Wikipedia:Peer review/The Whistler Sliding Centre/archive1

The Whistler Sliding Centre
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I think this article has the potential to reach both GA and FA. I would like a review of this article before I proceed with GA first, and then FA.

Thanks, Chris (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

A few notes by NVO


 * The lead is overloaded with dates and numbers. Some must stay, some ("February 2009 (Bobsleigh/ skeleton: 5th-7th, luge: 20th-21st)") appear unnecessary.
 * -Lead adjusted. Chris (talk) 14:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The lead does not summarize the article. Article content should be more or less evenly outlined in the lead (which is not the case now). May I recommend rewriting the lead from memory without looking at the article at all.
 * -Lead adjusted. Chris (talk) 14:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "2009-10 Luge World Cup, including training" - please check the order of events and Hoeger's statements. Replace industry language ("forfeit surplus runs") with plain words.
 * - Adjusted per request. Chris (talk) 13:17, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "2010 Winter Olympics and death" - title seems awkward (I'm not a native English speaker, though). The lengthy sections on each competition appear too detailed for an article about the track. There are many irrelevant details involving living people:
 * -Section title adjusted Chris (talk) 13:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Canada's Mellisa Hollingsworth, who once feared of dying at the track," - the Whistler track? Is it really necessary?
 * -Extra Hollingworth comment removed
 * "Latvia's Janis Minins withdrew to appendicitis and the emergency surgery" - is it really necessary? It may fit into Bobsleigh at the 2010 Winter Olympics, not here.
 * -Minins sentence deleted. Chris (talk) 13:28, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "the British driver and her brakeman Gillian Cooke walked away from the crash the finish line" - ??
 * -Last three words of sentence deleted. Chris (talk) 13:28, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Russia-2 driven by Alexandr Zubkov, the defending four-man silver medalist and bronze medalist in the two-man event at these games, crashed out in the first run when one of his steering ropes broke" - the track wasn't at fault, was it?
 * -Sentences clarified. Chris (talk) 13:28, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "That same day, Australia withdrew to injuries to Harvey and Pugh of Australia" - injuries on the track, right? Blamed on the track, and not the driver? Maybe, instead of a verbal listing, the same roll of crashes and injuries will be better presented in a tabular format: date, name, team, cause of crash.
 * -Wording adjusted to clarify what was said. Chris (talk) 13:28, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Germany's Hüfner stated that the goal for this test was to ..." - IMO this personal statement is given unnecessary weight. It was a test for everyone involved, quite obviously. What makes the opinion of TH important in this context?
 * -Removed. Chris (talk) 13:13, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * At times, the text clearly deviates from the sources (I did not check all refs, just the statements that seemed curious at first sight):
 * "Because of what has happened, the organizing committee of the 2014 Winter Olympics have designed the Russian National Sliding Centre for the bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton events to be 6 to 9 km/h (3.7 to 5.6 mph) slower" - the source does not say "because of". It says "The Sochi track isn’t built yet, but organizers already said that it is designed to be 6-9 mph (10-15 kph) slower than the one in Whistler". It is dated Feb 21, the very beginning of bob sleigh races, there's no way that a preexisting track plan could be influenced by Whistler Olympic experience.
 * -Sentence reworded Chris (talk) 13:35, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Officials had told Rohbock that they are considering sanding the runners to slow down the speeds reached by the sleds" - is this a sign of special treatment for Rohbock? Tell Rohbock alone and keep others in the dark? Of course not, the source says something different. Please follow the source.
 * -Wording adjusted to clarify what bobsleigh officials wanted to do. Chris (talk) 13:28, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Donations were made to Sparkasse in Berchtesgaden, Germany." - I hope donations were made through this account, but the source does not say so. The starting 10K were wired "to the family" without mentioning any intermediaries. Delete it: bank name and the location of FIL HQ are irrelevant.
 * -Removed. Chris (talk) 13:12, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Post-Olympic usage will place the track as part of the Whistler Legacy Society as part of a long-term resort development plan" - ?? is it simply "razed for more condos" ? Please be specific here even if necessitates translation from official newspeak to plain English.
 * -Post Olympic usage clarified. Chris (talk) 13:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Regards, NVO (talk) 15:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments by H1nkles

I was asked to review this article and so will add my comments here.

