Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Willie Mays/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 archived by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 24 January 2021 [1].

Willie Mays

Nominator(s): Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 11:30, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Willie Mays, one of the greatest and most famous Major League Baseball players of all time. I've put a lot of work into this to get it from a lower-quality B Class article to GA status. A recent peer review suggested it was too long, so I've cut it down from over 13,000 words to 8,500 in response. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 11:30, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia

I will review as I find time; meanwhile, please see this comment on talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:29, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

SFgiants17, this article is impressively researched and reflects a lot of work, and you did just what reviewers suggested at the Peer review by trimming the article to gain more focus. With that said, I don't think the article is quite ready for FAC. Another route might have been to seek further input from the people who engaged at Peer review before launching the FAC. The prose could still benefit from a good bit of fine-tuning, which can be accomplished more efficiently and pleasurably without the time pressure of a FAC, where reviewers may be reluctant to engage if they have to keep revisiting to strike issues resolved (see User:SandyGeorgia/Achieving excellence through featured content for my suggested approach to FAC ... for one of the great greats, there are a good number of baseball writers who would probably be willing to help, if given time).

Here are just a few samples where some prose gurus might help:

The first sentence is labored/lengthy: Willie Howard Mays Jr. (born May 6, 1931), nicknamed "The Say Hey Kid",[a] is an American former professional baseball center fielder, who spent almost all of his 22-season Major League Baseball (MLB) career playing for the New York/San Francisco Giants, before returning to New York City to finish his career with the New York Mets.
Mays was raised by his father and two girls, or his father raised Mays and two girls? Mays was raised by his father,[10] as well as two girls named Sarah and Ernestine.
It's not clear why the opinion of a high school coach is worthy of inclusion: His coach, Jim McWilliams, said Mays was "the greatest forward passer I ever saw," and Mays drew comparisons to Harry Gilmer in a local newspaper.
where does the quote end ? Though he turned 18 in 1949, Mays did not graduate from Fairfield until 1950, which Barra calls "a minor mystery in Willie's life.
Teammate of Mays or his father ? Later that year, Mays joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League, managed by Piper Davis a former teammate with Mays' father on the industrial team.
Mays is the godfather of Barry Bonds, whose father was a friend of his when they were Giants teammates. Golf was a hobby of Mays's, though he was unable to continue it (or drive a car) after 2005 because of glaucoma.

These are samples; we could go line-by-line on this FAC to polish the prose, but I believe a faster route would be to engage experienced baseball editors like @Wehwalt, Therapyisgood, and Giants2008: on a new peer review where there is less pressure. You've done the hardest work already (sourcing and putting it all on the page), but the kind of polish that is needed will make for a very long FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk)

