Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Magic Johnson/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 User:SandyGeorgia 00:14, 28 May 2008.

Magic Johnson
This article was the Collaboration of the Month for WP:NBA, and after a lot of edits, I think it is ready to be a FA. Fire away. Noble Story (talk) 02:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Articlestats:
 * Chensiyuan 366
 * Downwards 84
 * Noble Story 81
 * Zagalejo 44
 * Onomatopoeia 44

Sandy Georgia (Talk) 21:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments
 * You list a number of english language printed biographies of MJ, but the main printed references used are in German? Certainly it's not an oppose, but wouldn't it make more sense to source things to the large numbers of English language works also?
 * Other sources look good. Links checked out fine. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The original editor who put in those references is no longer here, so I don't know why he did that. I'll work on replacing those refs; there aren't too many of them. Noble Story (talk) 02:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe he's German and he's still around WP, just not very frequently. Chensiyuan (talk) 03:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, I am the original editor of those "German" edits and still alive. When I kicked this article to GA level, those two German basketball books were my first sources of info. If you can substitute these bits, ok, if you keep them in, also ok. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 10:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Support -- one of the collaborators, but focused more on minor edits. Chensiyuan (talk) 03:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Support comparable to Yao Ming and Tim Duncan, both FAs in WP:NBA range. I did not work much for FAC, but I did a chunk of work for getting this article to GA. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 10:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Support -- agree with the above sentiments; comparable quality to that of the Tim Duncan and Yao Ming featured articles. Good referencing. Boomtish (talk) 11:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. Magic_Johnson has a broken ref in it somewhere.-Wafulz (talk) 16:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * done, I fixed the problem. —Chris! ct 18:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Support Great job to everyone who work very hard improving the article. —Chris! ct 17:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments - A very good article, but still some small issues.
 * Comment Surely those of you who have posted "support" thus far realize that this is not a vote, and have carefully compared this article to the featured article criteria before commenting? -- Laser brain  (talk)  00:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Those who have posted thus far are relatively experienced editors. I believe they have watched the progress of this article over the last year or so. Almost all of them have worked on FAs before so they would be aware of the criteria. Chensiyuan (talk) 01:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I know this is not a vote - sorry if my comment above sounds like a vote. —Chris! ct 02:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Just adding a reminder of the instructions at WP:FAC:  If you have been a significant contributor to the article before its nomination, please indicate this.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 21:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I do believe all had indicated beforehand, and since Downwards is not in the mix, this notice is otiose. Chensiyuan (talk) 01:17, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This is really nit-picky, but should the MVP awards be reversed? Many would consider a regular season MVP to be of greater importance. I see the same thing later with All-Rookie and NBA All-Star starter. It just seems strange to me that the seemingly more important honor comes second. Is this a standard?
 * You have a point, but the NBA Wikiproject members are still in the midst of deciding how to standardise the look of the infoboxes. There is no fixed standard yet, it's a work in progress.
 * I meant the text, not the infobox. While I'm here, "both an All-Rookie and NBA All-Star starter" is somewhat misleading, because he didn't start a game as an All-Rookie selection. I'd suggest rewording this. Giants2008 (talk) 00:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * NBA 50 Greatest Players. Should NBA be plural?
 * How about 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, which is the actual name of the article.
 * "remains the NBA's all-time leader in that statistical category." Is statistical really needed? It almost seems redundant.
 * Never mind. I saw another FAC that uses this phrase, so I guess it is an accepted form, although I wouldn't describe it like that myself. Giants2008 (talk) 00:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "which he made public in 1991, and which caused him to retire temporarily." Two uses of "which" here. Try this: "causing him to retire temporarily."
 * Plausible enough.
 * Michigan State University: Change TV to television.
 * Done. Noble Story (talk) 02:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "Johnson again led Michigan State to the 1979 NCAA Tournament" reads like they played in it twice. Moving a couple words should fix this.
 * Del'd "1979" but the piped link remains.
 * Link Most Outstanding Player.
