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2010 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it has just passed WP:GA review and I am seeking feedback on the prose in preparation for WP:FAC review.

Thanks, SkotyWATC 07:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This looks very good. I have just a few suggestions for improvement.

  • Words like "club" and "Columbus" are singular and, I think, should be matched with singular verbs like "is" and singular pronouns like "it". I changed a few of these in the lead but thought I should not make too many similar changes further down in the article. Instead, I'm just making a suggestion that the others be changed too.
    • I searched for all instances of "club" "Columbus" and "Seattle" throughout the article, found two more mismatches for "Seattle" in the match summary, and fixed those. Let me know if you see any more of these. I think instances of the "Crew" or "Sounders FC" should be matches with verbs that match "they", so I left those alone. --SkotyWATC 06:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Finetooth (talk) 21:25, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Road to the final" repeats the word "final" from the article title. Better would be something like "Early rounds".
Most of the guidelines are flexible. The relevant guidelines are found in MOS:HEAD. Since in this case only that single repetition of "final" is involved, it may be OK to leave it as is. Finetooth (talk) 21:25, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The tournament has been played for 97 years and is the oldest team sport tournament in the United States." - The source supports this claim, but I found it quite surprising. Were there no U.S. baseball tournaments in the 19th century, for example?
    • Good question. It appears the World Series first occured in it's current format in 1903. The USOC started in 1914. I've changed "team sport" to "soccer" in this sentence. --SkotyWATC 06:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "While D.C. United had been able to draw an attendance of 17,329 in 2009 through extensive marketing efforts, the visiting Seattle team won the 2009 cup." - I don't see a logical connection between the two halves of this sentence in the "Venue selection" subsection. The attendance figure has nothing to do with the tournament outcome. Or does it?
    • Yeah, that sentence reads funny and connects two unrelated facts. The fact that Sounders FC won the 2009 final is only tangentially relevant in this section, so I'll remove it. I shortened the sentence to "D.C. United was able to draw an attendance of 17,329 through extensive marketing efforts." and I think that works in the full context of the paragraph. --SkotyWATC 06:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the "Second half" section, link "yellow card" to Penalty card#Yellow card? Maybe link "red card" on first use as well; I think that's in the first "Statistics" table.
I'd link the first instance of "red card", yes. Finetooth (talk) 21:25, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Post-match

  • He also became the first player in the same time period to score multiple championship game goals over their career." Awkward because "player" is singular, but "their" is plural. Also, should this be qualified in some way? Does it mean only soccer? Does it mean only the Lamar Hunt tournament?
  • "The U.S. Open Cup tournament had suffered previously from low attendance numbers and a lack of emphasis from MLS clubs and from U.S. Soccer." - Should that be "by MLS clubs and by U.S. Soccer" rather than "from" and "from"?
  • The last paragraph seems pointy enough to make me think of WP:NPOV. It might be best to delete it. The earlier sections already make clear how well-attended the game was.
    • This one's hard. It's basically trying to convey the facts shared in this source, even though much of it (the source) borders on editorial. Please take a look at the source and if you still think there's no way I can convey the imact the events discussed in this article had on the overall importance/significance of the tournament in a neutral manner, I'll remove it. --SkotyWATC 06:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think a third opinion would be a good idea. What do other editors think? Finetooth (talk) 21:25, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A near 50% improvement on an 81-year-old record is not to be sniffed at, so I definitely see a case for a paragraph. But it needs a big rewrite for neutrality, and to justify its inclusion.
In relative terms Seattle's attendances dwarved those of most if not all other teams in this competition. Obviously that is a peacock expression, but if it can be backed up by hard statistics then with toned down wording it would be valid to communicate this. However, it would be misleading to do so without pointing out that Seattle's league attendances were higher than anyone else as well, and that the attendance for the final was lower than that for any MLS game at Qwest. —WFC— 03:28, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I took a stab at reworking this. I'm glad you pointed to the peacock terms guidance as that gave me some direction for improvement. Here's what I've changed the last paragraph to: The U.S. Open Cup tournament had suffered in prior years from low attendance numbers and a lack of emphasis by MLS clubs and by U.S. Soccer.[23] The record-setting attendance at this final and the consecutive wins by Seattle were indicators of how "meaningful" the U.S. Open Cup tournament had become. The lone remaining peacock term is the word meaningful which I have put in quotes because its specifically used in the source referenced. The term back-to-back was also something I felt detracted from the WP:NPOV, so I replaced it with consecutive. Hopefully this improves it enough. --SkotyWATC 07:17, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR; that is where I found this one. I don't usually watch the PR archives or check corrections or changes. If my comments are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 20:05, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review/feedback. I will follow up on each of these later this week. --SkotyWATC 16:54, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from WFC

