Talk:Coventry Street/GA1

GA Review

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I am going to do a GA Review of this article. Reviewer: Shearonink (talk · contribs) 20:02, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Passes the threshold "immediate failure" criteria: No cleanup banners, no obvious copyright infringements, etc. Shearonink (talk) 21:57, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   Well-done - an article about a street can be fascinating...who knew!

   I think I can give a shout out to Sagaciousphil for helping with the prose Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those 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—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   Reference #2 is dead and no Internet Archive apparently exists for it. Please find a reference for that information.

   It's your standard tube map (also technically the information can be "verified" by walking around the area and watching buses), but TfL change the URL all the time - fixed Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

   Heh...governments, always changing things! A web-archive/wayback machine version of the URL could possibly be made so the URL would then always work and get the reader to what can be verified.

   The referencing for the paragraph that starts with "The Trocadero sits..." needs to be improved. I did check out Ref #3 and it appears that the information about prostitution is from it but I think that information needs to be directly referenced in case future editing alters that article-content.

   The Survey of London is just about the best source going for the history and architecture of London streets, and I cannot tink of any other source that has this information. Drive-by WP:RANDY invasions are always a problem with articles anyway. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

   I wasn't impugning the Survey of London, just that many different statements were made in that paragraph and I found them interesting and thought others would want to be able to verify those various points of information. Thanks for adding the refs.

   Direct referencing for some statements need to be done:

   "bombing - champagne" - Tunnels, Towers & Temples: London's 100 Strangest Places/https://books.google.com/books?id=UOgyDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT135#v=onepage&q&f=false might be of some use for this. Also, (I know the answer but other readers might not) who did the bombing etc needs to be stated.

   I would be surprised if that is a better source than The London Encyclopedia, a critically-acclaimed factual resource of London properties that, together with the Survey of London are as good as they get when it comes to sources. TLE has all the information about the bombing at the pages specified. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

   Again, I am not impugning the source, I just want to make the source information as available to Wikipedia's readers as is possible (and, yes, "100 Strangest Places" isn't a scholarly work but, so far as I could tell, it's a published source from a well-regarded house). Thanks for your changes - I always think that information given away is protected by its very dissemination. Someone will read this article and when they walk down Coventry Street they will know what happened there in 1941.

   I think a direct WIkilink to the Corner Houses section of the J. Lyons and Co. article would be more useful than a link to the entire article. You can do this by using a #->[[J. Lyons and Co.#Corner Houses|J. Lyons and Co. Corner House]].

   Done Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

   Re: the bombing-champagne paragraph, you need to be very careful about having a single ref for a paragraph or most of a paragraph. Inline citations/footnotes judiciously placed keep the referencing for information clean. Please read through the article and see if there are other paragraphs that could do with some improvements in this way.

   I disagree, per WP:REFBLOAT you should keep inline citations as a minimum to what needs to verify the article, but overuse hurts readability. Everything is correctly cited to a source and it should all (albeit with the exception below) be verifiable. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

   I take your point, overkill can certainly kill the editorial flow and sense of the article-text. Lest you think I am being a pill about this possible issue, I was thinking of this sentence from WP:INTEGRITY: "If a sentence or paragraph is footnoted with a source, adding new material to that sentence without a new source—or without making sure it is supported by the existing source—is highly misleading. When new text is inserted into a paragraph, make sure it is supported."

   C. It contains no original research:

   The information provided about the Café de Paris (London) needs to be adjusted, the business was apparently not permanently closed for business as of 1991 - the image in the article is dated 2013, and the Café's WP article contains sourced statements that differ with the statements in the Coventry Street article.

   I've got no idea where that fact came from but it's not in either of the two sources given, so removed - though Tim Moore's book says it was converted to private use in 1957, so I've added that. The Cafe's own article includes the Daily Mail as a source so I would take that lot with a pinch of salt, though the Independent piece is okay. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

   Thanks for fixing that.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   Ran the copyvio tool, no copyright violations found.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   Everything you'd want to know about this street - history, present, descriptions.

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   I never knew an article about a London street could be so interesting - well-done!

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   See above for needed adjustments.

   I've addressed the above issues, can you have a look and comment further? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

   Thanks for adjusting per my recommendations. Am doing a last full-readthrough. Will post here if I find anything else of concern.

   One last thing that popped up on my most recent read: There is a sentence that is almost a duplicate of itself, as in "The street was built in 1681 and named after the politician Henry Coventry, secretary of state to Charles II." appears in the lead section and "Coventry Street was constructed in 1681 as a thoroughfare between the two places and was named after the politician Henry Coventry, secretary of state to Charles II." appears in the History section. My only recommendation would be to adjust some of the order of the sentence, one or the other. It is a small thing but bothersome - the rest of the writing is so to the point...

   When these sentences are adjusted, I will be able to finish this Review. Shearonink (talk) 23:57, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

   I've had a bit of a shuffle around with the lead, and condensed it a bit to make it easier to read as well as being too close to the body text. See what you think. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

   Your changes are fine and in one respect much better but the article still has two sentences that almost duplicate each other:

   in lead: It is named after the politician Henry Coventry, secretary of state to Charles II.

   in main text: named after the politician Henry Coventry, secretary of state to Charles II.

   I would be fine if the words "the politician" were taken out of one of the sentences so one would read:

   named after the politician Henry Coventry, secretary of state to Charles II. and the other would read:

   named after Henry Coventry, secretary of state to Charles II.

   I do understand that this last bit might be frustrating for you and that there are only so many ways one can state the truth. Your patience on my Review is appreciated. Shearonink (talk) 14:37, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

   Okay, I've done a bit of a rearrange in the body, how does that look? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:21, 28 December 2016 (UTC)