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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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 10 January 2025 [1].

James Scott (boxer)

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Nominator(s): Red Phoenix talk 19:50, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

James Scott became the WBA's #2 ranked contender and defeated two #1 contenders for the Light Heavyweight Championship. He was named boxing magazine The Ring's light heavyweight champion. That's impressive enough as it is, but Scott did it while in prison.

Welcome to the bizarre story of a man convicted of armed robbery, and later of murder, who fought professional boxing matches inside the walls of Rahway State Prison in New Jersey. And make no mistake; he would likely have been a champion had the WBA not denied him the opportunity over his incarceration. James Scott's story is among the most unusual I've ever encountered, so much so it captivated me to leave my usual video game-related editing to research and tell this story. It speaks to the will of a prison inmate to stand out and show his talents, or as Scott called it, the "gold in the mud". Red Phoenix talk 19:50, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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  • "After picking up boxing as an amateur" - I would personally say "After taking up boxing as an amateur"
  • "This led to Scott being offered to be managed by an architect" - this reads slightly tortuously. I would try maybe "This led to Scott received an offer of management from an architect"
  • Unless I am missing something, there's nothing to indicate when the whole thing with Russ happened. You say "While in New Jersey on a visit to the state on May 8, 1975, Scott was arrested and charged with murder and armed robbery." but had the murder only just happened? Or was it an earlier event which he was only arrested for in 1975?
  • "In one account, he let Spinks borrow the car, and that Spinks partnered with someone" => "In one account, he stated that he let Spinks borrow the car, and that Spinks partnered with someone"
  • "and called him "the Great Scott", his boxing nickname" - I think "and nicknamed him "the Great Scott"" is fine
  • "Muhammad offered $15,000 to Gregory for the fight, while Scott was scheduled to make $2500" - inconsistent use of commas in the numbers (here and elsewhere)
  • "However, he started to receive controversy on why he should be allowed to fight" - I think "However, he started to receive controversy surrounding whether he should be allowed to fight" would read better
  • "According to boxing promoter Bob Arum, the WBA had only then found out " - when is "then"?
  • "His next fight was against Jerry Celestine, who he defeated by decision " => "His next fight was against Jerry Celestine, whom he defeated by decision "
  • " Scott was knocked down twice by Martin, once in the first round, and the second knockdown occurring late in the second round" => " Scott was knocked down twice by Martin, once in the first round and again late in the second round"
  • "Scott also held an escrow account" - is there an appropriate link for whatever an "escrow account" is? I may be because I am not American but personally I have absolutely no idea what this term means
  • "There, Scott worked with kids" => "There, Scott worked with children" ("kids" is too slangy)
  • "after speaking with the trainers and kids from the boxing gym" - same here
  • Opponent column in the table does not sort correctly (it should sort based on surname, not forename)
  • That's what I got. An interesting read! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 17:06, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi ChrisTheDude, and thanks for your feedback! I've addressed all of your comments, with a couple of exceptions. I did see one use of "$7,000" with a comma and I removed the comma. Per MOS:DIGITS, four digit numbers are acceptable not to have a comma, so I did fix the one time it was inconsistent. I also did not change the comment Murad Muhammad made about Scott's nickname, since Muhammad doesn't actually directly say he gave Scott the nickname; he says "we" but doesn't identify who else, so he's a bit ambiguous here. Aside from that, I mostly used your wording and got the table corrected to sort by last name. Let me know if you have any more feedback, and I'm glad you enjoyed the read. Red Phoenix talk 18:32, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review - pass

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Hi Red Phoenix, happy to do the image review. The article contains the following images:

All images are relevant to the article and placed in appropriate locations. They all have captions and alt-texts. I'm not sure that the building in the second image is "blue-colored". I think the alt-text should be changed to something like "A white and pale green theater building". Phlsph7 (talk) 10:41, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Updated per your suggestion. Thanks for the review! Red Phoenix talk 13:05, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good. This takes care of the remaining concern. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:23, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mike Christie

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  • "the license plate number, which came back to Scott's car": suggest "which was that of Scott's car".
  • "However, he started to receive controversy whether he should be allowed to fight and make money while incarcerated": suggest "However, controversy began over whether he should be allowed to fight and make money while incarcerated".
  • "Although a prison guard told Family Weekly in 1980 that Scott was a changed man because of his passion for boxing, in 1981 a judge ordered Scott to stand trial again for the murder of Everett Russ." Why "although"? The two statements don't appear to be connected.

