Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sunday Times Golden Globe Race

Sunday Times Golden Globe Race

self-nom: I've done a bit of work on this, it's had a peer review, and has now been stable for some time; I think it would make an interesting FA. All constructive comments to help me get it there are welcome. — Johan the Ghost _seance 11:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• Object Initial thoughts:
  • My first reponse to the intro was - where is this around the world yacht race based? What nationality is the Sunday Times newspaper? I assume its the UK newspaper (I'm from the UK myself), but its not clear that it is.
    • I've now stated it was the British Times -- as for where the race was "based", the article already states the start was England. Other than that, people could start/finish anywhere, so it wasn't really "based" anywhere -- a significant part of the wierdness of the whole thing. — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  • This article seems to be over-reliant on a single source - the book "A Voyage for Madmen" which seems to account for something like 85% of references. Can you diversify the sources? Otherwise it feels like the article is just summarizing the book.
    • I sympathise with your point (though actually it's 68%), and I've had that concern myself. But in point of fact I have both A World of My Own and The Long Way, and went through them sentence-by-sentence trolling for references in an effort to get references to Madmen to an absolute minimum. (Also Chichester's book.) The problem is that those books only cover limited parts of the race. The only other book is The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, which would flesh out Crowhurst's part, but unfortunately I don't have a copy right now (though I've read it several times). OK, there's Trimaran Solo, but I don't know where I'd get it, and it's probably as limited in scope as any other book. I could use web-based articles, but they are all (certainly all the ones I've seen) just lifted from these same books. The fact is that A Voyage for Madmen is an excellent and well-researched overview, and it's extremely difficult not to lean on it. — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  • More images are required - pictures of the trophy, plus some of the yachts and sailors would be good
    • I totally agree that more images would be great -- if you could tell me where I could get some, with appropriate copyright status, I'd certainly include them. However, when you say that "More images are required", note that Wikipedia:What is a featured article? specifically states that "including images is not a prerequisite for a featured article". Bottom line, if you can give me any idea what other pictures I can include, I'll try to make it happen, but it's not easy -- none of the books (or anything else I've ever seen) has a picture of the trophy, for example. Please believe that I've been racking my brains over this issue. Remember this was 1969, and there wasn't the same degree of recording every detail of every event. Also, I don't want to overuse Wikipedia:Fair use, though I guess there's scope for at least a fair use image or two -- but in that case, which ones? — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  • More wikification of text needed e.g. for terms such as merchant marine, tanker, exchanging cables, weekend cruiser, carol, ulcer etc. Imagine if a 12 year old or an English language student was reading the text. Also are all the locations wikilinked in their first appearance?
    • Good point. I've done a major wikilinking/clarifying pass -- should be better now. — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Care should be taken that the formality of the writing style be maintained. The prose sometimes slips into informalities or journalese: "he started writing a huge essay", "A trimaran can be a very stable boat; but if she gets knocked over, say by a rogue wave",
    • Fixed. — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
  • this sentence needs rewriting:"Two books on his sailing experiences had already turned him into something of a star; but he was disenchanted with the material aspect of his fame, considering that by writing his books for quick commercial success he had sold out what was for him an almost spiritual experience."
    • Yup -- done. Is it OK now? — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Bwithh 21:04, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your constructive comments, which I've addressed individually above. Let me know what you think. The images thing is a bummer; I don't know what's considered a reasonable number of fair use images for an article, and I can't think of one image that sums up the race (no trophy image, for example). I'll give it some more thought, though. — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've added images of the four main competitors. Let me know what you think now. — Johan the Ghost _seance 16:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• • comment: I've asked Bwithh to update his status on this FAC, given my responses above; no reply (in over a week). — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

• comment from the editor: what do people think of the sidebars?
  • merge into one "timeline" sidebar
  • keep as is
  • ditch entirely

