Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Arsène Wenger/archive2


 * 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 not promoted by GrahamColm 17:02, 17 December 2012.

Arsène Wenger

 * Nominator(s): Lemonade51 (talk) 16:19, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Monsieur Wenger is Arsenal's most successful manager and has become one of an influential figure in football. The previous nom was closed due to a lack of comments and spotchecks, whilst undergoing a copyedit in the process. Given the main issues brought up previously were covered, I believe this deserves another crack here. More comments, critique, et al is welcome, ta. Lemonade51 (talk) 16:19, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Image check - all OK. 1 problem. Currently there is an extensive (and headache-inducing) RFC discussion on commons about US FOP in regards to sculptures, when the sculptures or similar artwork are PD in their source country (see []). The WMF has clearly stated its obligation to respect all US copyright laws (irregardless of their actual merit in the Internet age). Unless commons members find a legal solution around this problem, we shouldn't use such images - especially in featured content with a clear copyright requirement. Suggest removal, pending further development in that topic. GermanJoe (talk) 08:47, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * 1 CC-image with OTRS-ticket - OK.
 * 3 CC-images from Flickr - OK (source links are dead, but Flickr-accounts show no indication of copy-vio - just some random, public snapshots).
 * File:Ars%C3%A8ne_Wenger_statue.jpg - not OK, is not free in the USA, as it is not covered by current US Freedom of Panorama ("Not-free-US-FOP", see comment below).
 * Have removed the image off the article, thanks for the image check. Lemonade51 (talk) 18:03, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Updated accordingly, thanks. GermanJoe (talk) 19:32, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment: Prose issues I have no doubt that this article is the result of considerable work and attention to detail. Unfortunately it is rather let down by the prose; I've found a raft of issues just from the lead, and suspect many more are lurking in the body of the text. I think you, or someone, needs to go through the prose very carefully, looking for instances such as those that I've highlighted. Featured status requires a professional or near-professional standard of prose, which I believe is lacking at present, despite much good work. Here are the specific points from the lead:


 * Comma needed after birth date
 * What do you mean by "winning 11 individual honours"? These were all team trophies, surely?
 * Several problems with the following sentence: "Journalists give Wenger credit for revolutionising football in England in the late 1990s, primarily through the introduction of changes in the training and diet of players, while attempting to implement a philosophy that football ought to be entertaining on the pitch."
 * The sentence is too long and overcrowded with information. Suggest two sentences.
 * I'm not sure that "journalists" is adequate here - too general a term. Suggest "Football pundits"
 * It sounds as though the "journalists" are giving Wenger sole credit for the English football revolution. Surely there were others (even I, knowing little about football, have heard of Ferguson). Should this read "his contribution to the revolutionising of..."?
 * "attempting to implement" gives an impression of failing to implement. Is this deliberate?


 * "After a modest playing career, making appearances for several amateur clubs..." Introducing a secondary clause with the "...ing" werb form is dodgy grammar. What you mean is "After a modest playing career, in which he made appearances..."etc. Note: this is one example of an error that occurs through the article.
 * "His subsequent managerial career brought him greater triumph and recognition than he achieved as a player." This is a side observation that doesn't belong in the lead and, since it seems to be a judgement, probably shouldn't appear at all.
 * "Wenger won the league championship with Monaco in 1988." I accept that it may be standard footballspeak to credit the manager rather than the team with awards and trophies, but this aspect should be looked at generally. In the short amount of the article that I've read, I found myself confused about what were individual honours and what were team honours.
 * " to regain the domestic championship..." Non-football-minded readers may not know what you mean by the "domestic championship".
 * "led to Wenger departing Monaco" → "led to Wenger's departure from Monaco"
 * "...winning the Emperor's Cup and the Japanese Super Cup" See fifth point, above, re the "...ing" form
 * "...became the first manager born outside Britain to win the league and FA Cup double". Is this particularly noteworthy? It was the team's performances that won the titles; why does Wenger's birth place matter?
 * "...before replicating the double achievement in 2002." Unnecessarily pompous. Why not "before repeating the league and cup double in 2002"?
 * "regained the league" → "regained the league title"
 * " Arsenal made their first appearance in a Champions League final in 2006, having gone 10 consecutive games without conceding a goal". What if anything is the relationship between these two facts?
 * "In 2012, the club qualified for a fifteenth successive season of Champions League football, after making their worst start to a season for 58 years." So their worst start for 58 years qualifies them for the Champion's League? That is how it reads; again, unrelated facts joined together in a single sentence. I imagine that they overcame the bad start and acjieved a high league position, but that's not obvious from what's written
 * Avoid dating things to "today", which is not a fixed point in time.
 * "sporting fair play" - is there such a thing as "unsporting fair play"?
 * Commentators" is a bit problematic in sports-related articles. I know what you mean, but it could be interpreted as meaning those people who provide radio and TV commentaries on matches, rather than experts.

