Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Netball/1

Netball

 * • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review


 * Result: delist It would appear that the best course would be for re-nomination. The second review was cursory and did not examine how the article met the criteria. There appears to be a clear well-argued consensus for de-listing. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:38, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Netball/GA1 ended in an acrimonious dispute between Racepacket, and LauraHale, amongst others. Subsequent to the withdrawal of the good article nomination by LauraHale, vigorously contested by Racepacket as the reviewer, and resulting in page protection, Talk:Netball/GA2 was created, and passed without commentary by any editor, less than 24 hours later. Racepacket and other a few other editors dispute the propriety of this process and the merits of the decision at Arbitration/Requests/Case/Racepacket/Workshop and other fora. A reassessment is desirable to aid the resolution of a portion of the dispute in a non-disruptive manner by determining the status of the article, one way or the other. Chester Markel (talk) 04:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Note: please limit discussion here to whether the article currently meets the good article criteria. Other related disputes concerning actions taken by editors in the previous reviews, etc, will be decided elsewhere. Chester Markel (talk) 04:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep: I oppose reassessment. The article is, on the whole, well written.  It is factually accurate and verifiable.  (In fact, one of the major criticisms of the article in some places is that it has too many citations and that every sentence is cited.) The article is broad in its coverage: Rules, history of the game, variants, major competitions, how the game is around the world, demographic information, administration of the game.  Not sure what is left out that isn't broad.  The article is stable, except for ongoing problems as a result of a problem reviewer who has intentionally created problems.  The article is neutral.  The article is appropiately illustrated by images.  If anyone has any suggestions for how to improve the article, I will be happy to work with other contributors to this article to make those changes. --LauraHale (talk) 04:47, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Delist I'll mainly point to where I already explained why this is not a good article. While there are numerous problems, much of it comes from excessive use of poor sources (primary sources of sporting organizations) instead of a few good sources (secondary 3rd party).  This results in some signficant bias (sporting orgs tend to favor their own sport over others) and an excessive delving into insignificant detail.  As I've been told, not all of my critiques precludes GA status, but the POV issue has to be fixed for GA status (see link to my comments above).  I'm hoping other editors (not just me) who haven't been involved can give this a thorough review, and we can have a fresh start.   --Rob (talk) 21:49, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep: Article doesn't even need a reassessment. I mean it's quite great on itself. So a reassessment would be null and void. --Zalgo (talk) 22:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Delist I have to agree with some of the points made at Talk:Netball. Particular concerns, raised there, are the note used in the lede and the sourcing issues mentioned in points 1, 2, 3 and 4, which could bring the neutrality of the article into question . I can see some further issues as well. Why are there so many participation numbers (for a seemingly random selection of countries) listed in the infobox, surely a single worldwide figure is the only appropriate one to have here? Unsourced statements such as "Netball is popular in the Commonwealth" or "The most important competition in netball is the World Championships" are very POV. Looking at the Olympics section the phrase "recognition means that it could be played at some point in the future" is very vague, any sport COULD be played in the future, and sources used don't actually back this up either. File:Netball pictogram.svg should not be used - it is an image created by an editor and in no way relates to the Olympics - it merely tries to look like the official Olympic pictograms (e.g. File:Basketball 2008.png). Based on the pictogram issue alone this article fails GAC 6 "images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions" and so should be delisted - Ba se me nt 12  (T.C) 01:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I am not going to bold a !vote as I am currently involved in editing this article. I don't think this article fails on sourcing issues as my understanding is that using secondary sources, while preferred, is not a prerequisite for a good article. There are other issues, the largest in my mind being 3b "it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail". This is an overview article, so should provide a general overview of the topic linking to appropriate sub articles. Laura and I have been working through this aspect by creating daughter articles. However, I feel the best solution will be to delist it for now, hopefully lowering the scrutiny enough to allow editors to concentrate on getting it up to good article standard before re-nominating it. AIR corn (talk) 01:36, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Delist After comparing to other GA-Sports articles I detect some gramatical and diction inconsistencies as compared to a random sampling from the Good articles/Everyday life category. The requirement that the article stay focused and go into enough detail feels slightly abused based on the length of the international coverage section.  