Talk:2007 Texas Longhorns football team/Archive 1

GA Nomination
I have decided to nominate this article for GA. I feel it meets all the criteria. There may be some question about whether it is appropriate to have a GA about a season that is just starting. I believe it is appropriate because the article is already a useful source of information about things such as schedule, the historical records of the teams, etc. We will see if it is found to meet the other criteria. Johntex\talk 19:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

GA Fai

I'm going to fail this for GA on the stability criterion. Given that the season is not complete I don't see how it can pass stability; very substantial changes will need to be made. I have confidence it can reach GA after the season; the work done on the 2005 season is impressive but also highlights what will need to be done to this.

If you feel this decision is inappropriate, please feel free to take it to a review at WP:GA/R, the good articles review page. Mike Christie (talk) 15:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Review
This article has been listed as a GA candidate for a month. Today, an editor failed the article without a review. Their reason was that more information will become available at some point in the future, so they failed the article.

The GA criteria states "5. It is stable; that is, it does not change significantly from day to day and is not the subject of an ongoing edit war. Vandalism reversions, proposals to split or merge content, and improvements based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply." This article meets that criteria because it is stable.

The idea that more information will become available in the future is not a reason to fail it now. If the article makes GA now and then becomes unstable later, it can be delisted later. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, and it is improper to fail this article on the basis of something that might happen in the future.

As of today, the article is informative, and I think it passes all the GA criteria. I ask that the article be given its GA review based upon what the article is today and what is known today about the topic. Johntex\talk 16:12, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with the reviewer. The substance of the article is going to undergo vast changes over the next 4 months. I don't see the rush to get an article GA when its about to become a completely different article. I am impressed with the effort put into the article before the season even begins. Of course, I expect nothing less from you, Johntex. But I equate it to getting an article on a president up to GA a week after he is elected or on a building that just begins construction. Then again, thats just my opinion. This might be something good to raise on the GA talk page or with the GA WikiProject.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 21:23, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi NMajdan, thanks for the kind words. :-)  I did not take this to the GA talk page, but I did take the non-review of this particular article to GA Review.  There were multiple opinions expressed of course.  The majority opinion was to accept the non-review for now.
 * Even so, not everyone felt that it would be necessary to wait until the end of the season. For instance, some people said that it was a little too soon but that they might be able to support closer to the start of the season as information such as a roster becomes available.  Link to the discussion at Deletion Review So, maybe I'll re-nominate prior to the season or maybe not.
 * In the mean-time, I have plenty of things to work on, so I'm not too worried about it. Johntex\talk 16:11, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * After further consideration and talking to some other people, I've decided to re-nominate the article for GA. Johntex\talk 01:29, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

GA Attempt2
After four months since the first GA nomination and some good improvements to the article (compare the changes), I think it is time to try for GA again. Notably, the article now has a roster, pre-season rankings, and information on what players are considered candidates for top award honors. Reviewers may want to view the earlier GA discussion above, including the link to GA review. Johntex\talk 01:29, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

GA fail

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of August 13, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:


 * 1. Well written?: Yes
 * 2. Factually accurate?: Yes
 * 3. Broad in coverage?: No, the article does not cover a major aspect, the actual game summaries. Some of the individual games are too detailed and off topic such as the information about Arkansas State. The naming controversy, "As a member of the Southland Conference in 1970, Arkansas State was the NCAA small college football national champion" sentences like this are off topic to the 2007 Longhorn team.
 * 4. Neutral point of view?: Yes
 * 5. Article stability? No, this article is subject to change majorly from September-December. While normally I would assume good faith, I have seen football season articles go to hell with anons adding unsourced, unencylopedic game summaries. Once the season is over this certainly has the ability to become a good article.
 * 6. Images?: Excellent

