Wikipedia:Peer review/1906 French Grand Prix/archive1

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1906 French Grand Prix[edit]

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I'm intending to take the article to FAC soon and would like some feedback, particular on its prose and jargon, and anything else which needs work. The classification table is still a work in progress. Apterygial 04:54, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is very good, and I enjoyed reading it. It is well-written and well-illustrated. Most of my suggestions are nitpicks that should not take long to address. A few, such as questions about the red links, may take a bit longer, but I don't see any really big problems. Nice job.

Background

  • "... by 1903 the Gordon Bennett races became some of the most prestigious in Europe; its formula of closed-road racing and among similar cars replaced the previous model of unregulated vehicles racing between distant towns, over open roads." - Should "its" be changed to "their" to match "races"? Also, delete "and" so that the sentence reads "... their formula of closed-road racing among similar cars replaced the previous model of unregulated vehicles racing... "?
  • File:Gordon Bennett 1904.jpg is an excellent image. A tag on its license page suggests copying it to the Commons. That would be a good thing to do before taking the article to FAC.
  • Done (and properly, I hope). Apterygial 09:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good to me. Finetooth (talk) 17:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Under the ACF's proposal, France was allowed fifteen entries, Germany and Britain six, and the remaining countries—Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria and the United States—could enter three cars each." - Tighten by two words by deleting "could enter" since "allowed" already provides the verb.
  • I would not redlink any terms twice in the same article. In this case, I'd unlink Léon Théry in the image caption. Alternatively, you could create a Léon Théry article and make the links blue.
  • I've unlinked it. I think it might be possible to create an article on Théry (I think he named the Michelin man, of all things) but I don't have the resources at the moment. Apterygial 09:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Track

  • This is a helpful map. A question may arise about the source of the information for the map. How did the author, Alexander Jones, know what the track looked like? It would be good to track down an answer to that question and add the information to the image description page.
  • Added the source information (I originally emailed scans from the book to him and he designed the map from them). Apterygial 09:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Looks fine. Finetooth (talk) 17:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Entries and cars

  • "each team entered three cars, to make for a total field of thirty-four entries... " - Tighten by one word by deleting "for"?
  • "No British nor American manufacturers entered the Grand Prix." - "Or" rather than "nor"?

Race

  • "A draw took place between the thirteen teams to determine the starting order... " - "Among" rather than "between"?
  • Each of the cars in each team were given a letter, either 'A', 'B', or 'C'. - Double quotation marks are generally preferred to single except in the case of nested quotations. Thus, these would become "A", "B", or "C". Ditto for the later instances such as 'Burton' ("Burton") in the article.
  • "Cars assigned the letter 'C', which would be the last away, formed a single line at the side of the track, to allow any cars which would complete the circuit before all competitors had started the chance to pass." - A bit awkward. Perhaps "... to allow any cars to pass that completed the circuit before the "C" group started."
  • "Itala driver Maurice Fabry started the quickest of the competitors... " - Maybe "Itala driver Maurice Fabry started most quickly... "?
  • I think the original in this case is a little clearer. Apterygial 09:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The seventeen cars which completed the first day were covered by two and a half hours;" - I'm uncertain what is meant by "were covered"? Would it be more clear to say that the remaining 16 cars finished within two and a half hours of Szisz?
  • I combined with the remaining part of the sentence to read: "Seventeen cars completed the first day; Henri Rougier's Lorraine-Dietrich finished last with a time of 8:15:55.0, two and a half hours behind Szisz." Hopefully this is clearer. Apterygial 09:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good. Finetooth (talk) 17:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Cars set off the following morning at the time they had logged the day before," - Maybe "at intervals they had logged the day before"?
  • The key here is that Szisz finished the first day in 5 hours and 45 minutes, and so began at 5:45. The time they set on the first day determined their starting time. I've expanded this explanation to hopefully make it a little clearer. Apterygial 09:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is clear now. Finetooth (talk) 17:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "This method would ensure that positions on the road would directly reflect the race standings." - Change to straight past tense; i.e., "This method ensured that positions on the road directly reflected the race standings"?
  • "Clément completed his stop more quickly than Szisz, and Nazzaro did not stop at all, and so both closed the time gap to those in front." - Maybe "... and both gained on the leaders"?
  • I changed it to "Clément completed his stop more quickly than Szisz, and Nazzaro did not stop at all, and so Clément closed his time gap to Szisz and Nazzaro closed on Clément." Apterygial 09:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Better. Finetooth (talk) 17:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "As planned, 'Burton' took over Jenatzy's car, but Lancia was forced to resume in his everyday clothes when his replacement driver could not be found at the time the car was due to start." - I'm not sure what "everyday clothes" refers to. It usually means "street clothes", but I think that is not the intended meaning here.
  • That is the intended meaning. Perhaps it should be changed to "street clothes"? Apterygial 09:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would have understood "street clothes" right away even though it may be a bit slangy. I thought "everyday clothes" might mean something special related to racing garments. Finetooth (talk) 17:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to "street clothes". Apterygial 09:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Post-race and legacy

  • "The ACF decided that too much pressure had been put on drivers and riding mechanics by the regulation forbidding work on car to be done by others in the team." - More smooth might be "The ACF decided that too much pressure had been put on drivers and riding mechanics by forbidding others to work on the cars during the race."

Classification

  • Nothing should be red-linked twice in the same article.
  • The number of red links in the article is unusually large. I recommend linking only those names or terms that are likely to have articles about them in the future. If you are planning to create articles for some or all of them, you might consider doing at least some of them before nominating at FAC.
  • I removed those redlinks that I determined were unlikely to have an article created for them, and left a list of them on the talk page for possible re-linking later. The others are notable enough to have articles created for them, but as I don't have the resources at the moment and WP:REDLINK recommends I should leave them "alone rather than create a minimal stub article that has no useful information", I'm leaving them red for now. Apterygial 12:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds reasonable. Finetooth (talk) 17:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Double-bolding should be avoided whenever possible. Since the links create automatic bolding, it is not necessary to add another layer of bolding. WP:MOSBOLD has details.

Other

  • The dab checker at the top of this review page finds one link, to "floodlight" that goes to a disambiguation page instead of the intended target.
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 00:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Further Finetooth comment: After posting replies above and a note to your talk page, I glanced at the article again and noticed that there are still some duplicate red links. Elliott Shepard, for example, is red-linked three times (in the infobox, main text, and table). I'd unlink two of them; maybe just linking the first instance is the best approach. Finetooth (talk) 17:54, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the link to Shepard in the top image, but I've kept the other ones, as they don't seem overly excessive and will make it easier when (or if) their articles are created. Thanks for the peer review and the encouraging words. Apterygial 09:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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