Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chris Young (pitcher)/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 not promoted 04:56, 3 September 2007.
This article has been greatly expanded since being promoted to WP:GA. The intent of the expansion was to pursue WP:FA status. After much of the expansion was completed a cadre of concerned baseball editors took the article in a different direction (that I felt stripped it of its breadth). debate was contentious. This debate followed a one-on-one war with Ksy92003 in which he felt a much more terse version was better. I am by no means an expert at WP:FC, but everything I have nominated for promotion at WP:FAC (Campbell's Soup Cans & Chicago Board of Trade Building) or WP:FLC (All-Star Final Vote, List of recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry, List of Chicago Landmarks) has eventually been promoted. Basically, I pointed out that many of the changes were detracting from the WP:FA potential of the article which I feel based on my experience I have a good feel for. Soon thereafter, the warring stopped. I am very appreciative of the attention of the numerous eyes at WP:MLB because the article has been able to avoid WP:PROSELINE based on the help of the concerned parties. I believe the article is in good shape for a WP:FAC. However, I just noticed that Ksy92003 has some contentions on the use of the {{by}} template. I hope a very broad WP:FAC audience will have some advice on the direction the article is headed and should go. I do acknowledge the article is a detailed, heavily cited and lengthy article for a player at the stage of his career that Young is at now. However, this is the first internet era baseball All-Star I have seen at FAC. I.E., I have not seen any other players with significant cited detail of collegiate and minor league career at FAC. This could be the standard bearer of future such individuals. One thing that should be noted is that this article employs the philosophy that any individual game notable enough to be specifically mentioned is cited with either a box score or a game recap/summary if not both. I have chimed in on several other FACs about this philosophy for internet era biographies and in almost every case the requested box scores were added.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 23:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Oppose Chris Young most likely has a long career ahead of him that has just barely begun. This article will not be stable for a very long time. Furthremore, the format used by the article right now of providing year-by-year summaries will be completely unworkable once his career is over, meaning the form of the article will change significantly over time. The article also contains way to much trivia (height milestones, number of times he pitched eight shutout innings, ivy league tandems starting for same team, list goes on and on and on), the lead section contains his current DL status, which seems out of place for a lead item, each season section is more of a blow-by-blow of greatest hits rather than a summary account that puts these events in a larger context. I personally feel this article has a long way to go to be featured. A baseball player is more than a litany of starts and statistics. Indrian 10:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- FYI - In response to this statement "Chris Young most likely has a long career ahead of him that has just barely begun. This article will not be stable for a very long time." The youth of an article's subject is irrelevant to neither its qualification as a FA candidate nor the definition of article stability (which refers to current events and articles currently suffering from an edit war). Until someone is dead, they can always do something noteworthy that could potentially be added. While the other objections appear valid, all critique should be compared against the current state of the article.--Esprit15d 14:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, but this person has done almost nothing yet. With someone like Hugo Chavez, for instance, who was a featured article as president of Venezuela, you know he is going to do more things but you already have a vague idea as to his legacy. No one has ANY idea what Young's legacy is going to be. It is simply impossible to create a good encyclopedia article about Young right now that would contain enough good information for a featured article. Someone could surprise me and actually make such an article, but this is not it. It fails criteria 4 for not being in proper summary style. Furthermore because it is written in a "greatest hits" style this article has the potential to change on a day-by-day basis as he accumulates more stats and individual starts. That is the very essence of the stability requirement. Any article will change as new developments occur, but in baseball the new developments are constant. That would not be a problem if this article were written in true summary style, but the chosen format lends itself to constant change. It is just not written in the style of an encyclopedia article at all being just a litany of trivia and statistics. Indrian 19:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Support (as nominator) I disagree with your interpretation of the stability article. Your philosophy would have us preclude articles of anyone who is expected to accomplish great things in the future from being FAs. For example, Barack Obama may be the first black U.S. President at some time in the future. This would be a very significant accomplishment and a presidency would drastically change the focus of his bio. Nonetheless, his promise of a great potential should not preclude his article from being a WP:FA. Similarly, if someone wanted to make Hilary Rodham Clinton a WP:FAC the fact that she may become the first female president should not preclude her from FA eligibility. A baseball fan understands that a pitcher who is successfully defending opponent batting average and hits per nine innings titles while adding earned run average and Walks plus hits per inning pitched leadership to his resume has done some things. His WP:LEAD covers his significant accomplishments very well. There is no WP:FAC rule that says a person has already fulfilled most of his promise to be eligible. Stability in the sense of FAC means that there is no current edit warring. It does not mean that the article looks pretty similar to what a good article on the same topic to look like 15 years from now. As far as the trivia goes. 15 years from now 50% of what is in the article now may be removed. However, that does not make the trivia uninteresting. It is incorporated into the text well as per current policy and that is what should be evaluated.