Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Winter Olympic Games/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 16:39, 18 May 2010.

Winter Olympic Games

 * Nominator(s): H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 21:44, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because this article has percolating for over a year now and has received several excellent reviews. I feel it meets the FA Criteria and so I submit it to the scrutiny of this process. I am so close to the article that it is difficult for me to see its shortcomings, consequently if the article has not reached FA standards then I look forward to your remarks so that I can improve it for future FA consideration. Thank you. H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 21:44, 26 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: no dab links or dead external links. --Nikkimaria (talk) 04:29, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: in the Early years section I think the sentences "Finnish and Norwegian athletes dominated the events" and "Fluctuating weather conditions made these Olympics memorable." need changing to remove the words dominated and memorable which are somewhat subjective terms. Same in 2002 to present where dominated is used twice. - Basement12 (T.C) 08:49, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the suggestions. I've switched out the subjective language per your comments.  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 16:21, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Images looking good, could these be alternated left and right to balance the article (as far as possible). Could File:Flag of Chinese Taipei for Olympic games.svg be reviewed to see if it a free image or a derived work of a non-free image, and thus in itself non free Fasach Nua (talk) 22:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I can certainly alternate the images to give a bit of balance to the look of the article. Regarding the Chinese Taipei flag, I'm not an image expert and so I will look for a facsimile that is free-use, if not I will delete.  Thanks.  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 22:29, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but images under third level headings are to be right aligned. I can't find the actual provision about this but I'm pretty sure that is the case.  So the one image that is under a second level heading has been moved to the left but the rest of the images are under third level headings and so I'll leave them right aligned.  If anyone out there has another insight on this I'll happily listen and make adjustments.  Regarding the Chinese Taipei flag, I see that it is released to the Public Domain but there is a tag about it being a national insignia and so may carry restrictions independent of copyright law.  I cannot find a substitute that would not carry this tag.  The image is not vital to the article and so if it would be deemed inappropriate to have it in the article I will delete it.  In the meantime I will look for a substitute.  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 23:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Support.
 * "The Winter Olympic Games is a winter multi-sport event held every four years. It consists of winter sports such as alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, figure skating, and ice hockey that are held on snow or ice. These sports along with Nordic combined, ski jumping, and speed skating have been part of every Winter Olympics since 1924"
 * I feel like it's awkward to split the events into two separate sentences. Additionally, I believe there could be a better opening sentence. Have you considered something like:
 * "The Winter Olympic Games is a winter multi-sport event held every four years, first done so in 1924. Consisting of winter sports, the games have included alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, figure skating, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and speed skating since the first games."
 * I just felt like you could combine sentences to make more interesting ones. The rest of the lede is fine. One question, though: should the opening sentence be "The Winter Olympic Games is" or are? I notice the parent article of Olympic Games has are, although includes both Winter and Summer. For what it's worth, a Google search on "Olympics games are" has more hits than "Olympic games is". Just something that stood out, since the rest of the lede uses "Games" as plural.
 * "The Tyrolean city of Innsbruck was the host in 1964" - I think it'd be safer to say "The Austrian city", since I'm sure many have never heard of Tyrol.
 * Is there any other history that can be included in the "history" section that isn't just a recap of each Olympic game?
 * The tricky part about the "history" section is that I really had to walk the summary tight rope. I received criticism during the peer review process that the history section was overdone and needed to be trimmed.  If you have something that you feel is missing I'd be happy to add it.  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 21:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What do the colors in the map at the top of "list of games" section mean? I see it in the image summary, but it should be seen somewhere in the article.
 * A ref is needed for the dates in the "List of Games" table for the 2014 and 2018 games.
 * All in all, a good read. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 05:46, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments, I wanted to say something about the plural/singular issue. This is something I've struggled with mightily.  The issue is that whether you refer to the a singular Games like the 1948 Winter Games or the Winter Olympic Games in general the "Games" is/are always plural. This makes for some awkward wording at times.  I'll go back through and make sure that references to the Winter Olympic Games have plural agreement.  I've made the suggested fixes to the article.  Thanks again for reviewing it.  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 21:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Comments Support: A nice summary that spans a century of winter sports, that's easy to read. Looks very well done. Will finish reading and return with comments. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The Winter and Summer Games resumed in 1948 and were held in the same year until 1992. Starting in 1994 each Winter Olympics has been held in its own year, separate from the Summer Games. The Winter Olympics continue to be celebrated every four years. > needs some tweaking. The sentence should come right and state that between 1948 and 1992 the Winter Games were held every four years on the same year as the Summer Games, but that the schedule was staggered beginning in 1994, so that Winter Games and Summer Games are held on alternate two year cycles (this is hard to word, I know).
 * The organizers opposed this idea; their reasoning was two-fold: they desired to protect the integrity of the Nordic Games, and they were concerned about a lack of facilities for winter sports. > bumpy punctuation (maybe the clause between the semi-colon and the colon can be replace with "because" to simplify
 * A few repetitive occurrences of "these games"
 * Thank you for your suggestions and I've made some fixes. The description of the split of the winter/summer Games is very tricky and I have yet to find a very clean way to explain it.  At any rate, I hope I've made it better.  Thanks.  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 21:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * From the Cold War section: This sort of political intrusion in a sports federation was unheard of in a democratic country. > unprecedented? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 12:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I made the change, thanks. H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 16:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Another nice article. Happy to support. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 20:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment why isn't there a separate section/table with the most prolific medallists? 18.74.5.93 (talk) 20:55, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comment, that's a good question, my thinking though is that I don't want to duplicate what may be in the History section. For example there is a reference to Bjørn Dæhlie who is the most decorated Winter Olympics athlete.  There has been debate though as to whether it is productive to make a list of most prolific medallists since each sport is very different and the opportunities to win large numbers of medals differ from sport to sport.  For example in Speed Skating and Cross-Country skiing athletes can win 4 or 5 medals in an Olympics, whereas figure skaters can win only one.  I could put List of multiple Olympic medalists in the See also section.  I think that might be a good addition.  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 21:14, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * By the way I just noticed that there is a list, List of multiple Winter Olympic medalists, that seems even better and more specific than the one I was going to propose. I hope this addresses your question.  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 21:16, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * How about including some table like Lists_of_Olympic_medalists? (or maybe Lists_of_Olympic_medalists). This first should fix the issue of some sports having more medals to be won. 18.101.16.181 (talk) 06:58, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I added Lists of Olympic medalists to the See also section. Will this suffice?  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 17:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Sources comments:
 * Why is a reliable source?
 * In the bibliography the page number in the Guttman book is redundant
 * The year is missing for the Kluge book

Otherwise, sources look OK. Brianboulton (talk) 23:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your review of the sources, I've made the fixes, to the Guttman and Kluge books. Regarding the sports-reference source, are you concerned about this specific site (1924 Winter Olympics) or the sports-reference website as a whole?  Here is a page with a couple of links to the site's credentials: .  The site is used in the 1956 Winter Olympics and Olympic Games articles, both of which are featured.  If you are concerned about the 1924 site specifically could you please outline what may be unreliable?  Thanks!  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 16:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If I may add a brief comment here, Sports Reference is the parent company of several sites that have come up at FAC before, including Baseball-Reference, Pro Football Reference, and Basketball-Reference. This page has the relevant FACs, which contain reasons why they were accepted at the time (I actually defended one of the sites at an FAC). For what it's worth, this says the site's data comes from research by Olympic historians.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 00:26, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments on Sports Reference. It is a valuable site and has great information that is easily accessible.  I appreciate the insight about its use in other sports-related articles.  Thanks!  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 16:34, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Sports Ref is reliable per Giants. On the info page it is very explicit that the eds, eg Wallechinsky among others have been heads of an Olympic history society and so forth. Wallechinsky himself has written many books including a results book, but obviously there isn't enough space in there except to write down the top 8 or 10 etc  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll )  05:31, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Comments – Read through the history section, and it looks mostly good; just a few little issues that I detail below:
 * Early years: "The organizers opposed this idea because they desired to protect the integrity of the Nordic Games; and they were concerned about a lack of facilities for winter sports." The semi-colon should probably be a comma here.
 * World War II: Remove comma after Germisch-Partenkirchen.
 * "The 1944 Winter Olympics...was cancelled...". Should "was" be "were", for tense purposes?
 * 1948 to 1960: "The Olympic flag presented at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp was stolen, and its replacement was stolen." Repetition here. How about "was stolen, as was its replacement" as a less redundant alternative.
 * A couple of these city links are repeating unnecessarily in subsequent sections. Just something small to watch for.
 * 1984 to 1998: "Women's ice hockey made its debut and the United States winning the gold medal." "winning" → something else.
 * 2002 to present: Are the medal records set by Canada and the U.S. in this Olympics worthy of note? To me, that seems at least as notable as how poorly Russia did.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 02:26, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your review of the history section. I made the fixes you suggested.  I can add a note about Canadian and American success at the 2010 Games.  I received feedback in one of the article's peer reviews that this portion was very North American-centric and especially Canadian-centric (if that makes sense).  But I do think that if I'm going to leave in something about a country's poor performance I should have great performances in there as well.  So I'll add a bit.  Thanks!  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 16:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Object needs some more work on the content. On a side note I always wonder why outsiders never have a go question content; I think it's the weakest part of FAs as most people are hobbyists. Some things missing in content.
 * In the big history/list of results Koss the Boss is missing. Very big star in 1994. Generally the things get bigger year by year but maybe the later years have undue weight?
 * Undue weight on hockey? Maybe some people see it as the "showpiece" but perhaps others would say figureskating or some alpine event
 * Undue of Sale/Pelletier? Yes it was a scandal but there are many in the artistic competitions, and also a lot in short track eg Apolo Ohno and DQed Korean in 2002.
 * General trends are also missed in the bit thicket of sports results. I just had a look at the data but before the 1990s PRC/KOR/JPN basically won nothing but now they are strong countries. Australia is now also doing well in some places. The Rise of Asia isn't mentioned anywhere
 * Trend of "modernising" sports isn't discussed. Just a list of sports, nothing about the impetus to introduce "cool" and "extreme" sports eg halfpipe, snowboardcross, skicross etc  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll )  05:29, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Re controversies, with major things eg Olympics, Football World Cup etc, there is always discussion about whether the infrastructure investment is worth it, the "legacy" for teh host country etc, whether it develops grassroots participation, facilities for kids etc. That is missing here. There may be also criticism that too many of the seats are reserved for corporates or rich people at 5,000 each, and not enough in the public raffle, if the same thing happens as at Summer Games  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll )  05:29, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the assessment, being so close to the content it's hard to know what is missing and what is out of balance. I'll start to work.  H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 15:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.