" and "installment" interchangeably? Is that the language used in sources? The Rose Bowl was played in 1902 but not in the Rose Bowl? Chariot races were held until 1916, and then more football? But not in the Rose Bowl until the year before... what?
  • Clarified the stadium issue and installment/edition. And yes, chariot races were held because of how bad the football game was, but after a while, they decided to go back to football.
  • "East Coast" and "West Coast" might be a bit US-centric as written.. would be interested in an opinion from non-US readers.
  • "in preference to" is not a good phrase to use.
  • Changed to "in favor of". Any better?
  • "Predictions gave Washington a slight advantage in the game due to the weight difference between the teams; the Washington players were on average 10 pounds (4.5 kg) heavier than those of Navy." Colon, not semicolon. Easy fix but might be a problem elsewhere as well.
  • Fixed. Quadell had addressed semicolons in his review, but I think I missed that one.
  • "heavy rain showers had fallen the day before" Why is this relevant? Not explained in the lead.
  • Clarified importance.
  • "The game kicked off" and "The kick missed" You're using active voice with subjects that didn't perform the action.
  • These are common phrases when describing football. Other bowl game FAs also use this kind of language.

I didn't read on, but it seems to need work. --Laser brain (talk) 19:13, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I know how awful it is to get opposition when your nomination has been open this long, and I'm sorry for that. I'll help in any way I can. --Laser brain (talk) 20:31, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Aside from the parallel phrases stuff, I tried to address all of your concerns. Also, the lead has also proven to be the weak point for this article, and was the main problem for the Peer Review and both FACs. The rest of the article has usually proven better. Thanks for taking a look, awaiting your response. -Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 20:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Parallel structure is using consistent grammatical structures in sentences. In the first example above, you use an adjective before Navy Midshipmen to modify it (the independent Navy Midshipmen) but use a modifying phrase after Washington Huskies (the Washington Huskies, a member of the Pacific Coast Conference). So, there is no parallel structure and that's poor grammar. The fix would be to modify both teams beforehand, like: "between the independent Navy Midshipmen and the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) Washington Huskies." In the second example, you use two different verb tenses (past tense "ended" and past perfect "was played"). Again, it's easy to fix but I wanted you to be aware of the issue so you could fix it elsewhere. Make sense? --Laser brain (talk) 21:27, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Outside comment: I disagree with the claim that there is a grammatical error in the first sentence. Perhaps some style guides might say that such use is discouraged, but many others do not, and any rewording would cause more stylistic problems than it solves, in my opinion. – Quadell (talk) 21:39, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, "error" is not the word I would use since it's subjective, like many grammar issues. I could be talked out of it. Do you think my suggestion introduces problems? --Laser brain (talk) 21:50, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well... using "Pacific Coast Conference (PCC)" as an adjective could be mildly confusing. Honestly, I can't think of the ideal way to put it, but I think either your suggestion or the current wording would be acceptable. What wording do you like best, Awardgive? – Quadell (talk) 22:33, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer the way it has been. I wrote it that way because "independent" seemed to fit decently in front of Navy, but sticking "Pacific Coast Conference (PCC)" in front of Washington seemed kind of unusual to me, although I'm fine with changing it. - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 23:16, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not insisting on it, especially when two editors prefer it the other way. I'll give the rest a read-through tomorrow and either post more comments or strike my opposition. --Laser brain (talk) 00:31, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comments: I'm afraid I'm still uneasy about the quality of the writing. I'm finding too many issues to support promotion. More examples:

  • "Because the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was the only conference with teams located in the Western United States, a school from the conference had been chosen for every Rose Bowl game."
  • Changed.
  • "The tournament invited" and "Washington was then allowed by the Rose Bowl" Again, I find this use of subjects performing actions to be quite strange. How does a tournament invite someone? Surely it was a person or a committee? In the second example, "the Rose Bowl" is performing an action (allowing). Thus far, we've learned that the Rose Bowl is either a physical stadium or it's a game, neither of which are capable of allowing anyone to do anything. That usage further confounds the already confusing double usage of the term "Rose Bowl".
  • Clarified. It was the committee, and the second instance was also the committee.
  • It's not explained why Washington chose Navy as its opponent, which is especially relevant since you take time to point out that other teams with better records were eligible.
  • Found and added info to help clarify.
  • "which was followed by four more shutouts in a row"
  • Fixed.
  • "Because of the wet conditions, several football critics predicted that Washington would have a slight advantage in the game." Why is that? You've just said that both coaches seemed confident in their wet weather playing ability, so it's unclear why Washington would have an advantage.
  • Added why.
  • "and was announced by a local Pasadena station" To the casual reader, it's unclear if this means the station just announced that the game would be played, or had an "announcer" working and broadcasting the entire game. This needs to be clarified and explained for someone who might not know what "announcing" a game means.
  • Changed to "aired". Better?
  • Some other football jargon is unlinked and unexplained in the article, for example "special teams".
  • I went through and tried to link every football term I thought might be confusing or need clarification to an unfamiliar reader.
  • "with numerous events displayed" Events held? Awkward.
  • Changed.

As I said earlier, definitely a middling GA but I don't think the writing is polished enough to meet criterion 1a. --Laser brain (talk) 16:28, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have attempted to address all of your new concerns. The article has been copyedited by six or seven other people, and a few of your concerns I wasn't even aware existed until you pointed them out. When I have the chance, I'll go through the article and look for anything that seems to need correcting. In the mean time, thanks for following up with your review, and I await any more comments/concerns you have. Thanks, - Awardgive. Help out with Project Fillmore County 06:58, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

====Comments from AmericanLemming====

Looks like this article needs a good copyedit. Anyway, I'll give the article a close-read over the weekend, making changes as I go. Additionally, I'll list any concerns I have with the article's prose below. Since I am very detail-oriented and thorough, I hope I'll be able to address Laserbrain's concerns about the quality of the prose. I will fix or comment on every specific instance where I believe the prose could be improved. I know some FAC reviewers don't believe FAC is the place for that, but I do. AmericanLemming (talk) 01:09, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There has been a change of plans: I need to study organic chemistry over the next month, not spend hours reviewing FACs on Wikipedia. (Trust me, I would rather be doing the latter.) I sincerely apologize for the disappointment this will cause the nominators of this article as well as the FAC coordinators, but it is what it is. I thought I would be upfront about it (one of my pet peeves on Wikipedia is when people say they're going to do something and then do it a month later or not at all). AmericanLemming (talk) 07:18, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - This FAC has been here a long time, but there is no clear consensus for promotion and I will be archiving it in a few minutes. Problems remain - like this for example: "The game began on time, with a temperature of 52 °F (11 °C) and the field still wet." How can a game have a temperature? Graham Colm (talk) 16:44, 14 December 2013 (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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