Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2012 Tour de France/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 20:26, 16 January 2017.

2012 Tour de France

 * Nominator(s): BaldBoris 21:21, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

The 2012 edition of the Tour de France cycling race, which was won by Bradley Wiggins, the first from the United Kingdom. I brought it up to GA around a year ago. Other GA Tours I helped promoted are 2013, 2015 and 2016. It is part of the 2012 Tour good topic, that includes the List of teams and cyclists in the 2012 Tour de France, which I brought up to FL. The structure is the same as other FA Grand Tour races (1987 Giro d'Italia, 1988 Giro d'Italia, 2009 Giro d'Italia, 2015 Vuelta a España). BaldBoris 21:21, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Mike Christie
I've copyedited the article; please revert as needed.
 * I was going to suggest linking "Palmares" in the infobox to Glossary_of_cycling, but I see the meaning given there doesn't quite correspond. (And it's spelled with an "è" there; should it be here?) Is the glossary missing the definition intended here?  If so, it would be nice to add it there and put in a link.  Not a requirement for FA, though.
 * I've changed the template to "Results" instead per a recent discussion at WT:CYC about the use of it. BaldBoris 00:29, 15 November 2016 (UTC)


 * "each team's roster are introduced": "roster" is singular, so this needs to be either "is introduced" or make it "the members of..."
 * "It was the first time a Grand Départ outside France had been hosted in the same location twice, with other occasion in 2004": suggest: "Liège, which had also hosted the 2004 Grand Départ, became the first city outside France to host the Grand Départ twice."
 * The alt text for the picture of Voeckler and Kessiakoff makes it clear which is which; I think the caption should too.
 * When Wiggins slows down the peloton so that Evans can rejoin it, I think it's worth pointing out that this was an act of sportsmanship. I found a mention of this in John Deering's "Bradley Wiggins: Tour de Force", but you might have a better source.
 * I added "As an act of sportsmanship" Wiggin then... In the given source it says "a gesture of fairness"?

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:32, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I've done all suggestions. Thanks for the copyedit; can't believe all those missing words. I'm not sure about the tense changes in the first paragraph of Classification leadership though. I think it should use past tense (see 2015 Vuelta a España for example). BaldBoris 00:29, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I admit I hesitated over that section, and I realize now that I didn't carry it through properly on the next paragraphs. The problem with the past tense is that it makes it sound as though the general classification is no longer calculated that way; that it was a one-time calculation for that year.
 * Perhaps the right approach would be to start by describing these classifications in the context of the Tour de France generally, not just of this edition? E.g. something like "The 2012 Tour de France included a team competition, and four main individual classifications, which have been standardized on the tour since 19xx.  The general classification is calculated by..."  This makes the present tense seem more natural.  If you don't think that would work, please go ahead and change it back; I'll think about it some more but I agree the way I left it isn't satisfactory.
 * I'll try to reread the article tomorrow and see if there's anything else to comment on. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:11, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Although the current classifications haven't disappeared since their introduction, others have come and gone. So, as it is now, it seems like a guide to classifications of the Tour. I think the only way is to say what the situation was in 2012. Also, the other info is in the past tense, so bit muddled. BaldBoris 17:13, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

The points above are now fine, except of course the issue with the tenses. Reading through again:
 * The pre-race favourites section links every racing team mentioned, even though they've all been linked in the list just above. I see a few other duplinks; Wiggins is linked in the caption for that section and also in the first sentence; the same is true for general classification.  Just yesterday I finally figured out how to correctly use Ucucha's duplinks script; you might try that if you don't already have it installed.
 * Yes, I use it all the time, great tool. As the intro of it says and my interpretation of WP:REPEATLINK is, a repeated link is fine outside of the prose. I intentionally linked the classifications as the section is pretty much link-free (compared with the pre-race favourites) and of the three paragraphs only only one has another link. So in my opinion they're helping the reader, rather than doing harm. The pre-race favourites section is a bit too blue for my liking, so I suppose unlinking the teams after the list is a fair point? BaldBoris 17:13, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do think those should be unlinked. Your justification for the other links seems OK to me; I wouldn't do it that way myself, but I think that's within editorial discretion. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 22:50, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * So unlink all teams after the list? BaldBoris 00:02, 16 November 2016 (UTC)


