# Talk:1903 Tour de France

If somebody is wondering why I am making small modifications to this article that do not show up when you look at the page: I am trying to make the article look good as a pdf. (See menu on the left somewhere.)--EdgeNavidad (talk) 16:48, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cycling
I have been working for a long time now on early Tours de France, and I think it's time now to see what I have achieved. I am thinking to propose 1903 Tour de France as a Good Article. Who knows, maybe Tour de France will one day become a Good Topic...
Before that, I am going to get it Peer Reviewed. But before that, I thought it might be useful to have an informal project review.
If you would like to have a quick look on the article, and tell me what you think about it, it would be great. In particular, I have the following questions, of which I can use your answers to improve all early Tour de France articles:

What do you think of the structure?
The structure looks good, I can take a quick look at it and see if I find anything I can improve.. =) lil2mas (talk) 11:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Remark: The overall structure is similar to the 2009 Giro d'Italia good article, only the race details have been included in the Results. A classification leadership table would be useless with only 6 stages and 1 classification.
What do you think of the table layout details?
In relation to what information is available and the number of jerseys awarded, there might not be needed a "jersey progress table". But in the races where the yellow jersey is awarded, I think we should colour the last column like it is done in the "jersey progress table". Like I did to the 1909 Giro d'Italia article... lil2mas (talk) 11:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
But the 1903 Tour de France did not have a yellow jersey, just as the 1909 Giro d'Italia did not have a pink jersey, so that would be misleading, I think. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 11:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I realized that... =) I was thinking of the one's who did, if someone were to enhance those articles... lil2mas (talk) 11:36, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Ah, then I misunderstood you. It is unrelated to the 1903 article, but take a look at for example the 1934 Tour de France article. I thought that it was more logical to add the stage winner only to stages table, and indicate the yellow jersey wearer only in the classification leadership table, and indeed in a yellow color. (That makes sense only if there are more classifications, but from at least 1906 on there have been extra classifications in the Tour de France, although information is scarce until the team classification starts in 1930.) In your 1909 Giro example (ignoring the problem that there was no pink jersey then), the table that you made was a mixup between a stage results table and a classification leadership table, and it looked really strange to me to have the last column coloured like that.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 12:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, if there is more than one classification, we should use the "jersey progress table", instead of denoting the GC-leader in the stage overview. The yellow jersey was first awarded in the 1919 Tour de France, so if there aren't any extra classifications (no "jersey progress table") between 1919 and 1934, I thought we could colour the last column... But if it's only me who thinks so, just skip it! =) lil2mas (talk) 13:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Remark: Again this is similar to the 2009 Giro d'Italia article, with some minor differences: the 1903 Tour did not have official "types" of stages, so I did not use that column; I added the stage type icon to the length with a note on how it was determined so that it is verifiable. The 1903 Tour was not run in teams, so in the final classification I did not add the team column, but replaced it by a "sponsor". In the general classification, I listed cyclists ranked 11 or higher in a collapsed table; I thought I took this from a good/featured article, but I can not find where that was.
The collapsible table was something I made for the Featured Article, "Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's road race", but it later got removed because of a consensus at WP:WikiProject Olympics, where they wanted to show all results for each event. Why d'you wonder? lil2mas (talk) 11:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
That's the one. I prefer the collapsed table :) --EdgeNavidad (talk) 11:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Do you think it is good enough for Good Article? And if not, what class do you think it is? (Stub, Start, C, B?)
I am not the best person to rate articles, I can't separate between a C-class and a GA/FA, but it's definitely a C-class at minimum. =) lil2mas (talk) 11:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
If you have any more detailed comments or improvements, feel free to tell me/change the article. Also if somebody wants to help getting it to Good Article, I would really appreciate it.
Many thanks in advance! --EdgeNavidad (talk) 10:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I have made my comments above. Good luck with the reviews, I will try to help as much as possible... =) lil2mas (talk) 11:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Thank you! --EdgeNavidad (talk) 11:25, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I've given it a fairly substantial copyedit: I understand that Edge is not a native English speaker (although I envy his polyglot abilities), and some phrasing didn't really scan.  I moved a few elements that seemd to belomng better elsewhere without changing the overall structure, and dealt with a few repetitive pieces.  Hope these were welcome edits. Kevin McE (talk) 22:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