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 21:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Read the policy again. Stability means no current edit warring AND "content does not change significantly from day to day." Now this article can be written in a way that satisfies this second prong of the policy, but by chosing to put such emphasis on every start of every season you have created a situation where this article will be changing fairly constantly. By dividing the article by individual years, you have assured that the article will soon become too large and be subject to a fundamental change in structure. Your analogy above is a poor one. I guarantee you that if an article on one of the presidential candidates was FA quality right now and someone nominated it opposition would be overwhelming and consensus would be to wait until the election is over (and yes I know Obama is featured, but this happened back in 2004 when stability was not an issue). Chris Young can have an article now. He may even be able to have a featured article now. But the article that currently exists contains too much trivia, too little context, too little information on his life outside of baseball statistics, and not enough summary style. There are other gaps as well, it does not even give his pitch repretoire unless I missed it somewhere. I appreciate the work you have done here and think the article is on the right track over all, but next time please read the entire argument rather than sticking on one point and taking it out of context. Indrian 21:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Support (as nominator) I disagree with your interpretation of the stability article. Your philosophy would have us preclude articles of anyone who is expected to accomplish great things in the future from being FAs. For example, Barack Obama may be the first black U.S. President at some time in the future. This would be a very significant accomplishment and a presidency would drastically change the focus of his bio. Nonetheless, his promise of a great potential should not preclude his article from being a WP:FA. Similarly, if someone wanted to make Hilary Rodham Clinton a WP:FAC the fact that she may become the first female president should not preclude her from FA eligibility. A baseball fan understands that a pitcher who is successfully defending opponent batting average and hits per nine innings titles while adding earned run average and Walks plus hits per inning pitched leadership to his resume has done some things. His WP:LEAD covers his significant accomplishments very well. There is no WP:FAC rule that says a person has already fulfilled most of his promise to be eligible. Stability in the sense of FAC means that there is no current edit warring. It does not mean that the article looks pretty similar to what a good article on the same topic to look like 15 years from now. As far as the trivia goes. 15 years from now 50% of what is in the article now may be removed. However, that does not make the trivia uninteresting. It is incorporated into the text well as per current policy and that is what should be evaluated.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 21:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, but this person has done almost nothing yet. With someone like Hugo Chavez, for instance, who was a featured article as president of Venezuela, you know he is going to do more things but you already have a vague idea as to his legacy. No one has ANY idea what Young's legacy is going to be. It is simply impossible to create a good encyclopedia article about Young right now that would contain enough good information for a featured article. Someone could surprise me and actually make such an article, but this is not it. It fails criteria 4 for not being in proper summary style. Furthermore because it is written in a "greatest hits" style this article has the potential to change on a day-by-day basis as he accumulates more stats and individual starts. That is the very essence of the stability requirement. Any article will change as new developments occur, but in baseball the new developments are constant. That would not be a problem if this article were written in true summary style, but the chosen format lends itself to constant change. It is just not written in the style of an encyclopedia article at all being just a litany of trivia and statistics. Indrian 19:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The article doesn't change day-to-day. In the current state of the article, the form its currently written in, the content doesn't "change" significantly; it's simply added to on an as-needed basis. And the trivia makes the article interesting. When I go to an article, I look for the history on the person and what about him makes him unique. And you can't deny that enough is said about a player who hasn't even played 4 complete seasons, yet he's an All-Star, made MLB history as being the pitcher who surrendered the first ever inside-the-park home run in All-Star Game history, is the 6th Ivy League All-Star, and has a lot of other historical first or tied other historical acheivements. And it seems like you're trying to say that a current athlete can't be a featured article. See Dominik Hasek. If his career ended tomorrow, would you say that the article isn't written well enough? The article isn't going to change for several years... it will only be added to; nothing will be changed. Ksy92003(talk) 21:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Apparently someone else who cannot read. I will reprint and bold you a bit from above to make things easier for you. Chris Young can have an article now. He may even be able to have a featured article now. But the article