I don't understand 'DSPN' in the title. Please clarify here.
It's the name of the award, I've remove this from the lede.
Lede says "born August 26, 1983" but elsewhere in the article, dates are given in the form (e.g.) "1 January". I have not checked all; please ensure that dates are consistent throughout.
"born [...] in Penang, Malaysia) is a Malaysian " - is the duplication of "Malaysian" really necessary? The wikilnk clarifies "Penang", so the country seems superfluous here. I suggest, Nicol Ann David (Datuk Nicol Ann David, DSPN) (born August 26, 1983 in Penang,) is a Malaysian professional...
We have a problem here with the lede; it should EITHER have no references, OR it should be fully-referenced. Currently, some parts have references, some do not. For example, "under the tutelage of Richard Glanfield" - this fact has no reference, and there is no further mention of Glanfield in the body test.
"Considering her young age, she is expected to remain the top female player in the game for a while to come." - this is rather non-neutral; although referenced it is not balanced; either quote directly or just remove
Present Tense: I have been thinking about this issue; for example, In July, Nicol wins the World Junior title for a second time. She earns her second title... - the whole thing is written in present-tense. Personally, I don't like this style, but I am not sure if it is just a preference, or actually a requirement to use past tense. I have spoken to a few other people, to seek their opinions, and they agreed that past tense would be preferable. As this is a large change, I wanted to ask you about it; would you object to it all being changed to the past tense? I am willing to help change it, if you wish. Let me know your thoughts.
You should only wikilink to an article once, within a section. I removed some here. Please could you check through the article, and ensure that there is only 1 link per section to any wikipedia article.
http://www.azuanzahdi.com/ does not seem to be a reliable source. Information such as at that time she is so small that even her racquets are bigger than her and she does not even have the strength to lift them. By the age of eight, Nicol starts to take squash seriously, training regularly and playing competitive games. does not seem verifiable. Other information from this source may need to be removed from the article, if it cannot be sourced from elsewhere.
at that time she is so small that even her racquets are bigger than her and she does not even have the strength to lift them. - this is unreferenced, and non-neutral
Is squashinfo.com really a reliable source, or is it user-generated content? If I logged in there, would I be able to change the information? If so, we cannot consider it a reliable source.
Yes, squashinfo.com is reliable. Most of the sources from WSF (official squash body) appears to be from squashinfo, refer to here & here for example. You also won't be able to change the information when you log into the site. It's definitely not a blog. Arteyu ?Blame it on me !11:03, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sites such as http://pgoh13.free.fr/nicol_squash.php are not good sources. Please could you search Google News, and find a better reliable source for this - e.g. CNN, Reuters, or something. There are other similar references to such 'news aggregators' - please ensure these are changed to reliable sources.
"Rivalries", "Nicol vs. Natalie Grinham" - I don't see the point in the "Rivalries" heading, if there is only one entry. Perhaps just "Nicol vs. Natalie Grinham" should be a level-2 heading?
Copyright status of all images seems OK - great. (Just noting this; no action required). It would be nice to categorize the images...but this isn't a requirement for the article, of course.
Information in 'rivalries' does not seem to be referenced - ie met 30 times during their careers, with Nicol leading their overall head-to-head series 23–7. Natalie is Nicol's most frequent opponent on tour. 16 of their matches have been in tournament finals. The reference does not seem to contain this information.
I have changed most of the career details to past-tense, per discussions.
I am now concerned that some parts are not conforming to a neutral point-of-view. To try and explain, I will show some examples below, from "2000–2004: Early professional career";
---
Nicol joined WISPA and turned professional in 2000; she quickly[neutralityisdisputed] won her first WISPA tour title.
[...]
In 2001, Nicol, who has played under Dunlop Sport sponsorship for most of her junior career and burgeoning[neutralityisdisputed] WISPA career, signed a two-year deal to play with Head rackets with major[neutralityisdisputed] local conglomerate Mulpha Sports. In July, Nicol won the World Junior title for a second time. She earned her second title by easily[neutralityisdisputed] beating Omneya Abdel Kawy in just 17 minutes with a score of 9–2, 9–4 and 9–2 in the final.
---
I hope that the above illustrates the problems. Perhaps you could work through the article, trying to remove non-neutral wording; if necessary, I can highlight all of the specific problem areas, but I thought at first, if I explained the problem, you might be able to work on the neutrality prior to my re-checking.
2006 WISPA Awards: Player of the Year (second consecutive year)
2007 WISPA Awards: Player of the Year (third consecutive year)
...etc.
