Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of international cricket centuries by Graham Gooch/archive1

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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 or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Giants2008 00:11, 19 January 2013 [1].

List of international cricket centuries by Graham Gooch[edit]

List of international cricket centuries by Graham Gooch (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): The Rambling Man (talk) 16:05, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's been a long time since I "exposed myself" to the FLC community with a list of my own, so I thought it about time that I gave everyone a chance to get their own back on me with the same nit-picky comments I usually trot out in every review...! So, here it is. I remember watching Graham Gooch as a reasonably young person, and his various odd records (like the handling the ball thing, and his cool 333 against India), not to mention his obviously positive input to the current England cricket team made me inspired to get this list up and out there. Unlike Kevin Pietersen and Alastair Cook, Gooch played in a era when there weren't dozens and dozens of Tests every year, so his record is pretty impressive. Anyway, I ramble on. Here it is, for your delight and delectation. I fully expect a rough time from the community! Thanks, as ever, for all of your time and energy. (Incidentally, if anyone can find another nice, free image of Goochie, that would be lovely!!) The Rambling Man (talk) 16:05, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from —Vensatry (Ping me) 05:48, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • "Graham Alan Gooch" shouldn't be bolded since this isn't the parent article; instead link the main article.
  • "one of 25 players in history to have scored over 100 first-class centuries" needs a source.
  • "making a pair" refers to duck in the cricketing context. Not sure why you want to say "making a pair of ducks" even after linking both.
    • Just so non-cricketing experts don't get the impression he scored a pair of centuries.... subtle but important I think. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:43, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You've included "No result" in the key, but I could not find that anywhere else in the article.
  • Any reason for not linking the cities in the table.
    • Avoiding linking common geographical terms. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:43, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's true for places like London, but not sure about Nottingham, Birmingham, Port of Spain, etc., —Vensatry (Ping me) 18:01, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, it's horses for courses. I know Nottingham and Birmingham well, others may know Chennai and Bridgetown etc. Would you prefer I link everything every time? I'm not getting into a debate about whether London shouldn't be linked but Barbados should, for instance. What, in your mind, are the rules on this kind of linking? For me it's all or nothing. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:09, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • His 19th century was made against Australia and the score was 120.
  • The Pos. and Inn. entries for 13th, 14th an 18th are incorrect. I'd suggest you to thoroughly check all the entries once more.
  • While sorting the table (ODI) by descending order, 115 (136) should sort before 115 (159).
    • Fixed, mind you that's something I'll need to look at in all these lists.... that strike rate is an invisible secondary sort. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why "Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad" and no country names for other entries in both tables.
    • Made consistent. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I can still see "Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados" and "Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica". Also "Chepauk" is a locality in Chennai. —Vensatry (Ping me) 18:01, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sure, but Kingston is a name for many places, I've taken a stance to link down to the town/city, but not the country. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:08, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • His ODI scores of 117 and 112 were unbeaten.

—Vensatry (Ping me) 17:37, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Vesantry for your quick and astute comments. Much appreciated. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:50, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – Meets the standards. Excellent work with the prose in particular. —Vensatry (Ping me) 05:48, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Goodraise 01:30, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Why include his post-nominal letters? Shouldn't it be enough to have them in the linked main article?
  • The opening paragraph should be rewritten. I'd expect to see both his name and the word centuries in the first sentence, because that's what this article is about.
  • Avoid the word currently. Just state when he took the position or use an as of (or similar) construct, so the article won't be wrong the day he gets fired or quits.
  • Row scopes should be unique. Using century number or date would probably make more sense.
    • Well, the item of interest is the century score. I'd like to hear from screen reading users to see if changing the target makes sense. Also, I'm not sure that makes any sense. If a table had a row where every item was duplicated bar one, e.g. the date (say the score was the same, the location was the same etc), why would it make sense to suddenly make the row scope of the entire list dependent on that row? And if then you had another pair of rows where a different item was the same, what would you do then? If there was no "century number" (which sometimes I think is redundant anyway) and two centuries were scored on the same date, what then? If you insist, though, I'll change the scope. This could, however, impact on just about every featured list in Wikipedia, so I guess we should go with caution. I think this suggests that all tables on Wikipedia must have a singular unique visible identifier on every line of every table.... The Rambling Man (talk) 19:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's not my intention to set any kind of precedent. I don't understand the underlying problematic and mechanics well enough to even think about attempting to do so. I'm just trying to anticipate the needs of someone browsing this particular list with a screen reader. The way I understand it, such a user might not be interested in every piece of information in the table and request a particular column to be read. To put things in context, that user might have the rowscope cells read alongside. Assuming a user wants to know where the centuries happened, he or she might, in line twelve, hear "116 Old Trafford Cricket Ground, Manchester". To the question "which century is this talking about?", "116" would be an ambiguous answer. Giving the date instead would be an unambiguous answer, at least until the table is changed to include duplicate dates. Using a unique identifier for row scopes, even if it's just something as arbitrary as a "century number", would—provided I'm understanding this right—allow the user to stop output once a particular century piques his or her interest, navigate to it (using the unique identifier), and have it read completely. In any case, don't just make changes because I "insist". If you find my line of reasoning unconvincing, we should maybe bring in someone with more expertise. Goodraise 01:20, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Goodraise 18:43, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

