Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Walter O'Malley/archive1

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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 not promoted 01:51, 19 May 2008.

Walter O'Malley[edit]

I'm nominating this article for featured article because it has been greatly expanded and improved since becoming a GA. TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:45, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Current ref 2 "Walter O'Malley" is lacking a publisher. Also, it will not load at all for Safari at all, so I have no way of judging its reliability. Possibly it's because I'm at a hotel and some weird firewall is blocking me, but nothing else has been blocked so far tonight. From the looks of the url, it's also duplicated at ref 13 "Biography: the Early Years" O'Malley Seidler Partners. Is this his own firm? If so it's more a primary source, not a
This is a website with a biography commissioned by Walter's daughter Theresa O'Malley Seidler based on primary sources. Their biographer, Brent Shyer, checked the article here at Wikipedia, and found a misspelling, and filled in some missing dates, that were added or fixed. The website is down, I contacted Brent Shyer, the official biographer and he will see what the problem is. What do we do when a website goes down and never returns? Do we switch to the cached version in Google? Since the quoted text was saved in the quote=parameter, the citation should be able to stand on its own, even is the site never returns. What do you think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you know if Shyer used a WP user name?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He sent me a snail mail on official stationery and gave me a number to call, then I gave him my email and he wrote me with the changes. For instance I had the year for the marriage, and he gave me the exact date. The typo was "Theresa" instead of "Therese". --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The publisher is listed in the citation but it is not displaying, let me see if I misspelled it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 14:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I merged the two links to the official biography, and got the publisher to display. What do you want to do about the website being down? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 14:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I recommend a trip to the Internet Archive. I did a quick check, and discovered that both pages can be found there. Giants2008 (talk) 16:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think TonyTiger is right, wait a day for them to get it back up now that they are notified, and if not we can link to one of the cashed version. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • While Encyclopaedia Britannica is reliable, it's very odd to see a generalist encyclopedia cite another generalist encyclopedia. Encyclopedia's are definitely tertiary sources, and it would be better to cite a secondary source instead. Not an oppose, more an general "it's better to source this way" concern.
It is removed. I believe it was just used for the lede to show notability when the article was a stub. I don't think anyone would challenge notability at this point, but the link is still in external links. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:24, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise sourcing looks good. I didn't check links, it's too hard on the road. Ealdgyth - Talk 03:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Issues resolved Giants2008 (talk) 19:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "He progressed from team lawyer to team owner and president" Two teams close together. You could change one of them to Dodger(s), and remove the Dodger at the end of this sentence.
    • I think proper parallel structure would modify each of the three titles with the word team. Your change is O.K. too. I made some related adjustments to the sentence structure to highlight the contrast in the progress.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Next paragraph: Long sentence. I recommend a comma after 1975 season to help break it up.
  • Early years: It should be explained who George Steinbrenner is. As a Yankee fan I obviously know, but others may not. I'm thinking "future New York Yankees owner".
  • "With the help of Walter's father's political connections," I would replace Walter's father's with Edwin's or Edwin O'Malley's.
Rephrased so we know which O'Malley --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dodgers: I have two issues with the second sentence. First, is the Brooklyn Trust Company's full name needed in two straight sentences? More importantly, the first mention of the Dodgers is here, and is not linked, nor is their full name at the time given. I would put it here and shorten the linked name later.
Reworded --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Typo in 1942; "'a' general manager". I did some minor cleanup with the article, and should have caught this before. Sorry about that, but it needs fixing now.
Fixed. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Next paragraph: This is not that important, but this is how I would have the first sentence: "Rickey was a conservative teetotaler, while O'Malley was more free-swinging." I think the comma helps illustrate their differences, and I'm not sure bit is appropriate here. Perhaps little could be used.
done --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the barrier breaking" looks funny. Should breaking come first, or should it be barrier's?
fixed --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • In monetary fine, is monetary redundant? It's not hard to figure out that we're talking about money.
done --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is out of order, but I'm moving it into this list because it is my biggest concern here. There should be more on how O'Malley was criticized for moving the Dodgers to L.A. There is a little in Death and legacy, but nothing in the section on the move itself. Not having any criticism of the move there could easily be seen as POV. If you want help with this, I have a book about the Yankees' business history that has three chapters on the move, including several arguments that the Dodgers were better off financially than O'Malley claimed, and that O'Malley was unwilling to consider alternate stadium plans. I'm sure the fact that Los Angeles was a giant untapped market didn't hurt either.
Added he moved the Dodgers to Los Angeles, and New York's Dodger fans felt betrayed. (from the Forbes article). Now there is a chrono mention of fans betrayal. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article is not in bad shape, but it still needs some work. (Full disclosure: As stated above, I performed some minor cleanup. Nothing major, just some small fixes.) Giants2008 (talk) 21:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's been virtually no activity here for more than a week. Unbelievable. With that in mind, I'm back for more.
  • "which made O'Malley an international baseball ambassador" isn't bad, but "making" may be better.
  • "Dodger catcher Roy Campanella had medical billing controversies regarding neurosurgery" This needs work.
  • "which Campanella forwarded to the Dodgers and the Dodgers refused to pay." Try this: Dodgers, who refused to pay."
  • Does automobile need to be linked here? It's a fairly common word.
  • Comma after winter baseball meetings.
  • "to attempt to lure the franchise" Double "to" here. "In an attempt", perhaps?
  • The Dodgers did not lose two pennant playoff games. They were both best-of-three series. St. Louis swept Brooklyn in their 1946 playoff, which is my primary concern here. The 1951 series did go the full three games, and had a famous ending. Also, Philadelphia defeated Brooklyn on the final day of the 1950 regular season, when a Dodger win would have forced another playoff.
  • You have multiple instances of reference numbers out of order - [18][19][9], [18][9] and [37][5].
  • Cite Horace Stoneham's desire to move the Giants to Minnesota. I've never heard of this before.

