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Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Toronto Blue Jays seasons/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Matthewedwards 19:06, 11 July 2009 [1].

List of Toronto Blue Jays seasons

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Nominator(s): Mlaffs (talk) 04:04, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Toolbox

I am nominating this for featured list because I believe that it satisfies the criteria. This is my first nomination via this process. I did not create this article — it was created some time ago — however, I did make significant enhancements to it following a review of existing featured lists that are similar. I have also sought feedback at the relevant project talk page and via a peer review, and have made further changes based on the comments provided. Mlaffs (talk) 04:04, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - When viewing the article in a 1024x768 resolution, the images in the "Regular season results" section creates a big ugly white-space before the table starts (see here). The only way to fix it is by removing the images or somehow make the table smaller. TheLeftorium 12:38, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The pitfalls of working on a 1920x1200 setup, I guess — good point. I'm trying to recreate the problem by changing my resolution, but it's not creating the same problem as is obvious from your screenshot, so it's tough to solve it short of just stripping out the images. Question — how legible is the current font size in the table itself on that resolution? The table is set at 95% font right now. I've tried reducing it to 90% and it shrinks the width of the table by about 3/4 of on an inch on my screen, which I suspect may solve the problem. I'm just worried about it making the size too small to read. Mlaffs (talk) 13:56, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Little known fact: I used to be a big Blue Jays fan, I was at game 2 of the 1993 World Series and the opening game of the 1994 season. If only I'd had the foresight to take pictures... But, I digress. A few comments, would it be possible to add in a table for their post-season record? That is a bit of a gaping hole at the moment. I think you should either add more images so that there are images alongside the entire table, or remove them all together. I'm leaning towards the latter, because they do crowd up the table and I'm not sure if they add a whole lot to the article. Rather than having the notes towards the bottom, perhaps you should instead add a key above the table, that would be of more use as it would be easier to find. -- Scorpion0422 20:33, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm at about 15-20 home games a year myself, and was lucky enough to have a chance as a student to intern for NBC during the '89 ALCS, including time in both locker rooms after the game. Those would have been some pictures. Anyway... There is a column for the post-season showing their record each season, as well as a row at the bottom totalling their post-season record — did you have something else in mind? I'd love more images myself, but they just don't exist either here or on Commons that I could find, otherwise I would have included them. I'm reluctant to go without entirely — see discussion above — so I'd like to wait and see if there's any more feedback on this point, if you don't mind. Similarly, I'm kind of torn about the key above the table; among the other featured lists like this one, the Mets and Yankees articles use the key, while the DBacks, Phillies, and Rays articles are set up like this one. The Cardinals article doesn't provide any explanation of the abbreviations, and it's moot for the Red Sox article, as it doesn't include award winners in this manner. Again, if you don't mind, I'd like to chew on this a bit. Mlaffs (talk) 21:08, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
<rant directed at no one in particular> One of my pet peeves is the inconsistency of team articles of the same sports topic (e.g. seasons, Opening Day starting pitchers, managers, etc.). One of these days, WP:BASEBALL needs to come together and decide on a format. That would make reviewing these a hell of a lot easier</rant> ; Dabomb87 (talk) 02:06, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Couldn't agree more. I'm not a project member — more of an interloper, really — but a consistent approach would be great. Us gnomes can really make magic happen when we have an approved model to worth with. That being said, reminder below that there was an open issue served to remind me that there was an open issue up here as well. Scorpion0422, in case you're still watching the discussion, I think I'd prefer to stick with the notes rather than moving to the key. As with the totals issue, personal preference mostly, but there's also no real consistency among the existing featured lists in this series, nor has there really been any consensus among the comments here. Mlaffs (talk) 03:34, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think the NBA coach lists have been remarkably consistent with each other. Making these lists consistent has been on my to-do list for ages. Scorpion's on vacation, by the way. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Lead
  • 'Toronto made their MLB debut in the 1977 baseball season, as an expansion team.' -- Better formatted as -> Toronto made their MLB debut during the 1977 baseball season, as an expansion team. Also, do not pipelink the word "the" in the link.