That's really as far as I've got – though I couldn't help noticing that Aplhonse Wenger was sent to fight on the Eastern Front four years before Wenger was born. Since Wenger was born in October 1949, I'm wondering who Alphonse was sent to fight. I'd be a bit more specific about the date, here.

Brianboulton (talk) 19:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I reviewed this the first time it came through FAC and couldn't help but notice that it has gotten off to a rough start here. If no one minds, I'd like the opportunity to copy-edit whatever I can. The nominator took care of most of Brian's comments, and I just performed a deeper copy-edit. I think it looks better, but I'm biased because I did the work. :-) Please give me a few days before further editing here, as my college finals are more important than anything Wikipedia-related and I won't have time for the deep reading required. I promise to come back and attempt to improve the prose once school is over and I can relax a bit. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 03:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your meticulous review of the lead Brianboulton. Aplhonse was sent to fight in October 1944 and returned four years before Wenger was born, have clarified that now. As for comb over of the article, that would be great help Giants2008. Lemonade51 (talk) 14:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done
 * GBooks links don't need retrieval dates
 * FN35, 118: formatting
 * FN93, 110, 198 missing location
 * FN105 missing publisher. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Believe I have corrcted them, thanks. Lemonade51 (talk) 14:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Concerned – I had picked up on copy-editing the article when I decided to look at the Myles Palmer book on Google Books, to see if I was going too far away from the source. After performing a spot-check, I found is that the article has multiple sourcing issues just in the pages I looked at. Of particular concern are numerous instances of overly close paraphrasing, which leave me uncertain that continuing to copy-edit the article will be worthwhile:
 * Ref 9: "Alsace at that time was an area steeped in religion and the boys had to receive permission from their priest to go and play football because that meant missing vespers, the evening prayers." Article: "Alsace was an area steeped in religion, so Wenger and the village boys often needed to seek permission from the Catholic priest to miss vespers (evening prayers), in order to play football."
 * Slightly rejigged the sentence.


 * Ref 10: "The community was so small that it was hard to find eleven boys of similar age, so Arsene did not play team football until he was twelve." Article: "Because the population of Duttlenheim was small, it proved difficult to field a team of 11 players of equal ages; Wenger did not play team football until the age of 12."
 * Ref 10 doesn't say Wenger made 56 league appearances for Mulhouse.
 * Cited now


 * Ref 22 says Nancy finished 12th in Ligue 1 in 1984–85, but we support this article in claiming that they were 11th. Would be nice to get a source in there with the correct information.
 * Used the table off Ligue 1's website, which shows they finished 12th. Likewise the French Wikipedia has them down in the same position.


 * Ref 22: "and at the end of his second season they were eighteenth and had to win a play-off match to avoid relegation." Article: "However, the club ended the 1985–86 season in 18th position and had to win a play-off match to avoid relegation."
 * In the Aldo quote, the "with us" is not in the quoted sentence, but in the sentence following it.
 * Removed the 'with us' bit, I think I might have added it from a Daily Mirror interview by accident, but forgot to cite it.