 * Didn't realise there was an article for this, thanks for pointing out.
 * Rookie season in the NBA: Another nit-pick, but was Gail Goodrich really a star? He was a very good player, but star may be pushing it. Just describing his position would be safer.
 * 5-time All-Star and Hall of Famer, not too shabby!
 * "to win against the San Diego Clippers" "To defeat" is cleaner.
 * Yes, I suppose.
 * team mates is a term I've seen used in different forms. Should this have a dash or be combined into one word?
 * The online dictioaries I've checked have it as one word. So, I think we should keep it that way. Noble Story (talk) 02:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "and with Paul Westhead replacing coach McKinney as a coach after a serious bicycle crash,".
 * Del'd. Have to run, would return later or maybe some other editor can address the remaining points. Chensiyuan (talk) 00:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "suffered in Game 5" could be "during Game 5". Giants2008 (talk) 22:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think Chensiyuan and I have covered everything. Noble Story (talk) 02:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I left a note after my first comment, so make sure to check that. Here are more criticisms.
 * Johnson returned before the start of 1981 playoffs" The 1981 playoffs.
 * "In Game 1 of that series, Johnson made a halfcourt buzzer-beater to force the game into overtime, but the Rockets won the game and closed out the series 2–1, with the road team winning each game by six points or less." This statement needs serious work. There are four games in this sentence, and the middle should be "eventually closed out" or similar. This is also a borderline run-on sentence, with a lot of different thoughts jammed in.
 * Ups and downs: Link Jerry Buss
 * "even by the Lakers fans." Either remove the or add an apostrophe to Lakers.
 * Rivalry with Larry Bird and the Celtics: Try this for the first two sentences: "Boston Celtics forward Larry Bird, Johnson's rival from the 1979 NCAA championship game. After winning the 1980 NBA Rookie of the Year Award, Bird led the Celtics to the 1981 NBA title."
 * "Johnson had another all-round season" seems like it's missing a descriptive word, like fine, strong or solid.
 * Kevin McHale missed his shot" is a factual error; he missed a pair of free throws.
 * "another two gaffes" could be "two more gaffes" but this is personal preference.
 * Game 7: "and the series was over" is an odd transition. I like ", effectively ending the series."
 * 1984-85: Comma after regular season, before a citation that currently isn't after punctuation.
 * "as they were defeated 148–114 on Memorial Day in Game 1" Don't like the order of this. Swap some of it around. Giants2008 (talk) 00:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Done (except for Buss link, which was already linked in the rookie section). Noble Story (talk) 02:03, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Can we make the Twin Towers link go to the sports section of the article? I must say, it's a bit strange now to see this old nickname. It reminds me of 9/11.
 * Repeat and falling short: "After splitting the first six games 3–3" Redundant. What other way would they be split evenly? Also mention Game 7 in the next sentence.
 * Is Magic's first All-Star MVP award worthy of mention?
 * HIV announcement and Olympics: Link AIDS.
 * Comma after Karl Malone.
 * Post-Olympics and later life: "Johnson purchased a share of his Lakers" Technically, they weren't his Lakers until he bought them. I get what this means, but I think it can be worded better.
 * Personal life, last sentence of first paragraph: A lot of ands here.
 * Grammar error: "and he has served as a United Nations Messengers of Peace." Giants2008 (talk) 00:17, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Some comments I'll add them as they come to mind:


 * Since then, he has been a crusader for HIV/AIDS prevention and safe sex, as well as a philanthropist for social causes.
 * Is "crusader" the best word to use? And what specific "social causes" are we referring to?
