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List of Georgia Institute of Technology athletes

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page. The closing editor's comments were: x days, 4 support, 0 oppose. Promote. Crzycheetah 00:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of Georgia Institute of Technology alumni (a featured list; its nomination is here) was becoming unmaintainably long, so I decided to split off the very comprehensive Athletics section into its own list. Note that since the alumni list's nomination, numerous redlinked articles have been written, and several other articles (esp. College Football Hall of Famers) have been added. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 05:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose, I'm concerned about linking. For example, there's no links to any of the things mentioned in the headers - no links to the Olympics, and the NFL and MLB are only linked in the tables, and there's no links to American Football. Conversely, the baseball table is inconsistently linked, with random "Major League Baseball" links but mostly "MLB player", without any context what MLB means. These sections, I believe, need much more prose than they have now between the section header and the table; that's where you could hide the links. On a similar note, "MLB Player" or "NFL Player", the P should not be capitalized. So, long story short: I think you need prose for each section. --Golbez 10:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • NFL, MLB, and NBA have now been written out, "Player" has been changed to "player," and the list's lead has been improved. Links to NFL/MLB/NBA have been removed from list entries. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 19:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sorry for the delay, I forgot I'd commented on this one. Need to watchlist these things... Re-evaluating, it looks better, but a new question pops up. Many people are listed in the "Tech Hall of Fame"; is this a hall of fame for only athletes, and if so, shouldn't that have its own table here with a mention why they're in? --Golbez 00:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • It's the "Georgia Tech Hall of Fame," which is only for athletes. Many notable athletes from Georgia Tech get inducted into it within 20 years; however, not all inductees are notable. The source I have is on the Athletic Association website and lists the athletes in it, but it only gives their names, their class year, and the year they were inducted, but not any reason why. So, I feel that I should mention that they were inducted, but beyond that I don't really have any information. Does that help you? Perhaps "Tech Hall of Fame" should be renamed to "Georgia Tech Hall of Fame"? —Disavian (talk/contribs) 03:40, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I went ahead and fixed the really picky concerns of the above user, but this list is a direct port from an already featured list in order to make both more manageable. I support this decision as it makes both lists more readable and more maintainable and was an overall good move. This list is incredibly well-sourced and amazingly comprehensive. The topic sortable list format makes it really easy to find and/or analyze the information presented and is a neat touch. Personally, I find some of the information presented in the lede superfluous as this is a list and as such is meant to present information with minimal explanatory prose (which I think this list does rather well), but that is more of a stylistic/editor preference than something that I view as a shortcoming. LaMenta3 18:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Disclosure: I am a member of WikiProject Georgia Tech and made some minor stylistic edits to this list as per another reviewers suggestions, but aside from that I have not had any involvement in the development of this list, and I have made only minor contributions to unrelated sections of its parent list.
Disclosure: I am a University of Georgia alum, but I will endeavor to maintain objectivity on this list discussion.
  • Most of the athletes were added per recommendations as to completeness in the previous list's FLC. I'm fairly certain that all of the redlinked individuals have played professionally, and (therefore) are notable enough for an article. I've made several of those articles, but there are certainly many redlinks remaining. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 17:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also to that point, current players are considered notable under WP:BIO: "Competitors who have played or competed at the highest level in amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them)." It is mostly agreed upon that playing at the college level (particularly NCAA-1A) is considered the highest level in amateur sports in the U.S. Combine this with Georgia Tech's definition of alumni as being anyone who has completed a semester in good standing at the school, any current athlete who is at least a second semester Freshman (academically, not "redshirt") is considered alumni provided s/he completed that semester in good standing. As to the redlinks, many of those are players who played professionally a long time ago, making reliable sources that provide more detail than they played professionally in X sport somewhat hard to find. The lack of coverage about these individuals on Wikipedia is more a result of a systemic bias than because they are not notable. Sure, we could make a whole lot of stubs, but it seems to me that we (WikiProject:Georgia Tech) rather wait until we have enough sourced information to create at least a start-class article than have to wrangle (and most likely defend pending the discovery of more sources) a large number of stubs, which diverts resources from the expansion of articles which are more easily sourced. I hope this satisfactorily addresses your concerns. LaMenta3 19:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose A few things I noticed (mostly in the intro):
  • "contributions within athletics," howabout achievements? Is being in Hallf of Fame of X really a contribution?  Done
  • "Other alumni are found ... staff are found" Odd tense. Howabout "can be found"?  Done
  • "are called by the common name" awkwardly worded.  Done
  • "the program's long history" whose to say it's a "long" history? I'd take out the long.  Done
  • '"highly technical backgrounds and rigorous courses" whose to say the "highly" technical or "rigorous"? I'd take out both words.  Done
  • I'm not sure about the last paragraph of the intro. Whose to say they're well-known, much less more worthy of special mention? If I were you, I'd let the list speak for itself. But, I could go either way on this one.
