Talk:1905 Tour de France/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer:  Afaber012  (talk) 22:20, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria It's not as bad as the size of my comments might make it look.
 * 1) Is it reasonably well written?
 * A. Prose quality:
 * There are a number of sentences that seem out of place in the lead:
 * The comment of "introduction of mountains" seems to go against the 1903 and 1904 articles and in the references used.  Afaber012  (talk)  07:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC) Based on that, I'm not sure Pottier should get a mention in the lead.  Afaber012  (talk)  09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The mountains: The 1903 and 1904 Tour articles indeed show there was a mountain. But many sources report that the 1905 Tour had the first 'real' mountains (references 2, 4, 14, 15). The mountains in 1905 were steeper than in the years before... I have read (on a blog, not RS) that the organizers gave a lot of attention to the introduction of the mountains, because they wanted to remove the attention from the disqualifications in 1904. Still, original research is not allowed on Wikipedia, so I thought it would be best to write what other sources also write, and that is that the first real mountain was introduced in 1905.
 * About Pottier: he is mentioned in all descriptions of the race, no matter how short they are. For the same reason I mentioned him here. But you could be right, I'll think of it.
 * "The changed rules did not completely remove the cheating and sabotage, but the 1905 Tour de France was a relatively calm one." In what way was it calm, and why was it only relatively calm and not completely calm? Perhaps it should be something like "Due in part to some of the rule changes, the 1905 Tour de France had less cheating and sabotage than in previous years/than in the previous year, though they were not completely eliminated."  Afaber012  (talk)  08:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I like what you propose.
 * I also think that L'Auto should perhaps be mentioned as the organiser here.  Afaber012  (talk)  08:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Mentioned in the lead now.
 * I'd think about explaining the reasoning for the changes mentioned at the top of section 1. It might be easiest to add a sentence or two about cheating from the previous year occurring at night, thereby explaining the shortening in length and increase in number of stages. Is there an explanation for the change from time to points? I'd put that in if you know about/can find it, or separate with something like a paragraph starting with "Another change made was the introduction of a points system replacing..." leading into the explanation of the points system. (That part's fine, and I like the table explaining it!)  Afaber012  (talk)  09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Added some explanation.
 * Again the mention of introducing mountains. Given the previous Tours show a "stage with a mountain", this probably needs to be changed to something along the lines of an increase in difficulty/angle of ascent/etc. Also, if the previous high point is mentioned in meters and feet, I think the new high point(s) stats need a mention as well.  Afaber012  (talk)  09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I will think about how to do the first part. New high points are given now, with source.
 * Unless it can be expanded, I think Main riders should be incorporated into the following section given its only two sentences at the moment.  Afaber012  (talk)  09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The last sentence in Race details needs to be fixed up a bit. I'd remove the parentheses from the smashed inkstands part, with "... of bad sportsmanship, after reportedly..." It's probably more for 2c below, but the "important cyclists" remark needs to go. If it stays at all, I'd make it a separate sentence, stating either that no one was disqualified or that no one among the top x finishers were disqualified. (I'm assuming this isn't considering people who didn't complete a stage but continued through the whole event, and only referring to punishments for cheating or other inappropriate behavior.)  Afaber012  (talk)  09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I followed your advice here.

The only other thing is the alt text for the icons in use here for the stages. My interpretation of WP:ALT is that because the images are in the public domain (so they don't need to be attributed to anyone) and don't link to an article, that they should have " |alt=|link= " added to their markup. It's what I've done on articles I've worked on, but I'm not 100% on it, and I also realise that this would be something that'd potentially effect a heck of a lot of Tour de France articles. I can see it as one of the criteria for a Good Article, but its probably something to keep in mind for any of the others, particularly in an attempt to get these up to Featured Topic status at some point. (Or if someone else doing a GA review is either picky-er or confident-er in their WP:ALT interpretation.)  Afaber012  (talk) 02:19, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * B. MoS compliance:
 * Not sure if its truly a Mos issue (can't find reference to it at the moment) but at least from a readability standpoint references would generally go at the end of a sentence (at least after punctuation) or paragraph. I found a couple of these and have moved them already to the end of their respective sentences.
 * I've corrected "l'Auto" to "L'Auto"
 * 1) Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
 * A. References to sources:
 * It'd be nice if there weren't so many non-English sources, or if they were backed up by English sources that would not be suitable to be used on their own. (See WP:POORSRC and WP:SELFPUBLISH.) Given that the event was over 100 years ago, I'm not going to push it - I can imagine sources with appropriate detail might be a bit thin on the ground.
 * B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
 * I'm not sure Aucouturier should be referred to as a favourite in Main riders. It sounds like from the text there that his status as "favourite" comes from results in previous Tours, but the source cited seems to be about general rankings rather than anything specific to the Tour de France. Also, I'm not certain that the source is credible enough to be used. I could be wrong, but it looks like a guy who's made up his own system, rather than a system in use by an official cycling body or authority. I'd like to see a contempory source refer to him as a favourite to use the word here, otherwise some sort of objective measure should be used and mentioned. "Of the riders who had participated in the 1904 Tour de France, xxxx had achieved the best result finishing xth."  Afaber012  (talk)  09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * C. No original research:
 * In the current Main riders section, the comment "... he was no pre-race favourite" needs to go, or be significantly reworded and explained. It links in with 2b above: was there an actual favourite at the time, who was it, why was it them and not someone else/who decided they were the favourite?  Afaber012  (talk)  09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Is it broad in its coverage?
 * A. Major aspects:
 * B. Focused:
 * 1) Is it neutral?
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * Again, from 2c above.  Afaber012  (talk)  09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Is it stable?
 * No edit wars, etc:
 * 1) Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
 * A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
 * B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass or Fail:
 * Not quite there, but only minor issues that should be fairly quick and easy to fix up.
 *  Afaber012  (talk) 07:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: alt text is emphatically not a GA requirement and has been dropped from the FAC criteria for over six months now. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 11:32, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * It's from a little while ago, but I'm fairly certain I meant to say something like that it's not part of the criteria above. Also, as I mentioned somewhere below, I wasn't (and am still not) going to fail the article because of it. The only reason why I brought it up was before doing reviewing it against the GAN criteria, I used the tools that are highlighted as part of a peer review, and the alt text was the only thing that popped up from them. Besides, the issue's been sorted now, I think both parties are fine with what's been done, and we've (at least I've, anyway) moved on to other details for the article. Thanks for the heads up though.  Afaber012  (talk) 13:42, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * No probs. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 14:05, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the review. I don't have much time now, and will be out of the country until next Friday, so I hope you will allow this nomination to wait until I'm back. I quickly read your review, and I think I agree with all of it and will change it, but I think your interpretation of WP:ALT is different from mine. The alternative text is not meant for attribution, but for text-only readers. Blind reader, or readers with a text-only display, can not see the picture, so they are given an alternative text for the image. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 10:32, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Like I said, I don't think its a big issue, and I'm certainly not going to fail the article because of it. I know its about the screen readers and so on, which is part of the reason - in this case at least - to not have it for those stage icons, when the text next to the icons is an exact copy of the alt text. Given that, the alt could be set to "", and it doesn't need to be linked so likewise for the link. But again, up to you (and the rest of WikiProject Cycling I guess), at least for this one. Just thought you should be aware. The photos' alt text seems fine to me: to be honest I'm still not really sure what's supposed to be there for them but it can't be too far off.


