Talk:Geoffrey Boycott

Start of 1974 season

The article currently says "In 1974 Boycott's form dipped, when he scored only 75 runs in the first innings of the season, other than a non-championship century against Cambridge University". I assumed that the problem here was that "first innings" should have said "first 6 innings" or whatever, so I set out to find out how many innings Boycott took to score his first 75 runs. However, I can't find that figure of 75 anywhere using the records of the 1974 English first-class season at Cricinfo (http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1970S/1974/ENG_LOCAL/). Yorkshire's first matches in that season were as follows: 1. 1-3 May v Cambridge University (Boycott 140) 2. 8-10 May v Northamptonshire (Boycott 1 and 17) 3. 16-19 May v Oxford University (Boycott 89) 4. 22-24 May v Warwickshire (Boycott 15) 5. 25-28 May v Lancashire (Boycott 41 and 89*)

The only way I can get close to 75 is by omitting the Oxford University match (as well as the Cambridge University match), and also ignoring the 89* in the second innings of the Lancashire match. That would give 1, 17, 17, 41 for a total of 74 and an average of 18.50. But by the end of the Lancashire match his total was 163 with an average of 40.75, which seems quite respectable. And what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; in the seasons where he averaged over 100 I imagine that his innings against the universities were included, and if we do that here, his average after 5 matches was 65.33.

I am a fairly conservative editor, and I don't like deleting statements outright, but it seems to me that "In 1974 Boycott's form dipped" is not justified, at least by the scores of the first few games of the season. STeamTraen (talk) 18:45, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

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

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

Result pending

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)