Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of Georgia Tech/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 15:16, 19 December 2012.

History of Georgia Tech

 * Nominator(s): Disavian (talk) 02:24, 13 November 2012 (UTC), Mistercontributer (talk) 01:31, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

This is the article I believe that I have worked the hardest on out of everything that I've edited. I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that I and co-nominator User:Mistercontributer have more than adequately addressed the largest objections raised in the previous FAC; most of the remaining objections when that FAC closed were coverage gaps and the impact of (inter)national events on the school's history.

I would also like to point out a few facts about the school that are true but were disputed in the last FAC (and likely to be questioned again): 1) the school integrated peacefully; 2) the school did not experience protests due to the Vietnam conflict. These are both backed up by statements and sources in the article.

I'm sure there are some MOS errors in the references, as usual. In particular, it looks like I need to convert some archivedates and accessdates from Month, Date, Year to yyyy-mm-dd ; with the exception of ref #165, which is generated by Template:Inflation-fn, which doesn't have a parameter for date format. I look forward to your feedback in improving the article. Thank you for your time, reviewers. Disavian (talk) 02:24, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and fixed the dates on the refs tonight and struck out my comment above. Disavian (talk) 04:42, 13 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment – I was going to offer a review for at least the sports-related section, but I was struck by the large number of primary sources that are being used here. Many refs are from websites related to the university, and even the Wallace book is from the Georgia Tech Foundation. Some primary sources are not a problem, but this is arguably an excessive amount for an FA. I'd like to see a rationale for the use of primary sources over secondary references before reviewing the article further. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 03:15, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I can see your point - much of the sourcing about the school is from sources that are at the very least tangentially related. Ideally, I'd pull more from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The source that I would estimate that I rely on the most is the McMath book, Engineering the New South, which I view as academically independent from the school; it covers controversies in a neutral manner and does a particularly good job of citing sources for its claims. I would also like to point out that The Technique, another source that I use rather liberally, is (generally) editorially independent from the school. If there are particular facts that you feel could use additional verification, I can certainly try to work on that; I'd estimate that much of the primary sourcing in the article supports non-controverisal information. Disavian (talk) 19:04, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Drive by Massive overlinking. Ignoring lead and captions, I got to 50 overlinks before I got bored with counting  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  17:56, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * For repeated wikilinks, try User:Ucucha/duplinks. Biosthmors (talk) 22:55, 19 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment. I haven't comprehensively checked the article, but the first place I went to (after noticing remaining duplicate links) was in the last paragraph of the History_of_Georgia_Tech section. I see statements like "very successful" and "The key victory in the streak was a huge 41-38 come from behind upset victory over then No.1 ranked Virginia in Charlottesville before a nationwide TV audience. Tech demolished Nebraska 45–21." I'm sure this win was critical for the season, but I get the impression that this paragraph is written with judgmental language instead of nonjudgmental language (see WP:YESPOV). Perhaps I'm being a bit biased because I know the author is a Georgia Tech alum. Thoughts? Biosthmors (talk) 18:15, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe that I copied that paragraph from Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football. I made a couple edits to clean up the POV. I do think that winning a national championship can be called "very successful", though. Disavian (talk) 19:27, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The first couple sentences of that paragraph strike me as odd. The timing of the football team's success is attributed to the tenure of the president instead of the head coach. Also, "The key victory in the streak was a 41-38 upset victory" states victory twice, uses a hyphen instead of an en dash, and I wonder when this victory occurred within the streak. Biosthmors (talk) 03:29, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Instead of key perhaps the word we're looking for is notable? It was (according to a the previous version, quoted by you) an upset over the then-#1 ranked team. How about: "The most notable game in the winning streak was a 41-38 upset over the #1-ranked 1990 Virginia Cavaliers football team" Disavian (talk) 01:10, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That sounds good. Biosthmors (talk) 13:01, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Implemented, diff. Disavian (talk) 19:32, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

