Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Joe Warbrick/archive1

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 Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 22:14, 6 May 2017 [1].

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Joe Warbrick

Nominator(s): Shudde ^talk 19:07, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

This article is about the rugby union footballer who conceived of, selected, again captained the 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team that toured New Zealand, Australia and the British Isles. They averaged a game every 2.3 days while in Britain -- a ridiculous number -- and frequently had to field injured players just to compete with a full complement. The team was truly pioneering and consequently Warbrick was probably one of the most influential players of the 19th century. The article has been though GAC, FAC, and I've had the valuable feedback of a number of editors. I believe it's ready for FAC and look forward to any comments. Shudde ^talk 19:07, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support Sirpottingmix (talk) 22:10, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
• Comments reading through now...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:40, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

The match was very ill-tempered, with each side accusing the other of rough play - do we need the "very" here?

exasperated his foot injury. - you mean, "exacerbated his foot injury", right?

I think it is worth putting a line in about the win/loss record of the England trip as reading it one is left wondering....

Otherwise looks ok. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:49, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I've addressed those comments. I appreciate you taking the time to give it a read. -- Shudde ^talk 06:47, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Hence, support on comprehensiveness and prose. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:56, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Support on prose Comments by Finetooth

I'm commenting as an outsider to rugby, which I have never played. Despite that, the jargon of the game seems clear to me in the article, and I find Warbrick's story interesting and its abrupt ending painful to contemplate. I made quite a few minor copyedits as I went. Please revert any you disagree with. Here are further suggestions and questions:

Lede

• "In 1888 Warbrick conceived of, selected, and captained the privately funded New Zealand Native team." – This closely mirrors part of the first sentence: "later captained and selected the 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team". Eliminate the repetition?

• I have tried something. It's not drastic, as I like the opening sentence of an article to firmly establish why a subject is notable. But hopefully my changes reduce the repetition a bit.

• "He played for Auckland against the first overseas team to tour the country – New South Wales – in 1882. – Rather than using an Easter egg link, I'd suggest recasting to something like "In 1882, he played for Auckland against the first overseas team, the New South Wales Waratahs, to tour New Zealand."

• I don't think it's too much of an Easter egg, but unfortunately I can't use Waratahs to disambiguate. New South Wales didn't pick up the moniker the Waratahs until a 1927–28 tour. The team in 1882 was actually known as the "Cornstalks"! I have tried to reword.

Background and early career

• "... ,but eventually included several New Zealand-born, and foreign-born, Europeans... – Delete the three commas for better flow?

• Done.

• "Joe Warbrick was their third of five children." – Smoother would be "Joe Warbrick was the third of their five children."

• Done

• " His father married again after Joe Warbrick's mother died, and had a further seven children." – More clear would be "After Joe Warbrick's mother died, his father re-married and had seven more children."

• Done

• "at St Stephen's Native School in Bombay" – Readers from afar may mistake this for Bombay, India, at first. Maybe "in the former town of Bombay in the Bombay Hills of New Zealand"?

• I've played with this, hopefully acceptable now.

• "By 1879 he was living in Wellington, and represented the the province three times that season." – Rather than the Easter egg link to "the province", I'd suggest saying "represented Wellington province as a member of the Wellington Rugby Football Union".

• Your suggestion doesn't quite work, but I've tried something. See what you think.

• "New South Wales" became − Another Easter egg. Better as "The New South Wales Waratahs became".

• I think in this case it should be too much of an Easter egg, as it's referring to them as an overseas team and not a state or colony.

• Agreed. Finetooth (talk) 16:18, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Preparations

• "whose national side had already developed a strong rivalry" − Another Easter egg. I'd suggest saying, "whose national side had already developed a strong rivalry known as The Ashes" rather than surprising the reader with the unexpected.

• The rivalry is not known as the Ashes (unfortunately). So I have tried a note instead.

• "publican" – I would suggest "pub owner" to avoid confusion with Roman tax collector, another kind of publican.

• Publican is a very common term in New Zealand English. I doubt too many people, in the context of the article, will think he was Roman tax collector.