Lead
 * Per WP:LEAD the lead should be between 1 and 4 paragraphs depending on the size of the article. I would say in just a drive-by glance that a three or four paragraph lead would be fine.  The lead is at 6 paragraphs with two of them being one or two sentences.  Please consider combining some of the paragraphs.
 * Lead lessened to four paragraphs. Chris (talk) 13:36, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The last para in the lead is a one sentence stub. It starts with something about construction on first nations spiritual grounds and then goes into construction awards, all in the same sentence.  This should be a couple of separate sentences and they really don't even belong in the same paragraph given that they are totall separate subjects.  Certain there should be a para on construction, on the safety concerns, the various competitions including the Olympics and on its location.  I think all the subjects could fit into those four main categories.
 * Adjusted as such. Championships hosted moved as part of statistics section. Chris (talk) 13:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

History
 * See WP:LINK, I try to discourage editors from linking country names. I left the link for Georgia because people could get confused with the American state, but other than that I don't see the need unless the country link is to an article specific to the subject of this article.  For example if you linked Canada to the article about their involvement in the 2010 Winter Games that would be fine, but just linking it to the general article about the country of Canada doesn't really do the article or the reader much of a service.  Feel free to disagree but that's how I read the MOS.
 * Nations at 2010 Winter Olympics piped in. Only other times they were in was at start. Chris (talk) 13:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In the same vein you can usually leave words like "crash" and "weather" and other words in common English usage unlinked. I delinked "construction" but you should check throughout.
 * Dewiking of common words done per request. Chris (talk) 13:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure you need the detail about how many men/women competed in each World Cup event. At GAC this won't be an issue but if you have aspirations of moving this to FAC then you may want to look critically at this.
 * Will keep for right now. If I go FAC on this in future, I will deal with it then. Chris (talk) 13:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This sentence is a bit awkward:
 * "During training that week, Hoeger expressed concern about the safety of the track, even calling upon track director Ed Moffat, father of lugers Chris and Mike, to resign, to offer equal runs to all lugers in future events, to have Canada forfeit any extra training runs that were negoiated for the 2014 Winter Olympics, and for the Canadian Luge Association be reprimanded for unethical actions and not providing a safe sliding environment."
 * I understand the point being made but it seems to be a run-on sentence. Also I'm confused by the "extra training runs negotiated for the 2014 Winter Olympics.  Is that correct?  What is being referred to here?  Can the sentence be trimmed a bit and perhaps broken into two sentences?
 * Split up into two separate sentences. Chris (talk) 14:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)


 * A one-sentence sub-section isn't really useful, consider combining the information into another sub-section.
 * Moved into Luge section for 2009-10 World Cup and section reworded. Chris (talk) 14:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the 2010 Winter Olympics should be its own section rather than a sub-section of the History section. It's long enough to be its own section and the event is the crowning moment for which the "history" of the track is leading up to.  It makes sense to have the 2010 Winter Olympics be its own section.
 * 2010 Winter Olympics and safety moved into its own separate article. Chris (talk) 13:39, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In that vein I would make Kumaritashvili's accident its own sub-section with the competition being a separate sub-section. Having the two events in one section doesn't seem to fit given the fact that the accident affected all the sliding competitions.
 * Moved into own subsection. Chris (talk) 14:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Two many "cousins" in these sentences, consider finding different words,
 * "Tobias tried to correct the oversteer only to have the cousins collide on the opposite side of the ice wall, causing both cousins to go airborne momentarily. Neither cousin suffered any injury."


