Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Eric Brewer (ice hockey)

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 19:07, 22 June 2008 [1].

Eric Brewer (ice hockey)[edit]

I've been working on this article on and off for quite a while now and feel that it meets all featured article criteria. It is well written, complete with images, and very well cited. Hopefully you all agree and we can add another FA to the lot! – Nurmsook! (talk) 04:50, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Gary King (talk) 00:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link dates like "13 September 2002", etc. in the references
  • Unlink years like "in 2003 for" per MOS:UNLINKYEARS
  • "defense" → "defence" for Canadian spelling; ensure all spelling is Canadian

Gary King (talk) 04:57, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Issues resolved, Blackngold29 04:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • For instance, during the 2004–05 NHL lockout,
  • There were a few peacock terms "a respectable mark", "had an impressive playoffs". They should be eliminated.
Overall, good job with the article. Blackngold29 05:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Looks good to me. Blackngold29 06:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • What makes IMDb a reliable source for his (I presume) middle name?
  • Would be nice if the publications, like the newspapers, were italicised.
Otherwise sources look good, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • For my taste, there are too many wikilinks in the article. For example, when there are four separate wikilinks in a row that is too many.
  • Also, I would like to remove Charitable contributions as a subsection under Personal history. Could that not be includes without being a separate section? Its removal would reduce choppiness.
  • I am changing a few things about the writing style (e.g. too much wordiness, some punctuation issues) which you can feel free to change back to the way you have it. –Mattisse (Talk) 22:03, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. What happened at the end of his career that he did not suit up for three years? What is the state of his career now? I am not quite clear. –Mattisse (Talk) 22:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quick Comment - Since the article is being worked on as I type this, I won't provide a full review yet. I do want to point out one early concern of mine. None of the newspaper citations have page numbers for verification purposes. Is it possible to add these? Giants2008 (talk) 23:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just to point out, I removed the IMDb ref on his name, since that's not a reliable source. Plus one's name doesn't need sourcing. Wizardman 23:59, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

< Content moved to talk page> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Nishkid64, though not the general factotum, quotes the opposite point of view (the old, displace one regarding n-dashes) in his comments under Zhang Heng. (I realize you are removing this discussion to the talk page so that it will not be clarified in public.)
To quote
"*For the win-loss record, that's not a range, so I'm fairly sure it should just be a hyphen, not an en dash.
No, win-loss record requires an en dash. 7–9 not 7-9. See WP:DASH. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 14:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Please clarify for all of us. –Mattisse (Talk) 03:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As correctly stated by Nishkid, scores require endashes. They do not require html endashes; the hard-coded endashes that this article used were fine. It is not necessary to change a direct endash to an html endash. Further discussion on the talk page please, or please see WP:DASH or Dash to understand an html endash in relation to other completely acceptable ways of entering an endash. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That link is not helpful for those of us who do not know html as it does not discuss the difference between "html" endashes and others. It just discusses when dashes in general are used. Perhaps you can recommend some more explanatory links. –Mattisse (Talk) 20:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On a quick glance, I believe the hyphens and endashes are correct now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "and he was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame with his fellow British Columbians from the 2002 Canadian Olympic Men's Ice Hockey team in 2003 for this accomplishment." In 2003 should probably be moved to the end of this sentence. I'm not a fan of ending sentences with numbers, but it flows better that way. This also seems quite long; see if it can be chopped a bit.
  • Personal life: "program, a program" Redundant. "find and develop both players and coaches".
  • Remove second Kamloops link in section.
  • Playing career, Prince George Cougars: "his final season with his minor league hockey team" Again, a pair of identical words close together, in this case his. Perhaps change the second to the team's nickname.
  • The first paragraph of this section has all sorts of number issues. The general rule is to spell only numbers lower than 10, although some editors like to spell all numerals.
  • "with an improbable playoff run with his Cougars teammates." More redundancy. Try to audit this throughout. In this case, try something like "by helping the Cougars go on an improbable playoff run."
  • "Brewer finished this run with six points in the 15 Cougars games." How about "the Cougars' 15 games."
  • What was his injury in 1998?
  • Do we need another WHL link here? There is a lot of overlinking in general.

I'm not happy with what I've seen so far. There are some other rough patches in the first few sections, but these should get you started. Please attempt to procure the services of a quality copy-editor, who can help smooth out the entire text. Giants2008 (talk) 14:55, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose—much improved 1a. I find too many glitches at the top for this to be considered "professional"-standard prose. Can you get someone new to copy-edit it carefully throughout? New is important, so they're relatively distant from the writing/editing of this text.

  • Opening: "currently" is a no-no—see "Usage" in MOS. You need "as of 2008" or something like it. If captains of hockey teams didn't change so often, we might let it go as "since March 2007", but I don't think so here.
  • "Portions"—sounds like a recipe. Why not just "parts of his career"?
  • One statement in the second para has "also": why not insert "also" into all statements? Or none.
  • "In 1999, Brewer was named to the Prince George Cougars' all-time team"—Is "named to" idiomatic? If people really do say this, leave it; otherwise use the more familiar "selected for".
  • A medal "came" during the Olympics? Flew in the window?
  • "his fellow British Columbian teammates"—remove "fellow" as redundant.