• OK. "Publican" is not common everywhere, but I agree that readers will probably get the drift from context. Finetooth (talk) 16:28, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Retirement and later life

• "Warbrick accompanied her and when they moved into position, barely two minutes after the party had moved, the geyser erupted killing them all." — I can't be sure whether this means two minutes after she and Joe moved or whether it means that the whole party moved closer to the geyser. Would it be better and still accurate to say, "Warbrick accompanied her, and barely two minutes later the geyser erupted and killed the entire party."?

• Yes. Changed.

Impact and legacy

• A short film, Warbrick, was released in 2009..." – Any idea who made the film or released it? Finetooth (talk) 18:21, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

• Yes. Added some information. Also added a link to the film online.

• Good addition. Using the link, I watched the film just now, which added to my appreciation of the difficulty of the sport. Finetooth (talk) 16:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

@Finetooth: Thank you for your comments and edits. I checked through them and they're all very positive so thanks a lot. Hopefully I've addressed all your comments. Cheers. -- Shudde ^talk 11:46, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

You are welcome. Very interesting article. I'm switching to support on prose, as noted above. Finetooth (talk) 16:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Comment The article mentions Warbrick playing against Tynemouth, but the link points to Tynedale RFC. The latter club are based in Corbridge, which is inland, a fair way from Tynemouth - could you check back with your source and see which it should be? There is no article for a Tynemouth club and none seems to exist now, but there could well have been in 1888. --Bcp67 (talk) 20:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

