Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hampshire County Cricket Club/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 SandyGeorgia 18:13, 24 October 2009.

Hampshire County Cricket Club

 * Nominator(s): HampshireCricketFan (talk) 22:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because...


 * It is the most comprehensive page on an English County Championship team.
 * It covers most of the key historical points surrounding the club, from it's early pre-formation years with the Hambledon Club, through to when it was awarded first-class status (twice) and takes in the history of the 20th century and most recent in the 21st century.
 * It is well researched and referenced. With exception to the clubs pre founding in the 1770's which has been lost to history.
 * It has some of the most comprehensive statistics to be found on any domestic cricket team page on the whole of wikipedia

HampshireCricketFan (talk) 22:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Comments Mainly technical stuff. --an odd name 23:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Not liking the separate "Hampshire Facts and Feats" "trivia" section. The two facts could easily be integrated into the article, and I might do that soon.
 * Consider changing the URLs in publisher fields in citations into actual publisher names. (Thankfully, the citation date formats are consistent.)
 * I don't like the uses of "we"; I changed one of those uses as an example.

Oppose: Sorry, this article is quite unready for FAC and should not have been brought here at this stage. I appreciate that it has a lot of useful information in it, but it is nowhere near to meeting the featured article criteria. Of the many issues that need addressing, here are just a few examples:-
 * The lead section needs to be rewritten as a proper summary of the article, per WP:LEAD. It should not be a miscellany of minor facts. And do we really need to be told that Hampshire County Cricket Club represents the county of Hampshire?
 * There are at least two major published histories of the club (Arlott/Altham and Peter Wynne-Thomas). Why is neither used as a source for this article?
 * What criteria did you use to list some players as "notable"? For example, Cardigan Connor, a West Indies test player who is evidently the county's leading List A wicket taker, is not listed, while Dominic Thornley, whoever he might be, is.
 * Prose: needs lots of attention (unnecessary cricketspeak, "it's" for "its" etc)
 * MOS: unformatted on-line references, numbers under ten written numerically, etc

I could go on and on, but the best advice I can give is withdrawal, then (after further work) over to peer review for some serious article-building. I do apologise if this sounds harsh, but please remember that featured articles should be examples of Wikipedia's "very best work". There is no reason why this article shouldn't become exactly that in time, but there's a lot to be done meantime. Brianboulton (talk) 00:00, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Object Undue weight on the last 10 years (more than the 20th century) and also the 20th century section is quite skimpy. Even then half the 20th century section is for 1979-2000. Also, between 1922 and 1961, the only information is about an individual record and nothing about the club. Also, cites go before the punctuation among other things  YellowMonkey  ( bananabucket ) 04:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Very surprised to see this here and I would disagree strongly with the view that this page is "is the most comprehensive page on an English County Championship team". Nowhere near: see Yorkshire, for example. What strikes me immediately is far too many redlinks and an emphasis on statistics, which I detest, rather than on text. One of the greatest feats by this club was its championship title in 1961 but where is the coverage of that? I disagree with Brianboulton above about his recommended sources, although to use anything by Arlott is fine but by no means essential. Jack | talk page 04:58, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Further comment. Having just read the article again after it appeared in my watchlist, I must strongly agree with YM above that its main failing is that has fallen into the recentism trap and I have tagged it accordingly. You would think Hampshire is a 21st century club preceded by a few pioneers who dabbled in cricket during past centuries and are worth a cursory mention.  The bulk of an article like this must be about the club's history, but where is it?  Cases in point are players like Phil Mead and Derek Shackleton, far greater players than anyone the club has on its books at present, who are mentioned once each in the narrative and briefly at that.  Jack | talk page 03:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose - sorry, but this is not of FA quality. In addition to all the things pointed out above, there are entire sections (eg "other grounds") which are completely unsourced and lots of text issues (eg the section on May's Bounty doesn't mention the surely fairly significant detail of what town it's in!).  Suggest the nominator withdraws and slowly works the article up to genuine FA quality -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:41, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose I agree with the above, not nearly ready. I might even question if it is B class right now given the lack of references.
 * The lead needs to be expanded and copy edited - its prose is below the quality I would like to see in a FA. The rest of the article needs it also.
 * There are numerous citations placed before the punctuation, where they should be after it. In fact it appears that nearly all of them are before the punctuation.
 * Agree with above, expansion of the early history needed.
 * Great swathes of paragraph remain uncited.
 * What is the criteria for "notable players"? Hopefully not OR.
 * The records section is good
 * Hampshire Facts and Feats is essentially a trivia section and needs to be removed. The info needs distributing around the article.
 * A small number of the references aren't displaying as much info as they could, and one is just a url.

I don't know if you can snow a FAC, but I would recommend a good peer review before trying again. SGGH ping! 12:48, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose – Don't like piling on, but the unreferenced parts of the history section are enough on their own for me to oppose. These are the kinds of things that should be handled long before an FAC nomination, as are many of the comments from the other reviewers. To offer a comment unique from those of everyone else, the images should have alt text.  Giants2008  ( 17–14 ) 23:14, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Dabs; please check the disambiguation links identified in the toolbox. There are also a few dead links. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:54, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.