Talk:St Twrog's Church, Bodwrog/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: SilkTork *^YES! 02:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Bagging this. Will leave comments soonish. SilkTork *^YES! 02:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

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:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   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:

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

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

I'll put comments here as I note something. These will be general observations, not necessarily just GA criteria related. SilkTork *^YES! 09:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

• "incumbent" - could be made clearer what an incumbent means in relation to the church. SilkTork *^YES! 09:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
• a mention of Saint Twrog in the lead would be useful. SilkTork *^YES! 09:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
• might be worth exploring some more detail behind "church tithes had been paid to Jesus College, Oxford". The source mentions "Dr. Wynne, Chancellor of Llandaf" - which I assume means Llandaff Cathedral, which is the seat of the Bishop of Llandaff, head of the Church in Wales. Unfortunately, Wynne is a common Welsh name, so not easy to follow up, but the connection to Jesus College, Oxford and Llandaff are worth pointing out to the general reader - Jesus College being at the time mainly for the training of Welsh clergy. SilkTork *^YES! 09:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
• I see that "Llandrygarn with Bodwrog with Heneglwys with Trewalchmai with Llannerch-y-medd" is a phrase used by the Church in Wales, however it reads a little awkwardly. Is there another way of explaining the "benefice", and at the same time, perhaps, giving a brief explanation of "benefice" to save the general reader from having to click through to the benefice article, which anyway doesn't give an immediate and straightforward explanation relating to St Twrog's. SilkTork *^YES! 09:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
• There is occasional use of WP:Jargon in the Architecture and fittings section, assuming a knowledge that the general reader may not have, or requiring a fair amount of click through. It is generally difficult to get the balance right between being accessible and being appropriately detailed, and that balance will always be open to interpretation. I think the example of how lights are described is the way to go. Does cinquefoil mean the glass has a five leaf pattern, or that it has an image of the flower on it? Either way, a few words on cinquefoil would be useful. SilkTork *^YES! 10:17, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
• I understand why you called the Assessment section by that name, though I'm wondering if there is another name that is more precise. SilkTork *^YES! 10:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
• Of passing interest St Twrog had several brothers who gave their names to Anglesey churches SilkTork *^YES! 11:36, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
• Some mention of the community and services of the church would be welcome. I've had a look and there's not a lot about the Bodwrog community. It appears to be mainly caravan sites. It may be that not a lot can be said. There was a community of 319 in 1870 and has remained reasonably static since. I don't think any more can be said about the services than you have already said. This may be a squeeze to much, but one more look for information on services might turn up something. There is a bit more on the Architecture and fittings than on any other aspect, though that is appropriate and in keeping with most literature on church buildings. SilkTork *^YES! 11:52, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

GA points

These are the areas that I feel need attention to meet the GA criteria. This is open to interpretation and negotiation. I'm always happy to talk and amend. SilkTork *^YES! 10:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

• MoS issues. Often one of the trickiest aspects of a GA review. I feel the lead could be developed a little more - in line with WP:Lead - to include a little more on the saint, the architecture (the style and building material for example, the lack of stained glass, etc), a little more history (connection with Jesus College, Oxford).
• Prose issues. The prose on the whole is clear and attractive and conveys information quickly. There is however a tendency to be a little elliptical, condensing a lot of information in a few words or sentences. Such economy of words is also my style of writing, and I feel is the preferred style for encyclopaedias; though a sentence like "The east window has three lights (sections of window separated by mullions) topped with tracery and ogee heads; the other two 15th-century windows are set in square frames and have pairs of lights headed with cinquefoils." is perhaps asking too much of the general reader. And this sentence: "The date of first construction of a Christian building at this location is unknown, but the parish takes its name from Twrog, a saint who lived in the late 5th and early 6th centuries, to whom the church is dedicated: the Welsh word "bod" means "abode" or "dwelling", and "-wrog" is a modified form of the saint's name – i.e. "Twrog's dwelling"." might be broken down into two or even three sentences. SilkTork *^YES! 10:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
• Broad coverage. A little more on the local community the church serves. SilkTork *^YES! 11:52, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Responses

Thanks for your review.

