Talk:Bruce McAvaney

Untitled
This article seems very biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.13.226.2 (talk) 03:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

legend
my favourite commentator. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.239.98.115 (talk) 08:02, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

Given the claims made by McAvaney should there be a category added at the bottom of the page such as 'people who claim they are not gay'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajayvius (talk • contribs) 09:40, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

This is an appalling article
As the misplaced and unsigned first post on this page says, "This article seems very biased." It probably contains the greatest proportion of peacock and weasel words that I have found in a Wikipedia article.

Many of the effusive claims in the article about his greatness are unreferenced. Most of the article reads like a PR blurb from his agent. There are many typos, grammar and spelling errors.

It will take a big effort to bring some sanity to this article, but I intend to at least start. HiLo48 (talk) 21:09, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Just did some big cleanups, removing now unsourced material because links are dead or show something else. We are now left with a virtually unsourced article because what look like references are just links to Wikipedia articles on media outlets. Quite pointless really. I am not going to go hunting for sources for all the remaining content. I will leave it there for while longer and hope that his fans will help us out soon. HiLo48 (talk) 10:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

A major problem with references
Every reference in this article uses the cite news template. However, none of them include the url field - one normally regarded as essential. I've attempted to follow up some of them (having already found some pretty dodgy material here) and got nowhere. In effect, these sources cannot be tracked online, despite appearing to be the type of sources that can be. Yes, if I went to a major state library I may be able to check them, but I won't be doing that any time soon.

Now, we have claims like "...a role which won him significant acclaim" and "led to the nickname Mr Olympics" hanging on these untrackable sources. I'm becoming quite uncomfortable with what is now effectively an unsourced article.

Where to next?

HiLo48 (talk) 06:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I have just removed all completely unsourced content, some of which has been tagged as needing citations since 2008. (This does not remove concerns expressed in the note above. It's still effectively an unsourced article.) HiLo48 (talk) 17:28, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The articles I referenced when I was editing the article are all accessible online through Factiva, an academic archive site to which a large proportion of university students around the world have access, not to mention larger employers. If you would like me to provide you with PDFs of the articles for your review, I would be happy to do so.


 * However, it is incorrect and ridiculous to describe the article as "unsourced" when all you are complaining about is that you can't lazily click through and instantly check the source. There is no rule that references need to be accessible online, otherwise we would have no real need for the template.


 * If you can find articles this old on their relevant newspaper websites, you are more than welcome to add the URLs to the references. If you can't, and don't care enough to visit your local State Library or access Factiva or a similar academic archive, then why do you care enough to post here about it? - Mark 13:12, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for responding. I was wondering if anyone else cared about the article these days. Glad you do. I have already acknowledged that a physical look at a major library would show those sources. My confusion arose because the citations included an accessdate, normally an indication of an online source, which I now learn that it was, but not one that I or most other readers can access. My sensitivity may have been a little escalated by so much more of the article being unreferenced or linked to dead sources. Apologies for my misunderstanding. Happy to take a good faith approach and leave those remaining sections as being properly sourced. HiLo48 (talk) 22:43, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I actually had a lot of trouble finding any sources about this article subject. The fact that I had to scrape through Factiva indicates that for someone in the public eye quite a lot, nobody has really written much about him (that I could find). You may have more luck now. :) - Mark 14:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I found a fair few blogs, and press releases from his media outlets telling me how respected and special he is, but not much objective stuff at all in mainstream sources. But I'll keep my eyes peeled. HiLo48 (talk) 20:56, 27 January 2011 (UTC)