Talk:St Mary's Church, Chesham/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: S Masters (talk) 09:42, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Article appears to be stable.

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Comments:

• It needs a church infobox.
• There are low-level punctuation issues.
• The lead contains information not found in other sections. Please ensure that everything in the lead can be found (properly referenced) in the sections.

1. The lead should adequately summarize the content of the article. (GA criteria)
2. There should not be anything in the lead not mentioned in the rest of the article. (GA criteria)

• Some captions have full stops and some do not. Ensure that it is consistent.
• There is too much information on Chesham. The article is about the church, not the town.
• Numbers greater than nine should be written numerically, see WP:NUM.
• Non-English words should be in italics.
• Images sandwich copy - this should be avoided, see MOS:IMAGES.
• For the second "St. Mary's Church" image, try to improve the caption, rather than repeat the same caption.

Summary: There are a few issues that need to be improved before this article can be considered a Good Article. I will allow seven days for these issues to be resolved, before making any further decision.

• • It most certainly does not "need a church infobox". There is no policy whatsoever regarding whether infoboxes should or should not be used; it's entirely a matter of taste. In this particular case, an infobox would be pointless, obtrusive and misleading; the parameters in the infobox can't handle a structure that's been rebuilt on multiple occasions;
  • What are the punctuation issues?
  • There is no information whatsoever in the lead not mentioned in the body;
  • Captions which form complete sentences have a full stop; captions which are fragmentary do not. This is the correct formatting per the MOS;
  • There's nothing in the section on the town that isn't necessary background context for subsequent material;
  • There are no numbers lower than 10 given as digits anywhere in the article, other than dates (7th century etc.) and LSD format prices (3s 6d etc.), both of which are correct in this format;
  • I can't see a single non-English word anywhere in the article; not sure what you're referring to. The only things that come close are the Old English spellings of the place-names, both of which are italicised;
  • The images only sandwich at extreme width settings and consequently don't affect the readability of the text; it's more important they be attached to the sections they illustrate;
  • Can't see your point regarding the caption. It's pointless to overcomplicate matters by changing one to read "St Mary's church as viewed from the southeast corner of the churchyard" or similar just for the sake of avoiding repetition, given that they're at opposite ends of the article and separated by c. 35kb of text. – iridescent 10:25, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

My Comments

• Hi, Iridescent. Since you've helped me so much on my journey, I decided I should pay you back. Here's just a note about a grammar mistake: "Built on the site of a Bronze Age stone circle of puddingstones, parts of the church date to the 12th century." "Built on . . ." is modifying "parts", so it's misplaced. To the best of my knowledge, it should modify church. Do you get my point?

Also, ". . . her grave was planted with snowdrops at her mother's request, which still bloom each spring." Her mother's request still blooms each spring? That's how I read it, but again I could be wrong. Codedon (talk) 03:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments from DavidCane:

• I like the wider context given on the development of the town.
• I have made a couple of stylistic changes to one section.
• Given the failures of the earlier attempts to stabilise the tower, it would be interesting to know what Scott did.

--DavidCane (talk) 17:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The only source I can find for what Scott did was "He strengthened the tower", with no specifics at all. I can make a fairly safe guess that it was "surround the foundations with hardcore and put a box-girder of RSJs in the tower", but it would be pure guesswork. – iridescent 19:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

There is no policy or guideline requiring infoboxes, and many experienced editors dislike them. See WP:MOS#Captions, sentence fragments don't use punctuation at the end. Perhaps the GA reviewer can revisit some of the misunderstandings here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:19, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments from David Underdown (talk)

• as the Church of England is the Established Church, the church building and its development is far more tied up in the fortunes of the town where it stands than might be the case elsewhere. For much of its history the parish was also effectively the local government unit so the info on Chesham as a place is worthwhile in my view. David Underdown (talk) 13:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Plus, while the sudden divergence into railway history might look incongruous, a history of anything in Buckinghamshire that doesn't mention the Metropolitan Railway is like a history of a town in Germany not mentioning the World Wars; the sudden transformation from the rural Chilterns to the urban sprawl of Metro-Land – which increased the population of every town in the area (including Chesham) by a full order of magnitude – was the most significant change in the social, architectural and economic history of the area since the Norman Conquest. – iridescent 16:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Reply

First and foremost, I think it is important to understand the role of a GA reviewer. I am here to help make this a better article. I am not here to tear it apart. I am on your side and to help provide some guidance to move this article to the next level. I am not here to fight with anyone, and I am certainly not your enemy. Please assume good faith on my part. There is little point in me rubber stamping this article for GA and soon after, someone comes along to have it delisted. So, I hope that we can try and work together on this to make it better.

• • It most certainly does not "need a church infobox". There is no policy whatsoever regarding whether infoboxes should or should not be used; it's entirely a matter of taste. In this particular case, an infobox would be pointless, obtrusive and misleading; the parameters in the infobox can't handle a structure that's been rebuilt on multiple occasions;

Perhaps I used the wrong word. It is merely a suggestion. As an Anglican church in use, I thought that the folks at WikiProject Anglicanism might find it useful to have this. It would provide some important information at a glance. This is not a requirement for GA, it is just a suggestion.

