Wikipedia:Peer review/1956 Winter Olympics/archive1

1956 Winter Olympics

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for June 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… I would like to move this up to FAC at some point but I need some input on MOS compliance, prose, credibility and format of references and any other issues that may cause problems for the article at FAC. Thanks, H1nkles (talk) 18:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey H1nkles. I saw this PR request some days ago and was thinking about giving my contribution, but then other things got in the way and couldn't get back to it until now. I thought about placing a list of comments on what should be bettered in the article, but I think it would be quicker to do the changes myself. I hope you don't mind if I act this way. I'm perfectly fine if you decide to revert any of them if you believe theyr're not improving the article; in fact I hope you do that. Parutakupiu (talk) 20:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I pretty sure you don't have to ask for anyone's permission to edit an article. Jafeluv (talk) 13:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to both the comments, I understand where each is coming from. I'm unexpectedly swamped with real life concerns so I would appreciate any help with the article. H1nkles (talk) 14:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if there was a misunderstanding, but my comment was addressed to Parutakupiu :) Jafeluv (talk) 21:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is interesting and generally clear but not yet of FA quality, in my opinion. I have a couple of general comments and then a list of specific suggestions about prose or Manual of Style issues.

• It's often helpful to look at FA articles to see how other editors have handled similar subjects. A list of sports-related FAs lives at WP:FA#Sport and recreation. Several of these FAs are related to the Olympics, 1896 Summer Olympics for example. I see mistakes in the 1896 article, so I'm not suggesting a slavish imitation, but it could still be a source of excellent ideas. For example, it has lots of fetching illustrations. As a general rule of thumb, I'd suggest trying to include one image in each sufficiently large text section.

Lead

• I can't find the guideline just now, but I'm pretty sure Winter Olympics shouldn't be linked in the first sentence; it creates a double bolding effect. It would be better linked later in the paragraph in "and these were the first televised Winter Olympics," methinks.
• "The Games were held... " - Lowercase "games"? Ditto for other instances of "Games" throughout the article?

Since the "Games" here refers to a proper noun (Olympic Games) it's been decided to use upper case Games throughout. H1nkles (talk) 17:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• "were held from January 26–February 5, 1956." - The usual en dash rule doesn't apply here because the leading and trailing terms have spaces in them. Thus, January 26 – February 5, 1956 would be the correct format, per WP:MOSDASH.
• "A total of 32 nations participated in the Games... " - Tighten to "Thirty-two nations participated in the games... "?
• WP:LEAD says the lead should be a summary or abstract of the entire article. A good rule of thumb is to include at least a mention of the main text sections. This lead seems to include the top sections only but says nothing about events or venues.

 Done lead has been improved. H1nkles (talk) 22:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Host city selection

• "Bornacossa, a member of the IOC since... " - Generally, abbreviations are spelled out and abbreviated on first use, then abbreviated on subsequent uses. The first instance explains the abbreviation to the reader. Thus, it would be International Olympic Committee (IOC), perhaps wikilinked as well.
• "Bonacossa would die on January 30, 1953, before he... "died" rather than "would die"?
• It might be good to include in this section something about Cortina's precise location, its elevation and climate.

 Done location and other information added.

Organizing

• "Cortina did not have an Ice Stadium... " - Lowercase "ice stadium" since it's generic?
• "The Italian government supplied ITL... " What is ITL? Better to spell this one out as well as linking to Italian lira.
• "CONI was responsible for funding... " - What is CONI?

 Done all fixes to this section are done. H1nkles (talk) 22:42, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Politics

• "The Olympic Movement was affected significantly by the Soviet suppression of the in the fall of 1956." - Something is missing. Hungarians?

 Done fixed missing wording. H1nkles (talk) 17:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Opening ceremonies'

• "Thursday, January 26th, 1956" - January 26 rather than January 26th. Ditto for any other places in the article that use the "th" form.
• "Fortunately he was not hurt and the torch's flame didn't go out." - It might sound odd, but "fortunately" is an interpretation. Better to just state the facts: "He was not hurt and the torch's flame did not go out."
• "on 13 June, 1955" - Here the format is almost d-m-y, whereas above it is m-d-y. Probably since the games took place in Italy, all the dates should be in d-m-y format. Thus 13 June 1955 with no comma would be correct, and 26 January 1956 would be correct above. Ditto for all other dates in the article.
• "The ceremony concluded at 12:27 pm" - Here pm has no points, but above a.m. has points. You should use the same format throughout. I think you'd be fine with a.m. and p.m.