Then in the first section:

  • "Brewer was born on 17 April 1979 in Vernon, British Columbia, to parents Anna and Frank Brewer"—spot the redundant word.
  • "In the summer of 2004, Brewer married Rebecca Flann whom he met while"—comma just about required before "whom".

And lots more. TONY (talk) 02:46, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for these comments. I am working on a large copy-edit of the article and will also look into finding a "new" copy editor. – Nurmsook! (talk) 03:03, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm currently looking over the article. I'm a bit busy in real life though, at the moment, but I hope to be done with the copyedit in a few days, at most. Thank you for your patience, Maxim(talk) 19:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "who has been serving" --> "who has served"?
  • "He is an NHL All-Star and Olympic gold medalist." - the NHL thing, at least, needs an explanatory wlink
  • Any particular reason to use ref 2 in the lead? It's kinda out of place as the only one.
  • Same with ref 3 - nothing there massively contentious...
  • "When he was fourteen, Brewer's family moved" - change to "his family"...
  • Spell BCAHA out in full at least once.

giggy (:O) 13:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll get to the top three points, I usually save the lede for last... ;-) Maxim(talk) 14:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. Maxim(talk) 20:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support, giggy (:O) 01:53, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support I do not know anything about hockey, but I was able to figure out, to a decent degree, how good this player was without too much trouble. I did not have to do too much clicking and I did not have to painstakingly reread the article. The statistics were clear and many of them were compared to some sort of benchmark, so it was clear even to someone like me what they meant - thank you! I have just a couple of quibbles:

  • Brewer finished the playoffs with six points before the Oilers were eliminated four games to two by the Stars, a point-per-game average - Does this make sense? Something seemed to be missing to me.
  • Brewer has six points; Oilers lost 4–2; thus, Brewer has a point-per-game. That's the intended meaning. If you can make a bit less clumsy, I'd highly appreciate that. :-)
  • I must be really dense today, because I still don't understand! Awadewit (talk) 18:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't know how more simply that can be explained... OK, let's try again. ;-) Brewer and his Oilers are in a best-of-seven playoff series against the Stars. The series lasts six games; Stars win four, Oilers win two. Thus, the Oilers lose the series 4–2. During that six-game series (4+2=6), Brewer has six points. Thus, Brewer has a point-per-game average; on average, he had one point per game (6÷6=1). Clearer now? :D Maxim(talk) 20:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do you think "a one point-per-game average" or "a point-per-game average of one" would be clearer? The lack of the "one" was what was throwing me. I thought I was missing something. Awadewit (talk) 20:16, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I made "one point-per-game average". Is that better? Maxim(talk) 20:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • In his second season with the Oilers, Brewer began to evolve into a top NHL defenceman and was assigned to play against the opposing teams' top players by Oilers head coach Craig MacTavish. - "Top" is a bit colloquial and it is repeated throughout the article. Could we find a more precise word to use here and throughout the article?
  • Fixed.
  • There are still quite a few uses of the word "top" throughout the article. Could we reduce those? Awadewit (talk) 18:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am relying on the source assessment above that indicates all of these sources are reliable (thanks for that!) and I checked the images which seem to be licensed under a CC license from flickr, so everything looks to be in order! Nicely done! Awadewit (talk) 14:06, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Maxim(talk) 14:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You finish copy-editing, I come back for another review. Simple system, isn't it? Here goes.

  • Hyphen in "International Ice Hockey Federation sanctioned"?
  • Prince George Cougars: Still a "4 goals" but the numbers thing is better overall.
  • Still would like to know what his injury was. Is it mentioned in the sources?
  • References out of order [19][16].
  • New York Islanders: The team doesn't need a link since it's linked in the last sentence of the previous section.
  • Thirty is spelled out. This should probably be fixed.
  • Edmonton Oilers: Comma after "prospect of playing for the Oilers".
  • Team overlinking: Extra Islanders and Rangers links and two Dallas Stars links.
  • Comma after "who was a free agent".
  • St. Louis Blues: "twenty-three assists for twenty-nine points" are more spelled numbers.
  • Two Columbus Blue Jackets and Phoenix Coyotes links in section.

I asked for a quality copy-editor, and Maxim is probably the best hockey writer we have. The page is much better and with these fixes it will be well on its way. Giants2008 (talk) 02:27, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No doubt on that one, what a help Maxim has been to this article. I've also just addressed all of the concerns you listed here except for the injury. I've looked up and down but can't seem to find straight proof of the exact injury. I would assume it was a spained knee (such as his injury with Lowell), but obviously this does not meet WP:V. And as a heads up for anyone in general, the numerical system I'm using in this article (or have been trying to use) is to spell out any one-word number (ie: 1-20, 30, 40, etc.) If I simply put in numbers I think this article would look terrible as it largely includes stats, and my method seems to be fine per WP:MOSNUM, although let me know if this is a problem. – Nurmsook! (talk) 04:24, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Much-improved since it first came here. A little work by a fresh editor can make all the difference sometimes, and I think this is a textbook example. Giants2008 (talk) 18:05, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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