Wikipedia:Peer review/Joe Delaney/archive1

Joe Delaney

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A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for July 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I believe that one day it can possibly be promoted to Featured Article status. This is my description from the withdrawn A-class review from July 6, 2008 (no one was available to review it, so I changed it to Peer review instead):

"I believe this article fully covers the brief professional career of Joe Delaney, and his heroic act of saving children from drowning. There are not many references because many repeat themselves, and also because his career in the early 1980s was so brief. Reference #6 (Shreveport, LA, Times article) is archived from a link that was blacklisted as Wikipedia spam. I knowingly did not include the spammed link because it is not allowed, so don't think I left the reference incomplete, because I wasn't sure of how to deal with it. This article was given GA-status in March 2008. The article's photo is from an Associated Press file, and the photo's source link is located in the file's page at Wikimedia's Commons. The photo in the section "Death and legacy," however, is fully my own work sourced from my personal camera. I feel that this article is fully capable of becoming an A-class article on Wikipedia. This is my first self-nomination for an A-class article, and any help in making this article flawless will be of great help to me."

Requests

Feedback to see if this article is suitable to be promoted to A-class/Featured article status. Joe Delaney had a short career in the NFL and is more notable for his heroic rescue of children from drowning than his 2-year career. That is why there is not many references available, and many of them repeat themselves.
If anything, should I expand Delaney's career in college?, but again, resources are scarce to help expand the section. I can't even find an adequate website that provides his collegiate year-by-year stats with Northwestern State. Told not to expand, see below.
Was the profile picture (Image:810913JoeDelaney.jpg) uploaded correctly? I found it on the internet and I was wondering if it was uploaded with the correct liscence. Almost every time I upload a file it eventually gets deleted because I never know how to correctly upload a photo that is not my work under the right copyright tag. The second photo (Image:Arrowhead Delaney.jpg) is entirely my own work.
Under "Professional career" I was wondering if the boxed quote by Elvin Bethea is suitable for the article or else I should use the format for the Ronald Reagan quote (in the "Death and legacy" section) is the better choice. (REMOVED on my request)

This is my very first request for a Peer review and the absolute furthest I've gotten in contributing on Wikipedia (I've worked on some GA articles and Featured lists, but this is the first attempt for a future Featured article. All help is welcome! Thanks! conman33 (. . .talk) 04:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Wackymacs (talk · contribs):

I must say you're doing very well so far. Keep up the good work on an interesting subject. This isn't quite there yet, but I believe it can reach FA status with a little more work:
Minor prose issues right at the start of the lead: ..."was an American football player whose ~~promising~~ career "was cut short" ended after ~~just~~ two seasons in the National Football League." - promising could be seen as POV unless you cite it, and "cut short" is a bit informal, I suggest using 'ended' instead.
The lead needs an extra sentence or two. It looks too short, see WP:LEAD.
Regarding the profile picture, I doubt an AP photo is licensed under GNU. I think all AP photos are copyrighted, and so it needs to be fair use, not GNU. (Though, I'm not an expert on image licensing/copyright).
If you can't find reliable sources to expand the career in college information, then don't.
Be careful with the words you link. For example, "high school" does not need to be linked. Also, years on their own such as 1973 should not be linked.
"and once paid for a funeral that family could not afford" - This doesn't make sense. I guess you mean "and once paid for a funeral that a family could not afford" (or was it his family?)
The way you have broken up the sentences in the Death section means its harder to read. I would put all the info about his heroic attempt of saving the children into one paragraph.
"The award is given by ProFootballTalk.com." is, or was?
In ref 6, there is some broken syntax: "Archived from [{{{url}}} the original] on September 30, 2004."
References look reliable, links checked out fine with the link checker tool.
Overall, this is a good start and I encourage you to contact some people at WP:PRV to help with improving the prose.
I hope my comments have been useful. If you need further comments or any help, please ask.

— Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 09:08, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up by Conman33 (talk · contribs):
Here's what I did to correct. Thank you very much for reviewing this article!