that currently exists contains too much trivia, too little context, too little information on his life outside of baseball statistics, and not enough summary style. Hope that helps. Also, I am willing to work to get this article to featured status. It would involve some cuts and consolidation, but I am sure it could be molded to satisfy my objection. I am afraid if I were to try alone though, I would be accused of vandalism. If someone would like to work with me rather than complain, I am sure we can reach a compromise. That is what this process is all about. Indrian 21:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The article doesn't change day-to-day. In the current state of the article, the form its currently written in, the content doesn't "change" significantly; it's simply added to on an as-needed basis. And the trivia makes the article interesting. When I go to an article, I look for the history on the person and what about him makes him unique. And you can't deny that enough is said about a player who hasn't even played 4 complete seasons, yet he's an All-Star, made MLB history as being the pitcher who surrendered the first ever inside-the-park home run in All-Star Game history, is the 6th Ivy League All-Star, and has a lot of other historical first or tied other historical acheivements. And it seems like you're trying to say that a current athlete can't be a featured article. See Dominik Hasek. If his career ended tomorrow, would you say that the article isn't written well enough? The article isn't going to change for several years... it will only be added to; nothing will be changed. Ksy92003(talk) 21:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I have looked at many of the bios at Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Sport_and_recreational_activities. I would say that it is possible that in the future this article may take on the shape of Bill Russell (which it currently compares well to). Note that all of the FA bios I looked at including Martin Brodeur, Wayne Gretzky, Dominik Hašek, Sandy Koufax, & Michael Jordan have extensive chronological career summaries (not in violation of WP:SS. Because Young's career to date is short we can not have early, mid, and late career sections yet. Obama's article has survived multiple WP:FARs including one last month even though as a serious Presidential contender he is a different person than a as the Senatorial candidate he was when promoted to WP:FA. Note that he was promoted just a three months before the Senatorial elections. There was no consensus to wait and see the outcome of the election at that time. I have no reason to beleive a future WP:FAR would be successful (or unsuccessful based on your perspective since we really hope an article survives in general) if he wins the nomination. I don't really think you believe another FAR would result in demotion until after the election especially since he was promoted during one. As long as the article adheres to WP:PROSELINE it will survive summary style challenges. Young is uncontroversial. He has no failed marriages, tax evasion scandals, drug issues, or other skeletons that would make the article broader. Young has the potential to be a great power pitcher of his generation and to necessitate substantive additions to his article. This does not mean his article is ineligible. The fact that he continues to be undefeated since May 12 is part of the article that needs to be continually update. His major league leadership in various statistics needs to be monitored as well.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 22:05, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Once again I see an unwillingness to compromise here. I have on my own initiative started a rewrite of the article at User:Indrian/Chris Young that you are more than welcome to look at and comment on. I have only done the first couple of sections so far, but you can see that I am a fairly light touch overall (though I may make some more drastic cuts at the Major League level). (Note: If you look at the article in the next few minutes it will look like I cut more than I actually did, some formatting issue is causing a lot of text not to show up, it is still there though). The article stands at 53K right now, which is over the recommended limit even for an FA and unecessary for a person of YOung's comparable importance. As I said before, your research foundation is solid, and I think my objections can be overcome, but you need to meet me halfway here. I am sure there is a compromise to be reached. Indrian 22:13, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I am looking for his pitch repertoire. I will watch for your version and compare.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 22:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- NOTE After visiting three Borders Books locations this week, I finally got a hold of "Guide to Pitchers: An Historical Compendium of Pitching, Pitchers, and Pitches" (ISBN 0743261585) by Rob Neyer and Bill James. I had hoped for some missing details (from the online update), but realized that the reason for the online update was that the book was published in 2004 before Young was a major league pitcher. Thus, there is no real detail about his repertoire. If you have any other source ideas let me know. I will continue to scour the internet for clues. --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 17:05, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Sounds good. Please remember that this is a first cut at it and that I may end up removing too much. I am sure we can get somewhere in the middle of what we both see as the "ideal" article. Indrian 22:30, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- So far I can see that one might prefer not to note specific games as his career evolves. Is it necessary to remove such detail now. Removing it serves the 2nd level of reader mentioned at Wikipedia:Summary_style#Levels_of_desired_details at a cost to the 3rd level of reader. For the level two reader you have done a great job of editing. Who are we targeting with the article? Deciding which version of the Chris_Young_(pitcher)#Collegiate_career section obtains will set the tone for the whole article. Let's just focus on that.