When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you for your work so far. —  T Rex  | talk  11:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * In regards to point 3 above, that paragraph has nothing to do with a naming controversy. The explanation for that sentence is that it helps compare the accomplishments of the opponent to the accomplishments of the Longhorn team.  The two teams have never played each other, but their are similarities in the two teams records within their respective divisions of college football. It is on-topic to this team because it helps the reader better understand the team's opponent.  The reader can better understand this team's accomplishments by knowing something about whom they are playing.
 * Thank you for your review of the article. Johntex\talk 16:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I have taken this to be reviewed, as I think this is a GA. --SidiLemine 14:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: WP:GA/R is an inappropriate venue for this discussion, since the article is not currently a GA. WP:GA/R is for currently listed GA articles to be re-reviewed after a period of time to see if they still meet the GA criteria. The proper venue for this article is at WP:GAC -- but I agree with the current review as it stands; I am less worried about the stability criterion, as it does appear to be mostly stable. But it clearly fails criterion 3 (completeness), as it is largely missing the game summaries. I don't see why we can't just wait until the end of the season. Dr. Cash 18:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Please note that the specifically states, "If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review." Johntex\talk 18:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * As a contributor to the article as well as the nominator for GA, I remain of the opinion that the article meets the GA standards. The two possible objections that have been mentioned are completeness and stability.  I will speak to each one:
 * Stability - this article is stable and free from edit warring. It is certainly possible that it may become unstable in the future, but that is true of any article on Wikipedia.  We should not try to peer into a crystal ball and find hypothetical future problems.  This article is closely watched for vandalism and destructive edits, and it is highly unlikely that any such problems will impact the article more than momentarily.  The article meets the stability criteria today.
 * Completeness - this article thoroughly describes the topic as it is known at this time. If we ever send humans to Mars then we will surely learn some new things and of course our article Mars will need updating, but that should not be counted against the article today.  As to this article, as each game is played, it usually only takes a couple of paragraphs to add the main points into the article.  More detailed information goes into sub-articles according to the Wikipedia Manual of Style on Summary style.  For an example, please see 2005 Texas Longhorns football team, which is a current GA.  The article meets the completeness criteria today.
 * It has been asked why even consider this article at this time? My reply to that is that a "good article" should be recognized as a good article.  If we think this article is an example of some of our second-best work (behind FAs) then we need to recognize it as such.  Doing so would provide an example to other people who are writing similar articles.
 * If the article is not worthy, then it should fail. However, it should not be failed because of hypothetical future considerations.  If it meets the criteria today then I believe it should be passed today. Thank you, Johntex\talk 17:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Tyrell Gatewood arrested
Article here. He hasn't been formally charged or convicted or suspended yet but I wanted to let the regular editors of this article know so they can include this in the article however they deem fit.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 18:19, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The eleventh Horn has been arrested since the end of last season. Article here.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 15:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Arrggghh. We're going to have to borrow some players from Miami if this keeps up.  The Gatewood arrest is in the article, I'll work on the putting in James Henry.  I've never even heard of him.  Looks like he redshirted last year and hasn't played this year. Johntex\talk 16:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Player suspensions
When several Texas players received suspensions prior to the first game, it seemed logical to cover the suspensions under the "Leading into the 2007 season" section. However, there has now been a new suspension occurring after the season started. Technically, this is no longer "leading into the 2007 season". However, it seems like putting this information into the "Rice" section would make it harder to find and a bit off-topic for that section. Also, the latest suspension is apparently related to one of the earlier incidents, so I it flows better if kept in that section. A third option would be to move the information into the "Players" heading, along with the recruiting info and watch list info.

I am keeping the information into the original section for now but I just thought I'd raise the issue in case anyone wants to chime in with an opinion. Johntex\talk 18:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Lack of equal coverage
There is an unproportional amount of coverage devoted to the wins, but not the loss. The 2006 article has this as well. Can't be a good article unless there's equal coverage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.151.73.163 (talk) 18:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * You are actually quite mistaken:
 * If you take another look at 2006 Texas Longhorn football team, you will see that the loses to Ohio State, Kansas State, and A&M are all longer than the wins over North Texas, Rice, Iowa State, Sam Houston State, Baylor, or Oklahoma State.
 * No where in the GA criteria does it say anything about all sections needing to be of equal length or detail. What matters is that the article is broad in its coverage.  This article covers the major salient points on each game.  That is what is required.
 * In terms of overall balance the article contains both pros and cons about the team. For instance, the sections on the early season victories contain criticism of the team and the fact that they barely beat supposedly inferior opponents.  Plus there is plenty of information about player suspensions, etc.
 * If you look at 2005 Texas Longhorn football team, which is a Featured Article, you will see that it does not go into equal detail on all the games either.
 * Johntex\talk 05:17, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

"Game notes" forked to 2007 Texas Longhorn football team game notes
A quick note, I went ahead and forked the "Game notes" section to 2007 Texas Longhorn football team game notes due to article size concerns, as the section was huge and detailed information. I left a link in the "Schedule" section. We might consider adding a reference to the schedule table to the respective detailed section on 2007 Texas Longhorn football team game notes to allow people to directly access detailed game info. Cheers =) -- slakr  \ talk / 02:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello, I am reverting the split. Article size guidelines are online guidelines.  If we want to make a split, we should refactor the article in summary style, as we did with 2005 Texas Longhorn football team.  That article is a Featured Article and so it is a good guide.  Per WP:Summary the lengthier game descriptions have been made into their own articles.  We should work on that during the off-season. Johntex\talk 18:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * FYI, the readable prose is now down to 77 kb. - Johntex\talk 06:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

GA mini review
I did some looking the article but I got tired about half way through. I noticed that the Arkansas State game still had a lot information about Arkansas State. I suggest the information be moved to the Arkansas State page. This critic alone would have caused me too put the article at least on hold. Once it is addressed, I'll continue looking at the article.User:calbear22 (talk) 07:15, 17 February 2008 (UTC) Therefore, I think the information provided here about Arkansas State is appropriate for the article. Johntex\talk 18:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * In order for the reader to understand the subject of the article, it is necessary to provide information about the opponents that were faced during the season. That includes information such as:
 * 1) Information on the caliber of the opponent (E.g. their historical record against the Longhorns, how they were ranked coming into the game, whether they won their own conference, etc.)
 * 2) Topical events happening for that opponent (E.g. controversy over the mascot, new football field, firing of the head coach)
 * I didn't sign up to review the article so we can just wait until someone else reviews the article to get a second opinion.User:calbear22 (talk) 19:23, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, thanks. One thing we could do is to split off specific games as was done in 2005 Texas Longhorn football team, which is a Featured Article.  The 2005 article has 4 games covered at their own article; this 2007 article only has one sub-article (2007 Holiday Bowl).  If we break out the UT/ASU game it might need to be expanded to stand as its own article. Johntex\talk 22:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Another idea would be to put the ASU, TCU, UCF, and Rice games into one article as the the non-conference schedule. We could leave the conference games here at the main article. Johntex\talk 22:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * We could also breakout the detail of the player suspensions, although I wonder if people might see that as a POV fork. Johntex\talk 23:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)