Talk:2008 UCI Track Cycling World Championships – Women's scratch/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: ChrisGualtieri (talk · contribs) 17:29, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I'll take this. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:29, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Good Article Checklist
 * Well-written - the prose is clear and concise, respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
 * Verifiable with no original research: it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline; it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines; and it contains no original research.
 * Broad in its coverage: it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
 * Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.
 * Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
 * Illustrated, if possible, by images: images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.


 * Disambig links:OK
 * External links:OK
 * Reference check: OK
 * Comments: Images check out as fine, but that's just the beginning of the article. Straight from the lead we have several instances of poor prose and some jargon like "peleton". Much of the issues are in the verifiability and the prose of the article. The Qualification section needs a substantial amount of re-working and the sentence structure is very poor. It gives no actual qualification criteria or background to the race other than "1 rider per country" and it does have some editorializing and meets for "words to avoid" with "was furthermore" and "were qualified in this way." All of this is sub-standard prose gets worse as it proceeds into the Competition format section. Thanks for providing context on what a scratch race is, but the next line is about the event with little else in the way of an explanation of the format. The prose also is jumbled up and has poor grammar, like "consisted on 40 laps" and "There were no qualification..." and awkward word choices as in: "for this discipline". Do we really need a section on the schedule? This could certainly be handled in the race details itself.

The pre-race favorites section seems to be a lot of OR and it is not sourced properly. The closing reference at the end of the paragraph is http://www.tissottiming.com/File/Download?id=0003040104120001FFFFFFFFFFFFFF00 which should not be cited as stating these details? Is this an error? The real issue is the commentary without any real inline citations on the event and complete with some of the most unusual and flavorful prose I've ever read. I do not think it is appropriate to have descriptions like "She was hunted down by a small group that included..." or "The rest of the bunch was very attentive at this early stage though and they were soon hunted down". This comment is also unacceptable: "as the rest of the riders hesitated and looked to one another to chase down the 'flying Dutchwoman'". I disagree with using images cited via URL for reliable sources. The race results are not cited inline and the medalist reactions, in particular Ellen van Dijk, is full of commentary and fluff that need not be present. Also it fails the minimum requirements for inline citations, which is mandatory after every quote. All in all, this should have been a quick fail, but I'll put it on hold for a week. It needs lot of work and a complete restructuring in order to pass. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:05, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm working on the comments. Will continue later. Sander.v.Ginkel (talk) 21:30, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * There is still much work to be done. I'll give a little more time though. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:21, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Its been 13 days without work and I gave it an additional week since my last comment. I have no choice, but to fail this and hope the copyedit and work is done before a reappearance at GAN. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:33, 19 January 2014 (UTC)