Talk:The Bear, Oxford

commenty

This is a very historic pub, probably the oldest in Oxford, and should not be deleted in my view. (The Bear Inn was originally a coaching inn, established in 1242!) I have added more information on this aspect and further external links. I hope this is enough to save it from deletion! Jonathan Bowen 19:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe that this article should be deleted. As has been mentioned by Jpbowen the pub has a lot of history and is well worthy of its own article. There seems to be quite a thing at the moment on WP of people wanting to delete articles about historic pubs. They form a key element of our english history and deserve a mention. --Newton2 21:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Name and dates

Derek Honey's guide says "In 1432 it changed to the Bear Inn, after Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (1428-71)". Presumably 1432 is a mistake. Omassey (talk) 18:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Cotswold Archaeology reference is circular.

This reference should not be used... it states clearly that they used Wikipedia as a source. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 10:46, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

The parts they used from Wikipedia (background history of the pub) are not used for reference purposes. The source is used for their report on what they discovered, which is that the site was a graveyard. SilkTork (talk) 10:00, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Bear, Oxford/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 01:40, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I'll take this, ping if I let it go over a week without getting to it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:40, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Cool. SilkTork (talk) 04:02, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Lead

• Nitpick - not sure "The Bear Inn" needs quotation marks

Agree. Removed quotation marks. SilkTork (talk) 08:43, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

• Having the bit about The Jolly Trooper in the lead sentence feels awkward, I wonder if it might be better moved later so it's near the rest of the history

I think not saying it so early could be more awkward as the assumption would be that it was founded as The Bear (or The Bear Inn), and then saying later that it was founded as The Jolly Trooper would need extra explanation. SilkTork (talk) 08:47, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

• Feel like the lead could be expanded in general to cover more of the history

I'll look into that. SilkTork (talk) 08:48, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I think most essential details are now in the lead. It's kinda awkward because there are two properties with different histories, and I'm not sure of the best way of dealing with them. I've tried to treat them separately, just showing where they are related, but that has proved hard in the condensed version of the lead, and so some duplication has occurred. Let me know what you think. SilkTork (talk) 19:03, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

History

• Who is Jordan Rufus? Who is Christina Pady? Even one or two words for context would help (I am a nut about this, sorry - it will come up again)

I'll look into this. SilkTork (talk) 08:57, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

There really isn't anything significant on Jordan Rufus, other than as the husband of Pady. It's not even known for sure if his surname is Rufus, it could be Ruffy, or Rasus, or le Rus; and we don't know when he was born or died. The sources are more interested in the conveyance of the land. One source even says: "It may be asked, who was Christiana Pady, for whose soul Richard Segrym stipulated that the canons should say mass for ever?" And from that I get that she was the daughter of Ralph Pady, a burgher and mill owner, and she married two men, and gave her land to the priory in return for the priory looking over her soul for ever (little did she know that Henry VIII would later grab the priory and its land and give it away to Wolsey, so there would be no more masses said for her). SilkTork (talk) 13:22, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Ah, okay. I was initially under the impression that they were historically significant as they were mentioned by name (especially since the other husband was a mayor), but if the sources don't know who they are, no big. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

• Actually come to think of it, how were they both her husband? Did they do divorces in the UK in the 1200s, or did they die at different times but their wills activated at the same time?

I puzzled over the nature of the wills as I was researching this. Some texts are more vague than others, and it is difficult to be certain. I didn't want to wander into original research by making assumptions. She appears to have acquired several pieces of land, of which two pieces adjoined each other - one containing a building that later became the original Bear Inn, and one which contained shops (or booths) on ground behind the building - my assumption is that one husband owned the building, and the other owned the land with shops behind the building. I will look back over my research to see if I can make out more clearly what happened. In the meantime I will look at rewording what we already have to make it clearer that she wasn't married to them at the same time! SilkTork (talk) 08:57, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I've reworded it a bit. It's not exactly clear who was giving what, but it is Pady who is doing the giving of land (to the priory) that had been given to her (by her two husbands). She is still alive at this point, so I have removed mention of wills as that just confuses things. SilkTork (talk) 13:22, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough solution :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

• Thank you for explaining uncommon terms like "messuage" in the text
• Context for Anthony Wood, Thomas Wolsey, the Taverner brothers, Richard Edes

Anthony Wood was a 17th c historian. There is no particular reason to name him, but he was named when I started editing the article, and I note that some people like to know that it is a prominent author who is used as a source. We could remove the entire line "Anthony Wood, in his Survey of the Antiquities of the City of Oxford (1661–66), mentions that" or simply add "The 17th c antiquarian" - I'm easy. Which do you prefer? SilkTork (talk) 13:31, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

IMO a one word descriptor like "historian" or "antiquarian" suffices in these cases, just so the reader has a touch of context for whose opinion is coming or who's being mentioned. Knowing that someone is a historian makes for a slightly different take than knowing they were a poet. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:04, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I think all these are now done. SilkTork (talk) 18:09, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

• Are coach lines like the Oxford Machine typically italicized? (Not a critique necessarily - I don't know either way)

I took that from the source where it was marked in single quote marks. I've looked at Stagecoach where we have "Flying Coach", and Flying Machine. Thinking on it, I feel that "Oxford Machine" is possibly more in line with our approach to such names. But I don't know for sure. SilkTork (talk) 09:08, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I think the double quotes works. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

• The ties are neat! I think they deserve a mention in the lead.
• No need for "etc" in the text, it feels informal.

