Wikipedia:Peer review/List of Manchester City F.C. managers/archive1

List of Manchester City F.C. managers[edit]

The latest in the long line of List of X F.C. managers articles to aim for featured list status. It has a longer prose section than most articles of this type, so I'd like feedback on that part of the article in particular. Oldelpaso (talk) 21:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from The Rambling Man (talk · contribs)[edit]

Hi Oldelpaso, here you go...

Odd position for image placement, particularly on narrow width screens, I'd put it right at the top...
- Done.
Joined the football league - which division?
- Done.
"...any other man." odd phrase...
A couple of choppy bits of prose, consider flowing:
- "During Peter Swales' time as Manchester City chairman the tenure of managers was frequently short-lived." and "Between 1973 and 1994 Swales appointed eleven managers.[10]"
- "Les McDowall became manager in 1950, and managed the Blues for more League seasons than any other man.[7]" and "His achievements peaked with an FA Cup triumph in 1956." etc..
"upturn" and "downturn" in a single sentence reads rather awkwardly.
- Reworded.
"...with friend ..." cite friendship as this has undertones of nepotism.
- I've removed it. Like large proportions of the Manchester City support and many a journalist, I firmly believe it was nepotism (how else to explain the appointment of a relegation specialist who he had known since his schooldays?), but of course in this context it is giving undue weight to a particular point of view.
"setting club records for goalscoring in the process" - such as? citation required.
- Cited and made more specific.
6th July 2006- 6 July, 2007.
- Done.
Why isn't the table sortable and similar to the other FLC's, utilising {{sortname}} and {{dts2}}?
- Because the sorting syntax confuses me :) I'll read up on the instructions.
  - Now fully sortnamed and dts2'd (thanks for the info Struway!). {{nts}} can wait a while, there's only so much repetitive template work one can do in a single sitting.
It's not going to hold it back, but I'd consider writing a stub for the league cup final which is currently red-linked.
Frizzell started before McNeil ended?
- Upon doublechecking, the date for McNeill was wrong. Fixed.
What happened between January and July 1979?
- A grey area. Allison returned in a coaching position in January, and Book's title changed to "general manager". Allison became manager in the traditional sense in July, but Book still held the title of general manager until October 1980. The Hall of Fame book states "Peter Swales brought Malcolm Allison back as a "coaching overlord" in 1979 and although [Book] was still officially the team manager Allison was given the authority to control the destiny of the Blues on the pitch." I'll put Book until July with an explanation in the text, and check the statistics.
Consider a notes column for the various references which are currently dotted around.
Use en-dash for page ranges in the references.
- Done.

I'm done, for now. Hope the comments help. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:09, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Really happy with the changes. Let me know when it hits FLC. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the League era. Why capital l? Plus further uses later on.
- I generally use League when referring to The Football League as a proper noun, and league when using the word as a common noun.
  - I understand why you've done it, but the League isn't a proper noun, it's The Football League that's a proper noun. If you use just the league to refer to The Football League you can still wikilink it but I would opt for a lower case l. Peanut4 (talk) 13:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As of October 2007. Sven Goran Erikkson was appointed in July was he not?
- Its an As of... in the WP:ASOF sense. I've reworded the sentence to clarify.
Tom Maley became first Manchester City manager. I presume there's a missing the in here. I would also change one of the win / won later in that sentence.
- Yes, a typographical error. I've removed the "won.
Over time Mercer's assistant Malcolm Allison gained influence Seems a bit vague to me this.
How about adding flags for the manager's nationality in the table as other lists - and hence backing up the point about Sven Goran Erikkson.
- I'm not a fan of putting flags everywhere, but as the featured lists all have a nationality column containing flags I will follow suit.
  - I wouldn't add flags just to follow suit. If you don't like them then they're strictly not necessary. Peanut4 (talk) 13:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think the history section is good and no problems about it being longer than any other such lists. Peanut4 (talk) 01:26, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

comments from Struway2 (talk · contribs)

By 1889 the club had moved to Hyde Road and renamed to Ardwick A.F.C. the renamed to is ungrammatical.
- Reworded.
the tenure of managers was frequently short-lived Can you have short-lived tenure? brief, perhaps.
- Reworded.
You have Magnall, linking to Ernest Magnall which redirects to J. Ernest Mangnall, with an extra 'n'. Which is it?
- As is sometimes the case with figures from that era, sources are inconsistent. After looking through my books, Mangnall appears to be the more common spelling, so I've changed it. Sam Omerod/Ormerod is another of these, but in his case it is about fifty-fifty.
Does the Swales era need more referencing?
You might want to split the 1996-97 season sentence into two.
To sort the names, if you use {{sortname}} for the ones with articles, and for the others format e.g. Frederick Hopkinson as <span style="display:none">Hopkinson Frederick</span>Frederick Hopkinson , that should sort the unlinked ones on the (non-displaying) surname-first version and display only the surname-last version.
- Also, the {{dts2}} template supports month/year and also year only. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:08, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I always ask people if they really need dashes in otherwise-empty honours column entries.
have the courage of your convictions and leave out the flags, I would ;-)

IMO, your lengthy managerial summary provides balance to the article, so that prose and table are complementary, excellent standard for us to try and live up to. hope some of the above helps, cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:56, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Couple more things,

You might want the numbers centred rather than left-justified.
If you want to italicise the nationality for caretakers, it works if you put apostrophes round the template (sorry if I'm telling you something you already know). cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:39, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style. If you would find such a review helpful, please click here. Thanks, APR _t 20:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all, the article is definitely stronger after your comments. I am now going to submit it to FLC. Oldelpaso (talk) 21:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]