Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Paul Collingwood


 * 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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 03:45, 3 March 2007.

Paul Collingwood
Worked on by a devoted cadre of editors, (User:The Rambling Man probably put in the most time and effort) and thoroughly referenced, peer reviewed and copy edited, this has been a wonderful example of how a collaboration can take a B class article onwards and upwards in a very short time. We are hoping to secure FA status in time for the start of the Cricket World Cup. --Dweller 13:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Support - I was asked to copyedit this at a late stage (yesterday) - and no doubt infelicities remain - but I think this is pretty close to the definitive article on a modern cricket player. Again, it would be particularly welcome if editors who are not cricket afficionados can review this to tell us what needs further explanation or clarification. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Support. Despite my inability to grasp the finer details of the sport, I've tried my best to understand cricket in the past. From what I know, this article seems to be a damn good cricket article. My only question is why you wikilink Cricinfo in some places and not others, and why you don't wikilink things like BBC Sport. Thanks,  JHMM13  17:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment good point, on oversight... I'll look into it immediately! The Rambling Man 18:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment hopefully fixed and consistent now! The Rambling Man 18:33, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Support - So much work has gone into this, and with few cricket FA's and the world cup coming up, we could do with some. к1иg f1$н £я5ω1fт 18:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Support well-written, well-referenced article. Great work.--Eva b d  18:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose at the moment. It seems very comprehensive and is surprisingly readable considering the vast amount of jargon and statistics necessary. However, there is a lack of consistency with spelling out numbers, the date format, and linking (for example Sri Lanka mentioned five times, linked three, Durham lots of mentions, linked once, Twenty20 linked every time). I found the lead tough going: introducing ODI as a term without explanation or a link, combined with some trivia that is not mentioned in the rest of the article, and a mention of "latter matches" which takes some working out (I assume that refers to the ODIs?) Why is natural athlete in quotation marks? There is also some language in the rest of the article that sounds like it belongs on the sports pages: "starred with the bat", "sprayed wide by Steve Harmison" (can you spray a ball?). Fix those and I'll support. Yomangani talk 23:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I did copyedit once, you know :) We will have to tighten up the areas you have mentioned.


 * I had assumed that the "natural athelete" was a quote from the cited source, but we should confirm.
 * Sri Lanka is linked to three different places (the team once, and two different tours)
 * Twenty20 is mentioned several times but only linked twice (perhaps one is enough?)
 * there are links to the city of Durham, County Durham, and Durham CCC - do you think we need more Durham links?
 * "Sprayed" is a common description of Harmison's performance (although spraying one delivery - the first ball - would be difficult without getting quantum)
 * Having checked again, I think the numbers are reasonably consistent - more than 10 in numerals, less than 10 spelled out (except for compounds like "2-1" and "number 5").


 * Anyway, I have made some tweaks. -- ALoan (Talk) 00:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

