Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Levitsky versus Marshall/1

Levitsky versus Marshall[edit]

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Result: I concur with Adabow's decision. This review has gone on far too long, and I am delisting it for the concerns raised above. ★★Retro Lord ★★ 11:12, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm seeing a few issues, just by looking at this article that I find questioning:

In the second sentence of the article, there is this sentence: "It is said that after Marshall's winning last move of the game, gold coins were tossed onto the board by spectators, although this is contested by other accounts." This sentence seems very unclear, as well as has an improper use of the word "It"; the use of the pronoun is incorrect. Reading the article as it stands at the moment, "it" would refer to the subject "DSB Congress".
In the "Game assessment" section, there are a few adverbs that disrupt the neutrality of the article, such as "sub-optimal" and "big".
This article does not contain any type of "Legacy" section, stating the importance of this game in the subject of "Chess". The opening paragraph states that this is a "famous game", but there the only other claim in the article regarding this game's legacy is the "The "shower of gold"" section of the article.

I would hope that these issues can be fixed. With these issues, I do not see how this is an article of GA status. Steel1943 (talk) 22:48, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

I originally wrote that "Legend has" for this sentence, and didn't see why it should be "It." ::--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In an article of "GA" status, using the word "Legend" as a subject still seems ambiguous. I, as the reader, am asking the question "What legend?" Steel1943 (talk) 23:50, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The legend is clarified in the section before the moves - the lead's role is not to elaborate that much, but to summarize the article as a whole.--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:55, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Legend has that ..." is incorrect, but "Legend has it that ..." would be OK (for now I've changed it to that). However, the original comment is incorrect. The It in "It is said that ..." cannot refer back to "DSB Congress", but stands on its own; it's what is known as a syntactic expletive. Sorry to be so technical, but the sentence was correct and unambiguous. This construction is actually quite common. --Stfg (talk) 20:51, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"sub-optimal" and "big" are justified if you look at the moves, especially the one that allowed Black to win a piece. ::--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There were not many reliable sources found on things other than the legend of the gold shower and the surprise of the Qg3 move, although I might want to elaborate on how the ...Qg3 move is arguably the 3rd-best of all time. ::--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hope no one minds if I comment on this but I thought i'd try and help by pointing a few things out.

"White: Stefen Levitsky Black: Frank Marshall Opening: French Defence (ECO C10) Tournament: DSB Congress XVIII 1912" This appears to be unreferenced, and it mentions in the lead " It was played in Breslau (now Wrocław) on July 20, 1912, during the master's tournament of the DSB Congress" which also appears to be unreferenced. Seems to be a violation of criteria 2a/2b ★★Retro Lord ★★ 23:34, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Added citation to existing reference.--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:46, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"The opening paragraph states that this is a 'famous game', but there the only other claim in the article regarding this game's legacy is the 'The "shower of gold"' section of the article." A chess game can become famous on the basis of a single move. Many games share the opening moves of this game, but they are not famous. Toccata quarta (talk) 18:35, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I find this far too confusing. I am all for having the notation down for people who understand what it all means, but there should be a decent laymans explanation of the last move at least. Especially since that is apparently what makes this game so notable. There needs to be some prose introducing "The game" section. Whats with the question and exclamation marks? AIRcorn (talk) 12:30, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See Chess annotation symbols. Toccata quarta (talk) 12:39, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This was pointed out when I nominated it for DYK. Ultimately, what happened was that the game summary section was an attempt to address this.--Jasper Deng (talk) 17:08, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't really explain the game or even the move very well though. If it was the plot summary of a movie or book it would just seem to say "The movie started and the bad guys made a few mistakes causing the hero to win". There are also issues with the lead. It should not introduce new information. In fact the whole structure of the article is off. What you should do is write the article first and then write the lead just summarising the information already presented. It also needs more background information, for example who are Levitsky and Marshall, what is the DSB Congress, is there any more information leading up to this game. I know there are wikilinks, but to be classified as good I would expect a bit more information presented here. Also if the ?? and !! are evaluation symbols then is that not bordering on original research? AIRcorn (talk) 08:16, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not seeing your point here - I think the lead does its job of summarizing the article, and the game summary section is adequate given the length of the section of the article on the game itself. There is not much information on this DSB Congress itself - most sources only focus on this game. I strongly do not believe that we should lose the article's focus on the game itself by elaborating on the players. While ?? might be OR, !! is used by the sources cited, and besides, it is verifiable in that most reasonable chess players would use ?? when someone loses a piece.--Jasper Deng (talk) 17:37, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is no mention of where the game is played and very little on who the players are in the article body. There is also no mention of the DSB Congress. The lead should not introduce information that is not present in the body of the article. There is in fact no background information in the body, it just launches into a game summary. The body of the article and the lead should stand on there own two feet, with the body going into a lot more detail. The lead does, but currently the body doesn't. The game summary in my opinion is not adequate. We should write these articles for a general audience and the game summary is the best way to explain why this move is so good. It doesn't, all it says is "Marshall's unexpected winning move put his queen—his most valuable piece—on a square where it could be captured by three of Levitsky's pieces". That doesn't seem like a great move. I actually think the game summary is more important than the algebraic notation section for an article like this. I have read this section a few times and still don't understand what most of it means. A few more {{Chess diagram}}s would help, but I would concentrate more on explaining the game in prose. AIRcorn (talk) 22:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Update? Aircorn has unaddressed concerns, which have gone unanswered for three months. I'm leaning toward delisting if there is no significant activity or discussion soon. Adabow (talk) 01:09, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]