@Bcp67: Thanks for your comment. That's very well spotted. The source says that they played Tynemouth in North Shields on 7 November 1888. I'm not sure if the club still exists but havn't been able to find anything. For now I've removed the link. -- Shudde ^talk 07:17, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 20:16, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Comments from TRM You have "Auckland" (unlinked) and "Auckland" (linked) in the second para, the first I presume is the Auckland, while the second is pipelinked to Auckland rugby union team. The odd back-to-front linking and possible easter-egg issue means this needs more thought. They were officially known as Auckland Provincial Clubs at the time so this fixes it I think. "first overseas side" - "the first overseas side". Changed. " in 1882. In 1884" maybe some elegant re-wording here? Tried something. "in the British Isles, " vs " to visit Britain," are those the same thing? I'm not sure I understand your question here. Well Britain is usually England, Scotland and Wales, while the British Isles includes all manner of other islands... The Rambling Man (talk) 19:59, 30 April 2017 (UTC) Yes well both are correct. They played in Ireland (I don't want to get into the Britain versus British Isles for Ireland debate even though this was 1888-89, so I usually stick with British Isles when Ireland is included to avoid upsetting anyone). But were the first to visit Britain. -- Shudde talk 10:50, 1 May 2017 (UTC) "Warbrick effectively retired from rugby after returning from the tour except for a single match for Auckland in 1894," - maybe "from the tour, with the exception of a single appearance for". Changed. "He was killed by an eruption of the Waimangu Geyser in 1903." unusual turn of phrase, I'd be more specific, many eruptions of the Geyser have taken place, what, precisely, killed him? I'm not sure how many ways there are for a geyser eruption to kill someone. But he was killed by the superheated water ejected during the eruption rather than by some other injury. I have expanded this sentence. His position in the infobox is given as three-quarter yet that's not even mentioned in the lead. Added Also, his "New Zealand No." is given as 17, so I'm assuming that he was the 17th player to represent the All Blacks? Deserves more than just a passing mention in the infobox considering the first XV would have been 1 to 15... I don't think it does. They played a match in Wellington (basically a pre-tour match) prior to departure to New South Wales. This was the first official match and where the numbering system would have started. As mentioned in the text Warbrick didn't make it to Wellington before the team departed so wouldn't have been able to play. So he wasn't one of the first 15 players (in retrospect) to play for New Zealand. Grafton is in the infobox, but nowhere else. I have removed this, Hastings and Hawke's Bay County from the infobox. He was quite itinerant and could well have played for a large number of clubs, but they don't all warrant discussion. In these cases though they've been added without references, and so I've removed them. Ditto for Hastings. And Hawke's Bay County. I'm also seeing some odd parentheses in the Points for the national teams section of the infobox. A number of changes have been made to the infobox over the last few months. I've left a note on the template talk page requesting a fix, as I havn't been able to fix this myself. This particular problem occurred very recently. "Joe Warbrick was the third..." is Joe the same person as Joseph? Yes, the nickname (and common name) is mentioned in the first sentence. "While living in Bombay in 1877 he started " would expect a comma after 1877. Added. " well north of " doesn't feel encyclopedic. What would you suggest? "a record he still holds" see {{as of}}. I'd never seen that. Added. "By 1879 he was living in Wellington, and represented the provincial team three times that season" what season? You only mentioned the year of 1879, what "season" are you talking about? I've added a note but it's referenced as per WP:BLUE Rugby seasons are the same as the year in New Zealand, winter being mid-year. I could say "in the 1879 rugby season" but that seems a bit unnecessary. Well given a vast number of readers will be northern hemisphere, why not? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:59, 30 April 2017 (UTC) " He again played three matches for " awkward, why not "He played three further matches..."? Changed. "visit by Wellington to Auckland, was won by the visitors " visit ... visitors, reads clunky. Modified. "and his goal in the match was the only score; many Aucklanders claimed that his performance was the difference between the two sides." this is undoubtedly true, but it seems like a statement of the obvious. Is there more to this than I'm reading? Yeah this is a tough one. I actually found it hard parsing this in a way I was completely happy with. I thought it was good enough as is, but your comment makes me think again. I had included a quote from the source in the note to help clarify, the quote reads "In the early days in Auckland they used to tell us that Warbrick was the main factor in a match won by Wellington against Auckland – the one played in 1880." So if you have any suggestions I welcome them, because I'm a bit stumped! I'll think on it again. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:59, 30 April 2017 (UTC) "New South Wales became the" find that odd that it's a link to a team rather than the state, plus it's worth clarifying that it's an Australian entity. I think because the statement reads "New South Wales became the first overseas rugby team " it shouldn't be a surprise it's referring to the team and not the colony, but I have reworded to explain that they're a colony (not a state at this point right? or were they a dominion?) " first a 7–0 and then an 18–4 victory over the tourists." tighten, to just " 7–0 and 18–4 victories over the tourists." Done. "is now officially regarded as the first New Zealand representative rugby side.[15] " that is referenced by a single source from a 1968 reference. Is there more than this? This is a relatively easy statement to verify so I can find more sources, but is there anything specific you are looking for? No, but there is a tendency when making such "first" claims to rely on just one source, it'd be better for a couple of other sources to corroborate it. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:59, 30 April 2017 (UTC) I've added a couple more. -- Shudde talk 11:33, 1 May 2017 (UTC) Could link Napier. Done. "against Wellington, and also against New South Wales – who were again touring" against, against, again. poor prose. Modified. "The first British Isles side visited New Zealand in 1888." why be so clandestine? Spell it out, a Lions tour and all that, is actually interesting and would give the opportunity to explain a little of that Lions history plus remove some of the Easter egg linking. I am generally reluctant to use the term Lions as they weren't known as that for another 35 years, but if you insist I will change it. As for history, I tried not to add too much because it's a bit beyond the scope of the article. A little bit is mentioned about the team later in the article (in the "Preparations" section) but mainly as they relate to Warbrick and the Natives. But I will add a little something promptly, however if there is something specific you are looking for let me know. I have expanded this a little and also managed to insert the Lions moniker in there. Let me know what you think. I'm about half-way, I need to sleep, let me know how you get on with these trivial comments, and I'll do my best to get back soonest for the rest of the (very interesting) article. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:13, 29 April 2017 (UTC) @The Rambling Man: Thanks for your comments as usual. I've replied to, or addressed your points as best I can. Let me know what further suggestions you have. -- Shudde talk 18:05, 30 April 2017 (UTC) No worries, kids are nearly in bed, dinner is nearly on, I'll try to grab half an hour later to review your responses and finish reviewing the rest of the article. Cheers, The Rambling Man (talk) 18:11, 30 April 2017 (UTC) Further comments "In early 1888 Warbrick announced plans to assemble a Māori side to face the visiting British during their tour,[26] but he later revealed a plan" plans ... plan, etc, lots of prose repetition here. Modified. "Initially 20 players were selected for the side – which was named the " no need for the em-dash here. Maybe just nothing or at best, remove "which was" and replace with a comma. Done General thought - is it worth a footnote to describe the manners of scoring and their relative worth? Some people (association football, MLB, fans) would read this thinking "high scoring!" while some others (union, American football) would be thinking, "low scoring!"? It's not a bad idea. It's actually stupidly complicated because scoring values differed in different countries. I will add a note promptly. I added a note. -- Shudde talk 11:44, 1 May 2017 (UTC) Link Surrey appropriately. Done "The side continued to play regularly..." last side mentioned was Surrey... Fixed. "they averaged one game every 2.3 days " this is statistically accurate, no doubt, but I would just prefer to see it as how many games over how many days. I prefer a per week figure -- gives a better comparison to modern day rugby teams. So I have gone with that. "Warbrick only played twice more in the following month,[50] " okay, so if you're going to say "only" then tell me how many games he could have played in.... I think this can be extracted from the three games per week figure. So I don't think it's necessary to be that precise. Link "tries", and also (thinking back to a previous comment) we need to ensure our readers know what the scoring regime was. These days, as you know, five points for a try (four points when I was a player)... linked. "where they had won 49, lost 20, and drawn 5" just "winning 49, ..." is tighter. Changed "However due to injury Warbrick only appeared in 14" firstly commas missing here, secondly, reiterate 14 matches. Changed. "eight other members played" members of what? you mean "team-mates" or something. I would hope this is clear as in the previous sentence "the team" was discussed. I can't see how this can be interpreted as something else. "a conversion against Devon.[50]" conversion and Devon could be linked. Linked "traveled" or "travelled"? I'd say the latter, be consistent. Modified "Victorian Rules Football" pipelinked to "Australian Rules Football " which redirects to "Australian rules football", please don't do that. Fixed You haven't linked Queensland, this is probably not the place to do it, but please link it somewhere, first preferably. Done "but the Queensland controversy still hung over the side." although this may be true, no inline citation for it. The next citation (at the end of the following sentence) verifies this. "and dismissed taking any further action" is "taking" required here? I think so. "played an early match in Gore " what's an "early match"? Changed. Link Widnes (who you haven't mentioned at all). Modified "the Natives had not lost a rugby game in 31 matches – the side had won 30 and drawn one match over that time." various issues, no need for "the side had", MOSNUM fail, etc etc maybe "the Natives had not lost a rugby game in 31 matches, winning 30 and drawing the other." or similar. Modified "tour remains the longest in the sport's history.[41][73]" see WP:ASOF again. While I understand the intent behind this request, I wonder whether it'll really improve the article. If we say "as of 2017 the tour is the longest in the sport's history" then it kind of implies that this has a realistic chance of changing. It could, but the chances are so incredibly low it's possibly misleading to suggest it may. The days of touring teams is nearly over, the Lions being the only real exception, and even their tours are getting shorter and shorter. "Five years later he" later than what (it's a new section)? And should we have a comma there? Changed Link Taranaki appropriately. linked " an Auckland paper wrote" do you mean a "newspaper"? Yes and changed, but is paper wrong here? Or is this just my New Zealand English? "Warbrick married Harriet Burt with whom he had one daughter" when? I actually only found this information recently, and the source doesn't specify a year (for either event) " Chief Government Guide" don't link tour guide there. I was asked to link this by another reviewer. I'll keep as is for now unless you insist. "of the 1888–89 Natives – the first New Zealand team to tour the British Isles –" is the reiteration really necessary here? The only reason I placed this there (and I'm happy to remove it) as to emphasis that this fact alone meant that Warbrick had such an impact. Had they been the second or third team would their impact have been as great? I don't think so. "The film was played for New Zealand's national team – the All Blacks – during their preparations for a match against Australia in 2009." suddenly a little too much explanation, we already know they're called the All Blacks, stick with that. Changed "Williamson, Martin. "A brief history of the Ashes Part One: England v Australia 1861 – 1888". remove spaces around the date range. Done The Rambling Man (talk) 21:07, 30 April 2017 (UTC) @The Rambling Man: I have replied and addressed your comments as best I can. Hopefully I haven't missed anything. Thanks again for your comment. -- Shudde talk 11:45, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support my issues, mainly trivial, addressed, good article, nice work (and a pleasure to work with the nominator on the tweaks). The Rambling Man (talk) 20:16, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Image review

