Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of winners of the Boston Marathon/archive3

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

The list was promoted by Giants2008 via FACBot (talk) 00:26, 27 July 2020 (UTC) [1].[reply]

List of winners of the Boston Marathon[edit]

List of winners of the Boston Marathon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Toolbox
Nominator(s): Harrias talk 12:49, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Boston Marathon is the oldest, and arguably most prestigious, marathon in the world. It was formerly a featured list, but was demoted in 2012 and had serious sourcing and MOS non-compliance issues. I have completely overhauled it a followed the style of my recently promoted FL, List of winners of the New York City Marathon. As always, all feedback will be greatly received. Harrias talk 12:49, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:42, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
;Comments
  • The refs above the first table are not in numerical order
  • 2020 row goes all the way across most of the tables but not the first
    • It's that stupid extra column. Sorted. Harrias talk 18:41, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Due to World War I, the race was 10-man relay for military teams" => "Due to World War I, the race was a 10-man relay for military teams"
  • Should the 1978 men's wheelchair note also be against the 1978 women's wheelchair?
    • I would sort of assume so, but I haven't seen anything that clarifies that the women definitely did start earlier. I'll keep looking; there's a few little quirks I'd like to find out more about, but for the most part, they are tangential. Harrias talk 18:41, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the numbers in the victories by nationality table would look better centred
  • Note c is not a complete sentence so doesn't need a full stop
    • I've made it into a complete sentence. Harrias talk 18:41, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Think that's it from me - great work!! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:02, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from ~ HAL333 14:04, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
;Comments
  • I only noticed one thing:
In the caption for the John McDermott image, the comma isn't necessary before "in 1897".
Nice job, it's a great article. ~ HAL333 00:52, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Cheers HAL333, sorted that caption. Harrias talk 07:31, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Well done. ~ HAL333 14:04, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback from User:Sillyfolkboy[edit]

  • Lead
    • "The length of the marathon was not fixed" – need to clarify that "the marathon" in this context refers to the distance in general rather than the Boston marathon.
    • The lead paragraph does not address the subject of the article: the winners of the Boston Marathon. This material describing the history of course measurement is best placed at Boston Marathon and only needs to be mentioned briefly here as an explanation of why some winners had their course records stripped.
      • I had trimmed the discussion about various distances away. Harrias talk 10:07, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • This list makes no mention of the handcycle division. Handcyclists have received full winner ceremonies since 2017 and the division was well populated several years prior to that (see here for more info).
      • While they give them full winner's ceremonies, they do not list them on their list of champions. As such, it is difficult to gather when they first considered them "official finishers" of the marathon. From what I can see there were handcyclists taking part at least as far back as 2001, but at least some of these are described as "exhibition races". In the absence of the BAA or another reliable source publishing a list of winners, I am worried that it is going to be too difficult to ascertain the scope for this. While the Berlin Marathon is recognised as a significant handcycling event, this does not appear to be the case for Boston. At the moment, I would err on the side of either omitting it entirely, or including it, but only with results from 2017 onwards. Harrias talk 10:07, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • The race recognises winners in visibility-impaired, mobility-impaired, and masters age categories [2]. How does the list intend to treat this fact?
      • Again, winners of these categories are not listed in the BAA list of champions. And again, without official guidance, it is nigh on impossible to establish a scope. Runners in all these categories are considered part of the open division, so they are subset, so I would lean towards including these in a separate list, if the relevant information could be found. Harrias talk 10:07, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • The lead makes no mention of the athletes with the most wins at the Boston Marathon, bar Clarence DeMar. The most successful athlete of each division is key information for this topic.
    • Worth mentioning that Jean Driscoll has the record for most consecutive race victories at seven.
    • The lead does not mention that Geoffrey Mutai won in 2011 with a then-fastest ever time of 2:03:02.
      • Added this into the lead and the table. Harrias talk 10:22, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is no mention that Yamada's 1953 win was initially considered a world record.
      • Added, and the same for Viskari a few years later. Harrias talk 10:34, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Probably worth mentioning that Eugene Roberts was the first wheelchair finisher in 1970 but was not recognised as a wheelchair winner.[3]
    • "Suh Yun-bok set the only IAAF-ratified world record in the men's open race" – need to clarify that this means the only mens IAAF world record not the only IAAF-ratified world record.
    • Worth stating that these world records were not official records at the time, but were retrospectively recognised as world records by the IAAF on January 1, 2004 (see Marathon world record progression and page 612 of the Stats handbook). The IAAF has also rebranded as World Athletics so the new name should be used.
      • I have added a note in regarding this. Harrias talk 10:38, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Worth mentioning that Rita Jeptoo is the first and only winner to be stripped of the title.
      • This information is already presented in the table; I'm wary about overburdening the lead. Harrias talk 10:22, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Worth mentioning the periods of success of certain nationalities in the elite races, from early North Americans, to mid/late 20th century Europeans, to current-day East Africans.
  • List
    • Surely the Key should be a sub-section within the Winners section rather than a section of its own?
    • The "Course notes" column of the men's division list is entirely about distance. This column should be simplified to "Distance".
    • Per the above, the N/A values in the above column should be replaced with the marathon distance and the column should be made sortable as numeric data.
    • The years on the list are only partially linked to the yearly articles. I would suggest adding links to all editions. Yearly articles are already present in the German and Dutch Wikipedias. (FYI – I've been creating these articles recently and will resume with the Boston article set once the Berlin Marathon is complete).
    Captions
    • "Men's Open" or "Men's open"?
    • Redundant to state "new" world/course record. The setting of one indicates that already.
    • "Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot had"?
    • "and 17-year course record."?
  • Would it be useful to include an external link to the BAA website at the foot of the page?

