Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Early life of Ricky Ponting/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 not promoted by Karanacs 17:37, 2 March 2010.

Early life of Ricky Ponting

 * Nominator(s): — Aaroncrick  ( talk )   23:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Ricky Ponting is Australia's leading run-scorer and century maker in International cricket. This article documents Ponting's life — including his early First-class cricket career with Tasmania — up until his first International match in 1995. — Aaroncrick  ( talk )   23:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comments. What, an FAC with no images or illustrations of any sort? Surprising, but probably unavoidable here. No dab links, no dead external links. Ucucha 23:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There was an image of him when he was in his thirties; however, that that raised a query or two because of the fact that this documents his early life. — Aaroncrick  ( talk )   00:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - sorry. This is not FA standard. Much seems to have been taken from the main article, which is much better. The prose is often poor. This sentence from the Lead is a mess and is an example of many problems throughout the article. The eldest of three children, Ponting emulated the feats of his father, playing cricket in summer and Australian rules football in winter, before breaking his arm while playing the latter sport for a junior North Launceston Football Club team as a 14-year-old. There are too many facts crammed into too short a space. This gives rise to disjointed, non-professional prose that lacks logical flow. It is difficult to understand why a separate "Early Life" article is needed, let alone a featured one. He's only 35 for goodness sake! I cannot envisage this contribution achieving anything other than GA and would prefer it to be merged with its parent article, which shows much more promise. Graham Colm (talk) 19:34, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Oppose: I agree with Graham's comments. Here are a few of my own:-
 * I think the abrupt ending rather advertises that this article belongs more naturally within its parent—why was it thought necessary to create it separately?
 * As to the prose, apart from Graham's criticisms there is too much use of cricket-speak clichés like "he struggled to trouble the scorers" and "He eventually reached three figures", as well as sports journalese like "he bounced back".
 * There are also far too many verbatim quotations, which give the article a decidedly non-encyclopedic feel.
 * There is confusing, careless writing such as "Set 366 runs to win in 102 overs, Ponting joined Dene Hills at the crease with the score at 2/35." That reads as though Ponting himself was set 366 to win.
 * The term "crease" remains unexplained even though this was specifically raised by the peer reviewer.
 * Why is "Fiercely contested" in quotes, in the Birth section, and what is the relevance of the last sentence of this section to the early life of Ricky Ponting?

Brianboulton (talk) 22:33, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Oppose – A comparable FA exists: Early life of Keith Miller. That page has much more to say than this one, is a justifiable content split from what had been a massive main article, and had a defined endpoint. All three departments are lacking here. I know getting a major athlete to FA is very difficult, but this article is just too forky for me. Also, the comments above leave me concerned about the prose. The excessive use of quotes jumped out at me immediately, and almost strikes me as an attempt to make the article appear more substantial than it is, in terms of having its own entry.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 16:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.