• File:StateLibQld 1 188931 New Zealand native Rugby Union team, prior to a match at Lord Sheffield's Park in 1888.jpg: Might need a bit more detail on what kind of research was done to ascertain the author, and a fix for the broken link.
  • I have not been able to fix this broken link. This image was uploaded by a bot apparently from a collection by the Queensland State Library. The description and most of the information (categories aside) uploaded by the bot are consistent with other descriptions left with other copies of this photograph. Both the link [2] included in the source, and the information included in the book Forerunners of the All Blacks (as per the description page) state that the date and location of the photograph are not certain, let alone who the photographer was. I'm not sure what else I can include as I've not been able to find any further information on the photo and it's possible photographer. This image was checked at a previous FAC (see here) so I am pretty confident (but not 100% certain) that the source link has not always been dead. -- Shudde ^talk 17:07, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
    • @GermanJoe:? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:43, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
      • The file has an alternative source and detailed additional information (I tagged the first link as dead in the description). That's sufficient information on its origin, especially for such an old photo. The unknown author is also only a minor issue - according to the image description a reasonable effort was made to look into this aspect. In short: both details would be good to have, but the image's copyright status is reasonably ascertained even without them (imo). On a sidenote, the photo's age is an advantage here. Would it be 20-30 years younger, it would be more difficult to argue for it. Hope these additional details help - I'd pass this image as OK. GermanJoe (talk) 20:45, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
• File:New Zealand Natives football team black and white cropped.jpg: License seems sound to me.
• File:Auckland rugby union touring team 1883 - cropped.jpg: Ditto
• File:Joseph Warbrick, rugby player.jpg: Same, despite the complexity.

