Talk:St Vincent's Church, Caythorpe

Assessment

I am happy to make this a B on project criteria, it's one of your best yet.

• I'd have liked to see the citation for the impressive list of Rectors at the top of the list - so it was clear it referred to all of them. Perhaps

Taken from the church listing plaque< ref>link to photo< /ref> and Clergy of the Church of England Database< ref>.Clergy of the Church of England Database navigate through to Lincolnshire then Caythorpe. Retrieved 21 October 2013< /ref>

It's a bit cleaner not to conflate references. I'd have just put the citation(s) on the section heading, but a lot of people don't like the larger ^[39] that produces. (I don't mind that, and if it's a problem I am sure a later release of wiki will fix the formatting.)

• I'm a bit puzzled by

... its shortened height of 10 feet (3.0 m) compared by...

did you mean the height was shortened by 10 feet? It is clearly taller than 3m in the photographs.

• The paragraph

St Vincent's received a National Heritage Grade I listing on 20 September 1966, and in 2011 it received £102,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards the restoration of the church spire and nave roof

is a bit odd. These two events are unrelated (except perhaps a mention of the first in the paperwork for the second), and a generation distant in time. Lumping them together reads clumsily, and the use of 'and' as a joining preposition implies an improbable causality. They might both be called an 'award' but they are very different uses of the word - beware prosity! I would have said that the lottery funding was for maintenence rather than restoration of the Spire - there is no hint of major structural changes in the references.

• With less certainty, I am not convinced the paragraph

Yearly memorial services for the No. 216 Parachute Signals Regiment have been hosted at St Vincent’s on the first Sunday in September.......In 2011 and 2012 the Band of the RAF Regiment Brass Ensemble gave concerts of jazz and military music within the church.

belongs in the history section, unless your use of the past tense means you have information that both services and concerts will not be recurring in the future. In any case the jazz concerts are unreferenced and there must have been a few thousand musical performances, flower festivals and the like since the 14thC. Perhaps, just perhaps, this would be as at home in the memorials section, or in a separate 'annual events' one?

• You mention that English Heritage seems unaware of the theft of Hussey's armour. I'd be inclined to use their feedback forms (both at NHLE and PastScape) to advise them of your info and the sources given. Better yet, a local newspaper reference.
• I've scattered a couple of commas about.
• So have you. There are an awful lot in

A chancel memorial in the shape of a tombstone, with putto head, scrolling, and foliate devices below a pediment, is that to Edmund Weaver...

You might want to think about

A chancel memorial (in the shape of a tombstone with putto head, scrolling, and foliate devices below a pediment), is that to Edmund Weaver...

• a search of the imperial war museum at http://www.ukniwm.org.uk/server/show/nav.002006002 got Your search for memorials located in "caythorpe" (city), "Lincolnshire" (county) returned 15 results. not all of them at the church. I'm slightly cautious about putting the main war memorial on the church page rather than the village page, but it's up to you. The better-known http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Lincolnshire/Caythorpe.html seems incomplete by comparison - have you got any photos you could send them?

Well done again.--Robert EA Harvey (talk) 04:19, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, and extra refs on this one.

• I could add in a photo of the list of rectors to Wikemedia and link it, but it’s a bit out of focus—I could try a new one when I’m next up. I put "requires navigation", as we would add WP approved "requires PDF download," as it doesn’t show direct editor instruction to reader.

Unfortunately WP, which apes typical book styles, doesn’t allow cites on section heads, and they would be removed by someone. I tend to add all cites in paras at the end of paras whenever possible as too many stacked refs within the text spoils the flow. I understand that this might make it difficult for others to verify the text, but it’s a balance. I read somewhere that there is a device to reduce multi-refs to one number, but I’ve lost track of this info now.

This necessity for flow stops me from adding the barrier of brackets in text as far as possible, using either the endash or emdash instead—but only one type consistently through the article—again WP guidelines I can’t lay my hands on. So I've changed it: "A chancel memorial—in the shape of a tombstone with putto head, scrolling, and foliate devices below a pediment—is that to Edmund Weaver..."

• You are right about the spire height. It would be better recast. I’ve changed this.

• Your point on the clumsy lumping of Nat Her listing with Her Lot Fund is a good one. Best to split into two sentences in the same para, and “maintenance” is better. I’ve changed this.

The Imp War Museum and Roll-of-honour refs are good – thanks. Roll-of-honour I’ve added as inline; Imp War Museum to Ext links as it requires nav-through, and not all those individually mentioned with separate pages are in themselves notable.

• "Yearly memorial services…" in the history section. The Para Sig’s services will probably re-occur in the future, but the past tense is softly indicated as the text then avoids the future gazing which is frowned upon, doesn’t preclude continuance, and doesn’t need updating if they cease. I ruminated over a separate section for this and decided there wasn’t enough text to justify one. I’m averse to construct sections with small amounts of text which can be annoying to readers who might click down from a long list in a contents box and find little. I tend to add small amounts of disparate text to the most closely related section, in the case of the services and events, ‘History’, as they are currently in the past. The memorials are, in the article at the moment, physical lumps rather than events, so events perhaps wouldn’t go there comfortably.

• This brings up a general problem of how church—and probably other buildings—articles are structured. On prolific church article creator’s talk pages I have brought up, as yet to no avail, the possibility of church article guidelines, much as we have with places and schools. There seems to be a variety of structures for these articles, with editors such as myself using previous articles that look reasonable as templates.

However, this is less than ideal as mine, or others, preferred method might not be the best, and articles of the same type need to be consistent for the benefit of the reader. Is it an article about a building—it does need to be Grade I or Grade II* architecture to qualify for an article—or does it include the church community associated with it, as the church infobox would imply ? Most stick with just the architecture, occasionally others add extra community stuff in a 'History and background' section. Your mention of the village war memorial indicates this lack of clarity surrounding such church articles. Some, written by experienced editors in this field, include 'Associated structures', which could include closely situated war memorials, church schools, and rectories, but I don’t spread the net too wide and intrude on place articles too much – I might be wrong. If a war memorial was half a mile away in the centre of the village I wouldn’t include it, but at the churchyard gate, I would.

Many thanks again, and any further thoughts appreciated. Acabashi (talk) 11:28, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Good effort. Another thought about the list of rectors. I see no reason why the reference itself cannot simply be to the displayed list. <ref>List of incumbents displayed within the church</ref>. After all, no-one thinks it odd to write <ref>{{cite news|newspaper=Dumbarton Clarion|date=12 September 1879|title=Man eats twelve pies}}</ref> which would require someone to visit Dumbarton to consult the archive of old newspapers. How is it different to require someone to visit the church and look at the wall?--Robert EA Harvey (talk) 10:48, 23 October 2013 (UTC)