Talk:Clayton Donaldson

Why is the biography section without references?
It just looks odd to me, every other section appears well-referenced at face value, but the biography section doesn't have a single citation? :/ Homestarmy 23:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think I got that information from an interview with Donaldson on the York City website, but that no longer seems to exist. -- Mattythewhite 11:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

GA nomination
A number of pointers for how to improve the article for the GA nomination:
 * The lead could be a bit longer and talk about successes at various clubs, possibly mentioning his international debut.
 * As noted above the Biography section could really do with more references.
 * The article has a lot of quotes, although excellent to see them all referenced they do break up the flow of the prose. Would it be possible to get rid of some of the less important ones and turn them into normal prose with the reference providing a link to the quote?

Hope this helps in improving the article. - Suicidalhamster 01:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold
Hi, there are several things that I want cleared up in this article before it gets GA status. I'm going to be as thorough as I can, and hopefully this will make it easier to achieve this in the one week time frame permitted. I'll break my comments down into sections according to What is a good article?:

1. Well written
 * The prose is not to bad, there are a few sentences that are too long (or run ons) and need fixing. Here are some:
 * He made two first team appearances for the Tigers, and was loaned out, to three other Yorkshire teams; first to Harrogate Town where he spent the 2002-03 season and was voted Conference North player of the month in October[3], and then the following two years he had brief spells at Scarborough and Halifax Town.
 * Donaldson has enjoyed working with Billy McEwan, becoming a first team regular and has not found his gruelling training schedule unusual, as he was coached as a youngster by Billy Russell who played for McEwan at Rotherham and had adopted a similar style of coaching. - run on sentence
 * with a a cash-plus player offer being turned down. - fix double a
 * Donaldson was to return from his three-match suspension in York City's reserves match against Sheffield United at KitKat Crescent on 6 February 2007[17], although the game was frozen off - run on sentence
 * Structure-wise, it's not to bad. The main thing is the lead needs considerable expansion. See WP:LEAD
 * Does it comply with the MoS? The only thing I'll want changed is the number of block quotes. The MoS says long quotations, of more then four lines can be rendered as block quotations. So please remove those that are short. See Manual of Style for more details.
 * There is a major problem with the tense used throughout the article. I found it very difficult to know when something happened. There are heaps and heaps of examples of this. One is:
 * "Donaldson has so far scored 18 goals in the Conference National this season" - what season! I have no idea what season this is talking about.
 * "On 18 December 2006 he rejected the offer of a new contract at York City, with his current deal at the club ending in the summer." The summer in what hemisphere? Change this to July 2007 or whatever it's supposed to be.
 * see "before he joins Hibernian in the summer" as well.
 * There are more examples of this that need to be fixed. I'm not going to list them all though.
 * "York City have rejected a bid from Accrington Stanley for Donaldson" this should be "York City rejected a bid from Accrington Stanley for Donaldson in insert month here, inset year here"
 * Jargon. There are a few things here:
 * "the Bantams" and "the Tigers" need to be explained. I'm guessing they refer to certain clubs but this is certainly not made clear. Please fix it.

2. Factually accurate:
 * Please reference or remove the following statements:
 * "He was signed on by his local club at the age of 14 and spent one year with the Bantams before he was released."
 * "Donaldson then joined Hull City as an under 16 player and progressed on to their Youth Development scheme, where he was encouraged to become an out and out striker." esp the bit about encouraging him to be striker.
 * "Donaldson was inspired to become a striker as he would be following in the foot steps of his childhood hero, ex-Arsenal front man Ian Wright. Though today, he admits his attentions have turned to Thierry Henry and Ruud van Nistelrooy, who he admires greatly for their goal scoring prowess." Where did he say this?
 * It was with Hull City that Donaldson made his professional start, Peter Taylor offered the youngster his first on his 19th birthday, though he would play mostly for the reserve squad scoring 33 goals in his first season, 15 in his second and 14 in his last season there. - Also consider splitting this sentence up.
 * "He was keen to stay in the north as he still resides in Hull."
 * "Donaldson was soon approached by York City manager Billy McEwan, who had watched him play in a Hull City reserve game and subsequently came on trial to train with the Minstermen."
 * "Donaldson has enjoyed working with Billy McEwan, becoming a first team regular and has not found his gruelling training schedule unusual, as he was coached as a youngster by Billy Russell who played for McEwan at Rotherham and had adopted a similar style of coaching." - esp the bit about the gruelling training sessions, and it no being unusual.
 * "The electric pace and skilful trickery on the ball he displayed in the pre-season games has already made him a potential fan favourite." - This is POV, and not referenced anyway. Remove it.
 * "Before leaving, Donaldson says he wants to give York City the perfect leaving present - promotion back into the Football League." - did he say this? or did he imply it?
 * There does not look to be any original research. I'll double check the refs but they look reliable.
 * Please change the news sources to the format instead of the  format.
 * Fix any inline citations that are not after a fullstop or comma. They need to be after punctuation.