 Oppose  – Sorry, but I'm finding a bunch of issues in the parts that I scanned through, which were not a large portion of the article. I'm getting the feeling that more preparation time would have been helpful, and don't think this meets the criteria.
 * Early years: "heard of Tech's football struggles and volunteered to player-coach the team." I'm not certain that we can use "player-coach" as an action the same way we can for "coach". The first word isn't an action, after all.
 * Is there another term for someone that is both a player and a coach of a sports team? Nothing is coming to mind. Disavian (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * You could try "serve as the team's player-coach", which will fix the verb-related issue. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 02:12, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Implemented, thanks. diff Disavian (talk) 01:53, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Score range of 28-6 needs an en dash.
 * Fixed (along with a couple other dash mistakes). diff. Disavian (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Blueprint should be italicized as a print publication.
 * D'oh. Fixed. diff Disavian (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Engineering school: More score and result ranges need en dashes here. The entire article could use a run-through, if this is any indication.
 * "The Tech football team noted a particular coach during their initial abysmal run; their first game of the 1903 season was a 73-0 destruction at the hands of John Heisman's Clemson Tigers." Forgetting for a second that the Tech football link is repeated from the previous section, the use of "abysmal" and "destruction" here is not encyclopedic.
 * This paragraph was removed. Disavian (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * With this done, you'll probably want to remove the "still coached by John Heisman" in the World War I section. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 02:12, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * World War I: Avoid the use of a contraction in "although the land wasn't adequate for sports".
 * Fixed. diff. Disavian (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * What is meant to be sourcing "Heisman moved to Pennsylvania, leaving Tech's Yellow Jackets in the hands of William Alexander."
 * Added a ref there. diff. Disavian (talk) 02:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Technological university: A bunch of overcapitalization here, between "National Title" (at least three times) and "Center".
 * That paragraph was removed. Disavian (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The "In 1927, Alexander instituted 'the Plan'" sentence is awkward, as we don't learn what the plan was until two sentences later.
 * This paragraph was removed. Disavian (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Restructuring controversy: Another capitalized "National Title" here.
 * This paragraph was removed. Disavian (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Modern history: The last couple of paragraphs resort to proseline, which is not optimal in terms of prose.
 * Overall, I feel like the article is trying to do too much, if you can understand that. It's very thorough, but I'm concerned that the different elements are not fitting together well. I'm primarily a sports reviewer and enjoy reading sports-related articles, but here the football-related parts feel thrown into every section or two, without regard for how they fit into the article as a whole. I also thought there was too much football-related content; if I wanted a whole history of the football team's highs and lows, I'd go read our article on the football team, which apparently has much of this content already.
 * While on the subject of sports, the men's basketball team has reached an NCAA Tournament final in the last 10 years, yet this isn't mentioned in the article. That's a surprising omission, if we're going to have this level of detail on sports teams in a college's history article. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 19:32, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with you on the inclusion sports history being a bit on the weird side, and I added much of that content on the suggestion of a reviewer in the last FAC. Due to your comments, I went ahead and removed sports history that did not directly affect the development of Georgia Tech and its culture - and basketball has never been particularly important, even when the team was doing particularly well. I'd like to strike a balance and include content most relevant to this article - readers can always consult Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets or Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football for more on those subjects. Anyway, thank you for your time reviewing the article, and I appreciate the feedback. Disavian (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Left a couple more suggestions above. I don't foresee having the time to review this further, so I'm dropping my opposition. I do think you should take on board Maralia's suggestion to drop some details, as I thought the article was overloaded in places. Also, you could reintroduce something on the 1990 national championship, as that is important enough to warrant at least a brief mention. Maybe subsequent cuts will leave enough room for this to be added back. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 02:12, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Maralia: I started with a copyedit of two sections, and felt I should stop there to let you review. The writing is fine, but I think some details need to be let go in the interest of clarity. I don't recall ever seeing a university article brought to FAC with no image galleries; you are absolutely to be commended on that count. Some images do need size tweaks (the |upright parameter), though, and sections of the article are rather difficult to read due to the sandwiching of text between two images or between an image and a quote box. I'll give you some time to look over my changes to the first two subsections and let me know what you think. One question: Why do you use "Samuel N. Inman" when the linked article is Samuel M. Inman? Will be watching here for replies. Maralia (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I probably linked to the name of the Inman article as it first existed. Note that the article was moved from one name to the other. I'll go ahead and correct his name throughout the article, good job noticing that. :) Disavian (talk) 21:20, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I also put in a move request on Commons for File:Samuel N Inman.jpg --> File:Samuel M Inman 1889.jpg. Disavian (talk) 21:27, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I just got a chance to look at your copyedits. I love them! I always appreciate a good copyediting. Thanks for your help :) Disavian (talk) 21:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I had to laugh when I read this—even people who appreciate copyedits rarely "love" them! Glad to hear you are on board with my efforts; will continue. Maralia (talk) 16:30, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I was a copy editor for The Technique for a decent amount of time, so I developed a deep appreciation for the art. I find it difficult to copyedit my own work, though - especially something I've been writing for years. Disavian (talk) 20:15, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Closing comment - Unfortunately, this FAC has become inactive and there is no consensus for promotion. Graham Colm (talk) 15:12, 19 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.