Talk:Westminster Abbey/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 11:17, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Starting review

I'm astonished that nobody has picked up this article for review. Having been away for a fortnight I feel lucky that it hasn't been bagged already. Starting first read-through now. Initial comments to follow. Tim riley talk 11:17, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Initial comments

I have greatly enjoyed, and learned a lot, from my first perusal of the article. I have a long list of minor comments, but I must make it plain at the outset that they are nearly all merely advisory, and do not affect the promotability of the article.

• False titles

Let me get my major bugbear out of the way first. To my mind the false title belongs in tabloid newspapers and has no place in encyclopaedia articles written in the King's English. True, there is nothing in the Manual of Style to discourage this naff usage, and I cannot force my views on anyone, but to my mind your prose would be much improved if you relieved it of these false titles. The addition of a definite article would remove the pain in every case:

• diarist Samuel Pepys
• English architect Sir Christopher Wren
• scientist Isaac Newton (twice)
• military general James Stanhope
• architect Stephen Dykes Bower
• architect Edward Blore
• mason John Thirske
• architect George Gilbert Scott (twice)
• American writer Washington Irving
• Italian sculptor Pietro Torregiano
• designer J. R. Clayton
• mosaic-maker Antonio Salviati
• artist David Hockney

Other thoughts on this list: not clear why Wren is given his knightly title but Newton is not and Stanhope is denied his peerage. I'd stick to titleless names for all of them. Nor is it clear why we need to be told that Wren was English, Irving American or Torregiano Italian. Or why Newton and Scott need their job titles repeated.

• Lead

• "due to its outstanding universal value" – In AmE "due to" is accepted as a compound preposition on a par with "owing to", but in BrE it is not universally so regarded. "Owing to" or, better, "because of" is safer, here and at the four later iterations.

• 20th century

• "estimated at £135,000" – a current equivalent would be helpful here.

• 21st century

• "objects used in Mass" – possibly showing my ignorance, but I'd expect a definite article before "Mass".

• Interior

• "the spandels of the arcade" – should be "spandrels"?
• "covered in gold mosaic and coloured stone, but this has since been picked off" – two nouns but a singular verb.
• "The abbey includes a number of side chapels" – is there any reason not to give the precise number rather than the vague "a number"?
• "In the north ambulatory is the Islip Chapel, the Nurses' Memorial Chapel (sometimes called the "Nightingale Chapel"), the Chapel of Our Lady of the Pew, the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, and St. Paul's Chapel" – five chapels sharing one singular verb.
• "In the south ambulatory is St. Nicholas' Chapel, St. Edmund's Chapel, and St. Benedict's Chapel. Three nouns with one singular verb, and the repetitions of "chapel" could be avoided by recasting as "In the south ambulatory are the chapels of St. Nicholas, St. Edmund and St. Benedict".
• "c.1290-1310" – en-dash for date ranges, rather than a hyphen.
• "misericords- small ledges" – parenthetic dashes should be either spaced en-dashes – like that, or unspaced em-dashes—like that (MoS).

• The Jerusalem Chamber

• "I don't press the point, but the MoS enjoins us to avoid definite articles in headers whenever we can.

• Monastic buildings

• "Many of the rooms used by the monks still exist, only repurposed ... repurposed as houses" – the repetition of "repurposed" is infelicitous.
• "ate separately to the rest" – curious choice of preposition: one might expect "from"
• "continously-occupied" – typo (and I'm not sure you want the hyphen, either).

• Artworks and treasures

• "Commemmorate" – too many m's.
• "High Commissioners" – capitals wanted?
• "three larger-than-life figures: Edward the Confessor, the angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary" – I'm quite prepared to believe that the statues of King Edward and the Virgin Mary are larger than life, but how do you know how big the angel Gabriel is in real life? He might be huge.
• "They were walled off in the 17th century by order of Parliament" – if, as I imagine, the culprits are Cromwell's gang it might be more informative to pin the blame firmly on the puritans of the Commonwealth rather than just mentioning the 17th century

• Stained glass

• "In the centre is shown the arms of Elizabeth II" – again, perhaps showing my ignorance, but aren't heraldic arms plural?