 * I've changed to "advocate" and just "philanthropist". Noble Story (talk) 05:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Advocate is good. But is there really a difference between being an advocate for certain causes and being a philanthropist? What sort of things do you specifically have in mind when you call Johnson a philanthropist, and how are they different from his safe sex/AIDS awareness activities? Zagalejo^^^ 05:31, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * In other words, advocacy and philanthropy are not mutually exclusive.Zagalejo^^^ 07:28, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * A general point: we use the term "Showtime" throughout the article, but we don't really explain what it means until the legacy section. We should probably discuss the topic earlier. Zagalejo^^^ 00:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It used to be. Lost in a heap of edits. Thinking of how to avoid repetition. Chensiyuan (talk) 01:10, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm finding this edit to be challenging. Any takers? Chensiyuan (talk) 13:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Johnson was still voted into the 1992 NBA All-Star Game, although his former teammates Byron Scott and A.C. Green said that Johnson should not play...
 * Does anyone have exact quotes of what Scott and Green said? This is for my curiosity more than anything else. Were they respectful toward Johnson, or real snarky?
 * The source used (Sports Illustrated article) don't have any quotes, so sorry. Noble Story (talk) 11:22, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it's likely their exact quotes are available somewhere. Might be good to dig them up. Zagalejo^^^ 02:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This article has some interesting quotes.--Crzycheetah 09:45, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * How did other players react to Johnson's 1996 comeback? I'm sure there's lot to say about that. That would be more interesting to readers than simple statistics.
 * Just one sentence about The Magic Hour? A brief description of the show wouldn't hurt.
 * Johnson's admission and subsequent campaigns publicized a risk of infection that included everyone.
 * "publicized a risk of infection" is awkward. Isn't there a more straightforward way of saying this?
 * However, his appearances were not without controversy, as some felt his message of safer sex was risky..
 * Elaborate? What did they want -- abstinence-only education, I presume?
 * Well, now that part has been deleted. But I think this could be worth mentioning, if we can figure out exactly what they were opposed to. The article is a bit skimpy on the HIV-awareness stuff. Zagalejo^^^ 17:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I should note that these comments are not meant to be comprehensive. I still haven't even read the entire article yet, and I haven't read any specific section more than twice. The way things are going, I think I'll cast my vote for oppose, but I'll continue to provide commentary until the FAC is over. Zagalejo^^^ 17:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak support has improved considerably since its GA days but it lacks a "wow" factor somewhat. Well done nonetheless. Manderiko (talk) 14:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Mind...expanding on that a bit? Any particular concerns would be welcome. Noble Story (talk) 14:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It's comprehensive and well-referenced, yes, but see criterion 1a of "brilliant" and "engaging" prose. Even now, it's a very stats/awards-based sort of article, as the GA editor had remarked some time back. He is "Magic" Johnson after all, but this article does not fully convey that feeling. Manderiko (talk) 03:27, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Okaaay, thank you for your comments. But still, any specific instances to point to? Noble Story (talk) 03:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think his comments mean that seeking specific instances would be chimerical. Chensiyuan (talk) 04:32, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I do think there are a lot of ultra-specific statistics that may not mean much to the average reader. Like, "He also joined Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson as the only NBA players to score at least 700 points, 700 rebounds and 700 assists in the same season." (That example is also syntactically screwy - you don't score rebounds or assists.) Zagalejo^^^ 17:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That he recorded 700x3 per se is not immediately impressive, but the fact that only two other players have done it is impressive even from an ordinary reader's perspective. Of course, the NBA does take stock of all manner of weird records, but 8 rebounds/8 assists per game is quite something. Chensiyuan (talk) 13:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose, a casual look reveals many problems indicating a lot of work is left to do before this is at FA quality. I wish you had heeded Chensiyuan's talk page comment "Perhaps a fresh pair of eyes can give a 3p opinion before we go for it. A bunch of us have been too involved and may have missed something." before listing. Suggest withdrawing to peer review to deliniate issues and get a strong copyeditor to go through the text. Some issues this fails on:
 * 1a (prose): The prose is quite rough in many places and problems are easily spotted (ex. "After his retirement, Johnson engaged himself in many activities, including, among other things..." This was the second sentence I read at random; "including" and "among other things" are redundant. "Johnson is also well-known for having HIV, which he made public in 1991, causing him to retire temporarily."  He made HIV public?)