- Also, I disagree with your changes to the third paragraph of the lead. I think the level one reader would want to see the removed content. I agree with your other change which I was going to make on Thursday when he comes off the DL. --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 23:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- What makes Young important? That is what the lead is about. Young is important for his on-field accomplishments. He would be just as important if he had not gone to an Ivy League school. The lead sets the tone for his accomplishments, the Ivy League facts can (and do) come later in the article. I feel the specific games are a problem, however, and this is one of my main complaints with the article. They do not provide much insight into his career and serve to clutter the article. I am willing to drop my other objection of too little context outside of his baseball stats entirely if we can work out these other issues. Also, you have convinced me that stability is not an issue, leaving only my criteria 4 complaints. Specific games I am willing to talk about, but if too many specific games are left in, I cannot in good consience end my opposition. Anyway, the first pass is done now. Keep in mind that I almost certainly took too much out at the moment since this was a first pass. Also, some of the references may have inadvertently gone wonky. I am willing to discuss any specific cut you would like to, though I recommend we move the discussion to the talk page of my redesign so as not to overly clutter things here. Indrian 23:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Basically, I think the argument comes down to the WP:SS issue that you raise. Whereas, all the other retired or nearly retired FAs are at a point where due to length they must shift from level 3 reader format to level 2 reader format, I do not believe Young is at that point. I do not believe that almost any athlete needs to have single season articles (except Bonds may deserve a 2007 season article for the level 3 reader) for every season. None of Young's seasons to date are important enough for such coverage. Thus when any season gets cut from level 3 detail to level 2 detail, we are sort of going to lose the detail. Thus, I do not support removal of most of the content that would take the article to level 2 detail. I don't think the current length exceeds that of other athlete bio FAs, so there is no need to reduce the article to level 2 detail. WP:SS seems to suggest going to level 2 as needed. It is not needed here. Also to say that Young is important for his on field accomplishments is like saying Obama or Clinton are important for their ideologies. Young's Ivy league status contributes to his importance much like Obama's race and Clinton's gender. P.S. let's keep the debate here for the record where it is most easily found.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 23:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- What makes Young important? That is what the lead is about. Young is important for his on-field accomplishments. He would be just as important if he had not gone to an Ivy League school. The lead sets the tone for his accomplishments, the Ivy League facts can (and do) come later in the article. I feel the specific games are a problem, however, and this is one of my main complaints with the article. They do not provide much insight into his career and serve to clutter the article. I am willing to drop my other objection of too little context outside of his baseball stats entirely if we can work out these other issues. Also, you have convinced me that stability is not an issue, leaving only my criteria 4 complaints. Specific games I am willing to talk about, but if too many specific games are left in, I cannot in good consience end my opposition. Anyway, the first pass is done now. Keep in mind that I almost certainly took too much out at the moment since this was a first pass. Also, some of the references may have inadvertently gone wonky. I am willing to discuss any specific cut you would like to, though I recommend we move the discussion to the talk page of my redesign so as not to overly clutter things here. Indrian 23:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The overall debate should stay here, but if we do this right we will be pouring over a large number of small changes to reach an equilibrium, and that would clog this page. I do not feel the Ivy League stuff is significant enough for the lead. It is still in the article, which is fine. Featured Articles need to represent our best work. Most of the information on individual games does not help gain a better understanding of the subject. It is indulgent to keep them all. A featured article is not something where we put stuff in because we can, it is a place where we put stuff in that we should. If in the context of his entire career at some later date these games are not important, then they are also not important now. As I stated before, I will discuss and compromise on individual games as I no doubt made some mistakes in my trimming, but compromise comes from both sides and I hope you will give up a few of these games too in the interest of getting this done. Indrian 23:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Before getting into individual games, do you agree that based on length there is no need to convert from level 3 reader details to level 2 reader details at this time.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 01:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I understand the question and hope that this is the answer you need. Chris Young's career has been brief enough that a single article will be able to include all the necessary details, so yes, we can have what you call level 3 details. I think our disagreement though is not about level 3 versus level 2 but about what facts are needed at level 3 as opposed to facts that are not needed at all. I am open to being convinced as to why a certain game adds greater understanding to his career, but I am currently of the opinion that the ones I removed (and I did not remove all of them) are not needed at any level. Indrian 18:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- So are we going to do business here or what? I have gone out of my way to compromise, even agreeing to drop my comprehensiveness objection (just look at the biographies at the SABR Baseball Biography project for an idea of how much life outside of baseball information it is possible to accumulate on all those players that never made a controversial headline) if we can work out the summary style issues and working overtime to create my own version of the article for further discussion, but there has been little communication from TonyTheTiger indicating a willingness to do the grunt work required to get through this. His below comments about not wanting to fix dashes himself also indicates an unwillingness to take the necessary action on objections to get this thing to featured status. You submitted this to FAC, so you need to take care of some of these objections if you are serious about FA status. If I have not heard from you by this evening Eastern Standard Time, I am going to start implementing some of the changes from my revised version into the actual article. I will not put them all in without further discussion, but I imagine that if my objection here will not get your attention, a few good-faith changes to the article will. Indrian 12:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- After rereading Wikipedia:Summary_style#Rationale several times, here is my understanding of the level three reader who "lot of detail on one or more aspects of the topic": I would say that each section should be analyzed with the mindset that a level 3 reader would really want a WP:GA on this section alone. Is there anything in this section that would not be desirable in a Good Article dedicated to the aspect of the article covered by this section. I object to most of your removals based on this standard. Does this standard seem reasonable. Thus, for any season where you wish to remove individual games ask yourself if I were to write a Good article on this season of Young's career would I remove this game from the article. I also think that it will be about three more years before we are pressed to begin to convert from level three to level two detail on this subject.