  ...? — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Personally, I find the sidebars distracting and would prefer that they were removed entirely. Also, what's the significance of the bands of colour on the bottom of the positional maps, such as Image:GoldenGlobeRaceApr10.png? --NormanEinstein 14:04, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
    • OK, thanks for the comment. The bands are the bands of "high-latitude" winds -- the roaring forties, furious fifties, and screaming sixties. They are actually labelled; perhaps not too clearly...? — Johan the Ghost _seance 14:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I've now merged the timeline sidebar into one, just so we can see what it looks like; if the consensus is to ditch it entirely, no problem. — Johan the Ghost _seance 16:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
    • OK, I originally thought this might be cool, but it's not really looking that appealing to me, so it's gone (archived -- see the talk page). — Johan the Ghost _seance 08:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• Support, interesting, comprehensive. As always, minor things could be improved, but the basic article is great. Prose and format could do with a few small pokes. The diagrams assume they're being viewed in sequence, which when the wikip image servers are being as slow as they are atm is perhaps a bit hopeful. I looked at a middle one first, and was slightly confused over what directions the different dots were going it, and yes, what the coloured bands were. In the context of the article though (yes... I was looking at the piccies first...) it's fine. Also, the output of <references/> is particularly unsatisfying here, actually makes the references harder to understand (as proved by the Madmen comment above) rather than easier. Were it not for some crazy ideas about inline citation from certain editors, I'd say just ditch the notes and make people go to the damn library if they want page numbers. As is, perhaps giving up on automation, listinging all the sources at the top, then the page numbers collapsed in a more orderly (manual) format with the old ref templates would help. Might try it out ina sec, revert if it sucks. --zippedmartin 20:36, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

  Thanks very much for the comments, and of course for the support! I'll look into adding more labels to the later diagrams, that might help -- and maybe we don't need quite as many of them (I was making up for the lack of pictures). The references thing would be so much better if it could do multi-column... but collapsing them in some way could help, I'll look into that. What I don't want to do is have fewer references, becuase I believe that inline citations are necessary for WP:V. If someone takes issue with "Crowhurst had started creating a faked record of a voyage", for example, I want them to be able to see where the information comes from. If they aren't interested, they can always skip it; it's just a little number in a box. Cheers, — Johan the Ghost _seance 08:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

  OK, here's my thought on references. If I could cite each book just once, and then say "[2] p. 420" inline in the text, that would work. But:

  1. <ref> doesn't seem to support it
  2. adding it manually would be a hack (eg. <ref name=madmen/>^{p. 140}, which would break every time the reference style changed)
  3. most of all, it would make the ref list more manageable at the expense of having more prominent intrusions into the text. Since I think the number 1 thing should be readability of the text -- not the ref list -- I think the status quo is going to be best.

  Cheers, — Johan the Ghost _seance 08:14, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

  I've added more info to the maps, and tweaked the layout to be more consistent -- maps on left, pictures on right. Let me know what you think. — Johan the Ghost _seance 10:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

  Yeah, I had a crack at changing to ref/note templates after I posted that, but didn't succeed in getting anything clearer, mostly becuase two columns of notes made it rather confusing as to what the internal link had just bounced you to.

  Oh, and pictures. Fine currently (though maybe some of them need to be clearer about their source? hard to keep track the pseudo-legal hoops wikip wants you to jump through any given week), but some more wouldn't hurt. Bernard Moitessier has some pics of a restored Joshua, but they're not very good. Longer term, could perhaps *write* to Knox-Johnston and ask if he'd be willing to gdfl a pic or two. --zippedmartin 02:17, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

  That's a good idea... though I don't know how many pictures he actually owns, since he probably sold the copyright to his sponsor. Anyhow, I've added source info for the photos that are there. Cheres, — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:17, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

  I've added one of those Joshua pics you suggested, as I think it gives a reasonably good impression of the boat. — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:34, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

• Support. I like the article. It reads well and is informative, but think it would benefit from an external link or two. --NormanEinstein 14:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

  Thanks for the support. Any particular ideas on appropriate external links? The race no longer exists, of course, so I can't link to that; and everything I could think of linking to (like the Sunday Times, and the major personalities) are already linked to via Wiki pages. (Usual Wikipedia pratice seems to be to have a link to the The Sunday Times (UK) article, for example, and let that article be the single repository for external links.) Also, most of the external sources I found on this are already cited as references. But any ideas on this would be welcome. — Johan the Ghost _seance 15:02, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Positives outweigh the negatives by a large margin, but I'll list the negatives in case you feel like addressing them:
  • I'd say move that table down to the bottom, as a summary, it seems an appropriate place for it.
  • It's long. It's more article than I like to read at once. Anything you feel you can condense, condense.
  • It has — I feel like an idiot for saying something this trivial — too many semicolons. Yep.
  • Like others, I'm worried about the overdependence on one source.