 * "Nibali had shown his form in the lead-up to the Tour by winning Tirreno–Adriatico stage race": presumably missing "a" or "the"?
 * More about tenses: I see you're using "would not have" for discussing the race in the context of the pre-race situation -- e.g. "Cavendish ... would not have the full support of Team Sky". I can see why, but is this usual?  I glanced at a couple of the Giro d'Italia FAs, one of which I remember reviewing at FAC, and it looks like the "would have" language is used when reporting opinion at the time, and simple past is used when directly reporting the state of affairs, rather than attributing an opinion.  So I think you could make this "but he did not have".  I also noticed that for the next rider discussed, Greipel, you have "who had the full backing of his team".
 * The "would have" is just my bad. Cavendish was at that moment the top sprinter and he was used to having almost an entire team dedicated the him winning stages via bunch sprints (as is the same with a couple of the top sprinters) at previous Tours. He was unlucky that when he joined Team Sky in 2012 they had a potential Tour winner in Wiggins; Cavendish only lasted one season at Sky. I have changed it to "did not have the full support of Team Sky as he did in the 2011 Tour with the HTC–Highroad team;". BaldBoris 17:13, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That does it -- it was just the tense. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:50, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:27, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * "As the peloton (the main group) passed the Mur de Péguère, the race was sabotaged as a large number of riders had suffered tyre punctures from carpet tacks": might be better to rephrase it to reflect that it the punctures occurred before it was realized the race had been sabotaged. (And why "had suffered" rather than "suffered"?)  Perhaps "As the peloton (the main group) passed the Mur de Péguère, a large number of riders suffered tyre punctures; it was later [or soon] discovered that the race had been sabotaged by placing carpet tacks on the course".
 * "Schleck quit the race after traces of xipamide, a banned sulfonamide diuretic drug, were found in the A-sample of his urine, and was later confirmed by the B-sample": I assume he quit before the B-sample was tested, so I'd make this "...f his urine; the presence of xipamide was later confirmed..."
 * All done, with replies. BaldBoris 17:13, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I changed the refs in the doping section for more reliable ones, changed that Schleck quit to his team withdrew him and also added his ban. Nothing major but worth a look. BaldBoris 22:19, 15 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I've reverted the problematic tense changes, but I think more tweaking is needed. For example: "If a crash happened within the final 3 km (1.9 mi) of a stage, not including time trials and summit finishes, the riders involved received the same time as the group they were in when the crash occurred". The second half ought to be subjunctive, because of the "if", but it would have to be something like "If a crash had happened within the final 3 km (1.9 mi) of a stage, not including time trials and summit finishes, the riders involved would have received the same time as the group they were in when the crash occurred".  Then does the "time bonuses" sentence refer to this process?
 * I adjusted the previous sentence using the Vuelta and used your suggestion. The sentence about there being no time bonuses is not to with it and is really just a note, as it changes year to year (time bonuses were included this year). I switched them around to avoid confusion. BaldBoris 00:02, 16 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The "coefficient" ranking scale: does "coefficient" need to be in quotes? Is it that way in the source?  Also, can we say how many points were associated with each stage classification?
 * I used the quote initially in 2015 Tour de France because as this did. The table in the race regulations has the title "Coefficients for each stage". To me it reads oddly, so I wasn't really sure. Shall I drop the quotes of change it to coefficiency? It may be a like the combativity award, in that it's an awkward translation. BaldBoris 00:02, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:46, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Things are getting a bit fragmented above (my fault), so after looking at your responses above, here's what's left.
 * Yes, I would eliminate those team links after the list.
 * Having read the link you provided I think the quotes around "coefficient" are a form of scare quote -- perhaps the writer thought it was a word many readers wouldn't know. I'd drop the quotes.  I see the details of exactly how many points are awarded to each rider are pretty complicated, but this is the article about the race, so I'd go ahead and put those details in -- perhaps in a table directly below, or even attached to, the stage classification table?  I must admit I'd assumed the mountain stages would award the most points, so I was surprised.
 * I've changed the coefficient table for one that shows how many points for the points classification. Yes, it's very complicated, as can be seen on page 37 in the race regulations. The points classification is for sprinters that can't climb mountains, so awards the most in the flat stages. I've added more to the mountains classification, which ideally should have it's own table. BaldBoris 21:52, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

-- I really think that's everything now. I'll read through one last time after you make those fixes, and I expect to support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:38, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