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- So are we going to do business here or what? I have gone out of my way to compromise, even agreeing to drop my comprehensiveness objection (just look at the biographies at the SABR Baseball Biography project for an idea of how much life outside of baseball information it is possible to accumulate on all those players that never made a controversial headline) if we can work out the summary style issues and working overtime to create my own version of the article for further discussion, but there has been little communication from TonyTheTiger indicating a willingness to do the grunt work required to get through this. His below comments about not wanting to fix dashes himself also indicates an unwillingness to take the necessary action on objections to get this thing to featured status. You submitted this to FAC, so you need to take care of some of these objections if you are serious about FA status. If I have not heard from you by this evening Eastern Standard Time, I am going to start implementing some of the changes from my revised version into the actual article. I will not put them all in without further discussion, but I imagine that if my objection here will not get your attention, a few good-faith changes to the article will. Indrian 12:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I understand the question and hope that this is the answer you need. Chris Young's career has been brief enough that a single article will be able to include all the necessary details, so yes, we can have what you call level 3 details. I think our disagreement though is not about level 3 versus level 2 but about what facts are needed at level 3 as opposed to facts that are not needed at all. I am open to being convinced as to why a certain game adds greater understanding to his career, but I am currently of the opinion that the ones I removed (and I did not remove all of them) are not needed at any level. Indrian 18:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Before getting into individual games, do you agree that based on length there is no need to convert from level 3 reader details to level 2 reader details at this time.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 01:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- You would not have a GA on an individual season of Young's career because it would most likely go to AfD and come away with a vote of merge. Your refusal to grasp this basic fact of wikipedia article construction is the miscommunication we are having. An encyclopedia article never goes down to that level of detail because it destroys the summary nature that makes something an encyclopedia article to begin with. Tonight I am going to start making changes. Since you are not going to work with me to pick what is most important to you of what I cut I will try my best to form the compromise on my own and I will not implement every change I made on the temp page. The article has to much minutiae to be a good FA right now and I will try to rectify some of that. Indrian 17:20, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- There is no question season by season articles of Young would and should be merged. The point is that the level of detail of a separate article should be retained until the aggregate article is too long and requires the type of editing you are proposing. I would prefer you create a level 3 reader article at the user page you have been using to lessen the edit resolution. Right now, I believe an editor should look at the article as if six articles (College Career, Minor League Career, and each major league season) plus some stubs need to be written. The proper detail level should be assessed on each section as if it were an article with an encyclopedic purpose of describing that aspect of the article. E.g., if someone were looking on WP to find information about Young's Minor league career what would you leave in there. I think it will be about 3 more years before the article needs to get cut to level 2 details.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 21:47, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I concur with the consolidation of the college career section (which would be a single topic as I mentioned in my argument above). It looks better this way. However, there is little doubt in my mind that if I wanted to read about Chris Youngs college career, I would want to know what his best games were. Thus, I oppose your removal of his career high game and his freshman season high game. I am going to reinsert these two games in this section.
- There is no question season by season articles of Young would and should be merged. The point is that the level of detail of a separate article should be retained until the aggregate article is too long and requires the type of editing you are proposing. I would prefer you create a level 3 reader article at the user page you have been using to lessen the edit resolution. Right now, I believe an editor should look at the article as if six articles (College Career, Minor League Career, and each major league season) plus some stubs need to be written. The proper detail level should be assessed on each section as if it were an article with an encyclopedic purpose of describing that aspect of the article. E.g., if someone were looking on WP to find information about Young's Minor league career what would you leave in there. I think it will be about 3 more years before the article needs to get cut to level 2 details.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 21:47, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Sounds good. Please remember that this is a first cut at it and that I may end up removing too much. I am sure we can get somewhere in the middle of what we both see as the "ideal" article. Indrian 22:30, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Support I'm actually going against the opinion that I held a couple months ago, which was that I didn't think it'd become a Featured Article, and I do support the FAC. However, I'd like to point out that Chris Young is a pitcher who has played for 4 years. He hasn't won any league awards, World Series titles, or any sort of reward that gives a player much attention in the baseball world. There is a lot more information on him on his article than a lot of other people have on theirs. Mind he only has played for less than 4 seasons. If he has a lengthy career (15 seasons) then of course all that information will need to be shortened down. But that's not something to concern ourselves about now. Currently, the article is of great length and detail. I am a huge baseball/sports fan and am pretty knowledgeable about most of the players currently in the game, in my time (started following baseball in real depth in about 2000). But this is the first season that I've ever heard anything about this Chris Young (not to be confused with the Arizona Diamondbacks' center fielder Chris B. Young. But I came here, and I was glad to see that there was a lot of information about this player, more than I would expect Young to put in an autobiography. I think there still is too much information than is absolutely necessary, but I don't think I can in clear conscience say that the article, in its current state, provides enough detailed information to inform anybody of the success that Young has had at the college and minor league level. Again, I'm a huge baseball fan and I haven't even ever heard of this guy until I came here, and this article... TonyTheTiger (talk · contribs) did a great job to inform me about a great baseball player by describing his entire career, and now I know a lot about him. And I think that if any article can do that, if an article about a baseball player can inform a die-hard baseball fan about a player as well as TonyTheTiger has written it, then it definitely should be a Featured Article. Ksy92003(talk) 17:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Fixes needed. There are substantial WP:DASH problems throughout the article; almost every possible misuse of dash and hyphen is there at least once. Because sports articles are dash and hyphen heavy, tedious cleanup work is needed. Also, per WP:CONTEXT and WP:MOSLINK, I don't see justification for all of the baseball year links to solo years if those articles don't have information relevant to Chris Young in particular. Solo years shouldn't be linked (even to baseball years) unless the linked article provides context relevant to this article. There are significant uncited statements, example: Moe Berg was the last former Princeton player to do either.