        • I'm just not sure that we now need to introduce an arbitrary column of data (okay, so it exists in this case, but in others it may well not) which is exclusively to provide a unique entry in every row for the row scope. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, as ever. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:23, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can't say I'm happy about the delinking of CricketArchive. Why not give our readers that little bit of help in determining the reliability of the source? (Personally, I'd like the references in general to be a little bit more inclusive, but I suppose that's just me.)
    • Well, the reason it was delinked because it was the only one linked and someone didn't like that either. Would you prefer every publisher/work to be linked? Otherwise it's a "can't please all the people all the time" situation I think... The Rambling Man (talk) 08:14, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I still think the opening paragraph reads too much like that of a person's main article. Suggestion: "During his international cricket career spanning nearly two decades, Graham Gooch, who captained Essex and England, scored 28 centuries, 20 in Test and 8 in One Day International (ODI) matches."
    • Well I think I'll agree to disagree. I think lists like this are improved in value if they provide a context to the subject matter and don't simply launch into discussing a some chap who scored things called centuries. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:28, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The rest of the prose could also use a few more tweaks. A few examples:
  • Funny, once again it's horses for courses. I had complaints of sentences that were too long and now they're too short! I've tried reorganising it along the lines you've suggested... The Rambling Man (talk) 08:28, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose I'm partial to longer sentences with less simple structure, but I find they make all those statistics easier to swallow. Three paragraphs of tiny sentences following, with only minor variations, the pattern of "Gooch did this. Gooch did that. Gooch did this. etc." make me want to fall asleep in front of my keyboard. Otherwise the list looks fine, and since none of these concerns are strictly actionable I'll go with weak support for now. Good work! Goodraise 04:47, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's a lot of things I would have done differently, but that's not what FLC is about. The list technically meets the criteria. I'm therefore in weak support. Goodraise 01:30, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Very kind, thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:55, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No kindness intended. I prefer to oppose nominations, here I just can't find anything over which I could reasonably do it. You should take that a compliment. The weak part of my position statement is essentially a result of my disagreement with my fellow reviewers and the current state of relevant guidelines, not that of a lack of willingness or ability to adjust the list to my liking on your part. And you did say you expected a rough time, didn't you? :) Goodraise 18:12, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I thrive on the rough times....! Thanks again. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:13, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Row scopes can often be difficult to decide upon, and there's sometimes no best answer. We have to remember that the only reason we include them is to make it easier for many screen readers to operate in what JAWS calls "table mode" where the reader can navigate in any direction through the table and hear the row and column headers before each item of data in a given cell. Goodraise is quite right in his understanding that when navigating down a column (for example), you might hear something like: "116", "Venue", "Old Trafford Cricket Ground, Manchester"; then moving down one cell, "117", "Venue", "Adelaide Oval, Adelaide". So the question here is "Is that the best we can do to identify which century we are discussing?" It is quite possible that the score is the key identifier, although personally I'd prefer the date. How would "9 August 1990", "Venue", "Old Trafford Cricket Ground, Manchester"; then moving down one cell, "25 January 1991", "Venue", "Adelaide Oval, Adelaide" sound to you? This is one of those cases where there probably isn't a right answer, but I can help a bit with the problem of duplicate dates. You could use || 26 July 1990 (1) || and || 26 July 1990 (2) || if you wanted to distinguish them - that would also have the advantage of properly sorting in both directions - see User:RexxS/Test cricket centuries for how that would look and function. I'm afraid that I don't think there's a definitive answer that can be universally applied; each case needs to be examined and a judgement made on what would sound best in a screen reader for that particular table. Hope that helps, --RexxS (talk) 18:35, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, as always RexxS. Your sandbox example makes it clear how the (1) and (2) dates work, but your scope is still the score, not the date. Ideally, would you place the scope in the date column instead? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:43, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks for your input, RexxS. I didn't notice there were already duplicate dates in the table. Anyway, I suppose I can live with any of these three columns being used for row scopes. Goodraise 18:47, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay Goodraise, well it's my intention to keep the scopes as they are, if you don't object too strongly. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to address in the list. Thanks again for your comments. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:52, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if I were going to use the dates as row headers, I'd move them to the first column of the table, because there are still old versions of screen readers that ignore "scope" and simply use the first column as a row header without any regard to the markup! Sad, but true :( Anyway, the idea is that we try hard to make life easier for disadvantaged readers - but at some point we get diminishing returns. We don't want to expend massive effort seeking an elusive perfection for a single article when so many articles can be improved dramatically by the techniques that we adopt as a matter of course now. Keep up the good work! --RexxS (talk) 19:04, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Zia Khan 16:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Test should be linked at 1st instant in the lede
  • (100 or more in a single innings) → (100 or more runs in a single innings)
  • I think "run scorer" should be "run-scorer"
  • In the ODI list 115 doesn't sort correctly
  • I think "not out" in the lede would be batter than *.
  • In the References you have linked CricketArchive but not ESPNcricinfo and BBC Sport.

