Talk:Phil Taylor (darts player)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: BelovedFreak 17:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

I'm afraid that this article is not at GA standard at this time. I've reviewed it against the GA criteria and it fails on several at the moment. I'll list a few obvious problems below:

• There are many sections that need citations. Some of these are marked with maintenance tags (which should have been addressed before nominating for GA) and there or others not marked. At a minimum, every quote, possibly contentious fact, and every section should have at least one reference. For example, the "Early career" section has only one citation. When I followed that link, I was taken to a page that didn't back up any of the facts there. When I clicked through to his biography on his website, I see that either his website has copied Wikipedia or vice versa. More on that later, but even if it's the best outcome (that he has copied Wikipedia), that cannot be used as a reliable source. "Split in darts" is not referenced, " Successes" does not have enough references, "Recent form" need many more references, etc.
• The lead should summarise the main points of the article, per WP:LEAD. At the moment it does not.
• There are issues with the style and prose quality. I haven't reviewed this thoroughly but they include:
  • Use of contractions like "didn't"
    • This is in the manual of style guidelines, specifically at WP:CONTRACTION. basically words like "didn't" should be written out in full, as "did not". The exception is when they're in quotes - if the quote uses a contraction, then you keep it in.--BelovedFreak 17:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  • "He also admitted to plans of retiring in Port Levy,.." - why would that be an admission?
  • Many short, isolated paragraphs consisting of one or two sentences, even a two-sentence section.
  • Television show titles should be italicised
  • A paragraph beginning "He also..."
• References that are just bare URLs
• Inclusion of trivia such as "He also appeared on Channel 5's The Gadget Show on the 26 April 2010 to help them review cameras."
  • The best link I can give you here is probably Wikipedia:Handling trivia. This is an essay, not a guideline or policy, so doesn't have to be followed to the letter. However, it's generally best to avoid little titbits of information which, when you stand back and look at it, aren't that important to the person's life or career. It's often a matter of opinion, and different editors may disagree, but I would say that him appearing on the Gadget Show is not really a defining event in his life or career. It's not a hugely important show, it's not got much to do with darts, it's not something that he got deeply involved in (as far as I could tell), so I don't think it needs including. There's no need to list every single piece of information we can find about a person. I think it's ok to mention some of his TV appearances, in a paragraph of how his career has expanded slightly, and I think that the first paragraph of the "Television appearances" does ok, but I think you need to avoid sentence after sentence of "In 2000 he appeared on X. In 2002 he appeared on Y. In September 2005, he went on Z." etc.--BelovedFreak 17:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
• Several dead links in the references
• References should contain a certain amount of information (where available) to allow readers to verify facts: author, date, retrieval date, page title
• I'm not familiar with some of these sources. they would need to be checked for reliability. Eg. Planetdarts, DartsMad.

Now, as I mentioned, I found that the biography on his official website is identical to part of this article. He is claiming copyright, so I have started an investigation at Wikipedia:Copyright problems. I suspect, after looking at the edit history for the page, that his website is copied from here, in which case it should be licensed appropriately for re-use on his website, which it isn't. this issue should be resolved before the tag is removed from the page but it doesn't affect the GA nomination as there are too many other problems. When you have addressed the issues above and added many more sources, I would suggest taking the article to peer review to get more opinions before nominating at GA again. let me know if you have any questions.--BelovedFreak 17:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)