Ping me once you've worked through the above or if you have any question. On a sidenote, several of the points I've mentioned above also apply to List of winners of the New York City Marathon so it's worth addressing that too. Happy to give a further review on that talk page rather than reopening the Featured List process, which would be a bit of a faff. Thanks for the work so far! SFB 15:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sillyfolkboy, a lot of very useful stuff there, including a few things I wasn't even aware of. Will take a look through in the next few days and come back to you. Harrias talk 15:58, 13 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Sillyfolkboy: Would you be able to have another look over the list, and my responses above, and let me know what you think? Harrias talk 10:39, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Harrias: Nearly all the above is good with me. On the handcycle winners - the BAA has officially recognised these since 2017 and made official announcements as such[4][5], so I'd definitely include the 2017–19 winners, plus a note simply stating that there were earlier exhibition handcycle races (I haven't located the year of first the handcycle entrants either, btw). All other changes are good, though this sentence is a little ambiguous so I'd explicitly note the years that were retrospectively recognised: "The first six victories in the women's open division were officially recognized in 1996." Thanks! SFB 10:57, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Sillyfolkboy: Okay, added and clarified. Harrias talk 11:28, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Bloom6132 (talk) 07:49, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comments –
  • Just curious – what's with the blank last column in the "Men's open division" table? Is it necessary?
  • No, just a bit of stray code I hadn't even noticed. Harrias talk 07:23, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • It was previously mentioned in one of my FLCs years ago (forgot exactly which one) that colspan could mess up sorting. You might want to consider formatting the "Canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic" rows as I did in Golden Spikes Award (which I in turn took off List of Davis Cup champions). Perhaps word as "Not contested" or "Not held".
  • I've tested it: because it uses the {{n/a}} coding, it always sorts to the top/bottom, and doesn't break the sorting. Unless you are experiencing different?
  • No, it sorts fine for me – was just concerned for other readers. Didn't notice that you had utilized {{n/a}} coding, which is different from previous colspan examples I was thinking of. —Bloom6132 (talk) 07:49, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • In light of the recent RFC on table captions (closed back in May) and how FLCs have to follow MOS:ACCESS, a table caption should be included in "Victories by nationality". This quote by PresN might apply to this list: "In the case that the table is the first thing in a section where the section header is essentially the same as what the caption would be, and therefore looks duplicative visually, you can make the caption screen reader-only with the {{sronly}} template, e.g. "|+ {{sronly|Example table caption}}" instead of "
  • Otherwise, they are all licensed and tagged.
  • Under MOS:DTT, "information should not be conveyed by color alone." You could utilize an accessible symbol like the ones you recommended to me in my FLC back in March.
  • The colour is not conveying the information alone; in every case, the "Distance" or "Notes" gives the pertinent information in a text format. Harrias talk 07:23, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • True – I didn't put two and two together about the info in the columns. Just so use to baseball lists (which don't have them). —Bloom6132 (talk) 07:49, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps separate the "Notes and references" section into two level-2 headings of "Notes" and "References".

—Bloom6132 (talk) 21:43, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. could I please trouble you to have a look at this FLC of mine when you have the time? Cheers! —Bloom6132 (talk) 21:43, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Bloom6132: Thanks for your review; I have responded to each of your points above. I'll add the MLB list to my reviewing list. Harrias talk 07:23, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – looks to me like it meets all 6 FL criteria. Great work! —Bloom6132 (talk) 07:49, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I am participating in the WikiCup, and intend to claim points from the above review. —Bloom6132 (talk) 21:43, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Giants2008 (Talk) 22:30, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Source review –
  • Minor point, but ref 12 is using the 10-digit ISBN instead of the 13-digit ones elsewhere. The MoS recommends the 13-digit ISBNs, so I suggest changing that one.
  • Refs 13, 15, 17, and 18 are missing access dates.
  • Added to some, removed other citations altogether. Harrias talk 07:08, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The hyphen in the title of ref 22 should be an en dash per the MoS.
  • Source reliability looks fine and the link-checker tool shows no problems, so we just need these few style points fixed. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:45, 23 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • All of my comments have been resolved, so the source review has been passed. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:30, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_list_candidates/List_of_winners_of_the_Boston_Marathon/archive3&oldid=969713774"