Talk:Geoffrey Boycott

Improvements to accessibility for screen reader users

Screen reader users can call up a list of tables on a page. These are out of the page's context, including the headings, so we need a way to describe them in this listing. Tables are labelled by their caption. A user can navigate directly to any table that takes their interest. So, I've added captions to any table without one and expanded the captions that were already there. I've also added scope attributes to the column headings, including those that span two or more columns. Understanding table structure is tricky when you cannot see the page. CrazyBuilder talk 09:20, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Can citation links be moved?

Listening to any of the tables with an inline reference in a col heading, using VoiceOver (the Mac screen reader) is a bit of a pain: every time the heading is announced (which is every time a cell in that column is encountered), so is "link 247" or similar. I found it both irritating and tiring. Is there a way to move the source reference out of the heading that would be acceptable to all concerned? I should add that I'm not a full-time screen reader user, so perhaps my tolerance of such irritations is not very good, but if I find it tiring, then I suspect anyone would find it so. Hoping for some good input. CrazyBuilder talk 15:34, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

@CrazyBuilder: Are you talking about the tables in "Career performance" section of "Test matches" and "One-Day Internationals", if so may be the ref could be moved in to the title. As shown below.

Boycott's international Test figures for batting and bowling by opposition

		Batting				Bowling
Opposition	Matches	Runs	Average	High score	100 / 50	Runs	Wickets	Average	Best
Australia	38	2945	47.50	191	7/14	107	2	53.50	2/32

Keith D (talk) 00:06, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's the place. That looks like an excellent idea. Cannot see any issues there. (I still wonder how a screen reader user knows what "link 247" means, but that is a whole other question.) BTW, that "title" is a "caption"—forgive my nit-picking—communication is generally better when we use the correct terms for stuff—the burden of my neurodivergent brain, sorry, lol. I'll check with VO and move the refs today if all is well. CrazyBuilder talk 10:14, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Refs moved. All good. Many thanks Keith, CrazyBuilder talk 10:32, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

References

GA concerns

I am concerned that this article no longer meets the good article criteria. Some of my concerns are outlined below:

• There is uncited text in the article, including a paragraph that has been tagged with a "citation needed" template since 2017.
• At over 10,000 words long, this might be an indication that the article is too detailed. WP:TOOBIG recommends that articles over 9,000 words be spun out. Can a subject matter expert go through the prose and remove/summarise any text, or move information to other articles?

Is anyone willing to address the above concerns, or should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 00:22, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Geoffrey Boycott

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

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

Result: Kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:28, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

This article has lots of uncited statements, with one statement tagged since March 2012. It also has too much detail, with over 10,000 words in the article. I think some places like "First years", "Early career", and several sections of "Commentator, controversy and personal life" can be summarised more effectively so the article can be more concise. Z1720 (talk) 23:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

As I understand WP:GACR, I think this fails each of points 1a, 1b, 2b, and 3b. I would demote it to start-class as I'm doubtful about it meeting either of the B-class or C-class requirements, but that's another matter. My problem with the article is statistics. I don't see any need for the tables in the later sections, which fail the list incorporation part of point 1b. The tables are an obvious statistical excess, but even worse is the way statistics are used in the county and Test career sections. It seems as if large portions of narrative were derived from statistical information, and the reader is overwhelmed by averages, scores, totals, and strike rates.

For example, On 8 and 9 June 1967, he made his highest Test score of 246 not out against India on his home ground of Headingley. Batting for 573 minutes, Boycott struck thirty fours and a six at a strike rate of 44.32. He began his innings slowly, taking six hours over his first 106 runs; he scored 17 in the first hour and 8 in the second. That is followed by a lengthy and uninteresting piece about slow scoring and being dropped from the team. Why not simply say: He made his highest Test score of 246 not out against India at Headingley in 1967, but his slow scoring frustrated the selectors who dropped him from the team, partly in response to media pressure, and then move on to the next match he played in? That would be more than sufficient.

I entirely agree with Z1720 about excessive detail in the "Commentator, controversy and personal life" section. The piece about domestic violence is completely unbalanced. It begins and ends with single-sentence paragraphs which sandwich a bloated account of his conviction and its aftermath. That fails point 3b. In addition, the fifth paragraph needs three citations (point 2b). The whole sub-section should be rewritten and condensed.

If the article was being nominated at WP:GAN now, I think it should be immediately refused because of point 3 in WP:QF—it has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid. Those would include {{cleanup}}, {{unreferenced}}, {{citation needed}}, and {{clarify}} of the examples given.

I support the proposal to demote the article. ReturnDuane (talk) 11:44, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Keep: This perfectly good article has been polluted with a small amount of WP:OR. I'll remove it now. There is no reason to delist the article, which is well-written, well-structured, and thoroughly cited. There is no reason to think the tables excessive; a man who gets to world standard in a sport can very reasonably and in an encyclopedic manner have his performance illustrated in tabular form: it's far clearer and less space-consuming than writing it all out in text, and arguably less usual too. The table of partners is less common, but it clearly illustrates his exceptional performance, and it is reliably sourced. The article cannot be described as table-heavy, either.

I'm not sure I totally agree with the text changes suggested by ReturnDuane but I've made them anyway for the sake of harmony: it's basically just a matter of opinion on Wikipedia style and appropriate amount of detail, not a GA matter (and certainly not a GAR issue). I've cut nearly 10,000 bytes of text from the article.

I've added citations to one paragraph. I believe the article is now in a tidy and good state. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:30, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap, I've looked further into the matter of list incorporation, which is an important component of CR1b. It leads to WP:NOTSTATS, which is a site policy, and I think this article must breach that policy because it is overrun with statistics, especially in the narrative, as I outlined above. While I make that point, I must admit I'm not sure about the extent to which NOTSTATS applies, so I'll keep an open mind on it for the present.

There is, perhaps, another issue concerning the use of Boycott's own written works as sources, because they account for more than 10% of the citations. It could be argued that much of the content dealing with controversial topics is skewed in his favour. Having said that, his biographer Leo McKinstry does seem to present a balanced view. ReturnDuane (talk) 20:36, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for discussing. The NOTSTATS thing is about making articles overwhelmingly statistical, whereas this article is, as you have noted, rather textual (and possibly long-winded at that). I've cut down the text, but the stats remain a small component of the article, and I think an entirely reasonable one. If we were going to cut down any table it would be to reduce the details of the opening partnerships to say the top ten partners, but even they are so remarkable that this not-at-all-sporty editor is impressed. As for having primary sources for 10% of the citations, that seems pretty reasonable as a ratio; if it were 66%, we'd be rather more concerned. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:43, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap: I have tagged some other places in the article which will need a citation with a "citation needed" template. Z1720 (talk) 20:37, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Fixed those. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:50, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.