What is the source for his career stats? This sentence needs further explanation: Young has been traded three times in his career partly because of the velocity of his fastball, ...SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]- I have tried to cleanup the relevance of the velocity of his fastball.
- Since there are only a half dozen or so Princeton Major League Baseball players, the source for the Moe Berg claim is www.baseball-reference.com and one-by-one checking. Chris_Young_(pitcher)#Career_statistics has always had a citation. See the citation.
- That's the definition of original research. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, there are a much more Princeton players than you realize. If you look at [1], you'll see that in MLB history there have been 24 Princeton players, 12 of them who are pitchers. So the "half dozen" number is 25% the real amount. However, looking at this page, you'd see that only Moe Berg and Dutch Sterrett have hit a HR, and Sterrett last played in 1913. Berg first played in 1923, so this proves that the Berg claim is true, as far as HR. The other players with a stolen base, Homer Hillebrand, Dutch Meier, Ted Reed, Sterrett, and Bobby Vaughn... the latest any of those 3 players has played was 1915 (Reed and Vaughn). Again, Berg had 11 stolen bases in his career, which began in 1923. While it isn't written in stone that Berg was the last Princeton player to do either, you have to put the pieces together and you'll be able to see that Berg was the most recent Princeton player to accomplish either feat. So I don't think it's original research because there is evidence which supports Berg being the most recent Princeton player to accomplish either feat. Ksy92003(talk) 07:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- That's the definition of original research. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Looking briefly at other articles it seems that context of the goings on in baseball is important. Most baseball bios seem to use YYYY in baseball because someone researching a player of a given era will want the context of important happenings of that era in the sport. --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 17:00, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Do I have to fix the WP:DASH myself? I can't stand paying attention to that type stuff. I made every mistake one would make if one were not thinking about the proper use precisely because dashes are not as important to me as they should be. I'll hope someone who likes to make those fixes comes by before the end of the weekend or I will begrudgingly do them myself if I can find them.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 17:17, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- You could ask Brighterorange (talk · contribs) to run his dash script, but he's still perfecting it, it misses things, and you'd still have to run through them manually when he's done, so it may be better to do it yourself (because of the variety of errors). I'm not sure his script is perfected to the point (yet) that it will get everything. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Do I have to fix the WP:DASH myself? I can't stand paying attention to that type stuff. I made every mistake one would make if one were not thinking about the proper use precisely because dashes are not as important to me as they should be. I'll hope someone who likes to make those fixes comes by before the end of the weekend or I will begrudgingly do them myself if I can find them.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 17:17, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(moved from User_talk:TonyTheTiger for consensus) I was looking throughout the Chris Young article, and the latter picture of Young delivering a pitch (exclude the image of him batting) looks rather small. Is it in any possible if that image can be upgraded to show Chris Young more? In other words, is it possible in any way to zoom in on Chris Young for that one image? The caption says "Chris Young during deilvery", but with the current state of that particular image, it is a little difficult to actually see Young throwing the ball. Is there any way that this image could be adjusted so Young is focused on more so it could be easier for us to actually see him delivering? The proportion of the image is fine as seen from Image:20070616 Chris Young visits Wrigley (8).JPG, but when the image is shrunk to fit in the article, it's a little difficult to see him really clearly. Ksy92003(talk) 19:25, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- (moved from User_talk:Ksy92003 for consensus)I am weakly against cropping the image because the flavor of Wrigley Field would be lost. Let's bring it the the FAC and see what others think though. I would go with consensus.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 20:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- (moved from User_talk:TonyTheTiger for consensus) I'm not really convinced that the historical significance of Wrigley Field adds any significance to the picture. I'm not arguing against that, but I wouldn't use that as a reason as to not cropping the image. You say "the flavor of Wrigley Field would be lost." I'm sorry, but personally I fail to see how the ballpark affects the image... the image was taken of Chris Young, and I'm not convinced that the background of Wrigley Field needs to be shown. However, the image is yours, and you're free to do whatever you want with it. And although you released the image to the public domain, I don't feel that I should have any right to adjust your image. If you feel the image is good as is, then that's fine. I still hold the opinion that the image could be improved by cropping to focus more on Chris Young, but I feel that you, as the photographer, should make whatever decisions you wish for this image. Ksy92003(talk) 07:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I had not even paid attention to the picture until this started up. As it stands, that picture needs to be cropped and refocused on Young. The picture in the heading should focus on the subject of the article, which is not Wrigley Field. Even if the sweep