I had the “promising career” part sourced with references #3 and #4. Both references talk about his career being a “promising” one. Should I put the reference tag after “promising” or after the end of the sentence?
I’m not an expert on the photo tags as well, I’ll leave that up to another person. I’m afraid that if I change the tag it’ll end up being wrong and get deleted. MORE HELP NEEDED
Couldn’t find more sources on his collegiate career, so like you said I won’t try. He went to a small Division I-AA school and it’s always hard to find sources for those schools, especially info from the late 70’s and early 80’s.
Removed the links for years and other links that probably don’t really need it at all.
”funeral” thing all sorted out.
Bunched paragraphs in “Death” section.
Reference #6’s syntax is confusing to me, that’s why I left this hidden note: ‘’ Editor's Note: Original link has been blacklisted as spam on Wikipedia, therefore, citation is knowingly incomplete. Please see archived page for original link as evidence.’’ I’ve tried to fill it in the best I can to make it correct, but I’m confused on how to make it work. MORE HELP NEEDED

Y Thanks again! conman33 (. . .talk) 01:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
- What makes http://www.databasefootball.com/index.htm a reliable source?

Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 13:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Follow-up by Conman33 (talk · contribs):

I just decided to remove the databasefootball.com link because the Pro FootbalL Reference link said pretty much all the same information. It was just repeating what was already available. Thanks for your help! conman33 (. . .talk) 02:47, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Still need input on the photo. So far, it looks like it's OK, but like Wackymacs said, it should probably have another tag. I need somebody to tell me if an AP file photo is able to be uploaded to WP and not eventually get deleted.
Referece 6's syntax is purposely messed up because I don't know how to correctly fill it in. The link is an archived page of a spammed link. Obviously I won't be able to add the spammed link without any problems from WP staff.

conman33 (. . .talk) 18:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by JKBrooks85 (talk · contribs):

I'm more than happy to give you a critical eye, so please take these comments in the way they're intended. If I come across as critical, please don't take it harshly -- I'm just trying to help I've got a few FAs, and trust me -- work now saves work later.
The main picture needs to be removed from the article and deleted from Wikipedia entirely. It's an AP photo, and isn't licensed correctly at all. You might be able to get away with putting a "unique historical moment" tag on it, but that's unlikely because you're just using it to illustrate the individual.
For the "Remembering Joe Delany citation," you really need to find the original, if at all possible. Forum reposts are really frowned upon. If that's not possible, try to spread your cites around.
You really need to go into more detail about his life outside of football. Remember, this is going to be judged as a biography, not just as a collection of facts about his football career. I'd recommend checking out the article on Jim Thorpe. To date, that's the only football player FAC, and IMHO, this article needs to be about that extensive to have a shot at surviving the guns of FAC commenters.
Check out the Weasel Words page. There's a few things that I've tagged, but keep that page in mind. It's particularly important when you're writing about a subject which you care about. I know I've run into problems in this department plenty of times.
Can you add more information about his family -- wife, kids, etc.?
You'll need to spread your citations out more. You've got a lot of tags, but they lead to just a few different sources. That could be an issue as you get into FAC.
How are his stats in the Nicholls State game a record? Explain what record he broke in the article.
You've got a few MOS problems in regards to numbers. In general, spell out numbers less than ten. Use numerals for numbers 10 and over, including ordinal numbers.
Is the 100-yard time of 9.4 seconds fast? There's no context for a reader to know that.
These are just a few things I picked up while reading the article. You'll have a lot more as you get people to look at it. When you do reach the FAC process, it's important to remember to not get frustrated. It's going to take time -- months, even -- to get it up there, but in the end, it's worth it. It's a lot of work, and it'll take a lot of time, but keep at it, and keep digging. Biographical FACs are some of the toughest ones to get passed, IMHO, particularly for someone who doesn't have several biographies already written about them. I think you can do it, though. Good luck!

Follow-up by Conman33 (talk · contribs):

There is a photo of Delaney I have recently found on Flickr that I will look into importing to Wikipedia. It will replace the AP photo. I'll get on it sometime soon.
Still looking for "Remembering Joe Delaney" article that isn't spammed. Might just remove the reference entirely and substitute it with the other sources.
It's very difficult trying to find information on his personal life because he had attended a D I-AA school and only played in 2 NFL seasons. Still working on that though. Same thing with his family and kids.
The 100-yd dash in 9.4 seconds is pretty darn fast, just looking at this article for the 100-yard dash, he was pretty fast for his time. I'll look for a reference explaining the time though.

To sum it up, this was pretty damn hard to get through just GA-status and a peer review. I can only imagine what it takes for a biography FA-status. If anything, this article might just stay at GA-status for now, I don't think I'll seek anything better than that. Thank you every one. I'll keep on working on this article and use your feedback to keep it good. conman33 (. . .talk) 04:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]