  • Also, the image captions shouldn't specify the author, and definitely shouldn't have an external link in them. That information has nothing to do with the article itself, and should be saved for the image's description page. (Edit: Check that. I just noticed on the image pages it says that due to the particular CC liscense, captions should give attribution like that. Is this a stipulation of the license or the author? Drewcifer 23:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC))[reply]
  • I'd also recommend adding an external links section of some sort. Judging by the copious references, you probably have alot of options.  Done
  • Lastly, does the references columns in each table need one of those sort buttons? Is anyone going to want to sort the list by citation number?  Done

Hope all of that seems doable. If these issues can be addressed, I'd be happy to support the article's nomination. Drewcifer 23:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have a look at your suggestions for the lead. Most of it was written in one or two sittings, so it could probably use a bit of copyediting. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 03:42, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The image attribution thing is a stipulation of the author AFAIK, although if it's really against policy, I doubt they'd mind either way. I'm just happy to have free images to use on the page... —Disavian (talk/contribs) 03:42, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While an external link or two sounds doable (perhaps the main GT athletics website would be best) I don't think it's really necessary. There's not a list of GT alumni this comprehensive anywhere else on the internet, and I feel that the thoroughness of the references eliminates any need for further links. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 03:42, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As far as sorting references goes, I don't know a way to turn it off. AFAIK, either sorting is "on" or it's "off." The relevant underlying code is in {{AlumniStart}}. Even if I could disable it, I'm not sure I'd want to; it gives a nice graphical uniformity to the top bar. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 03:44, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Figured out a way to disable sorting by reference; it has been disabled. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 03:16, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Did a bit of copyediting the lead per some of the suggestions above. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 03:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As to whether the program has a long history- most of the sports programs started relatively soon after the school opened in the very late 1800s. For example, the first football game was in 1893, and the first basketball game was in 1906. I'd consider "long" a defensible word choice there. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 03:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The edits you've made so far look good. But there still are a few above that haven't been take care of, namely "long history," "highly technical and rigorous courses," the last paragraph of the intro, the image captions, and the External links. To address your individual concerns: it really doesn't matter how long ago the first games were, it's that describing it as long is POV. Granted, I would agree that that's a pretty damn long time, but there is no objective truth in describing it as such. As for the image captions, could you contact that original uploader? Surely the uploader did that for a reason, so he/she would be the best person to ask about the attribution thing. And the External links are more of a courtesy than anything else. If the article's about a college's athletic program, provide a link to program's homepage (or something like that). It doesn't have to be a source of information from the page, just a place to get more information on the topic.Drewcifer 22:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Removed "long," "highly," and "rigorous," added an external link (the official athletics website). I'm the uploader of those images, but not the photographer- I know the photographer personally, and he requested attribution. He creates amazing images, and I feel a small link in the caption is a fair trade for being able to use them on WP. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 01:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See your talk page for more on the attribution thing. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 01:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Everything looks great! I've stricken my Oppose comment above, since all of my concerns with the article have been addressed. There's still the minor issue of the last paragraph (see my comments above), but I could go either way on that one. I'll leave it up to you, but I will say this: let the list speak of itself. Anyways, great work, and a great list! Drewcifer 02:08, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose Weak support Too many red links. If they were 5-10, I might have let it slip, but there are over fifty red links in this list right now. The people are notable enough to have articles, so why don't they? It's a really good list, but fails the featured list criteria. WP:WIAFL states a group of existing articles related by well-defined entry criteria. So, I repeat, there are fifty non-existing articles here; therefore, it's too earlyto feature such list.--Crzycheetah 18:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note that the sentence you quote is an example of "useful", criterion a, rather than an actual part of the guideline. While having articles written for each list entry is useful, I feel it is less important than criterion c, "completeness". Additionally, I believe this list to be "useful" regardless that some of the athletes don't have articles yet, as the list gives the athlete's graduating year, position, source of notability, and at least one reference where additional information may be found. The criteria for entry are very stable (notable athletes from Georgia Tech, particularly those that reach the professional level) and articles for each will be written in due time. Since you !voted, though, I have written 11 stubs for redlinked entries. I would continue writing them until the list met with your approval, but I have two tests this week to study for (including one tomorrow afternoon), and I would likely be the only editor participating on that particular project (which, I estimate, will take one to two weeks with one to two determined editors participating). Whether or not the list is promoted, I will doubtless come back and fill in the redlinks in my own time. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 01:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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