of the image were appropriate, it still needs to be cropped, as overrunning the lead section with the info box in this way is not aesthetically appealing and should be avoided if possible, which I think it is in this case. Young is not even properly centered in the shot. Don't get me wrong; I think it is a very nice picture as is, but it should not be the main view of Young for this article. Indrian 01:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah, I believe that, as well... well of course, I'm the one who brought up the comment. I think that Young does need to be focused more in this image; Wrigley Field doesn't mean anything in this image, which was the reason TonyTheTiger gave for why he wasn't in favor of cropping the image, but I feel that it's quite necessary. Ksy92003(talk) 01:04, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The main picture should not be cropped because it is used in several other pages where the background is important. Click on the image and look toward the bottom to see the pages such as bullpen and starting pitcher where cropping would cause problems. The picture at issue can be cropped, but like I said I was weakly against it. If people want to crop the picture at issue that is fine. The main image (a WP:FPC should not be cropped).--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 14:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- P.S. If you crop the picture at issue you could swap positions with the main image if that is preferable. --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 14:19, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah, I believe that, as well... well of course, I'm the one who brought up the comment. I think that Young does need to be focused more in this image; Wrigley Field doesn't mean anything in this image, which was the reason TonyTheTiger gave for why he wasn't in favor of cropping the image, but I feel that it's quite necessary. Ksy92003(talk) 01:04, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Oppose I agree somewhat with Indrian on stabilty, the article is 55 KB long and he only pitched a couple of seasons. The prose is fairly weak because it's way over detailed, needs a good trimming and copyediting as well. The no-hitter paragraph is a perfect example. Are info like "The Padres are joined by the New York Mets, Colorado Rockies and Tampa Bay Devil Rays as the only franchises who have never pitched no-hitters" needed? Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 20:57, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Stability is a very tough thing to argue about. It is sort of a WP:CRYSTAL argument saying I don't like the article because my crystal ball tells me it is going to be very different in the future in a way that is difficult to edit. I don't know how to argue against a crystal ball on future editorial difficulties any better than I have above. --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 03:27, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment You have chosen one of the few sentences that does not stand up to the section by section necessity tests. I will remove that sentence. Please note any others that you think are similarly superfluous with respect to the needs of the typical level 3 reader discussed above.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 05:33, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Wasn't that one of the sentences I had originally removed? I remember it was; you must've readded it, TonyTheTiger. Ksy92003(talk) 05:40, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Guilty. That was before gaining an understanding of WP:SS.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- CommentI agree with 3 of Jaranda's 4 August 11 edits. I think the fact that Young is part of one of two Ivy league tandems in the last 50 years
MLB historyis an interesting piece of trivia that should be in the article somewhere. Where it was seemed correct.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 04:58, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- CommentI agree with 3 of Jaranda's 4 August 11 edits. I think the fact that Young is part of one of two Ivy league tandems in the last 50 years
- Guilty. That was before gaining an understanding of WP:SS.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Wasn't that one of the sentences I had originally removed? I remember it was; you must've readded it, TonyTheTiger. Ksy92003(talk) 05:40, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose—Support. 1a and breaches of MOS.- Main units must be spelt out on first appearance, and thereafter unless there's consensus among the contributors. (I see no discussion on the talk page.) Resolved– I took care of ERA. Let me know if you see other instances--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- "currently"—Read MOS on Precise language (Chronological items). Done--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- "he bounced around in the Pirates"—what does that mean? Done--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- "undefeated road games started streak to twenty-four"—I don't know the topic, but is this correct? Looks ungrammatical.
- I have tried to clear this up. If it is still unclear I will write an article for road (sports), which means games played at location which is not the teams home venue. Let me know if this is necessary.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- "twenty-four"—MOS says that numbers 10 and over are normally expressed in digits.
- Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Spelling_out_numbers] says this is a stylistic choice.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- "3-1"—No, MOS says en dash.
- Instead of subtitles "High school career" and "Collegiate career", why not simplify to "High school" and "College"? Done--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- "ERA"—Huh? Done--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- "in two sports—basketball and baseball — and was a unanimous selection for both awards". One em dash is unspaced (as MOS says to do it); the other is spaced. I hope he wasn't the only one to receive those awards; if so, "the", not "a".
