Talk:Josh Donaldson/GA1

GA Review[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Muboshgu (talk · contribs) 23:27, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to have been a drive-by nom by Aerospeed, but in the spirit of the newly-begun WikiCup, I will give it a review. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:27, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the start of a review...

Lead

Too short. The lead should give more detail on his career, including mentioning his college career. There are highlights in his infobox that can be incorporated into the lead, for starters.

High School

Do we know why he moved from Florida to Alabama mid-high school?
"RBI" should be plural throughout the article, as RBIs, and spelled out and linked on its first usage. The other stats should also be wikilinked
What is "AISA"?

College career

Is there anything more to add on his junior season besides being a preseason All-American? That's often the most important college season, especially considering he was drafted after it.

Draft and minor leagues

Left flush images cannot lead a section per WP:MOS
Catcher was linked in the college career section, and it's linked here again. It should only be linked on the first presentation.
Numbers below ten should be spelled out.
We need more detail on the 2010 season
~~The 2011 season is completely ignored. What happened to him in 2011?~~ Nevermind that, 2011 is discussed. But the layout has it out of order, which is why I missed it on my first pass. The article should be in chronological order, so there's no need to go back and forth between sections.

Oakland Athletics

I had to add a {{cn}} tag in this section.
The 2014 season not sufficiently described. It needs more detail

Toronto Blue Jays

On the other hand, 2015 is overloaded, likely due to WP:RECENTISM. It should be the most discussed season, as it was an MVP year, but the lack of balance is quite striking.

Personal life

The detail about his father is nice, but the section is otherwise incomplete. Does he have siblings? Significant other? Where does he reside in the offseason? Any hobbies or other interests? Surely some reporter has conducted a profile on him of that nature.

References

Ref #5 isn't fully filled out. Some others lack access dates, which is required for online sources.

@Aerospeed: That's the start of my review. I'll conduct another pass soon. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:54, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Muboshgu:, thanks for starting the GA review! I'm sorry I haven't been able to make a better job of the nomination as I am currently in and out of work and college right now, so my activity is intermittent. I felt that the page merited nomination given that there was no glaring issues and tags in the article, and that the article seemed reasonably well written and sourced. As such, there was a one month period between nomination and your first comment on the article.

I looked over the suggestions you made and I will put them to use as soon as I can. I'm just wondering if there's a better way to analyze a potential GA article for the future. I've looked over the official GA requirements but I find them a bit confusing, to be honest. Is there a shorter version of the requirements that are easier to remember? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks once again for making these suggestions and I will put them into good use as soon as possible. Thanks for all the help! :) Aerospeed (Talk) 00:34, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist of all the suggestions you have done

Lead - I lengthened the lead a bit by mentioning his college career as well as who he was drafted by and also the trade which sent him to Toronto. I also added the major awards he won with Toronto in 2015 as well. I don't want to make the lead too long as well. I honestly can't think of any other ideas for the lead. If I do I'll let you know.
High School - I did manage to pluralize all the RBIs in the article. I also found out why he went to Alabama during his high school years. I removed the AISA reference because I didn't find it in the reference that it was given.
College - Sorry, but there isn't much else on Donaldson's college career, aside from what is given on the official Auburn website. I did find that he went on a scholarship however.
Oakland/Toronto - I put in more info on his 2014 season. As for the 2015 season, I'm unsure if the section is too long or not. In any case, I'll go through it in more detail.
Personal - As far as I know Donaldson does not have any siblings. I've got a bit of info on him liking golf and a significant other, but nothing else that I mentioned. Once I find an article which gets into his personal life more I'll put it in the wiki page.

It's looking better, for sure. I'll take a closer look now. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:43, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Aerospeed: Here are some more comments. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:26, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In the lead, all instances of "Major League Baseball" should be abbreviated after the abbreviation is initially given, including the MLB draft tidbit.
The "RBIs" abbreviation is given in the lead without being defined.
Interesting bit of detail on why he transferred. Can you rewrite it though, as it's a bit of a run-on sentence and should be at least two sentences. The PJ Walters anecdote is a bit confusing.
Also, Pace High School isn't in Pensacola, so add that it's in Pace, Florida.
Having read this article, I think more should be added in the Personal life section on how his mother raised him, that sort of thing. The section talks much more about his father than his mother.
Also, the article says he transferred after his sophomore year, not freshman. And you should add that they did move from Florida to Alabama, as opposed to have him commute the long but doable distance from Pensacola to Mobile. The article further mentions that Lisa and Josh both live in the same Alabama town, so that should be added.
The article quotes his mother as saying "he was my only son", so do a check to see if she had any daughters and then add that too.
Auburn athletic sources can be used for corroboration, they just wouldn't be useful in establishing notability but that's not a problem in this case. I suggest using Google to search publications that would cover Auburn baseball, like AL.com, Gulflive.com, The Opelika-Auburn News, The Auburn Villager, The Auburn Plainsman, and the Ledger-Enquirer (that one is Columbus, Georgia). They might have online content if you search for it. At the very least, MLB.com might have published an article on Donaldson after he was drafted that would encompass some of his college highlights.
This source, for instance, says he was All-State in baseball and football in high school. This source looks like it might have more material as well.
Speaking of the draft, any note on his signing bonus from the Cubs?
I see that the Baseball Ref and Baseball Ref Minors pages are used as inline citations. They're also External links, and without double checking to see if that's allowed (I don't think it is), I'll say it's not ideal. Instead of using this page to cite his batting statistics in the minors, I'd prefer to see this page used to cite his Boise stats, this one his Peoria stats, etc. Similarly, use the single season pages for his MLB stats as opposed to the main page.
Speaking of the minor league stops, the local papers of Boise, Peoria, Midland, and Sacramento, which are available online, might have coverage of him. The Pensacola News Journal might have more on their favorite son, as well. Check them specifically to see what they have.
The date of the trade to Oakland should be added, so we know if he went to Stockton during the same season or not. Also any analysis on the trade, and why Donaldson was in it, could be useful.
"He filled in for Inge and proved to the A's organization that he was capable of holding the everyday job." The first part, yes, but the second part, did he? It seems subjective unless there's something more specific backing up the point.
The Oakland Athletics section has the sentence: "It the A's first walk-off win in 2013."
Similar to the other trade, there should be context on his trade to Toronto. There was alot written about it, both praising and assailing Billy Beane, so surely we can add a sentence or two about it.
I see "Major League Baseball" spelled out a few times in the body. It should be spelled out once in the body, and then abbreviated every time after that, much as the first use in the lead should be spelled out, then the next ones abbreviated.

@Muboshgu:On any sisters for Josh Donaldson, I found ONE source from a fanpage on Facebook. Apparently Tracy is a sister of Donaldson. But given that that's the only thing I found on Tracy thus far I'm hesitant to post it on Wikipedia until I find something a bit more reliable.

Here's the Google search in case you're curious.

I did some suggestions already, I'll address the rest in the next couple of days. Aerospeed (Talk) 02:19, 22 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly the "next couple of days" have passed, and the article hasn't improved. It's been over three weeks since I started the review, and there are still plenty of outstanding issues to address. Aerospeed hasn't edited Wikipedia in a week, which I think is plenty of idle time before closing the review. I hope that these changes can be made and would be happy to see the article renominated after that point. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:09, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]