Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hobey Baker/archive1

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 not promoted by Karanacs 13:48, 27 September 2011 [1].

Hobey Baker[edit]

Nominator(s): Kaiser matias (talk) 02:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

After a few months away from editing, I decided to return in a big way. The fifth FAC of my current project to bring the inaugural class (1945) of players in the Hockey Hall of Fame (which I might add, has been adopted by a user on the French Wiki), Hobey Baker was the lone American player. While a student at Princeton University he excelled at both hockey and football, and had a profound influence on F. Scott Fitzgerald. He then served in the First World War and died weeks after it ended. The only person in both the HHOF and College Football Hall of Fame, this article is unlike any others I've worked on, in that his life was so diverse and not soley focused on hockey. I look forward to the reviews. Kaiser matias (talk) 02:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Consecutive footnotes should be in numerical order - ex. [18][28] instead of [28][18]
- done. --TaraO (talk) 05:40, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Missing bibliographic info for Fitzgerald 2010
Be consistent in whether shortened citations include concluding periods
Don't duplicate cited sources in External links.

While this was not the focus of my review, I will also note that the article would benefit from some copy-editing. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question: "On May 21 Baker helped to bring down an enemy plane for the first time": first time for him? first time for any American in the war? - Dank (push to talk) 04:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, I see Rickenbacker got a kill in April. - Dank (push to talk) 13:18, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape checks - No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 09:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, at least for now. This article needs some serious attention to the prose. A few examples:

"He joined the schools hockey, football and baseball teams in his freshman year."
"... and later became a noted amateur hockey player for the St. Nicholas Club in New York City." How could he have "sooner became"?
"During the First World War, he served with the 103rd and the 13th Aero Squadrons before earning promotion to captain". How do we know her earned his promotion, rather that just being promoted?
"Baker's stature while at Princeton had such a profound influence on F. Scott Fitzgerald that he was included as a minor character in Fitzgerald's book This Side of Paradise." Seems to be a non sequitor; if Fitzgerald was "profoundly" influenced by Baker's stature, then why was he only a minor character?

That's what the reference says: "[Fitzgerald] saw him as "an ideal worthy of everything in my enthusiastic admiration, yet consummated and expressed in a human being who stood within ten feet of me," according to Davies."

"Baker was born in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, the second son of Alfred Thornton Baker, a wealthy upholsterer and Mary Augusta Pemberton, a socialite." Need to look at the punctuation there: Alfred wasn't both a wealthy upholsterer and Mary August Pemberton.
"One of Baker's ancestors was Francis Rawle, a Quaker who immigrated to Philadelphia in 1688". You don't immmigrate to, you emigrate to.
"Baker's parents divorced in 1907 and both later remarried." They could hardly have married sooner.
"While at St. Paul's, Baker was first introduced to hockey." When was he introduced to hockey the second time? Or the third time?
"He once entered St. Paul's annual cross-country race for fun and won the race". The repetition is a bit jarring.
"Over his three year football career with the Tigers ...". Three-year is an adjective, and ought to be hyphenated.
"Baker scored 180 points, a school record that would last until 1964". Why "would last" rather than "lasted"?
"... when Cosmo Iacavazzi passed the record in the final quarter of his last college game." You don't "pass" records, you break them.
"Though he was in an opposing arena ...". The arena wasn't opposing him. "Opposition arena"?
"Princeton would lose the game 5–4 in overtime." Why "would lose" rather than "lost"?
"Ten years older than Baker, they quickly became friends". Doesn't really make sense.
"... the constant physical focus against him on the ice had taken its toll". How can a focus be against you, as opposed to on you?
"... which at the time was the largest amount of aircraft to fly in military formation."
"Success in the courses was dependent on how quickly one learned French". Need to avoid personal pronouns.
"On May 21 Baker helped to bring down an enemy plane for the first time". The first time an enemy plane was brought down, or the first enemy plane that Baker brought down?
"In a letter home describing the battle, Baker said it was the 'biggest thrill [he] ever had in [his] life'". Clearly that ought to be "biggest thrill [I] ever had in [my] life".
Is it to be World War I or First World War?

... basically someone needs to take a good look through this entire article for similar issues. Malleus Fatuorum 23:23, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I took care of everything you listed there. In regards to the remark about Fitzgerald, I have left it unchanged and provided the quote from the source that shows why I left it as so. Kaiser matias (talk) 04:26, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly an improvement, but I'm still not entirely convinced by the prose I'm afraid, and I still think that the whole thing needs a good look at, not just the few examples I've pointed out. Nevertheless here are a few more:

"The summer after graduation Baker toured Europe as a celebrity correspondent for The New York Times', where he wrote about events like the Henley Royal Regatta." The New York Times obviously isn't a place, so the "where" is inappropriate.
"Saltonstall, who would later serve as Governor of Massachusetts and a United States Senator, would later show off the stick he used to score the winning goal." Difficult to know where to start with that one, but for starters why the subjunctive "would", and repeated for Heaven's sake? And why "would later serve" anyway? As opposed to "sooner serve"? Why not something like "went on to serve"?
"Through sixty minutes of game-time, only five Harvard players and one Princeton player had been replaced by a substitute". As opposed to replaced by something other than a substitute? Why not just "substituted"?
"But on this flight he attempted to land at the airbase, which was made difficult by his lack of altitude, necessary to glide the plane into the hanger". Was he really trying to land the plane in a hangar?
"These two events gave Baker a lack of direction in his life". How can you be given a lack? A lack is the absence of something.
"... in an attempt to create pilots as quickly as possible". The pilots weren't being created, they were being trained. Malleus Fatuorum 15:04, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment – The Hockey Hall of Fame reference wasn't working when I clicked on it, in the cites or the external links. Is something wrong with the whole site or does the link need an update? Giants2008 (27 and counting) 02:31, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing wrong for me? --TaraO (talk) 23:02, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I don't have any problems as well on those links. Kaiser matias (talk) 06:34, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just checked them again and they both work fine now. The site must have been down temporarily. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 02:04, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.