Talk:Somerset towers

Name of this article

I feel this article would be more appropriately named "Somerset church towers".— Rod ^talk 08:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

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That's more precisely descriptive of the content, as the towers *are* all church towers, but in referring articles, here and the literature, they do call them Somerset Towers. It makes for easier referencing from other pages if you don't have to type in extra words to make the links... but I guess that can all be ironed out with disambiguation or synonyms somehow? Celia Kozlowski (talk) 09:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

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Looking at the listing in churches and towers in somerset/england, I realized the title absolutely must, at least, have an "s" because it's not just one, but several. Rod or other smart editors, can you fix it so that Somerset tower or Somerset church towers will link to Somerset Towers? chrs et tnx, Celia Kozlowski (talk) 11:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

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Oh no! I just realized I *can't* edit the title. I suppose I could create a new page, move all the text... and then somehow link the previous page to the new one??? Heeeeelp!Celia Kozlowski (talk) 11:20, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

OK lets be clear about what you want.. If you want the article to be called "Somerset Towers" click on the "move" tab when looking at the article & type in the new title (giving appropriate reason). The existing title will then redirect to the new one. I can do a redirect from Somerset church towers by clicking on the redlink & then creating a page with #REDIRECT [[Insert text]] with the new title where it says "Insert text". If you want something different let me know.— Rod ^talk 11:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

General comments

A great article. I have started working through it making minor copyedits, a long job in itself, so i can appreciate the vast amount of work you put into it. Well done, excellent job! I have a couple of comments though. The Bilbie family keeps coming up, and seems to be wikilinked excessively. I will try to catch these as i work through and reduce to one link per section, but maybe even that is excessive?? Some of the early sections in particular seem to mention specifically 'parish church' and even 'CofE parish Church'. This seems to get a bit monotonous. If they are all parish churches, and all CofE churches, can we just say so in the lead and delete all further references. "The 12th century Church of St Mary is in Bruton" seems like an afterthought and really needs a date for the tower for it's inclusion to make much sense. Derek Andrews (talk) 13:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Considering that this article is about towers, I wonder if other information about the churches should be deleted? For example, Wrington mentions stone busts, rood screens, 'chancel has gothic reredos'. This is a long and complex article, and I think it might be stronger if it kept to the point. It might also benefit from a glossary in an infobox / sidebar explaining briefly the architectural terms that may not be familiar - wikilinking is ok, but it does make it difficult to follow, especially to the layman. Derek Andrews (talk) 19:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The Langport Generation starts with an incomplete sentence. Should there be a general description of this group like elsewhere? Derek Andrews (talk) 23:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Derek, as far as I'm concerned go ahead & make all the changes as suggested above. I admit the overlinking of Bilbie was down to me - I had a book which listed (among other things) all the churches they had done bells for & used it indiscriminately.— Rod ^talk 10:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The changes sound good to me, too, Derek -- go for it! As for a glossary... I wonder if there's a way we could do a pictorial glossary showing details from Somerset churches. E.G.

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  MERLONS, PARAPET: The square tower of St. Andrews church is topped with a crenellated wall -- a protective barrier also called a PARAPET. The cut-out portions of the wall, the crenules, were designed for military defense, allowing a view and a shot through otherwise thick, protective walls. MERLONS are the solid blocks of the parapet. Because this type of tower was designed for defense, it it known as an EMBATTLED parapet. The octagonal external STAIR TURRET next to the tower encloses a spiral staircase.

That is pretty much what I had in mind. A gallery box won't work, and a regular infobox is not appropriate, but we should be able to construct a suitable template. At this point, my main concern is that this may not be an appropriate approach and is breaking some Wikipedia rules for the way things should be done. Any comments anyone? Are there any cases where this has been done elsewhere that I am not aware of?

As for the content you suggested, it may help if the photos are cropped to show only the feature being discussed - ie split it in two, one for the parapet, one for the stair turret. I don't think it appropriate to mention specific churches in this box, except in photo captions.Derek Andrews (talk) 22:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Length of this article

User:TenPoundHammer has added a "too long" tag to this article. It is currently 75kb - but a lot of this is from the images & references. In WP:MOS page Wikipedia:Article size says, as part of the "rule of thumb" that articles "> 60 KB Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)" and lists exceptions. Do people this this article is too long & if so what could be split from this article to reduce its size without loosing the summary nature of topic and it's integrity?— Rod ^talk 18:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

• I think that the quotes should be removed from the lead, as they're not really essential to the summarization of the article. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 18:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about the text. What reduces readibility are the images: there are far too many, and some aren't very good quality. Select the best for each section, and provide a link to Commons media for the rest. We don't need a picture of every tower (it's overwhelming), but just enough to show the different types. I think you'll find the text is a reaasonable size, and it would be a shame to lose the integrity. Gwinva (talk) 09:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess what I would suggest is to cut it at the beginning of the detailed discussion of the "generations" and move the whole bottom half to a secondary page, "A Tour of Somerset Towers" or some such title. Even if we do that, we should probably look at the pix and text and do some picking and choosing... eliminating tower pix that aren't too great showing the tower or where the tower is just more of the same. We might actually want to get some new pix of the very best towers. Or maybe it's time to scrap the "generations" approach on the secondary page??? And there's still the idea of doing the little Anatomy of a Somerset Tower page... a sort of pictoral dictionary to demonstrate the various parts...Celia Kozlowski (talk) 21:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Page divided -- now let's pick the best pix

To address the length issues, I've moved discussion of specific towers to "A Tour of Somerset Towers." I would like to leave this main page with, say, four or five BEST pictures from the whole set shown on "A Tour". Since I have taken some of the pictures, I would prefer that an unbiased editor choose. My suggested criteria would be pictures that show the towers most clearly, are great pictures, and that give examples from the range of towers (most vs least ornate, oldest v more recent, tall v. short; etc.) thanks everyone! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Celiakozlowski (talk • contribs) 12:52, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I've also taken several of the pictures used so would be biased. I've put a request on Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Images to improve for help in selecting the best & cleaning up (or deleting) others. Other input welcome.— Rod ^talk 13:18, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

After seeing this article (and enjoying it - well written), I took this picture of Yeovil (St John's) tower, in case it is of any use to you folks. Lethesl 14:22, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

--That's brilliant-- just what the page needed. TNX! Celia Kozlowski (talk) 17:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC)