Wikipedia:Featured article review/Moe Berg/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 10:01, 3 April 2007.

Moe Berg

 * Talk messages left at Indrian, Bio, Baseball, Baseball players, and New York. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 01:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

This article was promoted to FA on April 30, 2005; however, the current article needs to be updated to meet current featured article criteria.

Specific criteria to be addressed are:
 * 1.(c) - The article has no inline citations at all.
 * 2. (a) - the lead section needs to be expanded as it doesn't currently "summarizes the entire topic"

Let me take a crack at sourcing this. I own the biography listed and the other sources are online, so it's certainly doable.--Djrobgordon 02:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I have a little more than half of the article referenced, although an obscene amount of the citations are from the Dawidoff book. I'll have to check up on the FA rules for that kind of thing. I've already found a few sentences I've had to reword because they were eerily similar to those in the book.

Other problems I've found:
 * The article doesn't really deal with the views of those who argue that Berg overstated his activities as a spy. Michael Lewis wrote a short paper about this, and Dawidoff touches on it as well.  I'll add something.
 * Baseball stats need to be simplified for novices. For instance, "Berg batted .186" wouldn't make a bit of sense to me if I didn't know the game.
 * The prose needs some tightening up.

I'll get to it eventually, but if someone else happens on this and wants to help, all of those things could be done.--Djrobgordon 09:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment Citing from a single book is usually fine, unless the info being cited is disputed / controversial. Good work with the cites thus far. LuciferMorgan 18:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * With obscure subjects, a single or very few sources are often all you'll have. But even the one source will have it's bibliography, so raid it. Regarding simple things like "Berg batted .186", take care of it with bluelinks (batting average), rather than a cite. Marskell 20:56, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I was actually citing the numbers, rather than the term. If the stats are considered common knowledge or the Baseball-Reference.com external links is sufficient, I can take that citation out.--Djrobgordon 21:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Never mind. I thought you were referring to something else, then I reread your comment and figured it out.--Djrobgordon 21:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm out of town for a couple days, and my internet access isn't what I thought it'd be, but if nothing else I'll finish the cites over the weekend. I haven't abandoned the project.--Djrobgordon 20:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The article is now fully referenced and I rewrote the lead to better conform to standards. It's not a perfect article, but I think I've addressed the concerns that were raised.--Djrobgordon 18:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Keep as FA. Issue 1c has been addressed, and the lead looks just fine. Certainly not a perfect article, and perhaps some of the 2 sentence paragraphs could be combined or tightened up, but that's really nitpicking and to me this is an FA.-- Wizardman 19:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not opposed to closing this. It may spend too much time on his baseball, which is of less interest than his spying, but I presume that's an outcome of the material available. Any other comments? Marskell 13:42, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Comments I wouldn't be able to read the entire article until the weekend, but on quick glance, I saw nothing major that was wrong. What I did see was that WP:DASH is wrong throughout (this happens often on sports articles).  Hyphens are used that should be en-dashes and en-dashes are used where em-dashes are needed.  Hyphens connect words; en-dashes separate dates, numbers and date ranges; and em-dashes are used for punctuation.  Pls see WP:DASH; if no one fixes it sooner, I can do it over the weekend.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I fixed the dashes, but noticed a cite tag which I attempted to fix, regarding one year as the Red Sox coach.  http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Berg_Moe.html has conflicting info; someone who has the Dawidoff book or other sources might be able to sort this out.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 18:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm going to post a note at the Baseball Project to see if we can get some help in removing that last cite tag. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * remove There are too many primary sources for a biography.--Sefringle 20:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Closing: I think good work was done on this and it's within criteria. I removed the uncited sentence to talk. Marskell 10:00, 3 April 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.