Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Paintball/1

Paintball[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delist per comments below. Articles can be renominated at GAN at any time. Geometry guy 17:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would to request that this article be delisted from GA-status. It reached GA-class at 22:40 today and there was no review for it. The reviewer just passed it with no comments about it. And looking at the article itself, it doesn't look ready for the GA rating. For starters, there is a ^{[citation needed]} in the article. For that matter, there is a few sections in the article that isn't referenced. And here this shows that 2 links are dead. I also think that all three pictures in the Games section should be removed. One picture of gameplay is good enough. Now, if I missed a few problems in this review, please add them. GamerPro64 (talk) 23:12, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure if the reviewer put the comments in the right place - but I know they placed some on my talk page here. Please refer here for their rationale. Jwoodger (talk) 23:17, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see the problem. The reviewer reviewed the article (which wasn't in the right place), stated problems, but still passed it. I've seen this before. GamerPro64 (talk) 23:24, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see what I did wrong, I misread the section with the ^{[citation needed]}. I will review it again and fix my mistakes. --Nascar 1996 23:41, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to cull that piece of info, not cited - not wanted. Jwoodger (talk) 23:57, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What are you talking about? --Nascar 1996 00:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was talking about the piece of info in Paintball that was tagged with citation needed (about paintballs needing to tag an area larger than a US size quarter for it to be counted). It was unsourced, so I removed it. Jwoodger (talk) 00:08, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. --Nascar 1996 00:09, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

A very quick glance shows that this article is not up to GA status:

The lead is 2 very small paragraphs that cannot possibly summarise the contents of the article
The lead contains no fewer than 6 inline citations- those facts should be in the body and the citations should not be required in the lead
The contents table is far too long
From a skim read, the article would be better titled "paintball in the United States"- it provides very little analysis of paintball elsewhere
- For example, the "miltary theme" section opens with "Paintball is played by over 5 million people in the United States each year" and then leaps to some more (American and vaguely relevant) statistics
3 images have no caption whatsoever
Someone with the requisite right on Commons needs to sort out File:HUNGRYHUNGRYHIPPOSBreakout.jpg
The vast majority of references are lacking work, publisher and publication date
The dates in the references are all over the place- some use the international format DD MONTH YYYY, some use the American MONTH DD, YYYY and others still use YYYY-MM-DD (or is that YYYY-DD-MM? Exactly why it should be avoided like the plague)
I'd have to have a closer look, but I'd question the reliability of some of the sources without publishers and works, it's difficult to tell
Why does the "legality" section deal exclusively with Australia, Germany and the US? Likewise, why does one US city get as much weight as 2 whole countries including a G7 member?
What is the relevance of the "see also"s? That should be explained in the section- it's no just a link farm
The "Terminology" section is completely unreferenced

I'm sorry to be so critical as I'm sure the review was done in good faith and that does look like a long list of problems, but the article could have been justifiably quick-failed. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:52, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback - these concerns seem quite valid and I will look into shaping up this article. One question regarding the long table of contents; given that it's based on the sections in the article - what exactly would be appropriate solution to shortening it? Cheers. Jwoodger (talk) 01:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Go through your section headings and particularly your subsection headings and think "do I really need that" I the answer is no, zap it. I the answer is "I'm not sure" decide whether the information is best served in its own section and decide whether the reader would gain a better understanding with it being there. By those criteria, you could probably remove 2/3 of the current level 3 headers. I'm glad you're willing to work on my suggestions because it's not a million miles away from GA and with a few days' hard work, it could be there. Let me know I you need any more advice or someone to bounce ideas off. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:56, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment From my point of view, the only thing still needing fixing in order to keep this as a GA is the references - there are still plenty that lack basic details like website publishers, publishing dates or retrieval dates. I'd rate this a keep if these were fixed. I've done a few, but can't help with others. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:17, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. This reassessment has been open for nearly 2 months, and is in need of being closed soon. As Hamiltonstone suggests, it would be nice to close it as "keep", but I have serious reservations about doing so, and wonder if other reviewers share my them.