Now, as far as the positives go, it is structured very nicely, written well, seems comprehensive, and is absolutely fascinating. Really brilliant stuff. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:23, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks hugely for taking the time to look into this so thoroughly, it's much appreciated -- as is your support, of course! Looking at your points:

• The table: is now at the bottom, as per your suggestion.
• The length: yes, that is one thing that's been bugging me from the start (when it was quite a bit longer!). I've already done several passes of eliminating stuff that was a bit superfluous, and condensing where I thought I could. It's now to the point where I feel that too much more compression would lose interesting information. Of course, it's a balance between interesting facts, and maintaining reader interest through a long article. Also, I don't see any really good way that it could be split. Still, I'll have another pass through.
• The semicolons: since coming to Wikipedia I have discovered in myself a tendency to overuse semicolons; this is something I'm now battling with. Anyhow, I've trimmed a whole bunch out; hope it looks better now. Actually, I can't believe how many there were; given the number of editing passes I did, I must have semicolon-blindness; or something.
• The heavy use of one source: OK, I'll order the Crowhurst book, which will help a lot, and maybe even Tetley's, and diversify. Without going to the newspaper print archives, that's about it for main sources.

Thanks again, — Johan the Ghost _seance 10:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• Support, a great read! Very interesting story and, without being anything so unencyclopedic as tongue-in-cheek, very amusing in a deadpan way. The maps look professional and also pretty. It's inconvenient that you can't look at them at a reasonable size and read the article at the same time, but I guess that can't be helped. (Unless you use Zocky's picture popups like I do, they're fantastic. You read it here first!)

The semicolons, yeah, they're well used, it's not that, but, well, there are definitely too many, yes. (Just look at the last paragraph.) Minor landlubber gripes: to "single-hand" a craft probably is a concept to a sailor, I don't doubt it, but to the rest of us it's jargon. What does "lying ahull" mean? Bishonen | talk 07:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC).

Hi Bishonen, thanks very much for taking the time to comment, and of course for your support! To look at your individual points:

• semicolons (assuming you mean the last para of the lead): I would never do that in a routine way, of course, but I thought that for that specific case it was an interesting style. However, you're probbaly right, it's not really encyclopedic, and thanks to the generous contribution of an other editor, they're gone. (And many other semicolons have now been purged.)
• to "single-hand" a craft: changed to "single-handly sailed her", which I think is clearer, given that single-handed sailing is wikilinked and copiously explained in that article.
• "lying ahull": added an explanation.

Hope that looks better now. Thanks again, — Johan the Ghost _seance 10:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks; those were only tiny gripes anyway. But I did mean the (then) last paragraph of the article, "There was considerable controversy..." Great article! The sentence "He left anyway" (about Crowhurst) was a high point for me. That was where I broke down and cried. :-) Bishonen | talk 12:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC).

Thanks! I love the bit about Tetley passing Cape Horn, after both Knox-Johnston and Moitessier were tempted to go on... ;-) — Johan the Ghost _seance 19:02, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• Support - Like other reviewers I think it needs diversity of references, and a few more illustrations. I realise you're working hard to try to secure both of those and it's not easy. Agree the table belongs at the bottom. Love the maps. This is the sort of article where Wikipedia really shines, fascinating reading about an obscure, but notable topic. I loved reading this, and would love to see it make FA (this, by the way, is my first FA comment ever... I liked the article that much). GREAT work! ++Lar: t/c 12:28, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your support, and for the nice comments! It's certainly a fascinating topic. The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst is a fascinating and (to a sailor like me) illuminating story. — Johan the Ghost _seance 19:02, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• Support after a tweak or two: The "attrition" paragraph needs to have its prose smoothed somewhat. Currently, it's choppy, with "he was here," "he was there," and "he was the other place" -- basically, some variation in the sentence structures and elimination of repetition. The maps showing the relative positions of each person are very small on my high resolution monitor. I could, of course, click for an enlargement, but I'd prefer it if the maps are legible enough to entice me to click. Perhaps move them up to 300 px on a side? Otherwise, it's an interesting story with desperation, folly, and conniving -- all the things that are best in a Wikipedia article. :-) Geogre 15:01, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for taking the time to comment. I've had a go at that "Attrition" section; I hope it looks better now. As to the maps, the thing is that they're thumbnails, and I don't like setting sizes for thumbnails -- because this overrides the user's expressed preferences (see "Files" under prefs). So, maybe you could set a larger thumbnail size in your prefs? On the other hand, I take the point that as maps, there's a case for making the thumbnails themselves large enough to be useful. Let me know what you think. Cheers, — Johan the Ghost _seance 19:02, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

