Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ben Paschal/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 18:38, 16 February 2010 [1].

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Ben Paschal

Nominator(s): Secret ^account 22:11, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/Ben Paschal/archive1
• Featured article candidates/Ben Paschal/archive2
• Featured article candidates/Ben Paschal/archive3

Self-nom. Backup outfielder for the 1927 Yankees, based on the current Bob Meusel FA. His rather lack of playing time keeps me from expanding this article further (can't find nothing on his life after 1934, nor does he has much of a legacy). Thanks for NatureBoyMD for a copyedit, it may need further copyediting, but I'm dylexsic and can't really help on that. One of many articles on that team I'm bringing to featured status. I feel the article is good enough to skip the GA process. Thanks Secret ^account 22:11, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Note: This is a WikiCup nomination. To the nominator: if you do not intend to submit this article at the WikiCup, feel free to remove this notice. Ucucha 15:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

• Comments -
  • Per the MOS, titles in the references shouldn't be in all capitals, even when they are in the original
  • Surely there are book sources that cover him?

Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

• • Fixed the first part, as for book sources, it's mostly passing mentions, as he wasn't considered an important part of the Great New York Yankees teams of the era. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Secret (talk • contribs)
    • Note there are more book sourcing now. Thanks Secret ^account 16:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. Alt text done; thanks. Please add alt text to the images; see WP:ALT, particularly WP:ALT#Portraits. Also, the article needs more images. I suggest at least File:Ben-Paschal-1925.jpeg, and quite possibly you can find other free images. Eubulides (talk) 05:02, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
• Added your picture thank you so much, also added alternative text to the image. Thanks Secret ^account 13:23, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
  • You're welcome, but I'm afraid both images still lack alt text. Please click on the "alt text" button at the upper right of this review page. Also, please look for more images, as the article needs them. They don't have to have Paschal in them; they can be about his environment. For example, it would help to have a picture of Sanford, Alabama, about the time he was growing up there. More generally, there's almost nothing in the article about Paschal as a person; more coverage of him outside baseball is sorely needed. Eubulides (talk) 19:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
• I which I could find information about him as a person, the only thing I found was that he was a quiet, soft-spoken fellow who was in the Yankees movie crowd. That was one sentence in a book. He doesn't have a famous personaly Ruth had. I'm still confused about alt text, so I need your help, but I'll fine alternative images. Secret ^account 19:36, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
• Ok now I understood the alt text, fixed Secret ^account 20:20, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks, much better, but it still needs some work. First, alt text generally should not contain proper names (see WP:ALT#Proper names) such as "Ruth", "Paschal", "1926 New York Yankees", "Hargrave"; this is due to WP:ALT#Verifiability concerns. Second, please omit the phrase "black and white photo" as per WP:ALT#Phrases to avoid. Third, alt text should not repeat the caption's phrases such as "fourth person on the left side", as per WP:ALT#Repetition. Finally, the alt text for the lead image should convey to the visually impaired reader what Paschal looks like in that image, as opposed to what other baseball players looked like or as opposed to Paschal in other moods, etc.: this info is obvious from the image itself but is not obvious to someone who can't see it (see WP:ALT#Essence). Please see WP:ALT#Portraits for advice and examples about how to do alt text for that lead portrait. Eubulides (talk) 19:50, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm not a good interpeter of images, I tried my hardest with the alt images, I tried to fix your concerns. Thanks Secret ^account 00:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Thanks, the alt text looks good now. Eubulides (talk) 05:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
      • I put some information about Paschal personality, about a couple of setences. Thanks Secret ^account 16:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Comment: It concerns me a bit that none of the references have page numbers. Even for ones you could barely preview I'd have to think that information would at least be there for a few of them. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 19:37, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
• I'm starting to add page numbers, but several of the sources I can't seem to find it. Secret ^account 16:57, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I added page numbers to every article I could. Several were online only and couldn't find a page number, but most did. Thanks Secret ^account 18:27, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose The article needs a good copy-edit:

