Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Providence Grays all-time roster/archive1

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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 Dabomb87 23:50, 5 February 2010 [1].

Providence Grays all-time roster[edit]

Nominator(s): Neonblak talk - 10:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured list because I feel it meets the standards for a FL. The lead seems to be a bit long; one suggestion during the peer review process indicated a "history" section be implemented. How to go about this, and not interrupt the flow, might be better answered here.Neonblak talk - 10:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from KV5
Comments from KV5

I don't think the lead is too long; I know that the MOS recommends no more than four paragraphs, but this is basically a very concise history of the team that covers most of the major elements in the list. That said, I have a couple of comments:

Lead
  • "officially became approved" - were officially approved would be better wording
  • "raising the NL team memberships to seven, although only six teams were members by the start of the 1879 season" - eh? If it's seven, but it's six...? I'm confused.
  • "start of the 1879 season.." - double period
  • "and then hired Tom York"
  • "Providence was successful in signing several star players for their inaugural season;" - I thought there was semicolon fever happening for a minute, but then I realized that this semicolon just needed to be an actual colon.
  • "six teams in the NL for the 1878 season"
  • "among the, now, eight teams" - I think among the league's eight teams would be more grammatically correct
  • "new additions, Jim O'Rourke and Joe Start," - first comma is superfluous and can be removed
  • "If this claim is true, then White will have pre-dated both Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Welday Walker, whom both played for the 1884 Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association (AA)." - just the two highlighted changes
  • "who brought back his brother George Wright" - since you've already mentioned George before, and since his brother's name immediately precedes this statement, you don't need to say his last name here
  • "Their fortunes did not change, however, they again placed second in the NL standings, behind the White Stockings, for the third straight season." - there's a run-on here. I don't think the fortunes not changing statement is really needed; you could probably get by with just They placed second in the NL standings, behind the White Stockings, for the third straight season.
  • "April 29, 1986.[25][25][26]" - doubled ref
  • "for the remainer of the season" - remainder
Table
  • Copyedit your captions: no full-stops/periods if they are not complete sentences, and make sure you don't have any splices (I think I spotted at least two).
  • In the table, there are a lot of "played 1 game", "played 5 games", "played 8 games", etc. MOS:NUM says these should be "one", "five", etc.
  • Red! Bright! Ow!... could be less glaring.

That should do it. Nice work. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 16:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the quick review, I have made most the of the changes you requested. However, under MOS:NUM, it states that generally preferred that numbers be depicted as a figure when used in tables, and that comparable quantities should be all spelled out or all figures. I beleive I am following the intent and spirit of the MOS on this one. Other things, I changed the color, hopefully this is not as "loud" as the last one, and as far as the "splices" you are referring too, could you please clarify? Thanks again for the review, I has definately made the article better.Neonblak talk - 00:06, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't see those numbers as being "comparable" to any specific other figures that are numeric, and what MOSNUM is referring to there is things like statistical tables, not this format. MOSNUM also says that "Numbers within a table's explanatory text and comments should be consistent with the general rule", which is where these numbers are located.
Color: less bright; still glaring. Perhaps a pastel green like #bbffbb or a pastel red like #ffbbbb?
The splices I referred to were "First baseman Tim Murnane, later became an award-winning baseball writer for The Boston Globe" (remove the comma, and also needs a period at the end since it's a sentence); if you weren't intending this to be a complete sentence, then replace the comma with a semicolon instead and leave off that period I suggested. The other one appears to have been corrected. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 00:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead with the changes you suggested, and I think the pastel green looks quite nice !Neonblak talk - 10:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support from KV5 (Talk • Phils) 12:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 10:01, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Lead, at five paras, is a little too long.
  • "were a Major League Baseball franchise" was?
  • "which then had eight teams" instead of "had" but "comprised" or "consisted of"?
  • Did I miss the link to the Providence Grays article in the lead?
  • Expand RBI before you abbreviate it for the non-experts amongst us.
  • Why not link "home run"?
  • "though Radbourn won 48 games " surely he couldn't have done this on his own?
  • The 1885 article says the Grays finished fourth, but your lead says "consistently finished third place or higher in the final standings".