"Natural athlete" is a quote from the reference - it's the first words of Cricinfo's profile of Collingwood (below the stats). Thanks for the excellent review Yomangi; clear and precise. --Dweller 05:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I fixed some more number inconsistencies - I think they are all OK now. I didn't notice the Sri Lanka links were to different places, so it isn't as bad as I thought, but there are still inconsistencies in linking. Each subject should probably be linked once or every time, but not twice in two lines and then not linked elsewhere. The lead is clearer now, but the info about his shirt number is trivia that doesn't belong there. Yomangani talk 01:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Shirt number information hidden. Agreed, it's tacky and not particularly useful, as he's not beholden to it and spectators can see his name on his shirt in ODIs anyway. --Dweller 05:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It's getting better. With regard to readability by non-cricket fans, I'm not a fan and I don't find it particularly hard to follow. It's hard to strike a balance between the dummies guide to cricket and an article on a cricketer, and I think you have it about right. My remaining problems: Harmison is still spraying that first ball wide (I would have fixed it but I don't understand it, I assume he is bowling?), and on a second reading I noticed that we don't get to know the effect of the "sledging" by Warne in the Fifth Test (I was sidetracked by the link the first time): it doesn't even give Collingwood's score for that test. Yomangani talk 10:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've rephrased the spray - yes, it did mean bowling well wide so rephrased it accordingly. I've also added in that Colly had a mediocre Fourth Test while Warne made a very tidy 70-odd with some impressive boundaries...The Rambling Man 10:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Support All my objections have been addressed and the added comparison between the performance of the "sledger" and "sledgee" is a nice touch. Yomangani talk 11:03, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Firstly the article is POV. It has sections focussing on 05/06 when he was batting better and skips through most of his time in the early years, only elaborating on good performances, compared to other cricketers which have all tours mentioned equally. Secondly the nominator seems to have a conflict of interest, hoping to get the page posted for the cricket world cup, which is clearly POV to the english team (why Collingwood and not a more famous world renowned out-side of cricket cricketer?). I believe the majority of this article is unnecessary detail. There is a literally a section for each tour he has undertaken from 05/06. This is rediculous given that over the career of a cricket player these tours are common. By the time Collingwood retires if this level of detail was still in the article it would be about 20 or 30 times as big as it is now. It is unlikly to even be stable considering the world cup and tours that will take place over march to june, so unless it is FA in the next week it will most definatly be UNSTABLE and a reporting on current events.--Dacium 03:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The concerns you raise in the first sentence will be addressed. The rest is less relevant. The reason why Collingwood was selected is not important and its future stability is mere speculation (he could retire tomorrow, for all we know) and is a reason to deny any living person's bio. For what it's worth, Adam Gilchrist (an Australian) is already receiving the same treatment and Harbhajan Singh (India) is next in the queue. --Dweller 05:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Support Oppose -- 1. Personal life needs to be expanded. 2. Still needs a copyedit by a person not very familiar with cricket to remove weasel adjectives 3. Convert hyphens to dashes (&amp;ndash;) =Nichalp   «Talk»=  04:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks - What more personal life information is needed? He's a pretty quiet guy and his personal life is pretty nn. 2 is a great idea - one of the reasons we went to peer review. If you can list any weasel adjectives, that'd be helpful. Is 3 a requirement; useful to know, that can easily be changed. --Dweller 05:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 1. Parents' names. Early childhood, if he has an alternate career. Shane Warne has a bit more on his personal life. 3) Yes it is a requirement. See WP:DASH. Regards,  =Nichalp   «Talk»=  07:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Colly's a professional cricketer so, no, no alterative career, father's name in there now, plenty of talk about pre-professional career as well. The Rambling Man 08:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've changed all the hyphens to –'s where appropriate, obviously not in hyperlinks or wikilinks, but everywhere else, hope this satisfies your concern over WP:DASH. Thanks. The Rambling Man 08:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I still feel the personal life bit is too short. I found a reference which could expand the section.  =Nichalp   «Talk»=  09:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Personal life expanded a bit more now to incoporate your source, thank you. There really isn't much more to say, his early life is pretty unremarkable, it's his recent few years of outstanding form that's the major driver in this article I think. The Rambling Man 10:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The sentences in the paragraph are too choppy unfortunately for me to support. It needs to flow better. ALoan might be able to help out with the flow perhaps. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  11:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Choppiness hopefully removed, more information added. The Rambling Man 13:18, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm still not happy with the flow in the text in quite a number of places. I'll probably step in tomorrow and make the changes. For example, the starting few words of a section look like they have been continued from the previous section, which is bad style. He subsequently kept his place; Upon this newfound success -- =summer of breakthroughs= is also on the poetic side. Collingwood toured with England to Pakistan and India in 2005–06. He played in the... -- choppy. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  16:21, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right, the chances are the paragraphs have been moved from one section to another without their flow being checked. It would be great if you could make the changes you're looking to see, if you have time.  The Rambling Man 16:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've made a few more changes in accordance with your latest comments. Thanks again The Rambling Man 16:35, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I've removed my oppose vote. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  18:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Minor Oppose What's with these blank columns and rows in the tables of his stats. Buc 07:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it's down to seperating the rows and columns, but we can easily have a look at alternatives (e.g. removing these blanks). The Rambling Man 08:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Blanks removed. The Rambling Man 08:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment I would like the lead to give more of an evolution of his career, like explain when he first played 1st class, and then move onto when he broke into international cricket and became a regular. At the moment, I guess his career hasn't been that long (in Tests), but it sort of just states the CB series out of the blue. I think the numbering of his order in playing for England is too unimportant for the first bit. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've moved the numbering out into the main body of text in the appropriate locations for each style of debut The Rambling Man 08:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added details of when he debuted at each level of cricket in the lead. The Rambling Man 09:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)''