  • 'After a stretch of unsuccessful years following their debut, the team's fortunes began to turn, resulting in them capturing the American League East Division in 1985.' -- A bit wordy, can't it just say that they won their division? Something like After a stretch of unsuccessful years following their debut, the team rebounded by topping the American League East Division in 1985.
  • 'They lost the American League Championship Series (ALCS) to the Kansas City Royals, in a series that went the full seven games.' -- When was this?
    • I think that I'd want to address all three of these points by rewriting the text as follows: Toronto made their MLB debut during the 1977 baseball season, as an expansion team, and were unsuccessful for several years. They first made the playoffs in 1985, by capturing the American League East Division, but lost the American League Championship Series (ALCS) in seven games to the Kansas City Royals. Mlaffs (talk)
  • 'However, in 1992, they became the first Canadian-based team to win the World Series, with a pair of six-game victories over Oakland in the ALCS and the Atlanta Braves in the finals.' -- Since this is a new paragraph, its not the best way to start with "However". How about In 1992, however, they .... Also, why do you call it the "finals" here and in the sentence that follows you call it the "World Series"? Be consistent.
  • The lead should state something about their recent years.
Table
  • It would be best IMO if the acronyms and other things that stand for something be explained above the table and not in the notes, thats what a key would be for.
    • That's two votes for the key approach versus footnotes — I've been mulling this over. Mlaffs (talk)
  • 'These statistics are current as of the end of the 2008 Major League Baseball season.' -- Can this be at least like accompanied with an asterisk or seomthing that says "Note:"?
Images
  • I'm not too big of a fan of how the captions are formatted, but how would "Name (pos., year-year)" fit?
References
  • For the mlb.com refs, replace this field with "Major League Baseball" in the publisher field (w/o the quotes)
  • For the baseball-reference refs, add "Sports Reference LLC" to the publisher field
  • For the sportsillustrated.cnn.com ref, remove this and just leave "Sports Illustrated" in the publisher field.--Truco 503 02:21, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with everything else above that doesn't have a specific response, and I'll work it all in shortly. Thanks for the detailed feedback. Mlaffs (talk) 02:52, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Footnotes vs. key I've created a duplicate version of the article in my userspace for comparison purposes, using a key at the top of the table for the column headings and the abbreviations, rather than having them in notes. Please see here. Mlaffs (talk) 01:52, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've reviewed both formats, and I think that a key of that size is much too large in comparison to a table of this length. Just my humble opinion. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 12:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just a thought: have you considered using {{tooltip}}? Dabomb87 (talk) 15:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if WP:ACCESS would be very happy with that. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 15:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Probably not... Dabomb87 (talk) 15:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, here it is in WP:ACCESS: "Don't use techniques that require physical action to provide information, such as tooltips or any other "hover" text." Dabomb87 (talk) 15:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, I hadn't considered it, as I didn't even know it existed. Wicked cool, though. Thinking outside the box, all of these "List of TEAM seasons" articles probably use essentially the same column headings and abbreviations. Would it be too weird and wacky an idea to have the key be a separate page — say Key of column headings and abbreviations for Major League Baseball List of seasons articles — to which all of the articles could point from a note right at the top of the table along the lines of See here for an explanation of the data and abbreviations used in this article. Too outside the box, right? Never fly? Mlaffs (talk) 16:09, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe not as a page, but I don't see why that couldn't become a template. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 16:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen many lists with keys of that size, some don't even use tables. I find it fine to use in the list.--Truco 503 00:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Giants2008
*Oppose – Found quite a few issues with the list during a close examination:
  • "Toronto made their debut during the 1977 baseball season, as an expansion team". Tense issue, with singular (Toronto) and plural (their) items together. Changing the beginning of the sentence to "The Blue Jays" would take care of that. Also, move the reference here after the comma.
  • The last few paragraphs have many uses of "they". Please consider changing a few to the team's name for more compelling prose.
  • Does the given reference cover Toronto being the first Canadian team to win a championship? If not, a cite for that should be easy enough to find.
  • That sentence has a redundant re-use of World Series. Not the easiest one to fix, but would be helpful if it could be done.