I've responded at my talk page about Cook's list, Regards, Zia Khan 00:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments! The Rambling Man (talk) 07:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support – Meets the standards. Great job! Zia Khan 16:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from NapHit (talk) 13:55, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • think there should be a comma after captained Essex and England in first sentence
  • "Gooch is one of a fewer than" one too many words here
  • I would split the refs into columns, but that is just a personal preference and not a necessity

NapHit (talk) 13:21, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done 'em all, thanks NapHit. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:44, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • First paragraph has some very long lines. Can they be broken down a bit ?
  • The link from No.20 leads to a 1993 match
  • He was not the captain when he scored the No.20. Tintin 17:01, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Tintin, many thanks for your eagle-eyed comments, I hope I've fixed them to your satisfaction! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:20, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 11:07, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments: really good and interesting list.
  • "He was one of the most successful international batsmen of his generation..." – I'd say this needs a source.
    • I'd say that was sourced by the fact he scored the most runs in first-class cricket ever. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:30, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Gooch's highest Test score is 333 which he made in the first innings against India in 1990." – nonrestrictive, so needs a comma before "which".
  • "also went on to score" → "scored"
  • "also" isn't a necessary word and in the three instances used in this article, removing them would do no harm and the removal would result in better prose. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 01:01, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not sure I agree, in some instances that would just turn the prose into a handful of factoids with little flow. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:30, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:30, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support – I'm happy with the list and the changes made to it. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 11:07, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Harrias
* "He is also one of only seven cricketers in Test history, and the only centurion, to have been dismissed by handling the ball, when he flicked the ball away from the stumps against Australia in 1993." – I'm not really keen on the ambiguity of this statement. I know that you mean he is the only player to have been dismissed by handling the ball having already scored a century in that innings, but "a centurion" could also refer to anyone who has ever scored a century in Test cricket, which many of the other players to have been dismissed handled ball have been.

That aside, the list looks top-notch, as we would expect from you! Harrias talk 17:18, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I gone and done a rephrase. See how you find it, I agree the original wording was borderline ambiguous, hopefully the current is not so much. Let me know what you reckon. (Cheers for the review btw). The Rambling Man (talk) 17:39, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The ambiguity is better, but the sentence reads a little weirdly now. How about: "He is also one of only seven cricketers in Test history to have been dismissed by handling the ball, and the only player to have been dismissed through this method on a score of 100 or greater,[12] when he flicked the ball away from the stumps against Australia in 1993.[13]" Actually, that might be even worse. I don't know! Harrias talk 21:15, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I'm going stick to my guns here. I think "through this method" is one of the most awkward constructs I've ever read, and I think my compromise is slightly less bad than that!! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:21, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, it didn't work, but I'm still not convinced about what is there; how about the more minor tweak: "He is also one of only seven cricketers in Test history, and the only player on a score of 100 or greater, to have been dismissed by handling the ball, ..." Harrias talk 21:43, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"and the only player to have been dismissed by handling the ball while on a score of 100 or greater"? The Rambling Man (talk)
It still isn't reading right for me, but I can't really explain why. I would suggest either disregarding what I'm saying, or talking to someone who is better than me with prose like User:Sarastro1 about that specific sentence. I'm certainly not going to oppose promotion on the basis of it though. Harrias talk 22:01, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"and the only player to have been dismissed by handling the ball during a century innings"? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's the construct of the sentence rather than the specific wording; the comma causes that first bit "He is also one of only seven cricketers in Test history" to appear like an independent, rather than dependent clause (see complex sentence). Hence the suggestion of "He is also one of only seven cricketers in Test history, and the only player on a score of 100 or greater, to have been dismissed by handling the ball, ..." which makes it clearer that the meaning isn't that he was one of only seven people to play Test cricket. Harrias talk 21:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So, if removed the comma....??! Okay, try it now.... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:38, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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