The first concerns NPOV. There is some controversy associated with the topic, and in such cases Wikipedia articles need to be scrupulously careful not to express any editorial opinion. In this case the article reads to me as leaning towards support of the idea that Paintball is harmless fun. For instance the final sentence of the lead ("Despite this, the game and its associated equipment has attracted controversy worldwide due to incidents of injury on and off the playing field, and criticism due to its military theme.") suggests that criticism is unreasonable in the light of the statistics. That may be true, but we then need a source not only for the statistics, but for the idea that the criticism is unreasonable.

The second related issue concerns citation and prose style. Examples include:
"The first games of paintball were very different from modern paintball games; they often threw the paintballs at each other, and Nelspot pistols were the only guns available." (According to whom, and how often?)

"The paintball marker must have attached a loader or "hopper" for keeping the marker fed with ammunition, and will be either gravity fed (where balls drop into the loading chamber), or electronically force fed." and "Modern masks have evolved to be less bulky compared with older designs." (Most of the equipment section is uncited and rather loosely phrased.)

"Paintball is played with a potentially limitless variety of rules and variations, which are specified before the game begins." (What does "potentially limitless" mean, and according to what source?)

"Venues are either outdoors or indoors..." (Is there a third option?)

"Though less expensive and less structured than play at a commercial facility, the lack of safety protocols, instruction, and oversight can lead to higher incidence of injuries." (According to whom?)

"The number of matches in a tournament is largely defined by the number of available teams playing." (That makes sense, but is rather loose - a source might provide a tighter formulation.)

"Professional teams can have different names in different leagues due to franchising and sponsorship issues." (Uncited, and "issues" is not an ideal choice of word.)

Safety: the two statistics differ by a factor of two, and the main cause being "tripping" does not seem to be sourced.

"Regardless, paintball has received criticism due to incidents of injury." (As in the last sentence of the lead, this frames the discussion - Wikipedia articles should not do that, unless sources do likewise.)

I hope these comments are helpful in improving the article, which contains a lot of useful information, but may not yet be encyclopedic enough for GA status to be retained. I am willing to delist on that basis, if this is not disputed. Articles can be renominated at GAN at any time. Geometry guy 20:03, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments - they will be helpful and I intend to sort them out as best I can. I have no strong desire to keep an article at Good status if it doesn't deserve it (though it was nice while it lasted). Jwoodger (talk) 22:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

General comments Certainly not up to GA standard. Please see my comments under "David Cameron" at User talk:Cooltrainer Hugh. Too journalistic; too much trivia; and lacking in historical perspective. Also rather dull and rambling. IXIA (talk) 21:38, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I want to address your concerns in the article too - but what parts are you referring to in relation to trivia? Would increasing the size of the History section address the historical perspective concerns? I'm also not sure what you mean by journalistic. Finally, I don't know if I can help with the dull part, how would one make an article more interesting? Jwoodger (talk) 22:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some of these issues can be seen in the first two sentences of the History.

"In 1976, Hayes Noel, a stock trader, Bob Gurnsey, and author Charles Gaines were walking home and chatting about Gaines' recent trip to Africa and his experiences hunting buffalo. Eager to recreate the adrenaline rush that came with the thrill of the hunt, and inspired by Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game, the three friends came up with the idea to create a game where they could stalk and hunt each other."

In the first sentence, tense choice is part of the problem: the present continuous is rather journalistic, putting the reader into the moment rather than an objective perspective. Also "chatting" is a bit informal. In the second sentence "Eager to recreate" is rather emotional for encyclopedic prose: the same effect could be achieved by using direct quotation, if a suitable quotation is available. Also consider the verb choice here ("came up with" instead of "had").

Anyway, hopefully you have enough feedback now to have another shot at a GA nomination, so I will close this reassessment now. Geometry guy 17:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]