3. Broad, not going into trivia.
 * Does well here, no problems.

4. NPOV
 * There are a few statements that concern me here. Please let the facts speak for themselves rather then editorialise. Consider rewriting or removing the following:
 * "The electric pace and skilful trickery on the ball he displayed in the pre-season games has already made him a potential fan favourite." - mentioned above
 * "Hibernian manager John Collins said he was delighted Donaldson was coming to Easter Road." according to the quote below this sentence he did not say he was delighted. Either find a ref or remove that comment.

5. Stable
 * No problems here.

6. Images
 * The two images used are not free. They have been uploaded from yorkpress.co.uk and were not created by the uploader. They need to be removed. Consider finding a free equivalent, or something that qualifies for fair use.

That everything. Please not the complaints about the tense, because I didn't list every example. Someone needs to go through the article by themselves and sort this. Any questions contact me on my talk page! - Shudda   talk  01:54, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think I've done pretty much everything now you've asked for. -- Mattythewhite 10:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I've taken so long to respond. I like to have lots of time on my hands when completing a GA review though; as I don't like to rush through it. Good to see lots of things have been fixed, and the article is nearly there. A couple of things you either missed, or I missed in my original review:
 * "Clayton Donaldson (born 7 February 1984, in Bradford) is a English-Jamaican footballer, currently playing for York City in the Conference National, although he has signed a pre-contract agreement with Scottish Premier League side Hibernian starting next season." Is a run on sentence. Needs to be fixed.
 * Maybe just change "Donaldson's agent, Andy Sprott, says suggestions he deliberately found him a deal in Scotland so York City would not receive any compensation were "not the case", insisting that by brokering Donaldson's pre-contract agreement with Hibernian, all he had done was to secure the "best deal I could for the player I represented"." To Donaldson's agent, Andy Sprott, said suggestions he deliberately found Donaldson a deal in Scotland so York City would not receive any compensation was "not the case". The deal is done, it's past tense, also deleted the other stuff, it's kinda unnecessary.
 * "York City manager Billy McEwan has appealed for fans to get behind Donaldson between now and the end of the season, saying: "I appeal to you the fans to get behind all the team, including Clayton, as he is still a City player until the last game of the season. May I congratulate the board for standing up for what we believe in here at York, which is trying to keep our best players and building a good football club that we can be proud of"[29]" - maybe delete this? Sounds like cheer leading rather then an encyclopaedia article.
 * "Donaldson was named in the initial 22-man squad for the England National Game XI team,[30] then eventually named in the final 16-man squad[31] which beat The Netherlands 4-1 by manager Paul Fairclough. Donaldson made his debut for the National Game XI in this match, coming on as a substitute in the last 15 minutes and set up Dagenham & Redbridge's Craig Mackail-Smith for the final goal in a 4-1 win." - This needs to be re-written. It doesn't even say what year he was selected! Change it to past tense.
 * The rest of the international stuff can maybe be summarised. Use past tense again, rather then the present ones that are in there.
 * Please put a reference into the career stats table.
 * The image of Donaldson on his player profile/template is not free. It needs to be removed.

Ok thats it. I'm pretty sure everything else has been acted on. When these last couple of things are done I'll promote to GA. I'll give you some advice for further improvements to the article though. I think the prose throughout is a little like a newspaper article, or even a promotional press release. It needs to be a little more formal I think. There is quite a lot of info and quotes that aren't really that important, it would be better to focus on his on-field performance. Also, I'd consider expanding the lead a little more as well. Finding some free images would be great as well (although I acknowledge that can be very difficult). Any questions or anything feel free to contact me on my talk page. - Shudda   talk  19:38, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think I've got everything there covered now. -- Mattythewhite 21:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The image is still probably not acceptable. There is no explanation for how it comes under the GNU Free Documentation licence. Where did this image come from? It has (c) Gavin Rathbone written in the bottom left corner. You need to prove it's acceptable for that image to be up here. I would remove the image from this article. Then I'll pass it for GA. - Shudda   talk  21:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Removed. -- Mattythewhite 21:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Passed. You've done really good work, congratulations! - Shudda   talk  21:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks man. -- Mattythewhite 22:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Birthplace context
It's also for the benefit of our American readers, who tend not to know where towns and cities are located as their proximity from London increases. - Dudesleeper · Talk 22:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

York career stats
His York stats in the infobox are 73 (36), but those in the "Career stats" section total 72 (34). I think Soccerbase has messed up somewhere along the line. - Dudesleeper · Talk 23:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Personal life
Hi, due to the youth of this sports person, it is acceptable for their personal life section to only cover the period before they began their career. However, as they grow older it becomes more important for information on their life outside sport to appear in the article. Please ensure that as the person develops their article does too. For an example of how such a section might look, see Brian Urlacher and for pointers on how to expand and improve such a section, see this guide. Thanks --Jackyd101 (talk) 10:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)