• Burials and memorials

• "Henry III rebuilt the abbey in honour of a royal saint, Edward the Confessor, whose relics were placed in a shrine in the sanctuary, and rebuilt the abbey" – confusing. Edward's relics didn't rebuild the abbey. A pair of parenthetic dashes will remove the ambiguity: " rebuilt the abbey in honour of a royal saint, Edward the Confessor – whose relics were placed in a shrine in the sanctuary – and rebuilt the abbey..." And would be no bad thing to find another word to replace the second "rebuilt".
• "most kings and queens were buried in the abbey. Monarchs buried at the abbey" – rather wordy: you could replace the last five words with "they".
• "the church- either ordinary locals" – another hyphen that needs to be a dash
• "Lawrence Olivier" – I speak as co-author of the Featured Article on Laurence Olivier: you can take fifty lines for getting his name wrong.
• "George Frederic Handel" – "Frideric", please. (Yes, I know, but that's how he rendered his native Friedrich into English.)

• Royal occasions

• "the full regalia that she'd worn at her coronation" – no informal contractions, thank you: see MOS:N'T.
• "a total of 39 English and British monarchs ... has been crowned" – logically and grammatically the singular verb makes sense, but it looks very odd nevertheless, and "have been crowned" would look much more natural, I think.
• "returned temporarily the Coronation Chair" – missing "to"?
• "However, in 1170, Henry II held a separate coronation at Westminster Abbey ... However, the Young King died before his father" – we could do without two howevers in close proximity, and indeed it would be no bad thing to go through the text eliminating most of the ten "howevers" that are there – they can usually be dispensed with perfectly well.

• Royal weddings

• "which was incredibly popular" – "incredibly" won't do: a less excitable adverb is wanted.
• "the cortege rested" – the OED and Chambers' Dictionary both prescribe a grave accent in cortège.
• "Although technically not a royal funeral, the burial of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell" – I think "technically" is pushing it. It was the polar opposite of royal.

• Dean and Chapter

• "Collegiate Church of St Peter" – elsewhere you put a full stop after "St". I think these days it's a bit old fashioned and unnecessary, but if you are going to do it, you should do it consistently throughout.
• "A series of Priests Vicar" – are the capitals necessary?

• Schools

• "interrupted a bishop consecration" – missing a possessive apostrophe-ess?
• "a bare-knucle fight" – spelling.

• Organ

• "re-instated" – not hyphenated in the OED or Chambers.

That's my lot from a first read-through. It's a splendid article and I expect to be promoting it to GA, but meanwhile over to you to consider the above comments and suggestions. – Tim riley talk 14:11, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind comments and review work! I've just been through and implemented almost all of them, with a few notes:

-Thank you for pointing out the false title thing- it's not an issue I'd ever heard of before, and didn't realise it's associated with tabloids!

-"estimated at £135,000" The source for this is a period one from the 1940s, so doesn't have a modern conversion.

• MeasuringWorth is a useful resource for giving today's equivalents of yesterday's prices. It offers a range of comparatives, which can be confusing for a mathematical dunce (e.g. me), but as it gives the current equivalent of 1940's £135,000 as £7,843,000.00 on both the real price/commodity scale and real cost/project scale I think you could safely say something like "(more than seven million pounds in 2022 terms)". Tim riley talk 09:26, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

-Fair enough, I suppose the Angel Gabriel can be exactly as big or small as he likes. That note gave me a good laugh, thanks :D

-Re. Cromwell's funeral, that's a fair point. I was trying to explain why he's in the "royal funerals" section. Have rewritten it for now, but perhaps we should take him out of that section altogether?

• Seems fine to me as it now is. Tim riley talk 09:26, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

-"interrupted a bishop consecration"- it was actually four bishops being consecrated that day! Have reworded it for clarity.