However, having looked again, I really don't think that it is necessary at all. It is obviously five years in a row, so I see no need for the extra in brackets. Also, thinking more, perhaps the repetition is entirely unnecessary. Do we need to separate 'WISPA' and 'other awards' at all? Could it not be written in prose, rather than bullets - for example;
Nicole has obtained the WISPA Awards Player of the Year on five consecutive occasions, from 2005 until 2009.
"Because of her achievement and popularity, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, a fellow Penangite, once quipped that David is "now more famous than me".[17][18][19]" - there is no need for 3 references here; all of the references support the quotation; you only need one of them. However, none of them state that he said it ""Because of her achievement and popularity" - this is non-neutral, and should be removed. Also, none of the references state that Abdullah is from Penang (as far as I can see) - so this fact is unreferenced. (Note,this problem occurs in both the lede, and "Awards and recognition")
Some of these issues may have been resolved already - if so, please mark them off.
Web references need the author, publisher, publishing date and access date. (GA criteria). This one ...the ref doesn't have the date, or the author - and they are on the page. Others need checking
Some of the refs have the date in incorrect format, e.g. "# ^ "Nicol David". Ekerjaya.com. December 26, 2007. " - all should be consistent
No action I've checked the references and I think there's nothing wrong with the date being in bracket or not. The date will automatically be in bracket if there is/are author/s. I don't know, maybe you should ask someone to tweak the {{cite}} template? Arteyu ?Blame it on me !09:28, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (the equivalent to O-levels)" - O-levels don't exist any more; they were replaced by GCSE's a few years ago. I expect this could probably be changed to GCSE
"training at the Bukit Dumbar Squash Centre," - in that, "Squash Centre" links to the article on Squash; I'm not sure that's correct. If you want to link to Squash, then the Wikilink should just be the word "Squash" - or maybe there is a better link to squash centres
Please remove any links to countries in the body - it's overlinking. There's Germany, Australia, Brazil... probably others. I don't see they add any useful link, really - unless you disagree. E.g. "when she beat Australia's Natalie Grinham" - I don't see the benefit in linking to "Australia"
Re. rivalry; the last sentance;"The World Open 2006 final between Nicol and Natalie is dubbed to be one of the greatest in the Women's World Open history" - that should be changed to a direct quotation, in quotes - The World Open 2006 final between Nicol and Natalie was said to be "one of the greatest in the Women's World Open history". (I also changed 'is' to 'was' (tense), and changed 'dubbed' to 'said' (more formal))
Re. note a, Natalie Grinham switched allegiance to the Netherlands from March 2008 onwards. - do you have a reference for that? (You can add a ref to a note)
4.2 WISPA Tour Finals (Runner-Up) (13), and 4.3.1 Finals: 4 (4 titles, 0 runner-up) - caps needs to be consistent - Runner-Up or runner-up? I think the lower-case is better
"At a very young age, she was invited to carry the Olympic torch for Malaysia during the build up to the Athens Olympics in 2004[13][14] and being appointed as UNDP National Goodwill Ambassador for Malaysia.[15]" - all of this is in the lede, but not in the body
Nicol is the Chindian daughter of Ann Marie David, a retired Malaysian Chinese school teacher, and Desmond David, a Malaysian Indian engineer,[19] who is also a former state athlete and footballer.[18][20]
Chindian/Malaysian Chinese/Malaysian Indian - None of the three references (as far as I can see) give the ethnicity of either Nicol or her parents.
"Star athlete" is non-neutral, and I cannot see it in the references - only that the PM mentioned he was a "former Penang athlete and state footballer".
It's "state athlete" and not "star athlete" and I don't see "state athlete" as non-neutral. Well, Penang is a state in Malaysia, and I think the usage of "state athlete" in this case is acceptable. Arteyu ?Blame it on me !13:23, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
She has two sisters, Lianne Marie and Cheryl Therese,[21]
The source does not appear to give their middle names; it only says, "Lianne and Cheryl".
Ref. 23 seems to be incorrectly formatted; Sivabalan, S. (July 22, 2007). [Honour for Nicol "Honour for Nicol"]. The Star. Semenyih: The Star. Honour for Nicol. Retrieved March 15, 2010. - apart from fixing the format, I would like to know a) if this reference is available online, and b) if it definitely does cover all of the facts in the sentence.
