Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Compulsory figures/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 archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 08:16, 22 December 2018.

Compulsory figures

 * Nominator(s): Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:35, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

This article is about compulsory figures in figure skating, the now-defunct discipline from which the sport gets its name. This is my first FAC in about three years, and my first article about figure skating I've submitted here, despite not living up to my username before now. I believe that it's now ready for FA-ship. I look forward to any and all suggestions for improvement; specifically, ways in which I, as a non-skater, can describe, summarize, and paraphrase more effectively. It's an interesting topic, foundational to the sport of figure skating. Thanks for your input. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:35, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Image review


 * Don't use fixed px size


 * Suggest adding alt text. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:40, 18 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Both done. Didn't add alt to the images of the gallery of figures, since they're self-evident/difficult to describe. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 13:46, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Source review –
 * All of the references appear to be to reliable enough to meet the FA criteria. One of the books is an older one (from 1915), but that is mainly being used for the author's own opinions and not for any controversial aspects.
 * Oh, The Art of Skating is such a find! It was written very early in the history of figure skating as a sport, so it gives great background to how things were done back then.  Since compulsory figures is defunct now, there's not a lot of high-quality sources out there about it, especially rules and regulations.  It's a seminal source we had to use.  As a skating fan/nerd, I found it highly interesting.


 * In reference 9, are the three extra zeros in p. D00025 really needed? If I'm not mistaken, the typical formatting of this would be p. D25, without the extra numbers. Otherwise, the cites are well-formatted.
 * Thanks. I believe the 0s is a New York Times convention, at least in their paper edition back in the 90s.  That's how they cite the page number, at the bottom of the article.


 * The link-checker shows no issues.
 * Spot-checks of refs 4, 9, 10, and 11 revealed several issues:
 * A sentence is quite close to the source. Ref 9: "The International Skating Union voted yesterday to drop compulsory figures from men's and women's singles in international figure-skating starting in July 1990." Article: "In 1988, the ISU voted to drop compulsory figures from men's and women's single skating in international figure skating competitions, starting in the 1990–1991 season." While this is the only troublesome instance I found, it would be nice to reword this so the phrasing isn't so similar.
 * The challenge for me, as a non-skater, in editing these articles is that I can never be sure if my paraphrase is accurate. Plus, it's difficult to vary some of the language in the sources, since there are only so many ways to say that figures were dropped in 1990.  But those are high-level skills, which I should have at this point, so thanks for the catch.  I hope that others see little examples of this kind of thing, though. ;)


 * Ref 10 doesn't say that Hill finished third in the U.S. nationals figures competition. This archived page and our article say she tied for third.
 * Added source, thanks for the catch.


 * Very minor point, but in the first usage of ref 11 the author's name could be introduced here, as that sentence is a prediction of the author, not just the paper. Bear in mind that a mention of the author's name later in the article may need to be modified.
 * Ok, added Harvey's name to the 1st ref 11 (now ref 12) use.


 * I don't see anything supporting the sentence on the 1983 European Championships having a six-hour compulsory figures session in ref 11, unless I'm missing it. Was that in another ref?
 * It was in the German mag. Added it back in, thanks for the catch, again.


 * One general point related to the cites is that some inline refs appear out of numerical order. Many of the style checkers like to see them in numerical order, so it may be worth changing the order, although I wouldn't hold up the source review over the point.
 * I put them in order of the sourcing. If a sentence is supported by 2 refs, I put the refs either in order of where they come in the sentence, even if they're out of order numerically, or I put the source that supports most of the statement (as in this case).  For example, this sentence in the Early history section: "After World War II, more countries were sending skaters to international competitions, so the ISU cut the numbers of figures to a maximum of six due to the extended time it took to judge them all.[6][3]:p. 82"  Ref 6 supports the entire statement, but ref 3 only supports the info about cutting the numbers of figures to six.  Then this sentence, in the Demise section: "The last two seasons compulsory figures were competed at an international competition were in 1989 and 1990; only two figures were skated and they were worth only 20 percent of the competitors' overall scores.[6][3]:p. 86"  (Ironically, both examples use the same two sources.)  Both sources support the statement, but ref 6 does it more strongly, so I put it first.  All that being said, though, if you or anyone else want me to put the refs in numerical order, I can.
 * Fair enough. I won't hold up a review over the point, although other reviewers may also bring it up. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 23:16, 27 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The method of providing the page numbers for books in-text is an older one, but it is done consistently. I've seen complaints about this method before, but as far as I'm concerned it passes the FA criteria, which call for consistent cites and verifiability. The points from the spot-checks are where the attention should be here. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 02:45, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I appreciate that. I play around with how page numbers are done.  Up until this summer, when I started working on figure skating articles, I put the books in a Bibliography section and created a separate ref for each page in the source used in the article, although that forced readers to scroll down to the bibliography.  I've never liked linking the ref to the source in a Works cited section, although it's slightly better because it requires a click to look at source and not a scroll, but I never liked it aesthetically.  Providing the page numbers in-text is easiest for the reader, I think, although for sources that are used a lot (like this one: Single skating), it's not very pretty.  I think that the solution is to do a combination; when a source isn't used much (like in this article, although I get it that using Kestnbaum 20 times can be considered a lot) we should use the in-text method and for articles like Single skating, we should use the other methods.  But I'm willing to follow the advice of reviewers. Giants, thanks for the kind and helpful review.Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 04:55, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
 * With the fixes above, I'd say that this article has passed its source review. I did see a couple of copy-editing issues in relation to the edits, but I'll handle them myself. Best of luck with the rest of the FAC. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 23:16, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Awesome. Thanks so much. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 12:52, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Coord note -- With no activity since last month, I'm afraid this nom has well and truly stalled, so I'll archive it shortly. Because of the lack of general commentary (welcome though early image and source reviews are) I'd have no objection to waiving the usual two-week waiting period before a re-nom, though I'd suggest you might be better off waiting until the New Year to bring it back. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:16, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 08:16, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.