Talk:Football in the Philippines/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Go Phightins! (talk · contribs) 03:35, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Unless there is a form of the English language with which I am unfamiliar in which this article is written, it seems to be littered with run-ons and rather odd phraseology; some is simply awkward, others are downright incorrect. For example, Currently, there has been four projects accepted by FIFA to build and upgrade football facilities in the Philippines. The first one was approved on August 2000, which FIFA built six technical centers namely in Iloilo, Laguna, Negros Occidental, Cagayan de Oro, Zamboanga and Agusan del Sur with a total budget of ₱458,046. First off, don't use currently, as that is conducive to the article growing out of date. Second, "The first one was approved on August 2000, which FIFA ..."; there needs to be a was in there, i.e. The first one, which was approved on ___ August 2000 (otherwise needs to be in August 2000), authorized FIFA to build six technical centers in (get rid of namely) Iloilo, Laguna .... There are grammar errors like this throughout the early sections, and tense issues all over the place (i.e. "And the last project, FIFA built a technical center in Bukidnon which includes a natural grass pitch, dormitories, changing rooms, lecture rooms and offices" and "On 18 October 2011, Real Madrid opened a youth sports academy to 70 poor children with an age under 14 years benefited to train football in Mindanao.[13] Last 15 May 2012, an English club Chelsea launches a football school in the country. The school is operated by Phil Younghusband and James Younghusband which are both brothers and former members of Chelsea's Reserves and Youth Team."
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Overuse of "currently", in both lead and body, includes "unfortunately", which editorializes the article
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	OK here.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	The sources are there ...
	2c. it contains no original research.	good here.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Not being an expert and not finding similar GAs against which to review this article, I am going to go out on a limb and say yes.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	This seems pretty good.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	Not really, includes words such as "unfortunately" that editorialize the article.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	check.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	The image of Paulino Alcantara, while it looks old, does not have a definite publication date, either on the file page or on the website from which it originated, as near as I can tell, so I cannot definitively state it is in the public domain. Do you have any information on its publication status?
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	OK.
	7. Overall assessment.	Unfortunately, right now, I am going to have to fail this article, though I will leave this open in case you can find someone to help (or can fix all of the issues). There are two big issues. The first is that the article needs a thorough copyedit; it is hard to discern meaning in some places. I will stipulate that I am an American, and thus am most familiar with American English, however by and large, issues in this article seem to be universal grammar issues. Second, I am a little concerned with some close paraphrasing. For example, the article reads, "Chelsea launches a football school in the country." An online source reads, "Chelsea FC formally launches soccer school in the Philippines". After spotting that close paraphrasing, I ran it through an online plagiarism checker, and not much turned up, so hopefully that is a sporadic instance, but just be careful of that. For now, I am going to put the article on hold. If you can get a copyedit, I will finish out the review with some questions that popped into my head while reading as well as a little more critique. The bottom line, though, is that right now, the article has major grammar issues. I would do the copyedit myself, but I am not comfortable copyediting British English (I assume this is written in that). Let me know if you need any help. Go Phightins! 03:58, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Some miscellaneous comments:

Early years

• What does the Manila Bay incursion have to do with the development of the sport? I assume something, but we need to know why - right now, it is a rather random insertion.

• Because of the American's incursion, they continued the colonization in PHI, and introduced to us basketball. What if they didn't invade the Spaniards? Maybe soccer is already a popular sport here.

• I am concerned with the close paraphrasing in the China reference. Article: Also some Filipinos that had been sent to college in Hong Kong and China, returned home and taught their friends a little bit about the game of soccer Source: Some boys that had been sent to college in Hong Kong, China, returned home and taught their friends a little bit about the fine game of soccer or association football. I noticed some close paraphrasing earlier, and am hoping I found isolated incidents, not patterns.
• You may want to give W.H. Taft's title (POTUS)

• Added

• While I know what a hat trick is, not all readers will, as it is a jargony term. Please either explain, link, or replace.

• Added a link, and a note.

• In 1916, he continued his studies in medicine and played football for a local team Bohemian Sporting Club, there he helped the club to win two Philippine Championships in 1917 and 1918. This is a run-on sentence - either split into two, or split the clauses with a semicolon.

• Done

• However, all of that would change when the Americans marked the birth of basketball in the country. All of what would change? The previous paragraph talks about Alcantara's studies of medicine; I don't think that's what changed.

• Fixed

• Why were Americans in the Philippines?

• Added a short (in a nutshell) description at the first paragraph. FairyTailRocks (talk) 09:39, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

• Two surveys was conducted in parts of Metro Manila in 2012, the first one that basketball is the most watched sport at 74.4% meanwhile football was placed fourth at 17.9%.[note 1] On the second survey, basketball was the most played sport during leisure time at 9.6% than football.[note 2][7] There are several grammar issues in this sentence. I still think a copy-edit from the guild of copy editors is necessary.

For now, I am going to stop here, and again suggest that another set of eyes copyedit the article. The Guild of Copy Editors does a great job with this. Right now, the prose is of insufficient quality for the article to achieve GA status.

I'll make a deal - I will close this nomination now if you request a copyedit from a third party (either GOCE or another editor, but another set of eyes is needed), and once you get a copyedit, nominate the article again, ping me, and I will review Talk:Football in the Philippines/GA2. Right now, I just don't see the article meeting the criteria. Go Phightins! 22:51, 24 January 2014 (UTC)