Based on these concerns I feel that the GA standards would be best served by delisting with a future unbiased re-nomination at a later date. Hasteur (talk) 21:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. GARs can be opened at any time, and I think it is helpful to reassess this article, although perhaps it would have been more helpful to wait for the resolution of related disputes first. In any case, I would note (as a general reminder) that GAR is not a vote: articles are listed or delisted here according to whether they meet the GA criteria or not. Disputed and/or inappropriate reviews are not per se reasons to change the GA status of an article, nor are comparisons with other articles necessarily helpful. Netball is a sport which is neither predominantly male, nor substantially North American. The most helpful comments (above, and in general) are those which focus on the GA criteria, as such comments may result in improvements to the article, even if it is ultimately delisted here. Geometry guy 22:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Meh None of us participating in the arbcom case should be making comments on this GAR. It will wind up biased. If this was a real GAR a list of issues would be brought up and then the main writers would have a reasonable amount of time to try to fix this, not this lets vote about it sort of thing. --Guerillero &#124; My Talk  22:44, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think what counts is that closer, and person who makes the final decision hasn't been involved previously. --Rob (talk) 15:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with you on that. Lets focus on making this the best article it can be and not use it as a continuation of past disputes. I agree with you that there is a sourcing issue that needs to be work out. --Guerillero &#124; My Talk  16:16, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: in many semi-specialist areas, the only sources available for (for example) 'rules' will be the societies themselves which oversee that area. This applies just as much to sporting rules as it does to breed standards requirements for various animals (dogs, cats, horses and so on).  To suggest that an overseeing authority is not a 'reliable source' or is a 'primary source' is wrong.  The rules, positions and anything else there are quoted from the sport's authority, not directly from the person who first made up or suggested that rule - so not primary.  To suggest that these are really primary sources is a bit like saying that the UK Government's website is either a primary source or a non-reliable source for the contents of any Acts of Parliament passed by the UK Government.  That argument really can't be taken seriously.  Pesky  ( talk ) 08:29, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * While sporting associations may be trustworthy in terms of what their rules are, they may not be so great in terms of their organizations significance, on how widely the sport is played, and what recognition it has received. For example participation rates in the infobox are often sourced to individual associations, who have a vested interest in appearing popular.
 * Sporting authorities may not be a good source of rules used by those not recognized by them (e.g. you can play Netball without IFNA sanction).
 * Even if an organization can be trusted with certain details about itself (such as rules), the fact that nobody has ever written about it is an indication that it's so trivial that its not worth mentioning. That's part of the logic behind notability.
 * INFA is arguably the authority on many things, except it's not an authority on being an authority. To use your government example, a government wouldn't be an authority on whether an extra-territorial law has effect internationally.  We should use a 3rd party to establish IFNA's role (such sources are easy to find).  If some organization was organizing Netball in some country, outside IFNA, would IFNA report that?
 * Funny you should mention government sources as being a good example. We cite Parliament of New South Wales, which says that 1.2 million play, and 1.5 million play (we cherry pick 1.5 million).  This is why you need 3rd party sources that actually do fact checking.  No organization is an inherently good source on everything.  Sources become reliable because they objectively fact check before publishing.  --Rob (talk) 15:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * This is probably ready for another look. AIR corn (talk) 13:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Did the arbcom finish? I can't find it. I'd say it would have to close as delist if that is still ongoing. While the dispute hasn't shown up so much in the article history, there's obviously a pretty big battle over the article so it fails point 3 - stability. No opinion on the article otherwise, or any problems there may be. Szzuk (talk) 20:53, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, Arbcom finished their work on this on the 19th of June . Based on the findings and remedies passed by ArbCom, I reiterate my proposal that this article be 'delisted from GA and that those editors who would like to improve it so that it falls within the guidelines prior to being marked as such. Hasteur (talk) 21:01, 25 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Delist. A multitude of problems. There has been a substantial amount of effort since the GAR started, credit to those involved, but very substantial problems remain. Article is very POV and not focused despite this work, I didn't look at the sourcing or MOS compliance because I felt I'd found enough problems to stop looking. Given the time left for this GAR to run and the problems surrounding the article I doubt the radical rewrite it requires could happen. Szzuk (talk) 20:35, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Add. The GA reviewer was admonished in the Arbcom for a conflict of interest with the nominee, I don't think it should have been promoted in the first place. Szzuk (talk) 20:43, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you please give some examples of these problems so that editors could work to remedy them. I am not sure where the current article loses focus for example. AIR corn (talk) 00:06, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I can give some ideas but I'm not a netball expert. The variants section appears to be an extension of the rules, do they need their own section? The demographics section gives undue importance to transgenders and disabled. The section on international competitions is ok, but highlights there's too little on the millions of people who play at a lower level, where is that section? There's a huge section on globally which is very tedious, i'm not convinced every part of the netball world deserves mention. The POV in the article is that the structure appears skewed to the higher game - but most people play in school or local town leagues. It might be fixable but you're probably going to run into an edit war/arguments if you do what is necessary. Szzuk (talk) 08:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I won't do any more work for a while, but it would be good to know what needs to be done for any future nominations. The demographics needs a women's section and is in my mind the biggest problem at the moment. AIR corn (talk) 09:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes you've hit the nail on the head. Sourced content has to be added, just a couple of paragraphs of new content is quite a big deal. That's assuming you could just delete away the other problems without much complaint. Szzuk (talk) 12:32, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Note The editor who initiated this GAR has since been indefinitely blocked as a sockpuppet. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:54, 3 July 2011 (UTC)