 * 1b (comprehensiveness): Where is all the information about his treatment for HIV and about how he's not, you know, dead? I remember reading tons of stuff in the media about his high-priced treatments, speculation that he was cured, etc.
 * 2b (structure): Two different "Rivalry with Larry Bird" headings? -- Laser brain   (talk)  16:00, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose for now. Sorry, but this seems a bit stir-fried.  There is one paragraph about HIV activism and one sentence about the Magic Johnson Foundation (no, there's no separate article for it, and 14,800 references to the phrase on Google, which means there's a comprehensiveness problem here...).  Then there's a section entitled Legacy dealing with that he was a point guard in some kind of formation, had a rivalry with Larry Bird, and received honors as one of 50 great players, only the last of which is vaguely resembling a legacy and not nearly the kind of legacy as having a foundation named after you that goes on trying to cure disease.  I'm not covering the whole article here but there's already enough there to send you back to the drawing board for a while, plus all the other stuff above. Wnt (talk) 02:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment—I ask the Director to disregard the raft of drive-by "voting" at the top. This is directly opposed to the purpose and process of FAC. Oppose—Not written to the required professional standard. The reasons given at the top for the nomination were feeble, and this is born out by the quality of the article. Here are just a few random examples.
 * "Throughout his career, his friendship and rivalry with Boston Celtics star Larry Bird were well documented, with the Lakers and Celtics winning eight NBA championships between them in the 1980s." The causality is quite unclear—just why eight wins underpinned their friendship and rivalry is beyond me. Hyphenate "well documented". Another "noun plus -ing" glitch: "with the Lakers and Celtics winning eight NBA championships". Please see exercises in fixing this here.
 * "27–1 win-loss record"—surely "win-loss" should also have an en dash.
 * "Although Johnson was recruited by top-ranked colleges such as Indiana and UCLA, Johnson decided to play close to home."—Including means you're not giving us the full list. Which others? And "recruiting" just doesn't make sense: do you mean that they attempted to recruit him?
 * To be fair, "recruit" can mean "seek to enroll" . Though maybe that particular usage is unique to the United States. Zagalejo^^^ 17:28, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "During his sophomore season"—getting lost; can you insert a year every now and again, and then "afterwards" might be replaced by something a little more formal.
 * "he learned to share the ball better"—isn't there better wording for this? You know, sports commentary on television is such a sophisticated art nowadays that we can't get away with inferior prose in a place like this.
 * "1982-83 NBA season"—Move that linked article so it has an en dash, or pipe it here with an en dash. Same for the others. Oh, those articles do have en dashes in their titles: what's going on?
 * "Johnson teamed up with his treating physician"—what else would she do but treat him. Remove "treating".

Plus much more. Needs a new collaborator to straighten it out; should be promoted, but not until cleaned up. TONY  (talk)  11:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Note I have completed a major rewrite, which, I hope, has been able to address the concerns posted above. Perhaps it won't be enough to save this particular FAC, but I hope it's a step in the right direction. Noble Story (talk) 12:48, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you asked Opposers to re-evaluate? Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 05:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm still opposing. It doesn't seem like all of my comments have been addressed. Zagalejo^^^ 05:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Did I any miss any? Which ones did I not get? Noble Story (talk) 07:08, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I've crossed off the issues that have been resolved. Zagalejo^^^ 07:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I'll get to those shortly. Noble Story (talk) 08:11, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I've fixed all the things you pointed out, except for the quotes from Scott and Green. There are no quotes anywhere, and I think it's ok without them. By the way, do you think you could use hide to collapse the fixed comments, and leave the ones not addressed outside? That might make the navigation a little easer. Noble Story (talk) 11:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Noble Story, no one has addressed my comprehensiveness concern above, although the prose and organization are improved. -- Laser brain  (talk)  17:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * If there are no exact quotes anywhere, then it's probably not worth mentioning their comments at all. But I suspect there is something available from old newspapers.
 * I've used the hide function for some of my remarks. But remember that that wasn't meant to be a comprehensive list. Zagalejo^^^ 18:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.