Talk:Southampton/GA1

GA Reassessment

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I've never sent an article to GAR before, and as much as I dislike delisting promoted content I couldn't ignore this. Southampton became a GA nine years ago and has since become outdated and a lot of issues have arisen. I won't do a spotcheck of the sources (I won't need to), so I'll list the most glaring concerns:

• The lead doesn't summarise the article. There are citations which goes against WP:LEADCITE as well as overlinking
• No lead organisation; nothing on its pre-WWII history? Population is mentioned twice
• The history section is very choppy and should be split into subsections. There are over 20 paragraphs? Virtually nothing on post-war history whereas the lead even mentions new shopping centres
• Governance section largely unsourced and choppy
• Geography section, again, needs a copyedit
• Economy section is messy and has many unsourced factoids. Won't go into detail
• Media and Sport entirely unsourced! Also needs a complete rewrite
• Just look at the Emergency services section
• Notable people should be converted into prose, like Portsmouth. It also unsourced

I haven't checked one reference, but I don't think I need to. There are two tags in this article; a verification and an update tag. I'm afraid that there are so many problems with this article that it can't be salvaged and should probably be delisted as soon as possible. I got Portsmouth to GA yesterday and that took me three months of solid editing. JAGUAR  20:05, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that this will get the attention it needs, and the task of getting to a GA standard is going to be as much hard work as Portsmouth was, if not more. I hate this so much, but I'm going to have to delist it. JAGUAR  20:05, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Jaguar, I share your reluctance but support your decision. I could quibble over the fact the existence of citations in the lead is not itself a violation of WP:CITELEAD but the general point certainly stands. The notable people section is a real pain; I'm sure it was written in prose some time ago and has since been converted to a list, with gradually more and more people being added to it despite previous discussions on the talk page about limiting its length - I'm sorry to say I eventually gave it up as a lost cause.

The time does seem right to try and get this article back on track. Thanks for providing the incentive to do so. WaggersTALK 13:34, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I looked at WP:CITELEAD again and I think I was wrong about that. I'm usually cautious when using citations in the lead as I typically only use them for controversial information. I'm aiming to get Portsmouth to FA, but that's a huge task so unfortunately I can't commit to Southampton any time soon. I don't know as much about the city as I do Portsmouth, but I wouldn't mind helping out on this one day. There are sadly too many issues with this article. JAGUAR  17:13, 3 October 2016 (UTC)