Talk:Bill Cottrell/GA1

GA review

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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Nominator: BeanieFan11 (talk · contribs) 21:05, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: DrOrinScrivello (talk · contribs) 18:20, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Hello, I'll take on this review. Initial comments to come today or tomorrow. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 18:20, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Comments

Happy to see you working on a Lion bio rather than all those gross Packer articles (kidding of course). This article looks to be in good shape, as per your usual offerings; most of my comments should be fairly minor quibbles, and I'll try to mention when they're just suggestions and not necessarily part of the GA criteria. Prose review first.

• @DrOrinScrivello: Thanks for the review. I think I addressed everything. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:28, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
  • Everything looks good to me. Congrats on the Good Article! DrOrinScrivello (talk) 13:13, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Prose

Lead

• In my opinion, you can lose both of the (COFL) abbreviations in the lead and body. You never refer to it solely by the acronym, and unlike the NFL and AFL, it's not a popular enough league for people to know it by its acronym. Just my opinion though, I won't fight you if you leave it.
  • Cut.

Early life

• but was an "unheralded" player due to Chester's poor records Change to "due to the Chester football team's poor records"
  • Done.

College career

• finishing with a mark of 49 ft, 10 and 1/2 inches I'm back and forth on whether this needs a {{convert}} template or not. It's a measurement, but it's also an official scoring figure. You're more experienced with sports editing than I am, so I'll trust your judgment.
  • Added the measurement in meters (15.2 m).

• Cottrell was noted for his size (standing at 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) and 266 pounds (121 kg)) Speaking of convert templates: each of these need the disp=sqbr parameter since they appear within parentheses. Also, it should probably be "and weighing 266 pounds".
  • Done.

• Cottrell had been timed at 10.3-10.5 seconds Since this is a range it needs an endash.
  • Done.

Professional career

• One BLESTO scout described him as "one of the best linemen I've seen this year." Per MOS:LQ the period should go outside the quotation mark.
  • Done.

• He said that that year, he often stayed at the team's facilities Can this be reworded to remove the double "that"? "He remembered often staying at the team's facilities that year for an hour after practice..." maybe, or something similar.
  • Reworded.

• Cottrell finished having appeared in 63 NFL games, 10 as a starter Change to "finished his career having appeared..."
  • Done.

Later life and deeath

• Cottrell was a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and during his career with the Lions, helped organize chapel services. Choose your own grammar adventure: either a comma needs to go between the "and" and the "during", or a comma can go after "Athletes" and the comma after "Lions" can be replaced with "he".
  • Added comma after "and".

I think that's it for prose. It'll probably be tomorrow before I get to the rest of the review, but we should be able to knock this out pretty quickly. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 20:19, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Source review

I'm going to check ref #s 2, 4, 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, and 19 as of this revision.

• #2: (a) Y (b) Y (c) Y
• #4: (a) Y (b) Y
• #7: (a) Y (b) Y (c) Y (d – k) N
  • I was quite confused for a couple of minutes, but finally realized that you got your wires crossed here: #7d through #7k are cited to Moore at the Daily Intelligencer when they should be cited to Westcott at the Delaware County Daily Times. All of those 7s should be 2s, in other words (or, using your refname system, the "auto1"s should be "auto4"s). Thankfully they all check out, so once you switch the refnames this will be kosher.
    • Swapped "d" through "k" for Moore to Westcott.

Short break, more to follow soon. Oh, and adding a ping BeanieFan11 since I neglected to do so yesterday. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 15:32, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

• #10: Y
• #12: Y
• #14: Y
• #17: Y
• #19: Y

Just those refnames to fix and the source check will be good to go. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 19:04, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Other

Breadth, NPOV, and stability

• There's obviously more information that I would like to know, but you can only get what reliable sources give, and you've done the best with what you have to work with. The only area I could see being expanded would be including a little more on his brother (e.g. did they ever play against each other, and maybe the fact that according to that Pro Football Archives link they're still the only two Delaware Valley alumni to play in the NFL). This is up to you though.
  • I added that they are still the only two Delaware Valley NFL players. Their teams played each other in 1969, but I'm not sure if both played in the game.

• Article is stable and written in a neutral POV.

Image review and copyright

• Only one image, but that's to be expected, and it's a good quality photo. Properly tagged with a free use rationale, and well-captioned (I always recommend adding alt text, but it's not a GA requirement).

• No copyright concerns flagged by Earwig or during my source review. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 19:43, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable, as shown by a source spot-check. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
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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.