Talk:A1 in London/GA2

GA Reassessment

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GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

• The prose needs copy-editing - there are too many short sentences and paragraphs which inhibit flow, and give an untidy appearance which reduces reader confidence in the quality of the material.
• There are too many images, and these crowd each other, which is against WP:Layout. The captions vary - with some being too short, and others too long. See WP:Captions.
• The lead does not adequately deal with the article contents. See WP:Lead.
• There are a number of challengeable statements which are unsourced. There have been tags alerting to this since June 2009.
• The focus of the article should be the road, and its history and development, but there is no section on the route, and no section on the history. Instead we have a considerable amount of tourist information. While significant points of interest should be mentioned, the current contents include too many, and go into too much detail.
• An example of what a Good Article on a road looks like: A1 (Croatia).
• I'll put this on hold for seven days to allow improvements to be made. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:34, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
  • The main author of this, Iridescent, has been away from Wikipedia since mid July. I don't have the source works that he used, but I will see what I can do. --DavidCane (talk) 13:36, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I notice that you're marking sections of the text with relevance tags. The article is written from a social history context rather than a road construction context. The example of the A1 road in Croatia that you have linked to above, is a good example of an article on a road constructed for the specific purpose, but the A1 in London is mostly not a purposed built road. If the social history were taken out of the article, there would be little left and it wouldn't warranty the GA star it carries. I think this needs to be recognised.--DavidCane (talk) 21:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the social history of a road is important, my concern is to ensure that it is the social history of the road that is discussed, such as use of the road - stage coach, turnpike, trade, goods, important or significant movement of people, armies, etc. Too much incidental detail distracts from the central history and importance of the road. So, an arson attack on an unlicensed pornographic cinema is questionable as regards the road, while the Peacock Inn where Tom of Tom Brown's Schooldays stays prior to travelling to Rugby is relevant as it concerns travel on part of the route. Also, the article should inform the reader of related roads, such as Great North, but not confuse the two. Was St John Street ever part of the A1? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:40, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

• Flippin' heck, this sort of insane level of pointless and trivial bureaucracy is why nobody edits UK roads pages on WP anymore. Please give it a rest. --Ritchie333 (talk) 11:01, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Hold

There has been no significant work done on the article to improve it, and the issues remain. I would rather have the article improved rather than delisted, and am willing to work on the article - however, I have had limited internet access recently, and have not been able to do any work on the article. I am investigating books on the topic, and ordered Nicholson's A1, only to find out when it arrived that it was a book of photographs of the road, rather than a study or history. I am putting this GAR on hold for at least another seven days to allow people, myself included, more time to get hold of reliable sources and to build the article. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:01, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

• I'll be a bit more diplomatic and constructive this time - why are you so keen to reinvent the wheel? There's an ongoing project to document the A1 on SABRE that's been running for some time, only to founder at the moment due to lack of time from the participants. Why are we trying to do the same thing here? Why have we got two incomplete projects on the same subject written by different people, instead of one finished one?

I don't understand this mentality of how every single thing ever has to be on one site. The whole purpose of the internet was to be able to share and collaborate information in a distributed manner, and having these giant monopoly silos like Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, etc etc just makes it difficult for people to get involved without getting strangled by unwritten rules, politics and red tape. If you'd asked on SABRE about Nicholson's book, you could have found your answer rather than waste your money. As it is, you really need to search through Hansard or The National Archives documentation to get some really good history about things like the A1 history and construction projects, which is where I would personally focus my efforts.

If we can't do a project, we need to man up and say "we can't do this". I see it everywhere with the corpses of open source projects that are full of "well we'd do this if we had the time". If you don't get paid for it - you don't. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's what I've seen and experienced for many years. --Ritchie333 (talk) 13:21, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ritchie333. Thanks for the advice regarding Hansard and the The National Archives. I'm not entirely clear on the rest of your comments - what are you suggesting regarding the articles on the A1 on Wikipedia and on SABRE? Are you suggesting a form of collaboration, and sharing of help and resources? That would be interesting. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:20, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

• I've picked up nine different books on roads from my local library, but there's little helpful information in them. I'll continue to look for more material from reliable sources. In the meantime I'm delisting this as the above issues have not been dealt with. I've done a little bit of work, and and willing and do intend to continue to help out, but I am quite distracted at the moment by looking after my young daughter, and unable to concentrate fully enough to tackle this! SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:18, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

• Not a problem - family's much more important than WP! I haven't really got time to sort any of this either. What books did you get, if you can remember. --Ritchie333 (talk) 10:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)