 * Ref 24: "Mark Hateley was greatly encouraged to learn that another English player, Glenn Hoddle, would be playing with him." Article: "Striker Mark Hateley joined from Milan and was encouraged to hear his fellow Englishman Hoddle would be playing with him."
 * Quoted "greatly encouraged" in the article now.

Have addressed each point; I do apologise for the paraphrasing problems. When pushing this article for GAC and FAC, the 'Early life and playing career', 'Nancy and Monaco' and 'Approach and philosophy' were significantly expanded, so I guess I should have another fine look (probably later today) Lemonade51 (talk) 14:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * In addition to close paraphrasing, the part about him coming from Milan is on page 12, not 13 as indicated in the citation. On that page: "Mark Hateley joined Monaco from Milan in 1987...", as opposed to "Striker Mark Hateley joined from Milan..." in the article. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 03:25, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Regretful oppose: I really hate to do this, for I continue to think that this is an impressive piece of work. However, there are too many little things that give me pause for thought. I supported last time, but my biggest concern is over sourcing. At the last FAC, I noticed several sourcing problems: refs which did not support the text, a few possible cases of synthesis, and other cases where the meaning of the ref had been hammered out of shape in the text. While all of these issues were resolved at the previous FAC, I did suggest that further spot-checks were needed. Now that Giants has done so above, I think a very careful check of sourcing in general is required. In addition, the prose probably needs a further polish: although I copy-edited last time, Brianboulton has identified some issues (which I rather embarrassingly seem to have missed last time). For example, in the 2003-present section, I noticed "two comparatively average seasons" (not really encyclopaedic phrasing; maybe "less successful" or "comparatively less successful"), "which Wenger said was "vital" to the club's future, as it offered a bigger capacity then Highbury, thus generating more revenue to spend on players" ("as it offered a bigger capacity" is a little ponderous. Maybe something like "the increased capacity of which Wenger believed to be "vital" to the club's financial future...") and "Arsenal made an impressive start in the league" (impressed who? POV?). Nothing major, and certainly nothing a copy-edit would not fix. But like Giants, I am reluctant to do so without more reassurance over sourcing. I'm not quite sure of the best way forward here, but I would suggest that the nominator carefully checks every source. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:52, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for having a look at the article. I've had a dabble at copyediting and spend the entire weekend spotchecking sources, so hopefully your concerns have been addressed.


 * Oppose per sourcing and prose issues raised, it would be better to re-evaluate the sourcing off-FAC. And just glancing at the Table of Contents reveals deficiencies; there are mutliple sections with the same names, and differing date ranges (Nancy and Monaco: 1984–1994 but Nagoya Grampus Eight: 1995–96). Is the article using two digits or four on dates?  Redundant prose:  Mourinho later apologised and clarified that he regretted the "voyeur" comment; Wenger later accepted the apology.  Later, later.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 04:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:YEAR states Year ranges, like all ranges, are normally separated by an en dash, not a hyphen or slash: 2005–06 (unspaced) generally denotes a two-year range; 2005/06 may be used to signify a period of 12 or fewer months, such as a corporate or governmental fiscal year, if that is the convention used in reliable sources; sports seasons spanning two calendar years should be uniformly written as 2005–06 season. Lemonade51 (talk) 15:55, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You are misunderstanding: one instance uses two digits, the other four.  Either 1987–1994 and 1995–1996, or 1987–94 and 1995–96; not a mixture.  Consistency.  Also, please read the instructions at WP:FAC and avoid using templates (like the one that is greenifying your response).  Templates at FAC cause errors in the FAC archives when Template limits are exceeded; that's why the instructions ask that templates not be used.   Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:03, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Then I apologise, have changed to four digit. Lemonade51 (talk) 16:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Good, that was only one sample, and you haven't fixed all of it. You have multiple sections with the same names; section headings should be unique.  These were samples of problems apparent from the Table of Contents only; I agree with Sarastro1; the article is unprepared for FAC, and should be withdrawn for copyediting off-FAC.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:17, 17 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.