Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Gilberto Silva

Gilberto Silva

A large group of biography and football editors have thoroughly reviewed this article over the last few months, and I think it has reached a stage where it meets the standard required of featured articles. The main work has been in expanding the biography career. After that, a fair amount of work went into improving the grammar and removing all of my accidentally placed POV claims.

The article draws help from the only other featured soccer player article, Denis Law. The lead section includes Gilberto's career highlights and his roots in Brazil, and also has a length in-check with the size of the article as a whole. The biography has a comprehensive childhood section, leading into two neat sections about how his career began and then progressed thereafter. I feel that the prose creates a good feeling of 'story' as the article progresses into the modern day, sticking to the major points in his career. The whole biography is referenced very thoroughly. The images all CC licensed, and all have fitting captions.

I hereby self-nominate the Gilberto Silva article. Thanks. -GilbertoSilvaFan 01:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• I see no serious problems. Looks like a very good sports biography article, and kudos on the images, I know how hard it is to get free images of athletes.

Thanks for your kind words - and thanks for making some changes to it! The sentences which you changed now flow much better.

• Per WP:MOS#Time "Avoid words or phrases like currently, recently, last year, soon, modern, and new." so the section "Recent career" needs to be renamed, I just can't think of what to.

Good spot. We had some problems with that header before. I'll change it to "senior career" for now. If you think of something more fitting, feel free to put it.

• Article Mentions the game he debuted in with Arsenol, but not the date. This might be a good idea to include.

Good idea. Done.

• "At first he struggled to adapt to life in London", "his off-field problems continued" - a bit confusing. Were his problems just limited to not getting full payment on his contract? Language is a bit vague, especially "he struggled to adapt to life in London", could just use a bit of clearer explanation.

I've done two things to fix this. I've written why he struggled to adapt to life in London (it was because of the change from a small town to a bit city). I've also changed 'off field problems' to 'legal problems'. I hope that makes the distinction between the two 'problems'.

• "Gilberto sustained a serious injury, fracturing his back" could use just a bit more detail on how he was injured

I've expanded the sentence to say how the injury started as a pain, and turned out to be a fracture.

• "His absence as a first team regular could be explained by his lack of games, and thus match fitness, for Arsenal during the season leading up to the tournament." So he didn't play a lot of games because he wasn't in good shape because didn't play in a lot games? Sounds like circular logic. In addition to being confusing, this claim is uncited. nevermind, I misread, --W.marsh 02:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support per above. Seems okay to me. --W.marsh 00:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support, I've seen this article grow over time, and have re-assessed it a couple of times thanks to a great job by GilbertoSilvaFan. This article definitely is FA-class. – Elisson • T • C • 17:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Comprehensive, well-written and well-citated.--Yannismarou 10:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. A great level of detail and due diligence has gone into this article. GilbertoSilvaFan's attitude towards this has to be commended too.  sʟυмɢυм • т • c  13:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Object: → only for the copyvio images problems. Support
  • Image:Gilberto_Silva_Against_Villa.jpg has a possible copyvio. The image is tagged with CC-BY-SA license, but it is released under "All rights reserved" license. I've put the possible copyvio tag there.

    This image issue is being handled outside of this page.

    but, it does not mean that you can include copyvio images in this article. Not for FAC. Please read WP:WIAFA, criterion 3. — Indon (reply) — 18:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

    I understand - I didn't mean that the copyright problems won't be an issue - I just said "this is being sorted elsewhere", because we were discussing it on our talk pages. Ok, about the image. I really am a bit stuck. What is the best way to prove that the image has been authorised by the photographer for use on Wikipedia? The author of this image and the one below have both released the image under the creative commons license; how do I prove this? Is there a way? Shall I copy and paste the emails which grant permission? Thanks for your advice.

    Well, you can remove the image from the article first and let the copyright issue be solved in the image "space". If you insist to put the image in the article during FAC, then there is no way this article will be granted an FA status. — Indon (reply) — 10:33, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

    Done. I've replaced the images with ones I took myself. I hope this helps to clear the way for the article to pass FAC. Thanks for all your messages in this nomination, Indon; much appreciated. GilbertoSilvaFan 10:00, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

  • The source of Image:Gilberto_Silva_Streetleague.jpg image cannot be verified. The link goes to an empty page.

    So is this one.

    so is this one (criterion 3, WP:WIAFA). — Indon (reply) — 18:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

    See above. Image has been switched.

  • There is no source in the statistics, performance and list of honours.