 * Anyway, no problem with the time frame for the review - I won't fail it that quickly. By the way, when you're back and going through this in more detail (or just change your mind about something between now and then), if you come across anything you want to question, don't follow, or just plain think I'm wrong, by all means let me know. I'm on here fairly regularly, so usually able to get back to you fairly quickly. Have fun and/or successful business on your international trip!  Afaber012  (talk) 11:28, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I misread what you said about the alt-texts. In this case, the alt text is the same as the text next to the image, so it is not needed. I also changed some of the easy things from the review above. Will come back for the rest after I come back. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 13:11, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I changed something that comes back a lot in your review: the "main favourites" section. I got rid of the text as it was, and replaced it with a "participants" section. There was some text above the results section that fitted there better, and I added a list of big names from a 1905 newspaper article. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 18:12, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * So far so good...  Afaber012  (talk) 08:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There are still some issues open at this moment, but they are a bit divided in you remarks above, so I hope you allow me to recap three of them here, because I don't know where to answer them above.


 * Main riders: the section was too short, and original research.
 * I changed it to "Participants", giving general information about the participants. It also says something about favourite riders, but now quoted from a French newspaper from 1905. Is this better?
 * I've tweaked that a bit, adding the names of the two Belgians and rewording the last sentence.  Afaber012  (talk) 09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Mention of Pottier in lead
 * As I said above, most race descriptions, no matter how short, mention him. That was a reason for me to put him in the lead. Is this sufficient?
 * I've had another think about that, and I think it makes sense for him to be there. He gets plenty of mentions throughout the article, so it's fair enough that he's mentioned in the lead.  Afaber012  (talk) 09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Mention that mountains were introduced
 * All reliable sources on the subject mention that mountains were introduced in 1905, even though they mention mountains in 1903 and 1904. I think that if I say here that it is not the first time there were mountains, it would be Original Research. I say it is best here to follow the sources. Do you agree? --EdgeNavidad (talk) 13:51, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that when sources all say one thing then that should be mentioned in the article. But I also think that when sources from the time of the event say something that is if not outright contradicted then at least questioned by other events that that deserves a mention as well. From what I've been able to find for myself - admittedly not an exhaustive search - and what you've added yourself with regards to the new high point - an increase from 1,145 metres to 1,246 metres - there's relatively little difference. Tour de France talks about the first Tour having a "mountain pass", and "true mountains" being introduced in 1910. I'm concerned about the apparent contradictions.
 * Given this, I think some sort of middle ground needs to be found. Some sort of acknowledgement of the contemporary sources claiming the first mountains in the race would be fine (eg "At the time, the 1905 Tour was considered the first to include mountains,[appropriate reference(s) here] despite previous Tours reaching similar altitudes."). Perhaps more of a focus on the introduction of the meilleur grimpeur title, and it being the forerunner to the King of the Mountains title. If we can work something out on this last point, I'll be happy to approve this as GA.  Afaber012  (talk) 09:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have found a source (from a Dutch organisation that specializes in sports history, so RS) that says Desgrange ignored the 1903 and 1904 mountains, because he wanted to take the publicity for the introduction of the mountains. Is that an appropriate solution? I would be very happy to focus on the meilleur grimpeur title, but honestly the result is all that I can find, and everything else would be OR.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 09:50, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Even better than what I was suggesting, because it actually explains why there's the discrepancy. You've got a new Good Article!  Afaber012  (talk) 07:31, 6 July 2010 (UTC)