  • Merge the last paragraph with the previous one to avoid having a stubby paragraph at the end of the lead. Also, the part about them regularly finishing behind the Yankees and Red Sox isn't cited.
  • Consider adding a note saying where the year links in the table go, so readers will know that they are for team and league seasons and not just years themselves. The Yankees and Mets lists have them, if you need a guide.
  • In the table, think about de-linking all instances of AL and East after the first season. This will avoid overlinking, which is undesirable.
  • Could use a note on Alfredo Griffin being named co-Rookie of the Year, saying that the voting finished in a tie and naming the other winner.
  • None of the See also links are necessary because they can be accessed through the team template at the bottom.
  • Italicize the publisher in reference 13 (Sports Illustrated).
  • The Toronto Blue Jays category is a main category and can be removed, since a seasons subcategory is included.
  • Disambiguation link to Aaron Hill. Giants2008 (17-14) 22:45, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the feedback. First of all, let me just say that given what my usual area of focus here is, I'm mortified that Aaron Hill was a dab link — absolutely mortified. Otherwise, I've made a series of changes that I hope will address your concerns, and I'd be thankful if you'd have another look. The only point you've raised that I haven't addressed is in the seventh bullet above, regarding the multiple links to "AL" and "East". This section of the MoS suggests that each line of the table needs to stand on its own, and so the links should be retained. Mlaffs (talk) 04:55, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another idea I came up is to seperate the all-time records into their own table, as is done in the Yankees and Mets seasons lists that I worked on. It's not crucial enough for me to withhold support over, but I do feel it would improve the appearance of the bottom of the table.
I'll have a look at that. Mlaffs (talk) 03:25, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This has been left untouched. If you don't want to do this, feel free to say so; as I said, it's not a deal-breaker. Giants2008 (17-14) 22:09, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry — can't even blame it on the holiday weekend, as we had ours on the 1st. I just forgot to come back here. I think both approaches for the totals are good, although I think I prefer the way it is. More pragmatically, though, if I look at the other articles in this series that are already featured lists, it's consistent with more of them in the current form. Dabomb87 in their !rant above has a good point, though — would be worth knocking some heads together to come up with a consistent standard. Mlaffs (talk) 03:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If there's something that can be added to potentially improve the structure of these managers lists, like Giant's suggestion, by all means add/edit and make the other articles conform; if you need help coordinating the efforts to bring about consistency, ping me. Congrats on your RfA, by the way. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:34, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed, although not by me. Thanks, Dabomb87, and for that fraction template too — I've never seen that before. Mlaffs (talk) 03:25, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No problem; we learn something new every day! Dabomb87 (talk) 20:35, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going on a short vacation starting tomorrow and will be unable to return until at least Monday. With the one comment unresolved unstruck, this gets a weak support from me. Giants2008 (17-14) 21:40, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just to explain further before I go, I can't consider the unstruck comment fully resolved when Dabomb indicates that he would support the change; now I'm not the only reviewer who feels that way, although he's supporting. Most of the recent sports seasons FLs have seperate sections for all-time records, and I've found this method to be useful in my own work on FLs. As I said, however, it's not a deal-breaker for me, though I am tempering my support. It would be great a set format for the baseball season FLs, by the way. Something for me to think about when I come back. Giants2008 (17-14) 04:29, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support, all issues resolved. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:35, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved issues, Dabomb87 (talk)
Comments from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs) Nice job.
  • "Prior to"-->Before
  • "and were unsuccessful for several years." Seems a bit POVish (success means different things to different people); also, you say right after that they made the playoffs in 1985 so it is understood when their first real "success" was.
  • Em dashes in blank cells please.
  • Don't abbreviate positions in the image captions.
  • The first image caption should not have a period at the end since it's not a sentence.
  • Notes h, q, and r need references. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
All changes made. Thanks! Mlaffs (talk) 03:25, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sources look good. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose until alternative text for images is added (discussion). Dabomb87 (talk) 01:22, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I have the coding wrong, I've already included alt text for all three images. I'll go back and read the instructions again in case I've done something wrong. Mlaffs (talk) 02:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, I was looking at a different baseball FLC. Sorry, Dabomb87 (talk) 02:01, 10 July 2009 (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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