    Statistics and honours have been sourced. Do the performances/goals list need to be sourced? I can add a soccerbase link for each one if needed, I'm not sure if it would be too messy though... Please let me know.

    Yes, the whole data and statistics should have reliable sources. It is not enough to say Statistics correct as of October 14, 2006,.... Says who? If you want to compare, then read the bottom of the table in Dean Smith article, that I'd just fixed it. However, I see inline citations have been put at the top of the table header. That's okay for me. — Indon (reply) — 18:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

    Cool - I'll source all the individual performances and goals. I'll create a little row below the table like you have done for dean smith. Edit: I decided to source each game individually since Soccerbase doesn't let you link to a range of data.

  • I found inexact words to state the time, that should be avoided in WP, because all facts should be accurate whenever an article is read, either now or 15 years later. Here are the words:
    • "currently" in the lead section,

      Changed. :-)

    • present tense of this statement: "He plays for Arsenal as a defensive midfielder." in the lead section,

      Changed wording.

    • "by today's rates." (when is today?),

      Poulsen changed this - thanks Poulsen!

  • Copyediting is still needed, especially for putting commas for better reading. For examples:

    Poulsen has changed all these comma issues too - thanks to Indon too for spotting them.

    • "When not playing football Gilberto's father taught him furniture making skills that he would come to use in the following years." → needs a comma to separate sub-sentences.
    • "In 1991 Gilberto's father retired leaving the fifteen year old to provide financially for his whole family, a task made more difficult by his mother's ill-health." → needs a comma and I found many of this similar sentence, that starts with time.
    • "Because of the low wage at América Mineiro he was forced to quit football to take various jobs as a labourer, a carpenter and a worker in a sweet factory." → needs a comma
    • "During Gilberto's third season at América Mineiro (their second season in Série A)..." → please choose one, third or second season and also a comma is needed after the time clause.
    • "In 2000, aged 24, he joined rival club Atlético Mineiro where in his first season for the club he fractured his right tibia and, as a result, missed a number of games." → chop this long sentence.
    • "He made his international debut against Chile on 7 October as a substitute, and on 7 November he made his full international debut against Bolivia."→ redundant international debut and what's the meaning of full and without-a-full international debut?
    • "Upon signing Gilberto Arsené Wenger said, ...." → now this clearly needs a comma. Otherwise one would think of a person, named Gilberto Arsene Wenger. :-)
    • ... and many more.
  • This following part of a paragraph:

In 2002 he was a surprise inclusion in the Brazil squad for the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea/Japan. He was expected to play a bit part in the tournament. However, defensive midfielder Emerson was injured in training just before the first World Cup game. In light of the setback, coach Scolari called upon Gilberto to fill the gap which Emerson left. Gilberto ended up playing in every minute of every match of the tournament, which Brazil went on to win.

is unsourced, and has an unencyclopaedic - with a strong POV writing - in the last sentence.

Poulsen sourced the sentence.

• • "Football pundits labelled Gilberto as one of the major factors of Brazil's success in Japan." --> needs a source for this fact.

    While this sentence was kind of sourced by the 'piano carrying' quote, I deleted it anyway.

  • In the last paragraph of the Early career sub-section, I found it confusing to understand about Ronaldo and Rivaldo role there. There's some information missing.

    How exactly should I change it? That quote is complete, and I think it's a fairly common phrase. If you carry a piano to somebody elses tune, you do the hard work of carrying a huge piano to a concert, while the pianist (in this case rivaldo/ronaldinho) gets credit for the lovely tunes which it plays. Could you elaborate on this point? Thanks.

    To be honest, I still don't understand. Perhaps my English is a bit lacking to relate between piano and football. It is just the assertion of the quote makes it hard to understand. — Indon (reply) — 18:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

    Ok, it's just a little analogy. The author in Veja Magazine used a 'poetic' way of explaining how Gilberto did the 'dirty work' while the attacking players got the credit. I think it's a good way of explaining it.

  • A smalll typo: "Being used to life in small Brazilian towns, ...". Shouldn't it be "to live"?

    Good spot; I've changed this to be more clear.

— Indon (reply) — 02:54, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Conditional support: The images, as descriped by Indon, should be sorted out. Other than that, I vote support. Poulsen 09:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support Footballers usually have very small articles, this one is a shining beacon of hope to us all. к1иgf1$н£я5ω1fт 10:45, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support, I like this article Kingjamie 19:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support An excellent article, definitely FA standard. Oldelpaso 20:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)