Talk:John Nutter/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Oldelpaso (talk · contribs) 19:52, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

In terms of structure, layout, prose standard and images the article looks solid. In terms of breadth, the nature of lower league football coverage means adding to the current level of comprehensiveness would be difficult. My main question (and the one that leads me to put the article on hold) is one of sourcing:


 * The sites Stevenage FC History, Boroguide and SoccerFactsUK all appear to be self-published and/or fansites. What makes each of them a reliable source?

More minor points: Oldelpaso (talk) 19:52, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There are a few superfluous instances of "it was announced" in sentences e.g. Later that month, on 22 November, it was announced that Nutter had joined Gillingham, along with fellow Stevenage midfielder Adam Miller..., which could simply be written as "Later that month, Nutter joined Gillingham, along with fellow Stevenage midfielder Adam Miller..."
 * Do we need the figures in brackets in the honours section? Its not as though there are too many to count at a glance, like there would be with, say, Paolo Maldini.
 * There are a couple of groups of three or more citations covering the same sentence. Using the approach from WP:CITEBUNDLE could make these tidier.
 * The "noun plus -ing" construction appears frequently. A guide that explains this far better than I could (and how to improve it) can be found at User:Tony1/Noun plus -ing.

Comments

Thanks a lot for taking the time out to review the article, has been about three months since I placed it up for nomination so appreciate it!

Main point:
 * SoccerFactsUK is a well-known source, especially for lower league matches/clubs/players. A lot of people used to reference non-league players' articles with club match reports, but past reports can be very difficult to obtain today as so many of the lower league clubs change websites frequently, and with that the information seems to disappear. Boroguide has been around for over a decade, and all of its statistics are in-line with the likes of Soccerbase, BBC Sport etc. The reason I use it to reference the career statistics is because the website includes the information for a number of the earlier/qualification rounds of the FA Trophy and FA Cup, which are missed out by Soccerbase (and BBC Sport often list the early FA Trophy results, as opposed to providing a match report/team line-ups). I have changed the Boroguide references in the article to BBC Sport where possible (the matches that can be referenced by BBC Sport, for example). The Stevenage FC History website provides in-depth interviews from a number of former Stevenage players. This has been confirmed by several players on their Twitter accounts (saying they took part in the interview), and provides a lot of information that we would not usually be able to find. Without the 'History' article, most of the early career information would have to be removed, as well as a lot of "inside information" (the bid from Peterborough United, for instance) that would not be seen elsewhere.
 * Were the Stevenage FC History site used for a couple of minor things, I wouldn't see it as an issue, but as it referenced 16 times, it is a lot of weight put on a single interview. A phrase that often crops up in this sort of discussion is whether a source has "a reputation for fact-checking and editorial oversight". What do we know about the author(s)? As the policy on self-published sources puts it: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Is that something we can say here? Oldelpaso (talk) 19:13, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You're right, there is a lot of weight on that one interview. I will openly admit that I know very little about all these rules that you're coming out with. I check the SFC History website frequently; saw the article, conducted by a group of people with an interest in the club's history, and referenced it. Are they "established experts" in writing and conducting interviews with footballers? I wouldn't be able to say. Would I deem the article legit and reliable? Yes, but that is of course just my own judgement – all of the information fits with what I can find online, only gives us a little bit more insight into what and why certain things happened in his career. I have just got out a whole load of old matchday programmes and have managed to find a couple that have interviews with Nutter, one of which covers a lot of his earlier career (mentions the Academy Cup win at Blackburn & his early years in non-league). This confirms to me that what is written in the online interview is accurate, but I will reference that instead of the SFC History article to try and take a little bit of the weight off the History article. For a lower league player like Nutter, it would be very difficult to create an in-depth Wikipedia article by just using BBC Sport, Sky Sports, Soccerbase etc references. It would just be a list of games, goals and the odd transfer and that would be it. That said, I completely understand your worry re: the reliance of the one reference you're unsure about – and I will do my best to take the 'pressure' off that one article and hunt through the programmes to try and find the information required. I will add a note under this message if/when I have managed to do so. --SBFCEdit (talk) 17:55, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Have cut down the reliance on the reference. Now the interview is only used for quotes about his time at x club, as well as him being good friends with Adam Miller (although I may remove that). I think this is a much better balance now. --SBFCEdit (talk) 17:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This is one of those edge cases. Nothing cited is of a controversial nature, and by the standards of fansites it certainly seems to be a well-run one, and a genuinely useful resource. It may not meet the letter of WP:RS, but an interview with a lower league footballer is not going to be the cause of another Siegenthaler incident any time soon. Thanks for your efforts, I am now happy to pass the article. As an aside, the Signpost did a really good series of articles on the good and featured article processes, where they got an expert in each specific part of the criteria to do a guide. The one on sourcing is here, though there are a number of others worth a read. Oldelpaso (talk) 20:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Minor points:
 * Removed all of superfluous instances of "it was announced" in sentences.
 * Have changed the brackets in the honours section.
 * Excellent idea regarding the WP:CITEBUNDLE approach. Have just used it on the large number of citations covering the same sentence, and it certainly does make it tidier. Haven't tried it before today, will be doing it from now on.
 * Have changed a fair few of the noun plus -ing instances.

Thanks again. --SBFCEdit (talk) 04:28, 16 April 2013 (UTC)