I like the new table, but I have a question. Looking at page 13 of the source, there appear to be six coefficients; you only list five. I noticed this because I was going to add a "Stages" column, listing the stages for each coefficient, and I was going to get the data from that table in the source. Then I also noticed that this page says "9 flat stages 4 medium mountain stages - one with a summit finish, 5 mountain stages - two with a summit finish, 2 individual time-trial stages" which I can't match to the table in the source either -- which are the five mountain stages, for example? Perhaps if my French were better I'd be able to figure this out, but I'm hoping you know the answer. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:15, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Right, I've not fully understood it myself. The coefficient scale is for deciding degree of difficulty of a stage, which is then used for calculating the the cut-off time and type of each stage. Some coefficients overlap, so medium-mountain stages can have a coefficient of 3 or 4, and mountain stages can have a coefficient of 3, 4 or 5. Regardless, they've chosen the stage types. I've now completely removed coefficient to make things easier for the reader. BaldBoris 21:09, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * You probably already knew this, but I just realized that the PDF from the Tour site has an English translation as the second half of the document. I just used that to fix the second row in the table, which I think you miscopied; you may want to check I got it right.  I agree that dropping the word "coefficient" is a good idea.  The English source says "High mountain" for the row you've labeled "Mountain stage"; what would you think of making that "High mountain stage"?  And there's no hyphen in "Medium mountain" in the source, so we should drop that. And can we add a column showing (for the first four rows) which stages fit which description?  Interestingly there appears to be a typo in the English translation -- it says coefficient 3 is both "medium mountain" and "high mountain", but the French version only lists it as "medium mountain". Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 00:35, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I have used the same stage type wording that is used for all the modern cycling races articles on Wikipedia, including the 2015 Vuelta a España (which is organised by the same company). I'm not sure why people have medium-mountain used here? I don't really have a problem with it, just don't like inconsistency. The official route page is even different from the regulations; it uses "hilly" and "mountain". In fact they are usually never as they are officially described. The stage type for Wiki just gets decide by lots of users while the race is going on, then sticks. It's all a bit of a mess really. BaldBoris 01:17, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Race stage may give you an idea as to why there's all the confusion. BaldBoris 01:26, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Support. The last edits fixed the points I was querying above. I think this article is in excellent shape. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:54, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the great comments Mike! All the best. BaldBoris 23:43, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)
 * "twenty-one", "eighteen", 35, 31, 12: consistency is needed. Spell out everything under some cutoff, and write everything as a numeral above the cutoff (subject to the exceptions at WP:NUMERAL).
 * Sorry, I've only just seen this. I've now made the cut-off "twenty", with any number under used in a sentence as a figure because there a more than three numbers, a second number is over 20, a time difference (e.g. "1 h 30 min 7 s", per WP:MEASUREMENT), or uses . BaldBoris 22:43, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 22:00, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Comments – This is a solid article. I came up with a handful of comments after reading it, and look forward to supporting.
 * "Andre Greipel of Lotto–Belisol and Team Sky rider Mark Cavendish both also won three stages." Minor point, but "both" is a redundant word in this context and can safely be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence, making the writing a shade tighter.
 * Teams: The list of teams has some redirect code coming through, which could use a fix.
 * I think you just caught a redirect between team page moves and a bot fixing the double redirects. The list is future-proof thanks to . BaldBoris 13:16, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Pre-race favourites: "Andy Schleck, who finished second in the 2010 Tour and finished second in the 2011 Tour". Once you remove the parenthetical stuff, this looks repetitive. You could remove the second "and finished second in the" altogether.
 * Classification leadership: I see 25,000 and 5000 in the Euro amounts. Did you decide to only use the hyphen for five- and six-figure amounts, or is there another reason it was omitted from the 5000 figure?
 * I take it you meant comma not hyphen? Fixed. BaldBoris 13:16, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * By the Souvenir Henri Desgrange, a "the" is needed in "given to first rider". Giants2008  ( Talk ) 00:45, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments . I did all the fixes with . BaldBoris 13:16, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Support – Overall the article was a fine read, and I think it meets FA standards now. Great work here. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 21:15, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Coordinator note: Unless I've missed it, we still need a source and image review. These can be requested at the top of WT:FAC. Sarastro1 (talk) 01:17, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Image review
 * images - Per file info the map image was created under a free art license by editor that has created many other maps. The picture of the palace is entered as created by the uploader and distributed under a CC 3.0 license. The Bradley Wiggins was taken off Flicker where it was under the CC 2.0 this was confirmed. The stone cross image is a wikimedia image described as created by the uploader under CC 3.0 license. The rider Cancellara's picture was taken off OTRS. Wiggins' was taken off Flicker where it was under CC 2.0, this was confirmed. Voeckler's image is also a confirmed CC 2.0 Flicker image. Is this where and how the review is reported? Also should it be this detailed? Rybkovich (talk) 22:50, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's more or less how an image review goes. I also reviewed the images and agree with your assessments. I will add a few more notes:
 * The map in the infobox combines a previous CC-licensed map from Commons with specific route information from another source that is probably under copyright. The route information is similar to the source (as it would need to be to be accurate), but the design elements are not copied exactly, so this should be acceptable.
 * You can't copyright colours and simple shapes. Nothing in the map is copyrighted. BaldBoris 16:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I re-checked all the Flickr images that were previously bot-checked. The only one that doesn't currently match the license checked by the bot is File:Bradley Wiggins 19 etape du Tour de France 2012 Chartres.jpg, which has an appropriate explanation for the discrepancy in the license description on Commons.
 * I added the Flickr-change-of-license template as the Flick has since changed the licence there. BaldBoris 16:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * All images have appropriate captions and alt text. The information in the captions is either already in the body text, or confirmed with a reliable source.
 * I think we are good on image review. I put a "header" above to make it easy for the coordinators and other editors to find. --RL0919 (talk) 01:47, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Got it, thank you. Rybkovich (talk) 03:41, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking into this guys. BaldBoris 16:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Source review from
 * What makes http://www.procyclingstats.com a high quality reliable source? Their "about" link at the bottom of their pages just takes you back to the index page, not reassuring.
 * It's the foremost online cycling database. The site is well used in Wikipedia and we have the highly used, and  templates. I can fully understand your query, in fact a couple of years ago I opposed it's used on Wiki. I'll have a look to see if I can find more reliable sources. BaldBoris 16:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Just because we have a template for a source doesn't make it reliable, much less the higher standard that FAs are held to. Note that we also have, but no one thinks Find A Grave is a reliable source. To determine the reliability of the site, we need to know what sort of fact checking they do. You can establish this by showing news articles that say the site is reliable/noteworthy/etc. or you can show a page on the site that gives their rules for submissions/etc. or you can show they are backed by a media company/university/institute, or you can show that the website gives its sources and methods, or there are some other ways that would work too. The best method is a mix of all of the above. It's their reputation for reliability that needs to be demonstrated. Please see Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches for further detailed information. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I wasn't actually proving to you that it's reliable, just giving you some background. As I can't find alternative sources, I'll give it a go. I must say that Find a Grave and ProCyclingStats are incomparable as the former can be edited by the public. I can't find anything about how they get their data, just an interview with website director Stephan van der Zwan. The most reassuring thing I've found is that they provide data for the SBS (Australia's BBC) Cycling Central website.
 * Here's a list of high quality news websites that have used it as a source:
 * Cycling Weekly:
 * Cyclingnews.com:
 * Diario AS:
 * NOS:
 * L'Équipe:
 * beIN Sports:
 * Marca:
 * BT:
 * – BaldBoris 22:34, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll leave this out for other reviewers to decide for themselves. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:13, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I know it doesn't mean much, but the FA 2015 Vuelta a España uses it several times. BaldBoris 17:13, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I am not sure what source "ASO" is meant to refer to - it doesn't match up with any of the authors listed in the sources section
 * If you click the shortened footnote it takes you to the source which states that the publisher is the Amaury Sport Organisation. I have followed the documentation at Template:Sfn. BaldBoris 16:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * What about people who are on mobile devices or other similar things where it isn't convient to click on a link (or people who don't figure it out?) I would suggest that if you're treating the ASO as the author in the shortened footnotes - you try to make it a bit more intuitive to the reader so they don't have to click links. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * This is clearly something you are familiar with, so what is your advice, change ASO to Amaury Sport Organisation? Also, what's the difference with "ASO 2012" and "Bacon 2014"? How would a reader know what "Bacon" is then? BaldBoris 22:34, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "Bacon 2014" clearly matches up to "Bacon, Ellis (2014). Mapping Le Tour. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-754399-1". "ASO 2012" does not match up to the first word of any ref in the Sources section. I'm not familiar with the sfn template - I don't use it myself - but while the linking works for most things, it's not consistent with how the other refs are matched up to the source listing. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:42, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I've changed it to "Race regulations 2016". See Template talk:Sfn. BaldBoris 22:45, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Works well, thanks! Ealdgyth - Talk 13:13, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Earwig's tool is being flakey so no plagiarism checks.
 * Otherwise everything looks good. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:14, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Coordinator note: If is happy with these sourcing replies, I think we are almost good to go. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:15, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Closing comment: I don't think we need to hold this up any further. If any of the reviewers wish to take up the matter of the reliability of www.procyclingstats.com, they can do so on the talk page. I'm not sure any further action is needed. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:25, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.