They were very welcome! I can find sources and combine everything into a race description that every English speaker can follow, but to make the text appear written by a native speaker is something I can not do (yet?). I am more confident now that the article can get GA-status, and I think an external review is the next logical step.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 07:55, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
On second thought, a Peer Review is more suitable for a FA, and this extensive review by Kevin should be enough to start the GA-process directly.EdgeNavidad (talk) 08:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I as mentioned on my talk page, the first 10 riders showing makes logical sense, after the courteous editor explained that some races have ~100 finishers.
The only contention I have is the grouping of the icon where possible.  It seems that the only reason this is objected is that results in a perceived clumping of the stages.
This does not seem so, to me, because only the icons are clumped, which actually helps to convey the similarity of the stages.  Only consecutive stages are clumped.  That is why I merged them together.  This is the useful function of merging (in regards to tables).174.3.98.236 (talk) 08:43, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I still think that merging is a bad idea here, but I hope other editors give their opinion here.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 09:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I'd prefer to have the tables merged.  Is there anyway to show the first 10, but collapse the rest?174.3.98.236 (talk) 08:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I assume you mean the "General classification (1-10)" and "General classification (11-21)" tables. I would prefer such a change, but do not know how to code that.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 09:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
After looking at the citation for the table, the column "rank" seems redundant because:

The website seemed to use the numbers out of convenience
The importance of rank is not established in the article.  Does rank change by the completion of stages?  I am acquainted with the fact that there are time trials and team time trials that can affect the position of an athlete, and the position is determined by the summation of the points earned by various stages and such achievements as I have stated in this sentence.
The order of the athletes is already implied by their position on the table.174.3.98.236 (talk) 09:19, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Riders are only ranked if they complete all the stages.  The rank is determined by the sum of the times on the stages. The "rank" column is very important, because it shows on which position the rider finished. It is not a list of competing cyclists, but it is the end result of the race! The rider ranked 1 is the winner, the rider ranked 2 the second-placed cyclist, et cetera.:The website does not show these numbers out of convenience, I don't know why you think that. The order of the athletes is in this case implied by theire positions, but is common practice (on wikipedia and all other sources) to also include the rank.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 09:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I thought about the column with "Rank".  I think we actually should include the column, ONLY if the table is sortable.  That makes sense, cause the table would be more useful this way.174.3.98.236 (talk) 10:12, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, I guess the only issue we disagree with is the icon clumping.  I'll give it a bit more thought.174.3.98.236 (talk) 10:14, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
But still make the table sortable.  I can wait......174.3.98.236 (talk) 10:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The idea of making the table sortable is good, but I don't know if that could be done in combination with hiding the eleventh till last cyclists.
Is it ok if I leave this the way it is, and wait for the GA-review to start, and inform the review(er) about this issue? --EdgeNavidad (talk) 10:21, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it should be able to be done with both tables, if that's what your asking.  The tables (currently) aren't linked, and the sortable option is great.  There a page to make sortable tables.  I'll try to make them so.  If this doesn't work, then maybe someone can come and help.174.3.98.236 (talk) 10:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
The stages themselves are obviously separated from one another.  The only reason I didn't make separate columns for the flags and for the polity is because the name was grouped in a template.  Since these pictures are loose, it makes the most sense to group them together.174.3.98.236 (talk) 10:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Yay!  Yahoo!  We don't need to merge them anymore, because the table is sortable!  (You can't sort any merged cells.)  Everything works great, but just the problem with the table-combining-and-row-hiding.  So hopefully, that can get fixed.
Also, I fucked up the color.  I'm sorry I can't fix it.
Also, for future reference, this is how you make a sortable table:
Instead of wikitable, you put sortable

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! header 1
! header 2
! header 3
|-
| row 1, cell 1
| row 1, cell 2
| row 1, cell 3
|-
| row 2, cell 1
| row 2, cell 2
| row 2, cell 3
|}

{| class="sortable"
|-
! header 1
! header 2
! header 3
|-
| row 1, cell 1
| row 1, cell 2
| row 1, cell 3
|-
| row 2, cell 1
| row 2, cell 2
| row 2, cell 3
|}