The section "Awards and recognition" begins with this paragraph;
On June 7, 2008, Nicol David was honoured with the Order of Merit (Darjah Bakti) or D.B. in conjunction with the birthday of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin. She was the first recipient of the award which was established on June 26, 1975. The award is limited to 10 recipients who have made significant contributions in the arts, sciences and the humanities.[24][25]
In this paragraph, there are three sentences, and many facts - but there are only two references at the end of the paragraph. This makes it difficult to see which sources support which facts. For the article to be classed as a 'good article', I have to ensure that it is 'factually accurate'. To do so, I need to check which parts are referenced from which source. As shown in the comments for the previous section, currently there are statements of fact that lack sources.
Therefore, please could you carefully check through the article, and ensure that the referencing is valid.
I am also concerned that some of the sources may not be reliable sources. For example, squashweb.com here does not look like a "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" - perhaps these are acceptable as trusted RS within the world of squash; I'm not sure. I'm asking on RSN, here - let's see what they say about that.
I'm still not sure if there is a source for "Ann Marie David, a retired Malaysian Chinese" - I see her named as the mother, but which reference gives her ethnicity? (Maybe I'm just missing it) - Ref. 20 says 'school teacher' but nothing about race
It says that she is "the youngest person ever to be conferred Datukship in Malaysia" but the source 25 says she is the youngest in "the state" - is that the same thing? (ie by 'state' do they mean 'Malaysia', or is it a region)
Should we remove the wikilink to 'squash' there? Seems a bit odd, and it's currently on the 2nd use of the word in that section, not the first. I think it should probably go; by this stage, you'd think that the reader whold know what squash is?
Re. in conjunction with the birthday of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin - this title/name thing; I accept you changing it back, however, it is a really long mouthful of foreign words - that's why I thought the title would be better, and got it from the article, Yang di-Pertuan Agong - which may well be wrong, but...would it be possible to replace the "Yang di-Pertuan Agong" part with some English title/honorific? It would make it easier to read.
Some scores are coded as e.g. 9–5 and others as 9–2. These are not dsiplayed quite the same, so please change it to be consistent; I think that the best option is to use the ndash
2005-6, "After winning the British Open and World Open within two months against the odds, she clinched" (1) 'against the odds' - is this a fact, can it be verified? (2) 'clinched' is not an appropriate, neutral term
Rivalry, They have met 30 times during their careers, with Nicol leading their overall head-to-head series 23–7. - consider recentism; this figure will quickly be out of date. Please rephrase to make it clear that "As of 2010" or whatever.
Could you relocate the image File:Nicol Ann David cropped .jpg, thus allowing the main table for WISPA to be wider (reducing the whitespace below the pic, and reducing the number of lines the table requires through word-wrap)
In the last table, on my display at least, there is no vertical bar between the years 1998 1999, 2000 2001, and 2002 2003. Also, there is no horizontal bar directly below WISPA World Tour Tournaments (all the way across), nor at the bottom of the table.
(a) the prose is clear and the spelling and grammar are correct
After edits to past-tense, and other work on the grammar, I think it generally reads well now. Scope for future improvement to prose, but points are clear, spelling and grammar checked.
(b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation.
Checked and edited for MOS; good clear lede, logical layout, jargon only where appropriate and explained, no peacock words etc. Tables seem appropriate to the topic.
2. Factually accurate and verifiable:
(a) it provides references to all sources of information, and at minimum contains a section dedicated to the attribution of those sources in accordance with the guide to layout;
Refs all check out; citations include sufficient details and are consistent.
(b) at minimum, it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons
Well referenced with RS. Balanced and neutral, multiple sources
(c) it contains no original research.
Does not contain OR
3. Broad in its coverage:
(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic;
Early life and achievements are treated with reasonable balance; does not overly concentrate on recent areas. Seems to have comprehensive outline of career and achievements
(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
Good level of detail
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias.
Several edits during the GA process have corrected problems with non-neutral phrasing; now appears to present facts in appropriate tone
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day-to-day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
Check; no edit-warring
6. Illustrated, if possible, by images:
(a) images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content
No fair-use images used; all images have appropriate licencing
(b) images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
Done but need some rechecking Arteyu ? Blame it on me ! 09:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On hold 
No action I've checked the references and I think there's nothing wrong with the date being in bracket or not. The date will automatically be in bracket if there is/are author/s. I don't know, maybe you should ask someone to tweak the {{cite}} template? Arteyu ? Blame it on me ! 09:28, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed Arteyu ? Blame it on me ! 09:28, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Possible I can't see any references on tennis GA biographies as well but will possibly add references to it anyway.
Later since I won't be active on wiki for a few days.
