Talk:Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Paralympics/GA1

GA Review
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I'll be happy to review this for GA nomination. H1nkles (talk) 20:31, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

GAR Philosophy
When I do an article review I like to provide a Heading-by-Heading breakdown of suggestions for how to make the article better. It is done in good faith as a means to improve the article. It does not mean that the article is not GA quality, or that the issues listed are keeping it from GA approval. I also undertake minor grammatical and prose edits. After I finish this part of the review I will look at the over arching quality of the article in light of the GA criteria and make my determination as to the overall quality of the article.

Regarding "Lead"

 * This sentence, "behind host nation China, winning 42 gold medals and 102 total medals, equalling the position achieved in the table at the 2004 Athens Games." is awkward, what table are you referring to?
 * Other than this minor wording issue the Lead is pretty good, wording is tight and prose is professional. Summary without a lot of detail.  Good lead.  H1nkles (talk) 22:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Disability classifications"

 * "Some sports, such as athletics, athletes are divided by both the category and severity of their disabilities." I think there is a word missing, perhaps "In". As it is currently written the sentence doesn't make sense.  H1nkles (talk) 22:16, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed Basement12 (T.C) 15:26, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Medallists"

 * My primary comment is regarding the "dashes" in the tables. By "dashes" I mean "-".  My understanding is that editors are encouraged to us   or   vs. using the "-" due to formatting issues with the various web browsers.  See WP:DASH for some comments.  I bring it up with some trepidation as I know that the tables have been hashed out over a long period of time, and to ask editors to go and add "hard dash" text to each and every cell would be laborious.  So I will not require it in order for the article to pass GA but you may want to research that if you want this article or the Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics article to move up to FA consideration.  H1nkles (talk) 15:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think these are s but are merely inserted using the quick symbols box found below the editing window. The code   is just there as aother way of adding them since they don't appear on a standard keyboard. I would hope if this was not a desired way of adding them such a system wouldn't exist. Basement12 (T.C) 18:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Targets"

 * The end of this sentence doesn't make sense, "... the team fell short of targets in some sports whilst it exceeded them in others, eight out of the fifteen sports set a target met it." I'm pretty sure of what was intended but the wording is confused.  Otherwise this section is fine.  H1nkles (talk) 16:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Archery"

 * There are several issues with this sentence, "John Stubbs, a former England disabled cricketer, set a new world record score of 691 in the ranking round on the route to victory in the men's individual compound open whilst Danielle Brown beat compatriot, and eventual bronze medallist, Mel Clarke before going on to win the gold in the women's event."
 * First is a run–sentence, and should be at least two sentences.
 * Second, I think "England" should be "English" but I'm not sure from the context.
 * Third I think by making the comments about Danielle Brown and Mel Clarke into their own sentence you will aleviate some of the confusion in this part of the sentence. It's just awkwardly worded.
 * This falls into the ticky tack category but nonetheless here it is: the "W" in the legend is not bold whilst the WR and the L are. This is consistent with other legends in the article, yet the "W" is bold in the actual tables. H1nkles (talk) 16:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think England is correct in this context as it shows he represented the national team, in the same way England national football team is the name for an article (English would suggest he was merely an englishman that played the sport). Not sure what you mean with the last point as it seems WR, W and L are all bolded in the legend (i'm either misunderstanding your point or someone else fixed it already).

Regarding "Athletics"

 * I'm confused by the letter/number code in this section. I noticed it in the tables as well, and I don't know what they refer to.  I'm talking about the T54 and F37–38 in this section.  They are also in various tables and I assume they are some sort of event code.  Can you please explain their inclusion here in the talk page?  I want to be sure these are necessary and if so that they are properly explained for the layman.
 * I would remove "athletics" from this sentence, "David Weir believed he had won the gold medal in the athletics, men's 800 m T54 but a rerun of the race was ordered...." Since the section is referring to athletics already I think this is redundant.  You also don't include "athletics" above this sentence when referring to the women's 5000 m. H1nkles (talk) 17:33, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The T54 and F37–38 are indeed event codes. They describe the type and severity of the disabilities of competing athletes and vary from sport to sport. In the paralympics athletes with different levels of ability are seperated so for example you don't get a runner who has an artificial leg competing against a wheelchair racer. In the context of athletics t=track and f=field and the numbers then describe what the disability is, 54 for example is for wheelchair-bound athletes. I think it would be overkill to explain in detail the codes for each sport as they are at times quite long winded and are already described on the sport level page such as Athletics at the 2008 Summer Paralympics, i therefore added the disability classifications section for a little background explaination on how things work. Basement12 (T.C) 19:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Wheelchair Basketball"
This section is fine. H1nkles (talk) 17:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Boccia"
This section is fine. H1nkles (talk) 17:55, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Cycling"

 * This sentence, "Jody Cundy set a new world record and won two gold medals on the track, matching Rebecca Romero's achievement in the Olympics of becoming a medal winer in two different sports.[34]" could use some explanation and better structure. You mention earlier that Cundy was a swimmer.  I'm assuming it was in swimming that he won his other Olympic medal?  If so what Olympics and what was the medal(s) he won?  You wikilink Romero so the reader could go and see what sports Romero won her medals in, but Cundy doesn't have a wikilink so you should probably spell it out here. H1nkles (talk) 15:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Equestrian"

 * I recommend changing 5 to five since you write out "Seven" earlier in the sentence.
 * I believe you need a hard dash between "five" and "time" per WP:DASH. I could be wrong on that one though.  These are nit picky issues, the section is fine otherwise.  H1nkles (talk) 15:29, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Wheelchair Fencing"
This section is fine.

Regarding "Football 5-a-Side"
I fixed a minor tense issue, otherwise it's fine.

