Talk:Ian Meckiff

GA on hold

• No image? :(

• No. He debuted after 1955 when PD-Australia came in.

• "accused him of throwing Australia to victory." - is this a quote...?

• No it's a summary of the critics all saying that he used an illegal technique.

• All three paragraphs of the lead talk about his bowling technique. Doesn't seem right...

• Unfortunately for him, he wasn't known for being a great cricketer but is most known for being the subject of controversy and possible witch-hunt. There are cricket results details in there but most of the study about him regard his bowling action.

• "when he bowled Goddard" - jargon?

• Done. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• "after he had reached a century" - again (wikilinks should fix it)

• done. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• "In 1960, the throwing law was changed so that it stipulated that there was to be no straightening in the arm at the instant of delivery. - ref?

• done. Moved from end of para.

• "Meckiff was not called in the 1960–61 Australian season, but his performances were ineffective as injuries restricted him" - how could he perform if he wasn't called in?

• I linked earlier in the article that "called" means the umpire called "no ball".

• Sorry 'bout that - see also Matt's comments here. Dihydrogen Monoxide (party) 03:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• "South Africa batted first.[8]" - do you need to cite that?

• Well mistake, it was Australia batting first, which is why he didn't bowl until day 2

• A few redlinks...

• I don't know anything about these newspapers and since they seem to be non-trivial stuff that passes WP:N it should be left in there.

• "Meckiff to be legitimate, then[32]" - what are you actually reffing here?

• Fixed. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• Is there any more info about his non-Cricket life other than AFL and advertising?

• Adeed a bit. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

• Any more internet sources?

• Added a bit. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Leave a note on my talk page when done. Cheers, Dihydrogen Monoxide (party) 06:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Second opinion

DHMO has asked me for a seconds opinion. I concur with his assessment in general, but have some points of my own to add if he does not mind.

• "Meckiff started his cricket career played for South Melbourne in Victorian Premier Cricket" - Is this an anachronism; I think this name has only been in place the last 5-10 years. The link is fine but should perhaps be piped to "Melbourne District Cricket"
• His first first-class season. Were his stats in that first season compelling his selection at national level? One season before being sent on a tour sounds like a rapid rise. Maybe a sentence with how many wickets and an average in that first season would add soem context.
• Need to explain what "call" means in the context of throwing. The context does not make this entirely clear to the non-cricket fan
• Would you consider a reorganisation of the headings? This would not be essential, but I personally would combine from "Peak and eruption of chucking row" to "1962–63: No balled in the Sheffield Shield" into one Level 2 section and convert the existing headings to level 3.
• I don't think WP:MOS recommends using {{cquote}} in articles?
• "as the 1961-62 Australian season was purely domestic" may need more detailed explanation, i.e. no international teams.
• Ian McDonald points to a disambiguation page
• "...but refused to test the decision of Egar's partner" This sounds a little POV. Perhaps "declined" or "chose not" would be better, as they have a slightly different sense than "refused".
• "Hoy said that in those Test a Shield matches..." I assume this is a typo but I am not sure what the correct version is.

Once again, a very good piece of work and deserving of GA listing. Well done. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 02:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Done these apart from headers. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy with the above. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 03:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Family

I not sure if this is of any use with Meckiff's life outside cricket - [1]. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 01:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Inconsequential match details

The article is becoming rather bloated by the inclusion of match scores and details of games that have little real significance in Meckiff's career. As examples, in the Subcontinent tour section there is the match against the President's XI, and at the end of the same section a Sheffield Shield match and some club cricket details. All this stuff could be omitted with in my opinion no loss to the article. Overdetailing causes loss of focus. Brianboulton (talk) 00:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Further to this same point, the "Tied Test" has about 1,000 words allotted to it. In this match, Meckiff took one wicket for 148 runs and scored 4 and 2. OK, so he was present at the wicket during the dramatic last over, and his run-out led to the tie, but otherwise his contribution was insignificant, and the details of the rest of the match are pretty well irrelevant in an article about him. The Tied Test might be worth an article of its own, but the place to describe it is not here, in an article which should focus on Meckiff and the events central to his career. I strongly recommend that this section be rewritten as a shortish paragraph which summarises Meckiff's role in this match and his unobtrusive part in the WI series. Around 300 words should be enough. Brianboulton (talk) 10:15, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The TT doesn't appear to have 1,000 words, I don't have a word counter but just added the text and removed it and it was 3000 characters, maybe 500-600 words are present? As far as undue weight goes, it does maybe look odd at first glance and I checked again the general history books I have and the coverage of the last over in the Tied Test is getting more coverage than other normal Tests by themselves in the three books I checked, and in some cases that one over is getting 2-3 times as much coverage as other average Tests. As regards the odd snippet on club cricket, as least in the old days, it was considered a reasonably big deal in Australia as with the less crowded touring calendar etc, as the club final was usually just after the FC season was over, the Test and FC players did play in them. In the 1960s and before there were some club finals where at least half the players were Test or FC players. Obviously if the Test player did nothing very remarkable then it wouldn't be noted, but this detail was present in a very short mini-bio/encylopedia length profile (approx start-level per WP standards). This was also true of Loxton (129 and 7 wickets in a final), Harvey (200+ in a final) and Lawry (made about 280 in a final over three days) in the A-Z of Australian cricket profile; the Lawry 280 was even mentioned in the testimonial speech when he was inducted into the ACHOF last month. He only played 1 Shield match that season, but it was also his best-ever bowling figures so I don't think it should be omitted. For the President's XI match, Meckiff by that time was not performing well and was dropped for the next Test, and for fringe players, every tour match does make a difference, whereas for a senior player who is nowhere near being dropped, it doesn't matter if he plays horribly in even 3-4 tour matches. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 02:13, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I do have a word counter, and the total for the Tied Test section is 957, not far off my initial guess (you can get a pretty accurate estimate by assuming an average of 30 words per Wikipedia text line). That's more than 10% of the article on a single match in which Meckiff barely performed until chance found him at the wicket for the dramatic conclusion. I call that way, way too much. Likewise, the earlier accounts of club and Shield matches cause twofold problems: they are tedious for the general reader, and they make it hard for you to vary your text enough to make it interesting even for cricket fans. It begins to sound like a bunch of clichés. I have said earlier, summary style means leaving things out as much as it does including things; the general circumstances can be summarised without repetitive match summaries, bowling figures and details of irrelevant batting performances. I feel that, unless addressed, this will be a recurrent problem when the article returns to FAC. Brianboulton (talk) 10:45, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I thought you meant the info on the TT only, not the whole section, which was about the 1960-61 season generally YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 23:53, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Note: I have finished my copyediting. I haven't tried to get rid of all your individual prose (this is a cricket article not an academic treatise) but I have replaced jargon-ish and specialist terms. I have also replaced nearly all references to "the Victorian", "the left-armer", "the paceman" etc, because as Anonymous Dissident says elsewhere, any usage other than "Meckiff" or "he" sounds either slangy or artificial. I hope you will consider my suggestions above (I haven't copyedited the Tied Test section btw, as I was waiting for your response). I have another suggestion, which is that before this is renominated at FAC it is read through and reviewed by an uninvolved editor. It would also be worth asking GrahamColm, who opposed the last FAC, to take a look. Brianboulton (talk) 12:58, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 23:53, 14 March 2010 (UTC)