Talk:St Pancras Church, Ipswich/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Moswento (talk · contribs) 14:10, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

• Hello! I'll be reviewing this one. Looks like a good article on my initial read-through, but I'll post a more detailed review below when I get a chance - hopefully within 24 hours, but almost certainly within 48. Moswento ^talky 14:10, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
  • I see Amandajm has jumped in with some comments. I'm not sure if they misread "looks like a good article" as "meets good article criteria", when I was actually using "good" in a non-technical sense. Either way, I've put some comments at the bottom of the page too. Moswento ^talky 10:04, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Just to say - I see you've been working on this article, but that things aren't entirely stable at the moment. I'll be having another look at this article on Thursday (after 7 days of my first review). Moswento ^talky 13:47, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
• Final comments - A lot of good work has been done on this article in the past week, which is great, but unfortunately, I'm not able to pass this article this time around. After a hold of (over) 7 days, my sourcing issues below (at least one of which was raised in a previous review) are unaddressed. The majority of the history section, and a good chunk of the architecture section, is sourced to the church website, which is anonymous with no indication of why I should consider it reliable. It could be written by an expert based on extensive research, it could be written by a clueless volunteer relying on his memory of sources. ukattraction.com also doesn't "cut the mustard" for GA. You could probably make a case for suffolkchurches.co.uk, but it would be better if you didn't have to. The article also needs a good copyedit (there are some quite basic errors) and more care could be taken with the architecture section. Also, the first sentence of the Parish Activities section is completely off-topic unless there is a connection between the two. If there isn't, you'd be left with a one-sentence section, which wouldn't be good style. So, great work on the improvements, and I'd strongly encourage you to keep working at this article, but there's still a little way to go before GA. Take care, Moswento ^talky 21:47, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Comment:

St Pancras is a grade II listed building.[3] It was built by the Catholic architect George Goldie.[5] It is a red brick church with a slate roof. To the west of the church there is a large rose window that depicts the descent of the Holy Spirit.[6][3] The interior was once multi-coloured but is not mostly white-washed. There is a sculpted reredo above the altar with statues represents Christ and the Four Evangelists.[3] There is also an elaborate wooden roof.[3] The wooden pews are original.[3]

Above is the total content of art and architectural information provided on the church in this article. This amount of information cannot possibly qualify the article as a GA in the Art and Architecture ratings.

The article should not have been raised to a "B" rating. It is very much a "C" on the Art/Architecture scale.

The writer needs to do some research into architectural terms, then come back with a reasonable description of the building.

The writer also needs to think more about description:

• To the west of the church there is a large rose window.... This is nonsense! To the west of the church there is a church hall, a lane and another church.

This problem is caused by the failure to employ the very basic terms used in church description:"west end" (or "west front" if that is the main facade) and "east end". i.e.'In the west end of the church is a large rose window.

• The church was originally the chancel of an intended Catholic cathedral of Eastern England.

This is nonsense! It wasn't originally the chancel of anything! To say that it was originally the chancel tells us that there was something much bigger there, of which this was the chancel. The word "intended" merely confuses the issue.

What has happened is that the editor seems to have changed the wording from a source statement: In fact, the church is actually the chancel of what was meant to be a cathedral but never finished. The two sentences do not mean the same thing. "was originally" carries specific implications.

The sentence needs rewriting to state exactly what it needs to mean. The crucial point is that the whole church of St Pancras was intended to be much larger, but (for whatever reason) only the chancel was built.

The fact that it was intended as a cathedral is another point. It is about purpose, not structure. A whole three sentence paragraph needs to be devoted to the initial proposal, both in terms of size and intention. Then explain that only the chancel was built.

• Details: If you are serious about getting a GA for this article on the Art/architecture scale, then you've got to write as if you know something about it! If you don't then do some Wikipedia research.

Forgetting the glass for a minute, the window requires description, as one of the most significant details of the church. It is a rose window regardless of whether it has stained glass or not, so what should be said about the window itself? If you don't know anything about rose windows then the Wikipedia article is a very good place to start.

Look at the Wikipedia page that talks about church plans and learn the terms "nave", "aisles", "arcade" and "clerestory" and apply them. Say what shape the chancel end of the church is. Does the interior have a row of columns or piers, and are the arches pointed or round? Where is the main entrance? Is there a porch?

Describe the whole exterior in a paragraph of a few sentences, and then describe the interior in another paragraph.

Amandajm (talk) 02:30, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Comments from Moswento

1. As Amandajm says, the architecture section could do with expansion and (now I read it more carefully) copyediting - although you do not need to include every single detail.
2. I'm not sure about some of the references - in particular, basing most of the history on the parish church website (which appears to be anonymous with no suggestion of what level of research was done). I'm also not sure about suffolkchurches.co.uk (as mentioned in the previous review) or ukattraction.com being reliable sources. If you live locally, I would strongly suggest going to a local library and do an hour's research there.
3. You've done a lot of good work since the previous review, and given your obvious enthusiasm for this article, I think this review should stay open to give you a chance to fix these issues before a final review. If you would prefer to have more time, I can "fail" it this time, but I would encourage you to keep working at this. Moswento ^talky 10:04, 6 March 2013 (UTC)