"Etc" is a common term these days, and is acceptable on Wikipedia in that format (not spelled out, and not italicised - see MOS:ABBR). It conveys here quite succinctly the information needed, that that are a variety of memberships, not all listed. It is possible to reword it: "The ties mostly indicate membership of a variety of institutions, such as clubs, sports teams, schools and colleges." Actually, I quite like that. Done! SilkTork (talk) 09:18, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Perfect ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

• Have noticed that the cats say the building is Grade II listed, but this is never mentioned in the text. It should be.

Listing is very common, especially in Oxford which has over 1,500 listed buildings. It would be more noteworthy if a building wasn't listed! But, yes, it seems to be standard in Wikipedia to mention it, so I'll do that. SilkTork (talk) 11:45, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Pop culture

• I typically feel like entries in pop culture sections should relate how the subject is significantly related to the media. To that end, could we expand slightly on "The Bear is a location in...Oxford Blues"?

I'm not a huge fan of pop culture sections, though I know people like them, and a section was already in the article when I started editing, so I kept it. I believe I added Oxford Blues when I did a search in an attempt to expand that section. My source simply says that is the pub the main characters drink in. Would saying that be enough - or should I remove Oxford Blues as simply too trivial? SilkTork (talk) 11:52, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I think that works - basically just establishing that it's something that matters to the movie rather than just a place they walked by in one shot. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

• "It is used" is unnecessary, you could just say "in Colin Dexter's novel XYX, Inspector Morse seeks..."
• Similarly, "it is included in" isn't really needed, the sentence can be reworked to just say the anecdote

All reworded - what do you think? SilkTork (talk) 12:25, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Looks good! ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Everything else

• Images are good - really love the ties.
• No concerns about reliability of sources or source-text integrity, although page numbers really should be added for book sources, as highlighted below.
  • Ref 3 - PDF is 20 pages, really needs specific page #
  • Ref 9 - the scanned book version has page numbers
  • Ref 10 is especially egregious as you have two other references to the same source which do have page numbers
  • Refs 12 and 13 need pages or else they're duplicates
  • Ref 16 is over 20 pages, needs specific page #
  • Ref 18 is confusing as it appears to include both a reference and a footnote
  • Ref 20 has a page number in the link but in case it stops working it should be in the text
  • Ref 27 - we probably shouldn't be citing a novel; if a secondary source hasn't written about it
    • This book mentions it, but you'll notice that the sentence is a word-for-word copy from our article. Annoyingly this appears to be citogenesis - the book is from Nov 2013, and the content was in our article as early as Feb 2013: Special:Diff/538886841. That being said it's literally repeating something from a primary source, so I don't think it's too big a deal to cite it.
  • Ref 28 needs a page #

I agree with the above, and wish I'd paid more attention as I was citing because it's going to be a pain in the arse to put them in now! ;-) The Herbert Edward Salter (1772), Survey of Oxford cites (12 & 13 at date of review) will in particular take me a while, as they are not my sources - they were already in the article. SilkTork (talk) 12:34, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

• For future reference in case anyone checks this, Earwig indicates a nearly 40% hit rate from [1] and [2]. However, based on a comparison between the article before these sources were published, I believe they copied from us and can be safely disregarded.

Okay, I think we're all done here. Any suggestions you disagree with can be discussed - I am not a stone, and this is GA after all :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:56, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

PMC - I think I've done the bulk of your suggestions. The part I have still to deal with is the page numbering for some of the cites. I'm away for a few days attending a funeral of a friend. If you could have a look over what I have done, and let me know what you feel still needs working on, and I'll get that done on my return, along with the page numbering. SilkTork (talk) 19:03, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Hey SilkTork, I'm sorry to hear about your friend. Obviously real life vastly outweighs Wikipedia in importance so please do not feel rushed in responding to this. That said, everything prose-wise looks good to me. I figured I could add some page numbers myself to save you the work, so have done so where I could find them. I also added a few URLs to Internet Archive so readers can more easily access some sources. If my page numbers are incorrect (as I am mostly guessing via ctrl+F), please change them at your leisure :) I also swapped some duplicate refs that referred to different page numbers for sfns, but if you're one of those people who really hates sfns, feel free to change them to whatever.

The only two I was unable to find page numbers for were both instances of ref 13 (same book as ref 12 but not the same page number AFAICT) and ref 19 (not sure if there even are page numbers for it). If not possible, don't sweat it.

As a side note, per WP:LEADCITE, citations aren't required in the lead unless the material is likely to be challenged. As the section doesn't mandate removal, I'm not wildly hung up on it and wouldn't fail the GA on it, but it would be, er, "more" MOS-y to not have them :P Your call.

Safe travels. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:24, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Actually, it occurs to me that the page numbers aren't a GACR thing, so I may as well just pass this now and the page numbers can be done whenever. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:09, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks PMC. SilkTork (talk) 00:47, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Pop Culture

I'm not sure if there's any desire to expand this section, but another couple of representations in film come to mind. The first is in the Inspector Morse TV episode Absolute Conviction, where Lewis chases a criminal through the pub. Another is more referential, in the film The Riot Club, there's a pub scene where the characters are drinking in a pub that has cases of cut off ties... it's not explicitly named as the Bear and is probably filmed elsewhere, but is clearly supposed to represent it. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 10:41, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that Catfish Jim. Do you have sources? SilkTork (talk) 17:24, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

For the Morse episode, there's this:

• "The Pubs and their Locations of Inspector Morse part 3", Morse, Lewis and Endeavour, retrieved 11 August 2022

I think we would struggle to find a reference for The Riot Club. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 16:51, 11 August 2022 (UTC)