@SandyGeorgia: I don't mind addressing comments here, but you're probably right that reviewers might be reluctant to give it that much attention. Would you recommend that I withdraw this nomination now and seek their help in a new peer review? Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:08, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That would be my recommendation, but I am also hoping that one of the three editors I pinged will have a look to offer an opinion on whether this can be addressing at FAC, or is better approached off FAC. One of the could have a different opinion than mine. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:22, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'll await their opinion, then. Also, the comments you listed above took less than five minutes to address; I have fixed them. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 16:15, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Suggest adding alt text
done.
Some images would benefit from being scaled up, eg Queen Elizabeth
done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk • contribs) 14:28, December 23, 2020 (UTC)
File:1952_Bowman_Willie_Mays.jpg: what checks have been done to verify copyright was not renewed?
- If you will look at the Commons page for this file, you will see that the copyrights were never renewed, according to the copyright. Images from Bowman cards are commonly used on Wikipedia articles about baseball players - see Bob Feller (later years section), Art Houtteman (infobox image), and Stan Musial (infobox image). Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:27, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - I looked at the Commons page, and I do not see verification of the assertion that the copyrights were never renewed. How do we know that? Nikkimaria (talk) 19:50, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - Considering that Bowman card images are used on multiple other FAs, I would assume that their being in the public domain was established at some other point on Wikipedia. They are recommended on Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball/Style advice, but, as I'm sure you will point out, no authority is given. I created a discussion about this on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball to see if anyone can find some authority on it. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 13:56, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - A search at the Library of Congress website reveals no copyright for Bowman baseball sets before 1989. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 16:06, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
File:The_Catch.png: the given rationale does not satisfy all of the non-free content criteria, and the source information seems contradictory - if the photographer is stated to have been an employee of the News, why would the copyright be held by Associated Press?
- Looks like from the page that the Associated Press theory was speculative, and someone later added that the Daily News actually holds the copyright, citing where they got the source. Could you state which non-free content criteria are not satisfied? As an image of Mays merely to show Mays, it wouldn't be satisfied because there are plenty of free ones available, but this image happens to be of the most famous moment of his career, an event for which no free images seem to have surfaced. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:27, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - That contradiction should be resolved on the Commons page. With regards to NFCC, the current statement does not address no free equivalent and insufficiently addresses contextual significance. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:50, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - Resolved and now addresses. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:04, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
File:Willie_Mays_1961.jpg: is there an image of the back to verify lack of copyright notice? Ditto File:Willie_Mays_1965.jpg. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:22, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not the one who uploaded those, so I couldn't answer that. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:27, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - How then do we know these claims to be true? Nikkimaria (talk) 19:50, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - Back of 1961 one is blank, see here: https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/111500/cid/7658804/1961-Manny's-Baseball-Land-San-Francisco-Giants-NNO-Willie-Mays Back of 1965 one is also blank, see here: https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/59847/cid/3442533/1965-Jay-Publishing-San-Francisco-Giants-NNO-Willie-Mays?PageIndex=1 Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 13:56, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Source review by Ealdgyth

What makes the following high quality reliable sources?
- ~~https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/willie-mays/~~
  - The Society for American Baseball Research is based out of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Each of their articles provides a list of sources from which the author got the information listed. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:28, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- ~~http://hickokbelt.com/index.php/winners/past-winners/winners/willie-mays/~~
  - This is a primary source. Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary says that they "may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." All it is used to cite is the fact that Mays won the Hickok Belt. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:21, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1961/B04300MLN1961.htm
  - Here is information about Retrosheet ( https://www.retrosheet.org/about.htm ), and here is a list of research papers that have cited it ( https://www.retrosheet.org/Research/Research.htm ). Baseball-Reference provides a link to their summaries of games on all its boxscores. It is cited several times on Harmon Killebrew, another baseball featured article.
    - The fact that other FAs cite it isn't enough, but the other info makes it ... reliable. I'll leave it out for other reviewers to consider whether it's high quality enough for them. Ealdgyth (talk) 16:14, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- ~~https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/2278/they-wuz-robbed-tales-of-head-scratching-mvp-voting/~~
  - Mark Armour (the author) has written several books ( https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/2926112.Mark_Armour ) and has written many of the SABR articles. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:37, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- ~~https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-willy-mays-john-shea-baseball-20200510-xuozadhelbbktln22hwsauxuhi-story.html (WP:RSP seems to consider it marginal)~~
  - I checked WP:RSP, and it looks like the concern is over the headlines, not the content. This source is cited for content. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 14:16, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overall, looks pretty good. Ealdgyth (talk) 20:30, 27 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Other than the retrosheet issue - consider this a pass. On retrosheet .. i'd go with "it'd be good if we could use something else, but it's PROBABLY okay for the uses" and "it's barely scraping by as a high quality reliable source but I can deal considering there isn't anything else that is bad here". I'm good with the sourcing. Ealdgyth (talk) 16:14, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination Withdrawn

It seems, based upon the feedback I have gotten, that the next step in improving the article is to solicit more feedback from experienced editors in another peer review. Therefore, I am withdrawing the nomination at this time, as I wish to get back to work on this article. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 19:17, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination withdrawn. The usual two week wait will not apply. Good look with your further work on this. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:21, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, 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.

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