Talk:Electric Telegraph Company/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 10:47, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Initial comments

There is good stuff in this article, but the prose needs some work. The problem is whether the subject is singular or plural:

• The ETC was heavily involved ... They operated
• The company was nationalised ...their assets were taken over
• Electric Telegraph Company was the world's first public telegraph company ... Their headquarters was in Founders Court.

And so on passim. That rather important point apart I found nothing very perturbing in my first read-through, and once you have opted for all singular or all plural I think we may be heading in the direction of promotion to GA. As to whether you go for singular or plural, either is acceptable according to Fowler; of the other style guides I habitually use, that of The Guardian recommends singular, Plain Words says there is no rule one way or the other. In AmE there seems to be a strong preference for singular verbs and pronouns for companies and other corporate bodies, but as this article is in BrE it's entirely your choice, as long as you are consistent. I'll put the review on hold to give you time to address the point. Tim riley talk 10:47, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

• Ok, I've dealt with that issue, it should be consistently singular now. I never really saw this as a grammatical problem; companies can be considered singular or plural depending on context, and I've just been going on what feels right for a particular sentence. Sorry for the delay in picking this up, I've had some RL issues to deal with over the last couple of weeks and haven't been on Wikipedia as much as usual. SpinningSpark 17:59, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

My only other – very minor – points on the prose:

• "telegraph" is linked twice in the first two sentences of the lead.
• There are duplicate links for "Submarine Telegraph Company" and "Cooke and Wheatstone", but the first and second links for each are so far apart that I think we can let them pass.
• The italicisation in "usually just called the Magnetic", looks odd and is not, as far as I can see, recommended by the Manual of Style. Either inverted commas or no formatting/punctuation at all would work well enough, I think.
• Strictly speaking, the MoS would have us blue-link Birmingham and Manchester, but if you feel that this is a bit unnecessary here I shall not demur.

These small points need not detain us. The article is most readable, well and widely referenced, broad and balanced in coverage. There isn't all that much in the way of illustration, but I assume you have found all there is to be found, and the four images are perfectly adequate. The main sources are not very recent, but this does not seem to be a topic where scholarship is going to change much over the years and I take the sourcing to be the best available. So ...

Overall summary

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:

   Well referenced.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   Well referenced.

   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:

   Well illustrated.

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

   Well illustrated.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

A good addition to this section of Wikipedia's coverage, and a pleasure to review. – Tim riley talk 08:01, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I've dealt with the linking/overlinking issues raised above. The italicisation of Magnetic is covered by WP:Words as words. SpinningSpark 18:14, 3 May 2019 (UTC)