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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 archived by Hog Farm via FACBot (talk) 2 October 2022 [1].

1981 World Snooker Championship

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Nominator(s): BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 14:02, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the the first of the six World Snooker Championships won by Steve Davis, who went on to dominate the sport in the 1980s. Viewers of TV snooker in the UK will likely be familiar with scenes of Davis's manager Barry Hearn bounding into the arena, lifting Davis in celebration. Losing finalist Doug Mountjoy set a championship record break of 145. Cliff Thorburn's petulant behaviour in the semi-final, stemming from his frustration at the behaviour of Davis and his fans, was well covered in sources. Thanks in advance for suggestions to improve the article. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 14:02, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Comments Support by Henni147

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I am a big snookerfan myself and have worked on tournament articles at German wiki already, so I'd like to contribute to this FAC review. I'll start with linking and inline-citations:

Extended content
  • Lead section:
    • I'd say, there is no need to link "Engand" here, as it is a commonly known place.
    • The link to "frames" should contain the "s" letter at the end as well.
  • Overview section:
    • I would change "Birmingham, England" to "Birmingham in England" and remove the link from "England" to avoid MOS:SEAOFBLUE.
    • Insert a link to "West Bromwich", which is not a commonly known place outside the UK.
  • Qualifying round:
    • Insert link to Stockport and maybe Bristol as well.
    • "best-of-seventeen" → change to best-of-17.
    • Wrong order of citations after "few days before entries closed.[16][5]"
    • Personally, I would remove the link from "nervous breakdown", but that's probably a matter of taste.
  • First round:
    • "at the tournament,[5] as did Knowles,[19] and Martin.[5]" → change to "at the tournament, as did Knowles and Martin.[5][19]"
    • Wrong order of citations after "after being tied at 5–6, 6–6, and 8–8.[19][15]: 50–54"
  • Second round:
    • Maybe try to change wording of "reigning world billiards champion Fred Davis" to avoid the two side-by-side links.
  • Qualifying matches:
    • Wrong order of citations after "and at Romiley Forum, Stockport.[45][15]:12"
  • Place the section about century breaks at the end of the article before the notes section, to make it uniform in structure with other snooker tournament articles.

That's it at first visit. I will take a look at the prose text and content later. I hope, the notes are helpful. Henni147 (talk) 17:55, 7 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for this, Henni147. I've addressed all of these. For the point about Birmingham, it's now in the text as "Birmingham, England", which is consistent with some of the other cities mentioned. (In case you're interested, there's a WikiProject for Snooker.) Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 20:55, 7 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is a smart solution indeed. Thanks for the changes. I removed some duplicate inline-citations in accordance with WP:REPCITE and added a link to "best-of", because casual readers may not know how that match format works. I hope, that's okay. We also used to remove spacing from sources/citations to keep the markup size of the article as small as necessary, but every author has individual preferences (some don't like cluttered citation templates), so I leave that choice to you.
I will take a closer look at the content and wording now and give a quick feedback here. Henni147 (talk) 09:27, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

More comments from Henni147
Content and wording/formatting remarks:

  • Lead section:
    • "[...] was a ranking professional snooker tournament" → might sound better in wording as "[...] was a professional snooker ranking tournament" or even better "[...] was a professional ranking tournament in snooker" to avoid side-by-side links.
    • "Despite not winning major tournament since the 1978 World Snooker Championship" → the word "any" is somehow missing here.
    • "The tournament was the 1981 edition of the World Snooker Championship" → Since the year has been mentioned in the previous sentences already, this is no new information to the reader. It might be more constructive to replace "1981 edition" with "54th edition" or whichever edition it was.
    • I would also add the information that it's an annual tournament in the lead. It makes a big difference if the players have a chance to participate every year or just every two or four years. This is probably more relevant for the reader than the inauguration year of the event.
    • "The 1981 tournament was the fifth consecutive World Snooker Championship to take place at the Crucible Theatre since the first championship held there in 1977." → This sentence can be condensed to "The 1981 tournament was the fifth consecutive world championship to take place at the Crucible Theatre since 1977." It's a bit more reader-friendly.
    • "[...] top seed in the tournament was Cliff Thorburn" → I would definitely add "[...] top seed in the tournament was Canadian player Cliff Thorburn". It is rare to have overseas (especially Canadian) players in snooker, so I think the nationality is worth to be noted. It might be also good to mention that Steve Davis is from England.
      • I'll wait and see what other reviewers think - generally the advice is to remove mentions of nationalities rather than include them, but as Thorbun was the first world champion from outside the UK (apart from Horace Lindrum), there is a case for mentioning this here. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 12:29, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • "In the other semi-final, Doug Mountjoy defeated second seed Ray Reardon 16–10." → "In the other semi-final, which was an all-Welsh duel, Doug Mountjoy defeated second seed Ray Reardon 16–10." Again, it's quite special to have a semi-final at Worlds, where both players are from Wales.
  • Qualifying:
    • "All qualifying matches were scheduled across the best-of-17 frames." → This wording might be more clear for casual readers: "All qualifying matches were scheduled in best-of-17 playoff format with the first player to win nine frames."
  • First round:
    • "[...] and were the best-of-19 frames." → Better use the wording from the FAC article about the 1985 World Championship: "[...] and were played as best-of-19 frames."
    • Usually the mentioned players in this article get a short introduction like "David Taylor, the 1968 World Amateur Champion", which is very nice for deeper understanding. However, Tony Meo and John Virgo just get dropped in the first round section without any information why their match or the players themselves were notable. Same with Kirk Stevens and John Dunning. I would either add something there to point out the relevance or skip those match results.
      • I had a look at doing this, but for now I've stuck with descriptions that were used in contemporary reports. For Knowles and Dunning for example, it's hard to find something succinct and interesting to add. For qualifying, I've only overed some results, but it feels to me like all first round matches should be mentioned in the text. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:00, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Werbeniuk" is neither linked nor introduced with full name. Both should be added.
  • Second round:
    • "[...] and were the best-of-25 frames." → See comment on first round section.
    • "Davis led 6–2 against Higgins after their first session" → There is no need to link here, but I would at least write the players' full name at their first appearance in the section (Steve Davis and Alex Higgins). There are multiple snooker players with the same family name, so it's good to make clear whom the text refers to.
    • Same with Mountjoy, Miles, Thorburn, Griffiths, and Meo in the second, Stevens in the third as well as Werbeniuk, Reardon, and Spencer in the last paragraph → add their first names at first mentioning in the section. For a reader like me who hadn't been born in 1981 yet, many of these players are still unfamiliar.
    • The first paragraph of the second round section should better cover the match between Davis and Higgins only (which is the most detailed), and the Mountjoy–Charlton match be moved to the second paragraph.
    • "He went on to lead 9–6,[19] and won 13–7 to reach his first world championship quarter-final since 1977." → Does "he" refer to Mountjoy or Charlton? Better change "he" to "Mountjoy" to avoid confusion.
  • Quarter finals:
    • Since this section is quite short, it might be worth considering to merge it with the second round, which was played in best-of-25 format as well. Then there is no need to introduce all players in that section with full name again.
  • Semi-finals:
  • Final

Some more general comments:

  • The sections about the match summaries are sometimes a bit exhausting to read due to the excessive repetition of terms like "frame", "session", "won", etc. I am aware that it's impossible to skip them, but it might be worth a try to rephrase some paragraphs a bit, and make them more reader-friendly. This is especially important if someone plans to record a spoken version of this article. I realized myself how much it helps to improve the overall quality of the prose part if you read the full thing aloud once.
    • I'll have a think about this, but I agree. Generally the advice from reviewers is to keep "frame" and "session" for precision, and we also avoid some of the word commonly used in books and newspapers like "beat", "crushed", etc., which cuts down the availability of different words a bit. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 20:15, 9 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, of course. I didn't think of replacing snooker terms like "frame", but rather using the following little tricks: If the word "won" appears many times in the same paragraph, one or two of them can be turned around. Instead of writing "player X won", you can re-phrase the sentence to "player Y lost". Other possibilities are "player X took the lead with", "player X extended his lead to", "player Y trailed player X by" etc. Some of those suggestions can also be used to re-phrase sentences that use the term "frame". I think, this should give a rough idea how the prose can be polished and made more reader-friendly with little effort. Henni147 (talk) 18:30, 10 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The table with the tournament final statistics doesn't satisfy all criteria of MOS:DTAB and MOS:ACCESS at the moment. Especially column headers in the middle of a table are problematic for the navigation with screen readers, and should be avoided (see MOS:COLHEAD). Maybe it's best if you use the formatting of the table from the 1985 World Snooker Championship article, which passed the FAC review in 2020.

That's it at second read. I can also do a source/reference check, but that will take a bit of time. Unfortunately, with spelling, grammar, and punctuation I am no big help, since English is only my third language. I definitely recommend to ask someone else for a detailed feedback there. Overall, the article looks very promising and I do think that it has the potential for FAC promotion. Nice job. Henni147 (talk) 13:12, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your careful and constructive review. I've made a start on addressing the points. If you do have the time and interest to conduct a source review, I can provide copies of any sources that you don't have access to, via Wikipedia email. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 20:18, 9 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@BennyOnTheLoose: I have made a quick run with Earwig's Copyvio Detector, and the result looks good for online sources with just 6.5% similarity at max. I prefer to leave the copyright check with print sources to experts who are more familiar with the rules than me. However, if no one's willing to take on the task within the next one or two weeks, I can try it myself too. I hope, that solution is okay for you.
Note: If you need any help with the adjustment of the "final" stats table, feel free to ping me. I will also take another look at the article, when you're finished with all checks. Best wishes Henni147 (talk) 17:35, 10 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@BennyOnTheLoose: Update: I think, apart from the "Final" table (waiting for consensus on the snooker project page) the page looks good now, so I'll give my support for FAC. Best wishes Henni147 (talk) 17:01, 23 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment

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Three weeks in and just the single general support. Unless this nomination makes significant further progress towards a consensus to promote over the next two or three days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:20, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A week later and no action. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to archive this one. Hog Farm Talk 00:15, 2 October 2022 (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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