Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Babe Ruth (2005)

Babe Ruth

Nominating for a featured article. Article length to some people will be a drawback, and having wrote the great majority of the article, I take responsibility for the length. Nevertheless, I believe the article is quite comprehensive. Whether or not this is a featured article, I would recommend and encourage a separate article on Babe Ruth that is much shorter for the reader who do not want this much information. It would also be much easier writing a separate article than cutting this one down. --LibraryLion 23:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

• Object. It's pretty well written, although the prose needs a little tweaking throughout. One particularly annoying aspect is the wholesale linking of common nouns. Here's an example:

'Young George was known for mischievous behavior. He skipped school, ran the streets, and committed petty crime. By age seven, he was drinking, chewing tobacco ...'

WP is not a dictionary, and there's a bunch of reasons that common words—and for that matter, low-value years and decades—should not clutter the appearance of the text. If your readers don't know what these words mean, they should take lessons in basic English. If they do know what these words mean, I fail to see how hitting the links will help them to understand/enjoy reading your article. See Wikipedia:Make_only_links_relevant_to_the_context. Overall, well done. Tony 05:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I do claim to getting carried away linking everything, although I admit I was not aware of Wikipedia's preference to link only subjects that relate directly to the text. In a couple of days, I'll try to have this fixed. --LibraryLion 21:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I have taken out numerous links, although honestly I'm not sure why this really is an issue as it seems rather trivial when judging the quality of the article. --LibraryLion 08:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Object. The images need work:
  • Image:Ruthbatting.jpg, if it was indeed taken in 1923 and was published in the same year (that's very important; it's the publication date that determines public domain, not the date the picture was taken), is public domain as indicated. However, without a source, the year of publication can't be verified.
  • Image:RuthStMary's.jpg has a good justification for fair use, but are you claiming that it's fair use or public domain? Rather hard to tell; make sure to tag the picture with the appropriate tag.
  • Image:Ruthsoxdk.jpg has no source or copyright-status information.
  • Image:Ruth1918.jpg and Image:Ruth1920.jpg have no source information, which makes a public-domain claim rather dubious without knowing for certain the publication date of the photos.
  • Image:FrazeeRedsox.JPG, Image:BRuth1921-2.jpg, Image:RuthMcgraw1922.jpg, Image:Yankeestad2.jpg, Image:3BRuth1925.jpg, Image:Ruth1926-3.jpg, Image:1927NYYankees5.jpg, Image:Ruth1927.jpg, Image:RuthGehrig.jpg, Image:Ruthcharity.jpg, Image:Ruth1929.jpg, Image:RuthClaire1930.jpg, Image:Ruth1930-2.jpg, Image:Ruth1932.jpg, Image:Ruth1935.jpg, Image:Ruth1938.jpg, Image:Ruth1948.jpg, and Image:Ruthfuneral.jpg are all (properly) claimed as fair use, but they need to be tagged as such. I'd recommend using the tag {{fairusein|Babe Ruth}} to tag them.
  • Also, make sure you stay away from anything that isn't NPOV. Be on the lookout for copy like the caption of "the greatest slugging duo" under the picture of Ruth and Gehrig; either qualify it with something like "statistically", or don't use it. But the copy is excellent, and even given the length -- which, admittedly, is VERY long, but just as good -- I'd be happy to support as long as the image concerns are cleared up. Good luck! PacknCanes | say something! 14:00, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Not tagging the photos was an oversight on my part. I have tagged every picture and gave sources on the Ruth 1918 photo and the 1920 photo. I did not download the pictures Image:Ruthbatting.jpg nor Image:Ruthsoxdk.jpg. Since I do not know their sources, I will replace these two photos with ones where I know their specific references. --LibraryLion 21:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

All photographs have been tagged. --LibraryLion 22:42, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Glad to see it. The article is still a bit long, but it's certainly comprehensive, so I can't really argue with the length. Weak support on the condition that Tony's concerns about over-linking are addressed. (Rule of thumb: if it's already been linked, don't link it again, especially for things like years and positions..."pitcher", for example, only needs one or maybe two links.) Good job! PacknCanes | say something! 06:54, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• Object at 80+ kb the page size is massive. Please summarise the text so that it is cut by more than half. See Wikipedia:Summary style. Please also reduce the image width and cut the numerous headings. =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:43, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Summary style would be completely incompatible with this article. To do this, I would have to make seperate articles on sections by themselves that do not warrant seperate articles. If I did this, none of these seperated sections would even be a full page. I know Wikipedia touts summary style, and it has its uses, but I admit I generally do not like it. It often diverts the reader from the main article, and it fragments your article and interferes with the pace. Summary style is also often distracting and cumbersome to read, even when reading some featured articles. Sorry, but summary style is not is a good option for this article. --LibraryLion 08:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Weak Support- I took out info about the other teams rosters in those world series that Ruth which is irrelavent played trimming the article from 88kb to 85kb but still long. Why not create a few subpages --JAranda | watz sup 19:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)