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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Adelaide leak/archive1

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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 promoted by Laser brain 22:45, 8 February 2011 [1].

Adelaide leak

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Adelaide leak (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Sarastro1 (talk) 21:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In January 1933, during the notorious Bodyline cricket tour, Bill Woodfull, the Australian captain was struck over the heart by a cricket ball. The English team managers later went to sympathise and were snubbed as Woodfull deplored the English tactics. Someone leaked the incident to the press and all hell broke loose over the tactics being used and that the whistle had been blown. The two main suspects continued to accuse each other for the rest of their lives. Although this is a cricket article, there are no stats in it or much cricket actually! It's all about the people involved, and how much they hated each other! It is currently a GA and was peer reviewed by Brianboulton. Any comments very much appreciated. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I gave this article an extensive peer review. It is in my view one of the more interesting cricket articles because it focusses not on dreary match details - who scored what, who went in first, etc - but on the surprising, small-minded, mean-spirited grudge-bearing natures of some of the game's biggest names, who 50 years later were still squabbling about who said what to whom and when, all over an exchange of words in an Adelaide dressing room. The modern reaction to all this is likly to be "what a bunch of self-important w***kers!" A great read, if somewhat disillusioning. I will do a sources review later. Brianboulton (talk) 11:23, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your support and your earlier work on the peer review. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:45, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support I gave this a read through when it was up for a peer review, very engaging and interesting. Provides great detail in the relationship between the countries during this conterversal series. Definatly worth it. KnowIG (talk) 20:04, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your support. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:45, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support I did the GA review for this. At the time I thought it had an FA in it and it's great to see the article has since improved even more through a peer review. I've just had another read-through and I'm very happy to support. I fully agree with Brianboulton about this being a very interesting article. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FA Criteria 3 met Fasach Nua (talk) 12:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review: Ref. 71 "Haigh and Frith" not defined in the bibliography. Otherwise all sources look good, spotchecks OK. Brianboulton (talk) 13:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Added details to ref as it's only used once. --Sarastro1 (talk) 19:32, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! --Sarastro1 (talk) 23:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – Read the article and made a few copy-edit tweaks, but I have nothing else to report except that this is a great piece of work. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 03:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Very interesting and fine read. Fills out all FA criteria. Another great job Sarastro! :)--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 15:56, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Cheers! --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Disambig/External Link check - no dabs or dead external links. A few external redirects which may lead to link rot, see them with the tool in the upper right of this page. --PresN 01:47, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, both external links updated. --Sarastro1 (talk) 08:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! --Sarastro1 (talk) 19:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – I would like to see a consistency for the references. Have the book references all together in the bibliography section, and just the author names or the harvard citation template for the reference. — Legolas (talk2me) 05:55, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure this is necessary: the only two books not in the references section are only cited once and as I understand it, if a book is only cited once, it is more appropriate in the references section than the bibliography. It seems more correct to me the way it is now. --Sarastro1 (talk) 08:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite there yet in terms of smooth prose. Not opposing, but still finding a few issues when I look. Tony (talk) 09:34, 6 February 2011 (UTC) Here are examples from the top.[reply]

  1. "... who leaked the story. The leak was significant in persuading the Australian public that Bodyline was unacceptable as Woodfull's earlier public silence on the matter had been interpreted as approval." Close word repetition. "As" is a dangerous word in many contexts: is it causal or simultaneous; causal I see in reverse, so ", since" would be better. Actually, I have to read and re-read this bit to work out the time-sequence of silence and approval. Is it clear?
  2. highly acrimonious? Could "highly" be dropped, since the epithet is pretty strong already.
  3. Should "short pitched" be hyphenated?
  4. "The primary target of Bodyline was Donald Bradman who had overwhelmed the English bowling in the 1930 Ashes series." Comma before "who", I think.
  5. "Following Jardine's appointment as England captain in the summer of 1932"—that's the UK or the Australian summer?
  6. "who had also tried similar tactics at the end of the season"
  7. "seized upon"—plain English? on?
  8. "The selection of that many pace bowlers was unusual at the time"—possibly "this many", since the referent is so close by. Tony (talk) 06:38, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Replies to Tony1
  1. Reworded to (hopefully) clear it up.
  2. Done.
  3. Done.
  4. Done.
  5. Specified English. Would "English cricket season of 1932" work better, or is it too clunky. Gave it a month instead so it flows better.
  6. Done.
  7. Possibly, but "seized on" does not sound quite right to me. Is "seized upon" not a fairly standard phrase? I've left it for now.
  8. Done.
Thanks for the comments so far. I've made these changes and will have a trawl of the rest of the article later today. --Sarastro1 (talk) 12:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've had another look and made some changes. I'd appreciate another look from Tony1. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:48, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Never commented at one of these, but I've had a look at the FA criteria and I would have to say support (for whatever it's worth from someone who has never written so much as a GA). Very interesting read, seems to meet the criteria. A couple of questions though:

  • Throughout you have abbreviated Marylebone Cricket Club to "M.C.C.", however I've generally seen it written as "MCC" (without the full stops) and that's the way it's abbreviated in our article (see wikilink above). Worth changing?
I always prefer M.C.C., as that was how they referred to themselves then, but I know most people like MCC so I've changed it. --Sarastro1 (talk) 11:25, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also ref #32 is currently: "Gideon Haigh on Bodyline: A tactic of its time". ESPNCricinfo. Retrieved 1 February 2011. but would it be worth adding the author, date etc. so it's like this: Haigh, Gideon (22 October 2007). "Gideon Haigh on Bodyline". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 1 February 2011.? Jenks24 (talk) 06:33, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Done, thanks for the support and comments. --Sarastro1 (talk) 11:25, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "During the mid-afternoon of Saturday 14 January 1933, the second day of the Third Test, before a record attendance of 50,962 people,[33] Woodfull and Fingleton opened the batting for Australia in the face of an England total of 341." Clunky. Why not: "During the mid-afternoon of Saturday 14 January 1933, the second day of the Third Test, Woodfull and Fingleton opened the batting for Australia in the face of an England total of 341 before a record attendance of 50,962 people[33]." This is followed by an account of the action in stubby sentences. Hard to fix, but do keep an eye on sentence length. Also, some paragraphs are pretty long. Similarly, it's hard to break that para, I know; but you've broken it already ("Shortly afterwards"), so possibly another break before "Many commentators ..."? Not sure.
Tried to clear this part up a little. I think the sentences may flow a little better now, but not sure about that paragraph break as it creates a very short paragraph. --Sarastro1 (talk) 11:07, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Warner's visit to dressing room"—I think a "the" would be good.
  • "Sunday being a rest day, no play took place."—perhaps ", there was no play"?
  • I'd italicise fully the abbreviation The Telegraph.
These three done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 11:07, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Great photo of Fingleton.
  • Break para "Bradman denied this ..."?
Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 11:07, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The closing sentence kind of falls off a cliff: "However, correspondence continued for almost a year."
Tried to give it a little more closure. --Sarastro1 (talk) 11:07, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not entirely happy with this one, but not opposing. Tony (talk) 09:34, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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