 Done removed time and fixed rest of comments.

Bobsleigh

• "The Italians dominated the two-man event, with only one of the eight runs made by its two sleds taking over one minute and twenty-three seconds; in comparison, no other team posted a single run under that time." - Suggestion: "The Italians dominated the two-man event. Only one of the eight runs made by its two sleds took more than one minute and twenty-three seconds; in comparison, no other team posted a single run under that time."
• "Italy picked up the silver, with the United States earning the bronze." - Suggestion: "Italy picked up the silver, and the United States won the bronze.

 Done reworded sentences.

Figure skating

• "The Cortina Games were the last Games to feature Figure Skating outdoors." - Lowercase "figure skating" as well as "games".
• "resulted in two gold medals in the 1,500 metres (0.93 mi)" - Should this be converted to feet rather than miles? Should the other distances in the article be converted? I see quite a few others here and there.

 Done made conversions see above for issue on capitalization of Games. H1nkles (talk) 17:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Skiing

• "The other three men's events were won by three different nations; with Norway taking the short course, Sweden the long course, and the Soviet Union the relay." -- Generally, using "with" as a conjunction is less effective than recasting the sentence to make it more forceful. Suggestion: The other three men's events were won by three different nations. Norway took the short course, Sweden the long course, and the Soviet Union the relay.

 Done fixed prose.

Venues

• "The following venues hosted the various competitions during the Games:" - It would be slightly tidier to delete this sentence, remove the bullet points, and simply continue with straight text. Perhaps a transition sentence could be inserted at the beginning of the ice stadium paragraph, thus: Among the venues for the games, the Ice Stadium (Lo Stadio del ghiaccio) was intended to be the focal point." Ice Stadium here with capital letters is OK if it's a formal name (proper noun) rather than a generic name (common noun). In other words, when talking about ice stadiums in general, use lowercase; when talking about a specific building formally named Ice Stadium, use uppercase.

Not sure about this one. I'll probably get a second opinion. I removed the initial sentence but didn't put it all into straight text. H1nkles (talk) 18:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Notes

• "Findling & Pelle" - The Manual of Style suggests replacing the ampersand with "and" unless the ampersand is part of a formal name such as a business name.

 Done

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 04:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth, your review is amazing and I sincerely appreciate the time it took to generate it. Being a GA reviewer myself I know that a lot of times our reviews go unappreciated so thank you. I will incorporate your suggestions in the hopes of pushing this article forward. I will take a look at another article from the PR backlog per your suggestion. H1nkles (talk) 15:16, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad to help and glad to hear from another reviewer. I see that the pile at GA is enormous, and I'm glad you're working hard to reduce it. We are like Sisyphus, perhaps, without the curse. Finetooth (talk) 19:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes aptly put, like Sisyphus without the curse in that we can walk away when ever we choose. Though for some reason we continue to come back, perhaps it is a curse :). At any rate keep up the good work. I do have a question, I am undertaking my first PR, prompted by this review, so I'm wondering what I do once I'm done? Do I have to update the WP:PR page? Do I update the article's history? Thanks again for your help. H1nkles (talk) 19:57, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

In most cases, you don't have to do anything except add your review to the article's PR page (exactly like this page) and save. If you have reviewed something from the backlog, it's helpful to return to WP:PR and update the backlog list. The list appears in a rectangular box not too far from the top of the page. If you click on "update list"', you'll be switched to edit mode, and instructions will be visible there in all caps that say to remove the reviewed item from the backlog list and save the altered list. Your edit summary for the page save should include a wikilink to the review or to the article. For example, I entered "Reviewed 1956 Winter Olympics; backlog = 17" as my edit summary for my review of your article. (At least I think it was 17; I just count the remaining items in the list to get the total. If you forget any or all of that, it's OK; somebody will soon notice that the article has been reviewed and will do the update. The main thing is to review, and every review is appreciated. Finetooth (talk) 23:18, 18 June 2009 (UTC)