Talk:Johan Derksen

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	Johan Derksen was a nominee for Everyday life good article, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
February 7, 2008 Good article nominee Not listed

[edit] GA review

I've had a look through this article, and I've put it on hold. It does not yet meet the WP:WIAGA criteria, most obviously because of the quality of the prose. The article could have done with a good copyedit by a native English speaker before being nominated, but no matter, it's here now. I really don't like failing any article, so I'm optimistic that if we work together we can get this article its little green badge and I won't have to fail it. :-)

Moving in to look at some of the detail:

• I think that the lead needs to be expanded, to better summarise the article. It doesn't mention Derksen's career at Stax for instance, or his obviously keen interest in music.

• "Derksen hates "happy music" ...". A bit informal, doesn't sound very encyclopedic, and it may not even be true. He may have changed his mind by now. If you wanted to keep that in, better to say something like "In 2005, Derkson claimed in a television interview that he hated "happy music" ..", along with a citation.

• "Derksen himself is noted as one of the most vile players in the division". This really is too much POV, and may even be considered to be libellous. Vile? Is that a quotation, or your opinion? If it's a quotation, then there needs to be a citation right after it. The tense is wrong as well of course, as he is no longer playing.

• "MVV had learned it's best to shield their precious boys in away games". Their precious boys doesn't really work. Better something like "valuable players".

• Amounts of money are given in guilders, but that will not mean very much to a reader outside of the Netherlands. I'd suggest adopting the MoS guideline: "Conversions of less familiar currencies may be provided in terms of more familiar currencies, such as the euro or the US dollar. Conversions should be in parentheses after the original currency, with the year given as a rough point of reference; for example, 1,000 Swiss francs (US$763 in 2005), rounding to the nearest whole unit."

• "He fulfilled his duties as a conscript and was employed as a textile salesman." This makes it sound like he was conscripted and became a textile salesman during the time of his conscription. Conscription is something that may not be familiar to all readers outside of the Netherlands, so a short explanation would probably be in order. Was he conscripted into the army?

There are a lot of prose problems caused, I think, by this article not having been proofread by a native English speaker. In a spirit of collaboration I am prepared to deal with that proofreading issue if the editors will deal with the other review issues that will come up, because this is by no means yet a complete review. As I said at the start, this article is now on hold for up to 7 days to allow time for all of the issues to be resolved. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I've had a think about this overnight, and having read the article again and come across this "Sulking, but without demur the fans watched from behind the gate how the Veendam players laughed, scornfully, from behind the safe windows of their coach" I've come to the conclusion that the amount of work required for this article to achieve GA is now really far more than can reasonably be expected to be completed in seven days, now of course only four days. My offer to help with the English was conditional on the nominator(s) assisting with the content, which has not happened. This article needs a lot of work from a native English speaker to get to GA status, but I'm afraid that I no longer have the time available to devote to it. Good luck with it in the future, but for now I have no option other than to fail this article. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)