The Rambling Man (talk) 18:28, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what to do with the lead, what to cut out, or if should be sectionalized. My opinion is with KV5 above, in that it may be a bit long, but it accomplishes a great deal in efficiently and effectively explaining the subject manner. "were" vs. "was" seems to get varying opinions when following a team name like this, I think it is grammatically correct to use "was" being that the Providence Grays was a single entity, it just sounds better to use "were". "consistently finished in third place or higher" is correct in my opinion. Consistently doesn't mean "always", and in this franchise's history, finishing lower than 3rd place just once in eight seasons meets what was written. I made the other corrections as per your suggestions.Neonblak talk - 05:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I still believe that saying "consistently" finishing third or higher is misleading. It may be grammatically correct to say consistent does not equal always, but the phrase misled me and will no doubt mislead others. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I worded the sentence a bit. Also, re-structured the lead into three paragraphs, and in my opinion, they do not look as large as I would have thought. I think I was able to find the natural breaks in the narative so the flow isn't hurt.Neonblak talk - 09:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Giants2008 (27 and counting) 21:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments – Still have some notes to read, but this will do for now:
  • The lead is long already, but there are a couple gaps that could stand to be filled in. First, how about a mention of the 1884 World Series, which the Grays won? Second, is there any information known on why the Grays were disbanded, or otherwise left the majors?
  • Lew Brown note: Our article on the Cubs refers to the team's nickname then as the White Stockings. It might be nice to change it just to avoid inevitable confusion regarding the White Sox–Cubs thing.
  • Ed Conley note: Spell out W–L record and ERA.
  • Con Daily note: "was the back-up catcher to Barney Gilligan, his last season for the Grays." Missing "in" after the comma.
  • Dick Higham note: Is "bannished" a typo? Not 100% whether it is or not. (Incidentally, how was he cheating? This doesn't have to be added to the page, but I'm curious about that.) Giants2008 (27 and counting) 22:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I made the changes you suggested. As for the departure of the team, I can only use logic, Arthur Soden, owner of the Boston Beaneaters, bought the team and its players after the 1885 season. Since many of the players played in Boston in 1886, I can only assume that he folded the team after buying them, keeping the players; I can find no reference spelling that out though. As for Higham, I could probably take it out since his banishment was after his time with the Grays. I wrote the Higham article, and how he was able to throw games as an umpire is detailed there.Neonblak talk - 03:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – Sorry, but my promised return to check the remaining notes revealed serious prose problems throughout. They need a good cleaning before any promotion for this list. Details of everything I managed to find in them are below, though I don't guarantee that I found everything.
  • Paul Hines note: "known later as baseball's triple cown." Look at the last word again.
  • Arthur Irwin note: Change comma to semi-colom before "both were his career highs."
  • Rudy Kemmler note: "Kemmler played in two games with 1879 Grays". Add "the" in the middle.
  • A similar change is needed in the Sam Kimber note.
  • Bobby Mathews: De-capitalize Wins.
  • Mike McGeary: "the Cleveland Blues hired him for both player and manager." "for" → "as"
  • Cyclone Miller: Win improperly capitalized again.
  • Tim Murname: "Murname was their starting first baseman during his only season with the Grays." To improve grammar, move the mention of the team name to where "their" is, and make the second mention of the team more generic.
  • "and was enshrined by the Baseball Hall of Fame Honor Rolls of Baseball in 1946." Unclear as it stands now; it reads like he was inducted by the Honor Rolls, when in reality he was inducted by the Hall into the Rolls.
  • Sandy Nava: "He played three seasons for Providence as their backup catcher." For tense purposes, "their" should be "its", or the team name should be made "the Grays".
  • Charles Radbourne: Remove comma after "during which".
  • Paul Radford: "He was the Grays' starting right fielder for the Grays during his two-season stint with the Grays." Glaring redundancy regarding the team name, twice over.
  • John Montgomery Ward: "The first five seasons of Ward's Hall of Fame career was spent with the Grays." "was" → "were". Also change the semi-colon to a regular comma.
  • Johnny Ward: "He pitched in one game for the Grays, and complete game loss on September 19 to the St. Louis Browns." Should "and" have the last two letters?
  • George Wright: "when he was the team's player-manager for their first NL championship season." Again, a conflict between singular "team" and plural "their", meaning one should be changed. Also remove comma after June.
  • Serious overlinking is present throughout the notes. For example, I counted 30 links to games played or pitched. Don't you think this is overdoing it a little? I also think a few bits of baseball terminology are overlinked, such as at bats and win–loss record. The entire column needs attention in this regard.
  • Reference 6 needs a publisher (Retrosheet). This is secondary to the prose issues, but worth fixing in the process. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 21:43, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for thorough review, I made all the suggested prose and spelling corrections. As for the linking, it was suggested to me during a previous FLC, when a table that is sortable like this, if I am going to link a word, i.e. "hits", that the word needs to be either linked in each instance, or not at all. If it appears to be distracting to have the links, I could unlink the the ones used in the lead. I am open to suggestion on this.Neonblak talk - 11:27, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support – Nice work responding to all of the prose issues; the list looks much better for it. Still not crazy about the linking, but I won't withhold support over it, since it does seem to be accepted here. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 21:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support A little more info on the team's end would be great, but I just dug through my Bill James Historical Abstract and found nothing. Staxringold talkcontribs 17:51, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - just a few points:
    • "Providence .... were officially approved on February 6" and "Providence was successful in signing several star players for their inaugural season" - I get very confused by singular/plural usage in US English for sports teams, but it certainly seems like you're using both here to refer to the same thing
    • "White pre-dated both Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Welday Walker, whom both played for 1884 Toledo Blue Stockings " - "whom" is not correct here, and shouldn't there be a "the" before 1884?
    • "a season in which they finished at their lowest position in the standings in their history, as well as their worst winning percentage" - I think there should be another word in here, maybe "gained" or "secured", before "their worst winning percentage"
  • Think that's it........ -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed all three items. Let me know if you see anything else.Neonblak talk - 13:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - all seems OK now those have been addressed (and I removed on duplicated word) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In re-reading the content culled from the source, it appears that I using it to reference the 20-game win streak, but it looks like the writer was talking about Radbourn personally having a 20-game win streak instead. So I cross referenced with the teams game log, and it looks like it was only 18. So instead of playing with fire (OR), I just eliminated the information and the reference. So, to answer your question, the reference that I used, was not reliable after all.Neonblak talk - 23:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]


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