• • What are the punctuation issues?

The punctuation issues have to do with commas. The article treats some years as parenthetical, which means there is a comma after it. But in other parts, this is not the case. Therefore, it should be made consistent throughout.

• • There is no information whatsoever in the lead not mentioned in the body;

I see there have been changes made since my review, and there are no problems here now.

• • Captions which form complete sentences have a full stop; captions which are fragmentary do not. This is the correct formatting per the MOS;

You are absolutely correct. "John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, unified the parish." - has a full stop, but not the other complete sentences, e.g. "The Bronze Age stone circle was incorporated into the foundations of the current church building", etc.

• • There's nothing in the section on the town that isn't necessary background context for subsequent material;

This is debatable, and articles like Westminster Abbey remain very focused on the church, and not the town or city it is in. I am concerned due to item #3b of the criteria. I'm not saying that there can't be anything on the town. I'm just wondering if it's a bit too long, given that there's a link to a full article on the town. I may seek a second opinion on this point.

• • There are no numbers lower than 10 given as digits anywhere in the article, other than dates (7th century etc.) and LSD format prices (3s 6d etc.), both of which are correct in this format;

These appear to have been fixed in any copy edits and there are no issues at all now. God job.

• • I can't see a single non-English word anywhere in the article; not sure what you're referring to. The only things that come close are the Old English spellings of the place-names, both of which are italicised;

Sorry, please ignore this, it is a mistake.

• • The images only sandwich at extreme width settings and consequently don't affect the readability of the text; it's more important they be attached to the sections they illustrate;

I don't think any sandwiched images I have seen really affects the readability of any text, but MOS:IMAGES says: Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other, and complaince to WP:MOS is a requirement for GA.

• • Can't see your point regarding the caption. It's pointless to overcomplicate matters by changing one to read "St Mary's church as viewed from the southeast corner of the churchyard" or similar just for the sake of avoiding repetition, given that they're at opposite ends of the article and separated by c. 35kb of text.

I can't see how something like "Another view of St Mary's church" would overcomplicate things. I think it makes it better - it shows that care was taken to avoid repetition, which is not really desirable.

In reality, there are only these few very minor issues that we should try and work to resolve. It is very close to a Good Article, let's try and make it better.

• OK. I'm sorry about this, but I'm going to be blunt; I appreciate you do a lot of work here, but you're laboring under a serious misapprehension, and if you're applying these standards across GAC you're going to annoy and/or mislead a lot of people. You're judging for compliance to the MOS—you explicitly state above that "compliance to WP:MOS is a requirement for GA"—and this is not the case; the only part of the MOS which applies at GA level is "it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation" and the remainder of the MOS explicitly and specifically does not apply. If you want to change the GA criteria to encompass MOS compliance—something that isn't strictly enforced even at FAC level, as the sections of the MOS contradict each other—you need to start a thread at Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria and discuss it; you can't unilaterally decide that the MOS (which is very explicitly tagged as a guideline, not policy) has suddenly become an enforceable policy. – iridescent 10:10, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not doing what you are suggesting. Which part are you referring to? The only parts regarding MOS that I have mentioned are the captions, which have to be done properly, and the layout. -- S Masters (talk) 10:25, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Running through in order:

• No useful purpose would be gained by an infobox. With no date of construction, multiple dates of rebuilding, and the twin-advowson setup, cramming information into an infobox would be misleading and a classic WP:DIB;
• Agree about the commas after dates; fixed;
• Still not sure what you meant about the lead this is the article at the time of nomination and there's nothing in the lead not mentioned in the body;
• I think we have different views on what constitutes a sentence fragment. Regardless (as per my comments above) image caption format and alt-text are not part of the GA criteria;
• Westminster Abbey is a dreadful article to use as a comparator; it's badly written, malformatted, and not on a comparable topic. As David says above, English parish churches were traditionally a part of local government, and thus far more closely tied to the fortunes of the town; in addition, there's nothing in that background that isn't necessary background for something expanded on in greater length later in the article.
• Again, not sure what you meant about numbers; in the article as nominated there were no numbers lower than 10 given as digits, or higher than 10 written in full;
• Image sandwiching is, again, a part of the MOS which explicitly does not apply at GAN. In any case, it's by no means a hard-and-fast rule; see Chelsea Bridge for instance;
• Completely disagree regarding the caption. As far as I can tell, you want to make it more complicated for no reason. There's a very good reason never to use captions like "another view of…", and that's that if the earlier image is deleted or repositioned, the later caption becomes meaningless;
• "The captions have to be done properly"—again, this is you making up a nonexistent criteria and demanding it be applied. All the GA criterion is is "suitable captions". – iridescent 11:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Final comments: Thanks so much for all your hard work in making this a better article. I am happy that all the criteria for GA have been met. Well done! -- S Masters (talk) 11:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)