174.3.98.236 (talk) 10:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood me: I know how to make a table sortable, the problem was that I don't know how to make a table, for which only first ten rows can be seen, sortable. What you did was make two separate tables, and make them sortable. That is useless, I would say, why would you want to sort riders 1-10 on their name and riders 11-21 separately? If you want to sort them, you should sort all riders, 1-21. I therefore changed the final classification table back to the last functioning version.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 11:05, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I also doubt if we need the sorting in the stage table, but at least it does not break anything, so I'll leave it there and have the GA review decide. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 11:06, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Current, with the tools we have, this is the best version.  Please take note for the GA review.174.3.98.236 (talk) 04:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
The stage table should be sortable: that would enable comparison of the stage lengths.  This should be applied across relevant articles.174.3.98.236 (talk) 04:31, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:1903 Tour de France/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Wizardman Operation Big Bear 03:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Overall this is a good article, though I do have a few concerns:

Is it l'auto or L'auto? both are used and it should be consistent.
Good one. It is a name, so it should have a capital, I think. I changed it to L'auto everywhere. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 08:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
"..increased the total prize money to 20,000 francs," what was the total before?
The sources I used don't say this. I will look for additional sources. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 08:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I can not find any information on this...--EdgeNavidad (talk) 17:56, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
In most cases, numbers one through ten should be written out. I got most of them, this is just for future reference.
I checked to see if I could find more, but it looks like you got them all.
I'm fine with the length currently, but FAC might want more beef in the article, particularly in the race details section. Granted it's been over 100 years, there's not going to be that much on it.
Apart from lists of finishing times, not much more information can be found. Not only because it is over 100 years ago, but also because at that time there was no GPS or mobile phone communication or cars riding along with the cyclists, so all information was captured by journalists along the road. Still there was some information in the sources that I did not add, I added it now.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 17:36, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
"Thus Hippolyte Aucouturier, who gave up during the first stage, was able to return, and won the second and third stages. Charles Laeser, winner of the fourth stage, had not completed the third stage." I'd prefer citations for those two facts.
I added the citation that covers both.
"Jean Fischer had sheltered behind a car, which was illegal." What does this mean? Nothing comes to my own mind hearing the term.
It should mean that he rode directly behind a car, using the slipstream to go faster. I will try to see if I can reword this. (Later that is, I have to leave now.) --EdgeNavidad (talk) 08:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I tried to rephrase it: "Jean Fischer had used a car as pacer, which was illegal"
I would prefer to link "pacer" to an article about pacers in cycling, but that does not exist (yet).--EdgeNavidad (talk) 17:56, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I'll put this article on hold and will pass it upon everything being fixed. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 03:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

All the concerns are addressed/explained, so I'll pass the article as a GA. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 21:26, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

The article claims that:

"These conditions attracted very few cyclists: one week before the race was due to start, only 15 competitors had signed up. Desgrange then rescheduled the race from 1 to 19 July, increased the total prize money to 20,000 francs..."
But the total prize money was given as 20.000 francs already at the presentation in L'Auto on January 19th and not a week before the race. Episcophagus (talk) 13:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

In L'Auto of May 29th the prizes given is 3.050 + 2.075 + 1.675 + 1.525 + 2.375 + 8.325 = 19.025.
But on January 19th is was 3.700 + 2.300 + 1.900 + 1.675 + 2.850 + 4.100 + 3.500 = 20.025.
Episcophagus (talk) 13:36, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
And on page 3 of l'Auto of July 1st it says that the prize sum still is 20.000 francs.
It also says: "En outre une prime de route de 5 francs par jour sera accordé à ceux des concuurents qui, ayant fini dans les 50 premiers, n'auront pas gagné 200 francs, à condition qu'ils n'aient pas couvert d'étape à moins de 20 kilometres à l'heure." I.e. those that finish among the 50 first will get 5 francs a day, if they have not won at least 200 francs and have not travelled at less than 20 km/h. Episcophagus (talk) 13:57, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
Good catch. The claim that the prize money was increased has appeared in many publications (from before Wikipedia existed), but nobody ever bothered to check this claim, and everybody just copied it. Maybe the '5 francs a day' was an addition to get more competitors? --EdgeNavidad (Talk · Contribs) 06:46, 4 June 2024 (UTC)