  • The OTRS picture at the top is beautiful. Well done for getting permission!
    • Agreed, it helps the article a lot. I had it bigger, but an editor has shrunk it to 250px. There's a lot of detail in this picture, so I figured it was okay to make it bigger. Is there any policy on image sizes. 310px was the size I settled on that seemed to fit best in the infobox and showed enough detail. --SkotyWATC 03:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The tournament has been played for 97 years"; the way this is phrased, it would require updating once a year. Perhaps something along the lines of "The tournament has been contested annually since (1913/1914?)." or "The 2010 tournament was the 97th..." (not sure how to finish the latter sentence, but you get the idea).
  • Is "the Charleston Battery" grammatically correct? N.B. I'm not sure either way.
  • "Seattle won the 2009 U.S. Open Cup; they became the second MLS expansion club to accomplish this in their inaugural season— the Chicago Fire were the first." Semicolon and emdash in the same sentence seems wrong to me. Semicolons are for following on in a subtle, partially related way, while emdashes are for dramatic change mid sentence, or to emphasize a specific factoid. Perhaps "Seattle won the 2009 U.S. Open Cup—the second MLS expansion club to do so in its inaugural season after Chicago Fire in 1998."
    • This used to be devided into to sentences like this: "Seattle Sounders FC won the 2009 U.S. Open Cup. They were the second MLS expansion club to accomplish this in their inaugural season (Chicago Fire was the first)." The GA reviewer decided to join them adding the emdash and the semi-colon. I think your suggestion is the best way to present these facts, so I've changed it to that.
  • "Prior to the final, Sounders FC played U.S. Open Cup home games..." I know it was held at Qwest Field, but would the final count as a home game?
    • Yes it would, that's why I clarified that Starfire was used "prior to the final". Maybe this should be reworded though. How about we change "Prior to the final" to "Excluding the final". --SkotyWATC 03:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perrenial cautionary note about singular vs plural. I haven't seen anything wrong, and Finetooth has mentioned it above, but for football club FACs I think singular vs plural is something that is worth being paranoid about beforehand, hence another mention.
    • I've done my best with this, but I won't go so far as to say it's all correct. Finetooth definitely pointed out some places that needed to be fixed. If you see anything wrong, point it out. --SkotyWATC 03:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is attendance information given for Seattle, but not the Crew?
    • That seems like a reasonable question, but answering it was a lot harder than I expected. I never noticed that I was only including attendance numbers for Sounders FC. I was only half-conciously including them because the articles always called them out. Not so in Columbus' case. Attendance numbers were only available for one of the 3 match reports I had originally referenced. It turns out that both the Crew and D.C. are less than proud of their USOC attendance numbers. I dug up 2 additional sources that had the numbers and both are editorials berating the clubs for their lack of marketing for these events. Regardless, the attendance numbers are there now, whew. --SkotyWATC 04:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • MoS sticklers would probably bring up "U.S. Open Cup" vs "US Soccer", or "D.C. United" vs "Seattle Sounders FC". I don't know if there is a solution that would please everyone, but better to raise this before an FAC than during.
  • May be worth briefly discussing the "controversy" in the 2009 bidding process. Also, chronologically the section isn't quite right. McCullers is complaining in the second paragraph, and in the third we are being told that there was controversy in 2009, and that Seattle was successful in 2010.
    • I've tried to clean up the whole paragraph and elaborate a bit on the controversy. I added a wikilink for readers who want to learn more about it. Hopefully the new wording is better and clarifies the chronology. This may still need work though. Let me know what you think. --SkotyWATC 04:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The second meeting between the two teams was played on September 18, just 17 days before the Open Cup final, at Crew Stadium. Seattle won this meeting convincingly, 4–0. Regarding the score of the later meeting, Sounders FC coach Sigi Schmid(t) stated, "I don't think the difference between the two teams is four goals even though that was the score." Although I would regard 4-0 as convincing, Schmid seems to contradict this straight after. Perhaps "by a convincing scoreline of 4–0"?
  • Is "at midfield" a common phrase Stateside? It's just that I've never heard it on this side of the pond.

I haven't reviewed from "first half" onwards yet, but hope that helps for the time being! —WFC— 07:58, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome, thanks for the review so far. I've gone through and addressed your comments so far. Some still need follow up and please take a look at Finetooth's last comment and give us a third opinion if you've got a moment. Thanks again. --SkotyWATC 04:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by George
  • Should we link to the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup somewhere? Maybe with a Main article link at the top, or wikilinking "the oldest competition in United States soccer"? Just a thought.
  • "This was the 97th edition... The match was won... The match was played..." Maybe mix it up a bit so it's less repetitive.
  • I don't know the answer to this, but I notice that we often use "the Columbus Crew" but not "the Seattle Sounders FC". Is there any reason we should be consistent on this? I think the way it's written is actually more readable colloquially; I'm just not sure if there's a grammatical rule about this.
  • "by virtue of finishing"... would "by finishing" be more readable?

Will try to add more if I have time. The article looks really good, and most of my commentary is stylistic, so feel free to ignore any of it. ← George talk 23:28, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You brought up good points and I've followed up on all of the points. Thanks for the review. --SkotyWATC 06:18, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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