The changes vary it a good bit. I used a dash in one spot to give some variety (as you hadn't used them anywhere, so they ought to be effective as spice) and did some very minor alteration to try to get the commas to behave. Otherwise, it looks better. I suppose I could try Zocky's app, but, of course, that means installing things, and the man at the computer store told me I should never do that. Geogre 02:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Re the maps again, I can heartily recommend Zocky's picture popups. — Johan the Ghost _seance 23:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Ya, but not everyone uses those... so making them bigger would help a lot. Something with less bright background colors might be nice too but that's not a must. ++Lar: t/c 00:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've made the maps larger as per your suggestion. BTW, Zocky popups doesn't require you to install anything on your computer; it's just a change to your Wikipedia configuration. However, I totally agree that Wikipedia should be usable without "add-ons". — Johan the Ghost _seance 11:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

• Oh, and viva the semicolon! Long live the semicolon! Semicolon users of the world, unite; an honorable punctuation mark needs defending from Kurt Vonnegut! Geogre 15:22, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Geogre; you know I love the semicolon; it's one of the best ways of achieving variation of sentence structure; and when used prettily and correctly, as in this article, it is indeed a thing of beauty; but there's a rhythm to these things; any punctuation mark can be overused; there is such a thing as cumulative effect; somebody stop me, please; help; Bishonen ; talk; 17:17; 7 May 2006 (UTC).
    • I was with you till that last one... but you've went too far now bishi... Semiabuse is something up with which we should not put. ++Lar: t/c 17:44, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

unFortunately();

for (some[reason]) {

my ( punctuation, seems, to, be );

suffering:

from (occupational, stress);

}

lately();

Johan the Ghost::message(new Date(19, 09, 0, 7, MAY, 2006, Timezone("UTC")));

Ewww... K&R braces... --zippedmartin 08:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

• Support Great article, interesting, well written, includes the word "slapdash"! :) A couple of comments, you have a Notes section, could you include a References or Further reading section, like a bibliography or something. Basically the References section would include all the books you've cited but just in a list instead of notes. Photographs of all the major racers would be good too. Like you have for Crawford. Other than that the images could probably cope with being made a bit larger, but that might just be my screen. - FrancisTyers 19:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the comments and support:

• I've added that "Further reading" section as you suggested.
• I actually have photos of the 4 major racers; but I could look into getting others. Trouble is I can't stretch fair use too far, and I think all the relevant photos are owned by the same source -- the race sponsor.
• The images are thumbnails, and you can set what size you want thumbnails to be shown at in your preferences, under "Files". If I set a size in the article, you can't do that any more.

Cheers, — Johan the Ghost _seance 22:25, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Great article! Like the others, more sources to diversify the view of the subject would improve the article (every author has his/her unique writing style, interpretation of the subject, and viewpoint; more sources usually means a more diversified and comprehensive article), but I feel that it's fine if Madman is considered the penultimate source on this subject. I'm not concerned about the semicolon usage; going through the article, I reworded to some sentences to make them flow better, but I don't that it's too big an issue now. Overall, the article reads smoothly. I also don't see a problem with length; it's a longer than average article, true, but it's comprehensive and covers everything fully. The only thing that's quasi-bothering me right now is the chart at the bottom (and even if it were moved back to the top); it seems to sumamrize what's described in the article (such as finish date, boat, etc.) and just doesn't feel right at either the end or beginning. (Not too sure what to do with it, either... :-) ) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:58, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

  Thanks very much for your time and effort, and for your support! A few points:

  • Thanks for the copy edit; a big improvement. I've just made a few tweaks: clarifying the trimaran stability issue a little; clarified Moitessier's attitude to materialism developing over a long period (this comes over strongly in his book); Tetley knew he was pushing before the sinking.
  • Re sources, after the FAC (pass or fail) I'm going to make a work list in the talk page; sources will be the one big issue, as far as I can see. I just got (today!) Tetley's book; the Crowhurst book is on order. I'm not aware of any other primary sources without digging into the newspaper archives (which would give me the same info that's in Voyage for Madmen).
  • Re semicolons: glad it looks good now, you should have seen it before I purged a million of them... ;-)
  • Re the chart: Yes, it's a little bit of an appendix, but I think it's useful. It would be nice if WP articles could have a clear "Appendix" section for this kind of stuff.

  Thanks again for your work on this! — Johan the Ghost _seance 21:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)