ALT text seems good for me, and each image seems to be in a pertinent section. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:57, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Thanks for that! -- Shudde ^talk 17:07, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks GermanJoe. Hopefully this addresses your concerns Jo-Jo Eumerus ? -- Shudde ^talk 17:59, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Seems like. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:33, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Source review – The nominator asked me for a review on my talk page, and it looks like this area in particular is what still needs attention. I went through the sources carefully, and other than a few minor formatting issues that should be simple to fix, everything looks good. This is what I found:

• A link-checker inspection revealed that the links are in working order.
• All of the sources appear to be reliable enough to meet FA's "high-quality" criterion.
• The last reference in the list shows its publisher as ESPN. Shouldn't this be ESPNcricinfo instead, as that is the site where the article appears, not the main ESPN site?
  • Yes I think I've been told before (at a pervious FAC maybe) that this is correct. However it's technically "ESPN Sports Media Ltd" and I suppose the "work" is ESPNcricinfo. So I've gone and changed it. Hopefully this is correct. -- Shudde ^talk 18:08, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
• The Gallagher and Irvine references should have their publishers italicized, since they are print publications. If you don't want to use the newspaper= parameter of the cite templates (as those are the only news sources that aren't from newspaper archives), work= does the job just fine.
• Time for a slightly annoying one: the ISBN numbers should all be of consistent length and style. This means that they should all be either 10 or 13 digits; WP:ISBN says that the longer style is preferred. To make achieving consistency easier, you can plug the numbers into this converter, which will even hyphenate the ISBNs if you want.
• Am I correct in assuming that the McCarthy and Swan books are too old for ISBNs?
  • Yes they are unfortunately. -- Shudde ^talk 18:08, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
• In the Other section, I see two instances each of New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage and Ministry for Culture and Heritage as publishers. Pick one style and stick with it consistently. Giants2008 (Talk) 21:38, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
  • @Giants2008: Thanks a lot for that. I really appreciate it. Hopefully everything has been addressed. -- Shudde ^talk 18:08, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
    • All of the changes look fine to me. Giants2008 (Talk) 21:20, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

• I was asked to comment here by Shudde. I actually gave this a look over before it was nominated and made a few suggestions at my talk page. Reading it again the only sentence that comes across poorly is He was killed in 1903 after him and the party he was guiding had ventured too close to the Waimangu Geyser and it erupted showering the group with superheated water. The rest seems fine. AIRcorn (talk) 06:24, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
  • @Aircorn: Thanks for your comment. Yeah it was rewritten after a request from another reviewer. I have tried instead "In 1903 he was killed along with several others by an eruption of the Waimangu Geyser." What do you think? -- Shudde ^talk 18:55, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:14, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.