• "Considered one of the best bench players in baseball during his time with the Yankees, sportswriters constantly wrote how Paschal would start in most other teams in the American League." This is known as a dangling modifier. Right now, the phrase "Considered one of the best bench players in baseball during his time with the Yankees" is modifying the noun "sportswriters" when it should be modifying "Paschal". Also, "start in" is not correct, I don't think; try "start for".
• Grating repetition of words: "Paschal became known ... Paschal is best known"; the word "considered" is used in three of the four sentences of the second paragraph of the lead.
• "Paschal was born in Enterprise, Alabama but grew up as the son of farmers in Sanford, Alabama." False contrast, "but" is used for opposing ideas, but is it so surprising that he grew up away from his place of birth?
• "Dothan of the Georgia–Alabama League." I don't suppose Dothan or Georgia–Alabama League have articles?
• "His ability started to attract area scouts" No, too weak. "His ability attracted area scouts..."
• "19 year old" Hyphens needed.
• MOS issue: image captions that are complete sentences need periods at the end. Example: "Paschal was considered Babe Ruth's understudy when he first arrived in the American League" You have the opposite problem with the infobox image; "Paschal before a game during the 1925 New York Yankees season." is a sentence fragment and therefore should not have sentence-ending punctuation.

I'm there are plenty of active editors at WP:BASEBALL who can pitch in. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• • Fixed some of it, but I'm a awful copyeditor, I'm asking around. Thanks Secret ^account 16:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comments – Secret asked me to copy-edit this article, and I just couldn't turn down a request to work on a Yankee-related page. I gave it some attention, but it still needs quite a bit more. Here are a few quick suggestions before I call it quits for the night:
• I added a cite tag regarding the 1926 World Series, since it wasn't clear what was citing that part.
• His role on the Murderers' Row teams is mentioned in the lead, but is not expanded on at all later in the article; in fact, the term is never used again. Just leaving this in the lead with no explanation is not only going to confuse readers, but it is a violation of WP:LEAD, which says that everything in the lead should be in the body of an article.
• One of my main issues with the article is that there is no consistent description of how his teams did. To give only the most glaring example, there is not even a mention that the 1927 Yankees won the World Series, let alone that the team is considered one of the best ever by most historians. His role, albeit minor, on the Yankees teams of this era is a critical part of what legacy he has, and I was very surprised at the lack of much information on this in the body.
• Paschal apparently had contract disputes in 1926 and 1927. Do the sources have anything on how he came around to re-sign for the Yankees?
• "His season ended on September 12 against the Philadelphia Athletics when he was hit on the leg with a pitch." What injury did he sustain that caused him to not play again that year?
• The disambiguation link checker is showing one dab link (Washington Senators), but I fixed one like it during my copy-edits, and I don't see another one. That might have been it, though a check in the future will be the best way to know for sure. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 01:51, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
• Another thing I just saw: "After a two year break from baseball because of World War I, Paschal moved on to the Charlotte Hornets of the Southern Atlantic League, where he played in 1916 and from 1920 to 1923." The non-chronological organization of this part is odd. Why not move the 1916 stint to earlier in the section? Giants2008 (27 and counting) 03:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
• Couldn't find the exact injury other than Paschal being carried away in a streacher, nor the sources mentioned how he came about resigning with the Yankees, I'll presume he was offered some extra money, but I can't place a guess on an FA. I don't like to discuss content that doesn't really belong in the article, like how the teams did, but I could write a paragraph or so on his role in those Murder's Row teams (he did almost nothing in 1927 btw other than pinch hit and that one amazing game i mentioned). Fixed the cite. Thanks Secret ^account 19:24, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I removed that 1916 stint, only found one source that he played a few games for them, but I lost the source, anyways too minor to be mentioned. Secret ^account 18:27, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.