 * Reworded per request. Chris (talk) 14:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The last sentence in the Skeleton sub-section is a stub, also there is an in-line cite in the middle of the sentence and another at the end. Usually in-line citations should go at the end of a sentence or at least after a punctuation (like a comma).  Consider combining with another para or expanding and moving in-line cite to the end of the sentence.
 * Combined earlier, but forgot to mention as such. Chris (talk) 14:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm starting feel as though the safety concerns and the speed issues with the track are getting a bit overdone. I'm in the Bobsleigh sub-section and I feel like I'm reading the same information just reworded.  I know it's different information specific to the bobsleigh event but I'm getting the "beating a dead horse" feeling about the information.  Something about safety, speed, crashes, or changes due to safety concerns has been mentioned in the lead, and five sub-sections prior to the bobsleigh sub-section.  Perhaps a brief statement about how many crashes and then move on with the rest of the event.  Feel free to disagree and I'd welcome discussion on this point.
 * Safety is its own section later part of the article. Chris (talk) 13:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * And now I see an "overall safety concerns" sub-section. I think some of the information in this section is too specific and off topic, for example the insurance payout for Kumaritashvili's death, not topical to the Whistler Sliding centre, perhaps good for the article about his death though.  Also the dignitaries who visited his grave.
 * Insurance payment and grave visitation removed per request. Chris (talk) 13:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Track technical details
 * This sentence has a problem,
 * "Originally budgeted for C$ 55 million, the track also contains 12 km (7.5 mi) of steel conduit, 600 awnings, and 700 lights."
 * What does the original budget have to do with how many km of steel conduit and awnings there are? Be sure the subject of the sentence remains consistent throughout.  Move the original budget up to be part of the information about the cost.


 * Sentence and paragraph reworded to make more sense. Chris (talk) 13:58, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

References
 * Your references look solid and well-formatted. You rely heavily on FIBT and FIL, they're credible so that's not necessarily a problem but it's always good to branch out and incorporate as many credible sources as possible.  In this case that may be an impossibility.  One thing to remember though is that if either source changes their website around then many of your links could be damaged.  I ran into this with the Winter Olympic Games when the IOC revamped their website.  I had to fix something like 40 links.  Just keep it in mind especially as you move it towards GAC and/or FAC.
 * I went through that with FIBT when they changed in their sourcing methods in December 2007 and FIL in June 2009 already. Late last year, User:Kolindigo created links that could be used for both FIBT and FIL articles. I spent about a day overhauling this article back last December to make it compliant with those links. Moved several of the 2010 Winter Olympics results to FIBT and FIL to prevent article linkrot. Thank you for the concern. Chris (talk) 13:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Overall
 * I like the article, I think your writing is good. Look for unnecessary wording that bogs down the prose in some sections.  Also watch for sentence subject agreement, make sure that the subject you start the sentence with is the subject you finish the sentence with.
 * Reviewed and sentence wording fixed. Cleaned up some of the article to maintain article flow. Chris (talk) 19:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you need to critically look at how much information you have on the safety concerns. I know this was the issue with this venue, and so it should be given a large amount of attention.  But since it is sprinkled throughout the article it leaves me feeling like there's too much and the article seems to be repeating itself.  Consider having a section about the safety issues, a section about Kumaritashvili and mention it in the run-up to the Olympics and that should be sufficient.  Of course this is just my opinion so take it for what its worth.  I will say that the bobsleigh sub-section seems a bit long for four events.
 * Safety concern between history and 2010 Winter Olympics. Bobsleigh had three events, not four, but I will look at it. Kumaritshavili in its own section. The safety issue continued throughout the Olympics and was mentioned in the FIL Report released on 19 April. Chris (talk) 14:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Reviewed and edited all sections for flow. Looked at safety issues. It is the central concern, but to remove it out of any one section, in my opinion, messes up the flow of the article and results in uneven reading. Chris (talk) 19:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The images are good and topical. Before you push it to FAC (if that is your aspiration) make sure to add alt text to all the images.  Also captions that are not complete sentences don't have punctuation.  You've done great work here and it is commendable.  Please continue your efforts and I look forward to seeing this article on the list of GAs and possible FAs at WP:OLY one day.
 * Alt text for captions added. Shown caption images are now written as complete sentence. Chris (talk) 14:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

H1nkles (talk) citius altius fortius 17:01, 12 April 2010 (UTC)