Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Michael Jordan

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

The article was promoted 20:59, 20 March 2007.

[edit] Michael Jordan

The old nom had lots of problems, so I'm restarting it clean. Raul654 07:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment I notified everyone who voted on the previous FAC. Quadzilla99 17:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment For the sake of accuracy, it should be clarified in the "Legacy" section that the ESPN poll (and probably the AP one too - the source isn't clear) was limited to North Americans. I wondered why I'd only heard of 6 of the top 10 athletes of the 20th century; now it makes sense. I think it's probably OK to leave it alone in the Lead, as it's a detail (though an important one). --Dweller 10:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Y Done I changed it in both the lead and Legacy section just to be perfectly clear, although they are both marketed as "athlete of the century" lists no non-North Americans appears on either of them so it's misleading to leave that out. Quadzilla99 14:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually the AP list technically includes non-North Americans so I changed the wording back to athletes in that one, I provided links to both complete lists in the article now though. I could include a non American poll but I can't find one that's notable enough. I was hoping the BBC had one but they don't appear to. Quadzilla99 14:26, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment In the lead, the text reads "he became the most effectively marketed athlete of his generation". This is a bold assertion, not properly supported in the text and certainly not referenced. --Dweller 11:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Y Done I found a couple of sources which seem to say that. Such as when he became the highest paid athlete in the world in 1992 almost 90% of his income was from endorsements,[1] and that he had a $10 billion dollar impact on the US economy.[2] But since this is likely to cause dispute (like the greatest of all time thing) I just changed it to "one of". Quadzilla99 13:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support I've done a lot of work on this article and nominated it last time. All of the specific concerns of the previous nom have been addressed. Quadzilla99 12:17, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support Chensiyuan 12:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support All the previous concerns from the FAC have been addressed. The descriptive terms used in regards to him have now been made particularly generic, even though most people actually thought they were fine to begin with. Aaron Bowen 14:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support Significant issues in old nom resolved to my satisfaction. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support Manderiko 15:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support Warhol13 17:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support Tomer T 17:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support Zodiiak 20:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support for the reasons stated before. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 22:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• I really hate to say this, but some of this article's text seems to copy and pasted directly from an official, copyrighted biography [3], e.g. the sentence "In the 1990-91 season, Michael Jordan, motivated by the team's narrow defeat against the Pistons a year earlier, finally bought into Jackson and assistant coach Tex Winter's triangle offense after years of resistance." which appears verbatim in both. The next sentence is only marginally different in the Wikipedia article, with some statistics abbreviated. If nothing else this paragraph needs to be rewritten most likely. It would be helpful if we could identify who added this text, to help find out if there are more incidents remaining in the article... I will look into it later. --W.marsh 22:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• This is a serious issue. I'll try to trace it back right now. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 22:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I think they took it from Wikipedia, this photo is identical to one we previously had here on Wikipedia:[4] Which is from a flickr user which has since been deleted. A lot of this was here before I started working on the article so I can't be certain. I think this guy lifted it from the article in mid 2006. Quadzilla99 22:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually after looking at the site closer, I think you may be right... now that I think about it, I recall seeing a site exactly like this for Peyton Manning some time ago. At any rate this is not an official site as I said above, my bad. For now am I going to say this site probably is plagiarizing Wikipedia. --W.marsh 22:23, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The addition was made by an anon on December 22, 2005. [5]. This version lacked the lead phrase of "In the 1990-1991 season", so if it was copied to WP, it should have that phrase. That part was only added later on. It is very possible that they jacked it from WP. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 22:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The website is copyright 2006, does that mean the website started up in 2006? Quadzilla99 22:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I also think they took portions of the lead. This sounds like an older version of the article. I am not too surprised, many sites take content from WP without citing it and violate GFDL. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 22:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah the website also contains sentences which are verbatim or similar to a 2004 version of our article:[6][7][8] (See the lead and the first couple of sentences in early life) Quadzilla99 22:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

A problem remains though, in that this probably plagiarized site is cited as the source for the sentence in question, so basically the Wikipedia article is citing itself as a source. I would suggest removing the citation or finding something acceptable. --W.marsh 22:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh no problem, my god you nearly gave me a heart attack. It's probably used as a source as someone looked for a source for that statement and found that site. I'll find a source. Quadzilla99 22:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's where you deal with GFDL stuff: Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

(PS, I hope everyone understands now why I try to check every source, and why it bugs me when references aren't fully formatted so that we can easily check sources, and when reliable sources aren't used; looks like I missed one here :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that was added recently, it's pretty embarassing, I'll go back and check them all again. I removed the sentence until we can find a source for it. I'm pretty sure I remember him saying it on one of his videos. But I can't be sure either the "Air up there" or "Air Time", of course I threw those VHS's out when I went to DVD so it goes for now. Quadzilla99 23:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I listed some of the more questionable sources on the article's talk page. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 23:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Y Done All checked and addressed, I believe. That is if we agree it's okay to use Britannica and Encarta. I went through the article and checked each individual source against what it was supporting, there was one minor error (Jordan created the Boys and Girls Club dedicated to his father in 1996 not 1998 it was wrong in the text, 1998 was the date of the article not the event). I'll double check again just to be sure Quadzilla99 23:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedia refs removed. Quadzilla99 00:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support igordebraga ≠ 23:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Weak support I think the article is pretty solid. I'm giving it a weak support because the prose still doesn't WOW me, although I guess it's good enough. Zagalejo 00:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support One of the greats and the article deserves FA too.--Thugchildz 00:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support per above, great job. Gran² 12:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support now, but I'd like to see some reference to buying into the triangle offense be put back in... although maybe that's more important with respect to Phil Jackson's coaching success. At any rate, it's a minor thing... the article is really great for a sports biography. --W.marsh 13:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Seems alright. If there anything minor that needs fixing, I'd do myself. Michaelas10 (Talk) 10:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support. another great basketball bio, yay. Plus heavily referenced, which is always good.--Wizardman 18:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support. The prose could still be polished, but all in all, a FA. Onomatopoeia 07:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support. This article has greatly improved since its original candidature, and now I think it easily satisfies all the FA requirements. Abecedare 10:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: In "First retirement", the following sentence doesn't make sense: "Jordan was close to his father; he had observed his father's proclivity to stick out his tongue while absorbed in work, and adopted it as his own signature, which was on display each time he drove to the basket." I don't see how the two ideas connect. I've made a few other fixes as well; this looks pretty good. --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 13:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Response When Jordan's father worked on mechanical devices he stuck his tongue out. Jordan also developed this unique practice and got it from watching and imitating his father. When he drove to the basket he often stuck his own tongue out. It became a well known habit of his. There's a pic in there of him doing it. Quadzilla99 14:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Basically it's like the old saying "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Quadzilla99 14:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.