- Like I said before, I am not a dash guy, but will struggle through the fixes on Monday if nobody else comes to the rescue.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Done Looks like someone got the —es and I did some –es--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 00:58, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Like I said before, I am not a dash guy, but will struggle through the fixes on Monday if nobody else comes to the rescue.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 16:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Main units must be spelt out on first appearance, and thereafter unless there's consensus among the contributors. (I see no discussion on the talk page.)
These are just a small sample at random of why this text is quite unsatisfactory. Tony 11:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
SUMMARY It seems that most points of objection are based on the following:
1.)Future editorial difficulties based on the fact that Young is young and has a long career ahead of him. The following are s of
- currently active politicians: Tom Brinkman (with a {{Future election candidate}} tag), Bruce Johnson, Bob McEwen, Barack Obama also with {{Future election candidate}}, Jean Schmidt
- currently active athletes: Martin Brodeur, Paul Collingwood, Adam Gilchrist, Dominik Hašek, Waisale Serevi, Gilberto Silva
- currently active athletes (under the age of 30):Cynna Kydd, Kevin Pietersen, CM Punk, Harbhajan Singh
- currently active sports franchises: Arsenal F.C., Aston Villa F.C., Central Coast Mariners FC, Chelsea F.C., Chicago Bears, Derry City F.C., Everton F.C., Gillingham F.C., Ipswich Town F.C., Leek Town F.C., Manchester City F.C., Margate F.C., New England Patriots, New Jersey Devils, Norwich City F.C., Sheffield Wednesday F.C., Sydney Roosters, Toronto Raptors, York City F.C.
All of these will have continuing editorial issues related to keeping the article current.
P.S. Oddly, I do not see any FAs of ongoing Western Hemisphere business entities at Category:FA-Class business and economics articles. Indian Railways and Bank of China (Hong Kong) are probably in need of editing to be more current. However, the problem with each of these (based on reading only the lead) is that they are not being updated. The concern with Young is that too much current info may cause a WP:PROSELINE problem. I am unsure why no Western Hemisphere businesses have been promoted to FA and none are even A-Class, but there are several Category:GA-Class business and economics articles that I think should be eligible despite ongoing editing needs to keep them current.
2.) Level of detail. As pointed out above WP:SS, especially Wikipedia:Summary_style#Levels_of_desired_details, suggest that there are varying desired levels of detail for various readers. It also points out a policy whereby we do not toss out details and reduce detail level as necessitated by space concerns. Right now this article has the space to target higher detail levels than many FAs, but it does not have a significant amount of superfluous info given the targetted level of detail.
3.) Copy editing. I have done my best this weekend.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 14:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Further comments, I corrected the dashes I could find (there may be more); it's important to become familiar with WP:DASH and WP:HYPHEN when writing sports articles. An independent copyedit is still needed, for example: "He has yet to either hit a home run or recorded a stolen base." I am still concerned about original research, example: "Three other current and previous pitchers—Randy Johnson, Andrew Sisco, and Eric Hillman—are also 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m)." Going through baseball-reference.com and picking out info isn't guaranteed correct, and seems like original research. Has a reliable source stated these are the only 6-10 pitchers? Still the same for the Moe Berg comment. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The example you pointed to occurred because when I tried to make this edit, I made this one accidentally. The Moe Berg comment is now sourced to a single WP:RS as opposed to my page by page compilation as noted above. I am not sure about the height. I will post a message with the contributing editor for this edit.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 18:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
NOTICE I thought I would call people's attention to a new formatting technique being employed in the Chris_Young_(pitcher)#Career_statistics section borrowed from Barry Bonds. I think this may be an acceptable use of copyright logos, but not sure.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 15:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Instead of logos we are going to go with team colors so the issue is fairly unimportant now.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 17:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment This article can really use some trimming of those blue links. Solo years and months do not need to be linked. "Baseball" and "basketball" are linked at least three times each. "No-hitter" is linked three times, twice in two consecutive sentences. Strikeout is linked three times. I would imagine most readers know what "championship" and "right-handed" means. And then, there are terms that are linked after they have been introduced earlier (where they weren't linked), like "walk", "hit", and "innings". If links are needed, please place them when the terms are introduced. Finally, you might want to consider expanding the lead to include a summary of his pitching style as well. 69.202.63.165 20:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment:
- "Young was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 3rd round of the 2000 amateur draft.[16] Young was signed to a deal on September 6, 2000." That was already said in the previous section.
- "After a few years of minor league service, he was traded to the Montreal Expos’ organization." Surely you can tell us exactly how many.
- "Young has been traded three times in his career partly because of the low velocity of his fastball, which is in the 85–90 mph (136.8–144.8 km/h) range and which did not give his employers an indication of his likely effectiveness." Unit conversion does not comply with WP:MOSNUM.
- Same thing goes for this sentence: "His curveball is a slow curveball and his 90 mph (144.8 km/h) fastball has been described by former teammate and catcher Mike Piazza as having late life and late movement that seems to jump"--Carabinieri 00:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.