That's all I have; the article is in good shape. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:57, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Mike Christie:, thanks for your review! All comments addressed; mostly used your wording and did some sentence and paragraph restructure on the third comment. Red Phoenix talk 19:39, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NegativeMP1

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I will be taking a look at this after I get around to reviewing Virtual Self (EP), as I alluded to here. Not sure how long it may take, but based on my upcoming schedule, my review here should be done by the end of the week. λ NegativeMP1 06:01, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Virtual Self got archived before I was able to complete my reviewer over there, so I'm here now. Overall, I think the article reads pretty well and should be up to FA standard. The only thing that somewhat stuck out to me was the sentence "Dickens claimed that he convinced Scott to consider boxing instead of "running around breaking heads with an iron pipe"", where I'm not sure if the quote could be paraphrased or not. That's all though, and I'm happy to give my Support. λ NegativeMP1 04:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Paraphrased. Thanks for your review! Red Phoenix talk 16:01, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Source review: PASS

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To follow. - SchroCat (talk) 16:35, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting
  • FN1. "JAMES SCOTT" should be "James Scott"
  • Your capitalisation goes awry in several places. It is mostly in title case, but a. capitals are used inappropriately in a few places; and b. some titles are in sentence case. These need to be made consistent
  • No other issues with formatting
    • FN1 addressed. Also unified all capitalization to title case. Previously my mentality on this has been to use the capitalization each source uses itself, but I can roll with all one case format for all refs. Red Phoenix talk 22:56, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Reliability
  • Given this and some of the comments in this, what makes the SB Nation article (currently at FN 4 and used heavily within the article) a reliable source?
  • No major sources are missing (as far as I could tell from additional searches). - SchroCat (talk) 20:08, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi SchroCat, I’ll try and get to fixes later today; it’s been a busy couple of days. On the SB Nation source, I can tell you that the two authors both have extensive histories with writing about boxing. Brin-Jonathan Butler is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, and Kurt Emhoff has been a boxing writer as well as manager and various other roles in professional boxing for decades. I can go deeper later about this if needed. Red Phoenix talk 12:53, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Red Phoenix, that's great - and no major rush on this. Given the comments at RSN, if you could add a little more on the SB Nation source that would be great - just as protection against any possible future challenges, as much as anything else. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 13:19, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, so yes, this piece was published by SB Nation. But let's not assume this was written by a bunch of randoms. These are established boxing writers who collaborated for this piece, along with a professional staff.
    • I mentioned Brin-Jonathan Butler is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America already. He's also written for ESPN The Magazine, Vice (magazine), Men's Health, Deadspin, and a bunch of other places. On top of that, he's written a couple of books about boxing.
    • Kurt Emhoff, the other author, is an attorney for boxers, but has also been a boxing writer, manager, and various other roles for multiple decades. He has written for ESPN before, as well as a number of other places.
    • This article's producer is Chris Mottram, who was previously the managing editor for Uproxx.
    • Glenn Stout, the editor, is the series editor for The Best American Sports Writing. The article also employed a separate copyeditor and designer.
    Long story short, this isn't some "blog post". This is a researched article written by professionals with lots of experience in sports writing, with the authors specializing in boxing specifically. I can't imagine such a group working together, with each of them having the reputation they do, wouldn't ensure there has been proper fact-checking in this piece. Red Phoenix talk 00:15, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's great, thanks RP. This source review is a pass. - SchroCat (talk) 08:39, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comments

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  • "Eleven of those fights were contested while he was in prison, and Scott earned pay and WBA rankings from many of those fights". Could we avoid "of those fights" twice in the sentence?
  • "While on a visit to New Jersey, in violation of his parole, he was arrested and charged with the murder of Everett Russ". I don't see how being arrested and charged violates parole, more importantly the main article makes no mention of any violation of parole. Maybe 'He visited New Jersey, which was a violation of his parole, and while there he was ...'? And something similar in the "Arrest for murder and armed robbery" section.

Gog the Mild (talk) 19:32, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gog, I’ve got these addressed. It was actually mentioned in the last sentence of the section on Scott’s career before he was arrested for murder that it was a parole violation for him to return to New Jersey, but I just cut it from the lead anyway because I don’t think it’s that important. Also reworded the “of those fights” as well. Red Phoenix talk 21:30, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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