Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/A-class review/David Falk

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the discussion was: Promoted. - Duribald 17:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

David Falk[edit]

I think this article is now comprehensive enough to warrant an A-class review. Only possible problems I see are:

Three of the images claim "fair use." Two of these (the Nike logo and the Space Jam picture) are not crucial to the article, and can be removed without too much fuss if their rationales are deemed too weak. The third, however, is the photo of Falk himself in the page's infobox. This is the only photo of the subject of the article on the page, and its removal will significantly hurt its chances of an A-Class rating.

Information on Falk's personal life is a little slim. This lack of info isn't by choice... the information simply isn't out there (trust me, I've looked). Exact birth date is not present, although birth year has been attained.

Otherwise the article is well-written, comprehensive, and heavily referenced. In my opinion, it is A-Class material. Joseph Petek 04:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support The article has been expanded significantly since the GA rating, and it now has, essentially, all components required of an A class article. And I don't think you did a bad job on the personal life section. I support the A class rating and leave it to others to udge the fair use rationale. - Duribald 05:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support good stuff. Chensiyuan 08:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment There are several sentences which have 5-6 refs en bloc. I find this a bit overkilly, but this is just my opinion: IMHO just pick out the 2-3 best ones, 6 loosk awkward. While this is not per se something bad, I also would prefer them realigned like this:
BEFORE: so Falk's client list, with Michael Jordan its centerpiece, made him one of the primary movers and shakers in the NBA, able to leverage teams into agreeing to his terms on contracts and trades.[50][51][52][2][13][20][22][28]
AFTER: so Falk's client list, with Michael Jordan its centerpiece, made him one of the primary movers and shakers in the NBA, able to leverage teams into agreeing to his terms on contracts and trades.[2][13][20][22][28][50][51][52]

But all in all, good stuff. —Onomatopoeia 08:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can see what you're talking about, and I partially agree with you on both issues. It does look a little strange to have 8 references lined up in a row. I just felt that the more more far-reaching the claim, the more references would be needed (in particular, the claim about him being as powerful as David Stern defineteley needed a lot of back-up). There are also sentences with, say, four facts that come from four different articles, and in that case I oftentimes elected to put all four references at the end of the sentence, as placing them all separately within the sentence would probably look even worse.

As to the order of references above, there is a rhyme and reason to it: I decided to put new references (first time they had appeared in the article) first, and then put the ones that had already appeared earlier second. Hence, in the above example, 50-51-52 were first used for that sentence, while the others had been used previously.

Those are my reasons. Doesn't mean I'm right, and that one you point out where I have 8 references in one place probably could stand to be toned down. Joseph Petek 17:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support - A-class articles aren't necessarily perfect, and a little overkill on references isn't really the worst problem an article could have. But maybe instead of the multiple references they could all be combined into a single citation after each sentence? Like, for instance, "See (A), (B), (C), (D), and (E)". John Carter 15:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting suggestion, and it's true that it would make the article look cleaner. However, I fear it would make the references section itself very unwieldy: the article currently has 29 references which are used 4 or more times, with a few used as many as 20 times. If refs were split up as you suggest, there would be countless repetition of refs in the ref list.

Currently there are 8 instances where 4 or more refences are used in one place. I'm going to look at those 8 places today and see if I can't eliminate some stuff. Joseph Petek 18:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I have now pared down the references in the article to where there are no more than four together in a block. I intentionally kept four references in six different places to back up the article's most controversial/far-reaching statements, with two of the six actually being simple repeat-sentences that use the same refs. A summary of these statements is below.

(Falk) is generally considered to be the most influential player agent the NBA has seen. (Section: Lead section)
(Falk) was often considered the second-most powerful person in the NBA behind Commissioner David Stern. (Section: Lead section)
- (Falk) was often considered the second-most powerful man in basketball behind NBA Commissioner David Stern. (Section: Role in facilitating NBA trades)
Falk was often described as the "invisible hand" that guided union negotiations. (Section: 1998 lockout)
- ...and many saw Falk as the controlling influence in the union's negotiations. (Section: 1998 lockout)
Falk's client list, with Michael Jordan its centerpiece, made him one of the primary movers and shakers in the NBA, able to leverage teams into agreeing to his terms on contracts and trades. (Section: Role in facilitating NBA trades)

My feeling is that these sentences needed as much substantiation as they could get. Hopefully the references have now been curbed enough so that it doesn't look quite so unwieldy as it did. Joseph Petek 18:52, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.