• Incumbent: reworded
• I'll leave the lead until last Added a bit
• Tithes: Remember of course that there was no "Church in Wales" at that time, so Llandaff Cathedral wasn't particularly important to a church in Anglesey. As for Dr Wynne, I suspect he's one of the Wynnes of Bodewyrd but I have no proof and nothing particularly to say. He's not in Welsh Biography Online, as far as I can see. I know quite a bit about Jesus College, as it happens (!), but I'm not sure at the moment that mentioning the college's Welsh connections is terribly relevant here. Do you have a form of wording you can suggest? Added something for the hell of it.
• Benefice: reworded
• Thanks for picking up the bad link on cinquefoil; none of the links on the dab page are particularly appropriate so I've delinked it and added a few words in brackets. Any other jargon catch your eye?
• I haven't thought of a better word than "assessment" yet but am open to suggestions...
• Twrog's brothers and their churches are mentioned in the article about Twrog, as far as I can tell, and I think it'd be straying from the point to mention them here as well. Actually, only one of those brothers has an Anglesey church, so I mentioned it directly.
• I have absolutely no idea of when the services are. Like most Anglesey churches, it has no website, and I can't even find anything about it in the local paper. I don't even think there's much to write about the "community" (if it be such) that it serves. Bodwrog is the name of the parish, and the name of a nearby large house, but as far as I can tell it's not the name of a present-day administrative unit. The church is in a field in the middle of nowhere and that link you gave doesn't go beyond 1961, which makes it difficult to write about the modern situation... Also the caravan sites are probably in Bodwrog, Gwynedd, not Bodwrog, Anglesey (judging by a Google search).
• Two long sentences split.

More later. Bencherlite^Talk 12:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

How's it looking now? Bencherlite^Talk 14:45, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. That's very quick, precise work. I've just been looking for some mention of the community, and I can't find anything. I think that will be down to local research, and future development. I'm just wondering if "The church is sited in a churchyard in the countryside of Anglesey, Wales, about 4 miles (6.4 km) from the county town of Llangefni, at the side of a small road between Gwalchmai and Llynfaes." is enough to convey the isolation, and how much it would be pushing OR to use the word isolated as in "The church is sited in an isolated churchyard...". Ah, in the Assessment section we have the cited phrase: "a remote rural location."

"tracery and ogee heads" could be explained further.

I can't think of an alternative for Assessment. It won't impact on the GA listing, so it's a side issue to think about. I can see what you are doing, though I can't see it being done in other articles on churches or buildings, so there is no standard usage that one can borrow. The content of the Assessment section is usually dealt with in the architecture section, though articles on works of art such as albums, films and books, generally have a critical reception and awards section, so it does make sense to have one for respected buildings as well. All the words I think of are pretty the same: Commentary, Listing, Appraisal, Appreciation, Evaluation.... I don't think there is a standard word for assessment of churches. Books on churches are usually "guides", but that's not helpful either.

I'll read through again in a little while, though I think we're pretty much there. I think you've got an interesting project underway here with the churches of Anglesey, and I wish you well with it. SilkTork *^YES! 17:07, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Hold

This is an interesting and informative article on a little church in Anglesey, part of an excellent series by Bencherlite. While such minor, discrete, and self-contained topics do lend themselves to being easily accepted for Good Article listing, there is still a reasonable amount of research and presentation to be done, and Bencherlite has done that very well. It is always a pleasure to come upon such article series, and they do make GA reviewing quite rewarding. I have listed a number of points above, but they are really quite minor, and I don't anticipate any problems in passing this. I'll put this on hold until March 3rd when I'm back from France. But I don't leave until 25th of this month, so give me a ping if the work is done by then and I'll pass it. If the work isn't done when I return from France, I'll take a look at doing it myself rather than failing this. SilkTork *^YES! 12:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Listed

I've dealt with the final couple of minor points. The architectural language is difficult, but I worked out what some of it meant, and left out the bits that were unclear. SilkTork *^YES! 14:57, 23 February 2011 (UTC)