 * Support and Comment. As someone who is a fan of this man and someone who has kept the page somewhat decent shape before the Extreme Makeover, everyone else who helped are all complete stars. --209.90.173.40 08:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Excellent cricketer article and well refereed; 104 refs...This is FA...--Thugchildz
 * Support It's a very good article.  — N o b l e e a g <font color="#120ABA">l <font color="#12098A">e  <font color="#2015E3" size="0.2" face="Arial Narrow"> [TALK] <font color="#2015E3" size="0.2" face="Arial Narrow"> [C] 06:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose As mentioned above "Early and personal life" needs expantion, also can we not have a better title for it? Maybe "Domestic career" could be expaned a little. Buc 07:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment you've opposed already by the way. Thanks for your comments. The Rambling Man 07:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll look to expand the domestic career section a bit, but really see not a lot of interest in expanding his personal life section. It's almost non-notable and pretty much covered in its entirety already. The Rambling Man 07:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Both sections expanded. The Rambling Man 16:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Very good article :) 131.111.195.8 01:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - I've been through this article a number of times and I feel it meets the criteria. Kudos to The Rambling Man and Dweller for polishing it so quickly. HornetMike 21:57, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * ''Comment Need to be some mention of the controversy surrounding his MBE. Buc 14:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * There are a couple of mentions of this - eg There was some critical comment, that his limited role did not warrant the honour as he had played only in the Fifth Test and scored just 17 runs in 2 innings at the end of "Ashes 2005" - have you missed them, or do you think that they need to be expanded? →Ollie (talk • contribs) 15:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. I haven't had time to assess the article fully, but you have now changed too many hyphens to en dashes. Phrases such as "One-day International" should use simple hyphens. En dashes are used in number ranges. Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I wasn't convinced that use of en-dashes was truly sufficient to withold an article from becoming FA, but I'll re-assess WP:DASH and then re-assess the article. Thanks for your comment.  The Rambling Man 21:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Support Excellent cricketer article. Should be made an FA. Well done.--<font color="Blue">Eva <font color="Red">b <font color="Green">d  02:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * you've already voted. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Support, I believe this article meets my interpretation of WP:WIAFA.  Daniel.Bryant  03:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break
Are all objections properly addressed? I can't see any remaining, and Rambling Man has fixed the dashes that were incorrectly corrected! If there are outstanding concerns, please clarify - I think we're done. --Dweller 21:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Support A fine article on a fine cricketer. Includes everything I might want to know about the man without getting bogged down in trivia. One question: After the debacle of the Adelaide Test, did Collingwood not come in for criticism for failing to protect the English tail in the second innings?—DCGeist 01:39, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, he did, and it's a good point. I'm trying to find a citation that would support this so I can include it in the article.  Thanks.  The Rambling Man 08:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * He's criticised in a number of blogs but nothing that would count as a reliable source I don't think. If you can point me in the direction of a useful citation, that'd be great.  The Rambling Man 09:21, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, Peter English's wrapup on Cricinfo captures my experience of the match. But I find professional opinion was hardly unanimous: Andrew Miller's Cricinfo bulletin and Mike Selvey's Guardian post mortem are actually appreciative. Colly is one of my favorite players, but I think it's just mad to defend his performance on the occasion in question. Nonetheless...—DCGeist 10:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Great, I'll take a look at the sources you've provided and add some text about some discussion about this scenario. The Rambling Man 10:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added two ref's to the article, thanks for your help and good sourcing. The Rambling Man 11:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * A pleasure. Looks great. Best, Dan.—DCGeist 11:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Support - excellent article. A couple of points:
 * 1.One question from 'Early and Personal life' - can the reference to Shep be referenced? It stood out as lacking one [personally when I hear Shep in cricketing circles I think of David Shepherd anyway!] Also is there an indication on why he is called this - is it due to his fielding abilities?
 * Shep should be referenced in the Who's Who book. The Rambling Man 08:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 2. The reference to Jonty Rhodes came out of the blue without saying what Jonty is notable for (if I didn't know anything about cricket, I wouldn't know why this is, but I suppose I could just click on the link!). Am I also right in thinking that for FA, anything mentioned in the lead should be expanded elsewhere?
 * Quite so, moved reference to Jonty into the text and left the conept of Colly being a top class fielder in the lead. The Rambling Man 08:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 3. Could a reference to his injuries be added somewhere? I seem to remember his missing a lot of one recent domestic season with a fractured collar-bone, and another persistent knee injury (that is in article).
 * All minor points though. Well done to all.
 * No sign of a fractured collarbone, but he badly dislocated his shoulder, this is referred to in the article along with him missing most of the season The Rambling Man 08:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Mdcollins1984 23:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * RE: point 1 - both of these nicknames were referenced, but this seems to have been lost when the content was shifted a while ago. I'll look into this. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 23:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I think I have fixed this. Cricinfo lists "Colly", and I think that The Cricketer's Who's Who lists "Shep" - could whoever owns the book please check this? →Ollie (talk • contribs) 00:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It's me. I own the book and that's where it came from. I think it's quite funny and unusually ingenious for an English cricket nickname. --Dweller 09:45, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Certainly beats the usual surname+y (goughy, harmy, hoggy etc...) Mdcollins1984 00:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Support - Very interesting read! - KNM Talk 02:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Another break
I don't want to sound like an auctioneer, but "all done?" --Dweller 09:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Support--Dwaipayan (talk) 21:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I still support and everything, but I was just wondering whether Collingwood ever went on any England A tours? Or perhaps youth tours, although that'd be harder to find out. Oh, and actually whilst I think about it, was his call-up to the Sri Lanka test tour on which he made his debut the first test squad he was called up to? Should have thought of these when the peer review was on, really... HornetMike 00:43, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.