Comments by Moni3

It looks like you have put a lot of time into this article and it is well-researched. It's very impressive. Let me say that I read this as someone who knows little about baseball, but a well-written article about baseball should be interesting to someone who has never seen a game in his or her life. I found parts of the article difficult to follow, and found what I was afraid of: so much assumption of understood knowledge about baseball that the ignorant like me can't understand what is significant and what isn't. I think what you need to address is a mixture of copy editing problems and overall cohesion of the article to make it flow much better.

  • Walter's Irish father? Because it denotes an Irish father, was there more than one of a different ancestry perhaps?
  • In the lead, you have a First - then sentence segue. I think you can get rid of the First. It prepares the reader for a list.
  • It seems really linked to me. Partner needs a disambiguation. So does memo, but those and multiple other links could be deleted.
  • The article would flow much more nicely if you used topic sentences at the beginning of paragraphs, and at the beginning of each section as well, clueing the reading in a sentence, for example, that sums up O'Malley's career with the Dodgers. (It was embattled, it was considered pioneering, or lackluster, it was marked by rivalry with Branch Rickey: The years of blah blah to blah blah, were XXX for O'Malley as he acted as title for the Dodgers. Then on to explanation.)
  • The third paragraph in Dodgers is confusing, rather jumbled and without cohesion. For example, The signing of Robinson brought the team international notoriety means that the Dodgers got a lot of bad press, but an explanation of this is not offered in the paragraph. Signing Sandy Koufax and Roy Campanella's medical bills seem thrown together in the paragraph.
  • Likewise, in the next paragraph you make a statement about all Dodger fans were frustrated by losing to the Yankees in the World Series. This is a sweeping claim that I don't have faith in Time magazine to make. I would change "all" to "many".
  • Explain white flight for those not lucky enough to have experience with it.
  • "Shabby" is too informal. Use "degraded" or "decline" or "deteriorate".
  • Can you give examples of how New York Dodger fans felt betrayed after the team was moved to LA?
  • What does this mean? there was media gamesmanship.
  • "Broke the hearts of" - should have a quote, or should be made to seem less POV.
  • I'll admit I'm not a huge baseball fan, but the article should make the game politics clear and engaging to the culturally bereft like me. The first paragraph in Move to Los Angeles only confuses me and makes me want to skip to something I understand.
  • Which meeting was the Vero Beach meeting?
  • Copy edit: that helped the referendum passed; maintain a 50,000-seat stadium; develop a youth recreation center on the land; They duo of pitching aces decided
  • I thought the only Wrigley Field was in Chicago - can you quantify that's a Los Angeles minor league stadium?
  • Who remained Chairman until his death in 1979? It's unclear.
  • Seems like I should understand this, but I don't: by the end of the 1980s, they had not only became the first franchise to draw three million fans, but also they had done it more times than all other franchises combined
  • It was even said that - by whom? Rumored? Reported? Be specific here.
  • The last paragraph in Retire from presidency has me completely lost. Please don't make me cry.
  • His legacy is that of changing the mindset of a league whose southernmost and westernmost team What did his legacy change the mindset to? Or was it that he changed the league itself and not the mindset?

It appears that you have the material for a featured article here. I think it probably reads great for baseball enthusiasts, but I can't imagine the article on the main page for English speakers all over the world to try to comprehend its significance and detail. Please work on making it engaging, so that by the end I should want to plop myself into Dodger Stadium and yell obscenities at the umpire. --Moni3 (talk) 21:09, 18 May 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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