Regarding "Football 7-a-Side"

 * This sentence needs some work, "Britain qualified a team in this sport for the first time since the 1992 Barcelona Games through the 7th place finish of the England team at the CPISRA World Championships in Brazil.[40]" It should probably be two sentences with the final section broken out as a new sentence explaining how Britain qualified.
 * On a related note, you mention how this team qualified for the Olympics but you don't do the same for other teams, such as the Equestrian, or 5-a-Side Football team. For the sake of consistency you may want to look into either mentioning how all the teams qualified or not discussing it in any of the sections.  This is more a recommendation for moving the article to FA quality, it won't affect it's GA standing in my opinion.  H1nkles (talk) 16:29, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the main reason I mentioned it here was because of the issue of them qualifying due to the performance of the England team as opposed to qualifying a team from Britain as a whole. Basement12 (T.C) 19:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Judo"
This section is fine.

Regarding "Power Lifting"

 * You don't wikilink these athletes (understandable if no article exists on them) even though you wikilink the athletes in the "Rowing" section - when no article exists on them. You may want to consider some consistency on the wikilinking.

Regarding "Rowing"
Check the wikilinking per above, otherwise this section is fine. H1nkles (talk) 22:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I've unlinked the rowers for consistency with the other sports, they are linked in both the results table and list of medallists anyway. Basement12 (T.C) 18:20, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Wheelchair Rugby"
This section is fine.

Regarding "Sailing"

 * This sentence is a little awkward: "All three boats finished in the top ten places of their events but failed to win medals". I understand what you're trying to say, it's just worded a little awkwardly, consider revising.  H1nkles (talk) 22:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Done Basement12 (T.C) 18:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Shooting"
This section is fine.

Regarding "Swimming"

 * I have a couple issues with this sentence, "and Matt Walker, competing in his third Paralympics, won four individual silver or bronze medals and a gold in the 4×100 m freestyle relay – 34 pts". Silver or bronze, how many of each?  Also what are the points a reference to?  H1nkles (talk) 22:23, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Changed "or" to "and". The 34 pts is part of the name of the event, basically for relay teams where there are mixed ability athletes every disability is assigned a points value and the total for the team must remain below a threshold (34 in that case). Since it looks a bit out of place in the prose i've removed -34 pts, I think its enough to say he won a gold in the relay. Basement12 (T.C) 12:28, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Table Tennis" and "Wheelchair Tennis"
No problems in either of these two sections. H1nkles (talk) 22:28, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Overarching Comments

 * The article is very reliant on table. There is less text in this article than in the Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics article, which I thought was a bit restricted already.  I counted eight sections that have two sentences describing the performance of Team GB and then a table.  I understand there may be less material from which to cull information, the team is smaller, and the Games as a whole are on a smaller scale.  Yet when I fly over the article I do have to admit that the ratio of text to tables is pretty exagerrated.  I welcome your comments on this.
 * Per MOS:IMAGES it is recommended that the photos be staggered right and left to give it a more diverse look. Not a big deal but I thought I'd bring it up.  The images all check out and the links are solid.
 * The research is composed heavily of BBC Sport references. Certainly a reliable source, but it is always wise to have a variety of sources to improve the article's credibility.  You may want to diversify, especially if you feel the need to expand the information in the text portions of the article.
 * Again as with the previously–stated article, this one is fairly large for the subject matter. That said it is due of course to the size of the tables and it doesn't appear as though there is much that can be done about this.
 * I am torn on wikilinking all the events. My concern is having too much red wikilinks in the article.  Yet to be fair, all the standard Olympic articles wikilink the events and consistency is the name of the game so I would say keep the events wikilinked in the tables.
 * Overall I'm pleased with the article, especially compared with some of its counterparts from other countries. Much work has been done.  I was also saddened to see that there are no Team GB Paralympic articles prior to 1996 for the Summer Games and 2002 for the Winter Games.  These amazing athletes deserve to have their accomplishments published.  Of course time and manpower is always the issue, but I commend you on the work you have done on this article.  I look forward to reading your comments and then I will make my final GA determination by the end of the week.  My apologies for taking so long, my life went into overdrive recently and I have bitten off more than I can chew.  Thank you for your patience.  H1nkles (talk) 22:57, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I fully see your point about the number of tables, however my response would be that if this weren't going for GA then there would probably be little need for any prose at all, other than to mention the odd occurance like athletes stripped of medals, the results are far better summarised by the tables than they could ever be in writing. There is no specification in GA criteria (as far as I know) as to how much prose or how many tables should be allowed. As i'm sure you understand finding info these athletes is very difficult, this is the main reason for the heavy reliance on the BBC, who have a lot of articles as they broadcast the limited TV coverage there was. There are a few newspaper references but most media coverage tended to very short and in the form x, y and z won medals; overseas sources for British athletes are virtually non-existant. Whilst the red links don't look great all these athletes and events would be eligible for articles and my hope was that perhaps leaving them in would encourage editors to create some of these pages, i've done some for the more successful competitors but as you say there is an issue of man-power and time. As and when I stumble across any extra info or sources that can be added I will of course continue to add it but without having something above and beyond a mere result to look for searching has proved somewhat futile. If there is any specific section you think needs expanding then I can look into it. Frankly i'm glad you've taken your time reviewing, the lack of a Wiki based distraction the last few weeks has actually made me get on with some work! Cheers Basement12 (T.C) 12:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as I know there is no GA criteria for a ratio of text to tables. My concern is that as much information as possible be put into these articles.  I know that is your priority as well and I certainly believe that everything that could be put in is here.  If there is nothing further to add I will do one final read through of the article and then finalize my review.  Again my thanks for your efforts on this article, and for giving much-deserved coverage to this group of world-class athletes.  H1nkles (talk) 16:27, 23 October 2008 (UTC)