Everything else should be fixed, I hope. Thank you again- this was well-explained and easy to follow. JRennocks (talk) 23:00, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

We now come to the referencing. Your list of sources is impressive, but I'm blest if I can make head or tail of your layout:

• The usual arrangement is to have one list of citations (e.g. Smith (2020), pp. 11–12, or, with commas instead of brackets, Jones, 1975, p. 108), followed by a separate list of the bibliographical details of the sources. You have two lists, but the bibliographical details are scattered, seemingly at random, between the two. Why, for instance, are the bibliographical details of H. Claiborne Dixon's book in the "Notes" section, (without a page number, incidentally) rather than in the "References" list?
• Alphabetical order has gone awry in the References list: Mortimer comes between Carr and Harvey.
• I cannot work out the meaning of the three-line note beginning with "Mortimer": are the Fernie and Gem works chapters in a book edited by Mortimer? It isn't clear. You have used the "cite book" template for three books on the list: it would be wise to use it for all of them. Doing so would eliminate doubt as to your meaning here. If my deduction is correct it would give you this:

• Fernie, Eric (2009). "Edward the Confessor's Westminster Abbey". In Mortimer, Richard (ed.). Edward the Confessor: The Man and the Legend. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84-383436-6.
• Gem, Richard (2009). "Craftsmen and Administrators in the Building of the Confessor's Abbey". In Mortimer, Richard (ed.). Edward the Confessor: The Man and the Legend. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84-383436-6.

As long as you give the actual page number of the citation in the Notes section, there is no clear benefit in giving the page ranges of the chapters in the bibliographical details in the References list, though the option pages= is available if you want it.

• Why are some authors allowed their given names and others fobbed off with just their initials?
• You have two different, mutually contradictory, lots of bibliographical details for Wesley Carr's 1999 book.
• Subtitles: whatever the publisher's practice, we capitalise subtitles as well as titles: thus, Stone on Stone: The men who built the cathedrals should be Stone on Stone: The Men Who Built the Cathedrals, and Crown & cloister : the royal story of Westminster Abbey should be Crown & Cloister: The Royal Story of Westminster Abbey. No space before colons, à la française, by the way.
• You should be consistent about whether you do or don't give the location of the publisher. I always give it, though I'm not sure what practical use it is to anybody.
• For books published before ISBNs came in, it is customary to give the OCLC number instead: you can find them on WorldCat.
• Not clear why refs 164 and 165 – and only those – have "Internet" after the titles.
• Nor why the reference for the Yale/Squibb work gives the selling price of the book.

Most of the above are venial offences, and would not, in my view, be enough to deny the article promotion to GA, but the article is, in my view, worth considering for promotion to Featured Article after a bit more work, and it would sink without trace at FAC if the referencing is not fixed. Tim riley talk 09:26, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh no! I was worried the references might be janky- I'm pretty new to this and still haven't quite wrapped my head around how to get them to all link up. I'll do my best to fix what I can. JRennocks (talk) 12:25, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, now! I think the present references, though somewhat haphazard, nonetheless meet – just about – the requirements of GAN criterion 2. I propose to pass the article for GA, and will happily knock the references into shape for you after that, if you wish: let me know. Be warned that my style of referencing does not employ the {{sfn}} and {{Harv}} forms, and is regarded by some editors as old-fashioned, but it has seen me through most of my 52 successful FACs. Tim riley talk 16:55, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Ah, thank you! I'm going to carry on cleaning up the references as best I can (I think it'll be a good learning exercise for me), and then perhaps I can ask you to have a look over it and make sure it makes sense? I am going to stick to {{sfn}} for now though, since that's the only style I know so far. Thank you again- I'm thrilled to have my first article reach GA! JRennocks (talk) 17:38, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

If you are using sfn, a good example for layout and division into citations and bibliographical details is the article on Mrs Beeton, mostly written, and taken through FAC by, my friend on WP and irl, SchroCat. I'll twist his paw to run an eye over your referencing using the sfn Algebra-meets-Babylonic-cuneiform system when you are ready. Tim riley talk 20:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Alrighty, I've done my best and I think I've come to the end of my powers. If this offer is still good, I'd like to take you up on it. JRennocks (talk) 09:45, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

He's on holiday at the moment: I'll ask him to look in once he's back. Tim riley talk 09:55, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) Hope I'm not intruding Tim, but, SchroCat, depending on when you're back from holiday, if you don't feel like getting bogged down in sfns etc., I'd be happy to take them on—I'm currently doing the same for Sex Pistols at WP:FAR, so compared to that, this would be a piece of cake I think. Over there, "Internet" is literally a citation *facepalm* :D SN54129 16:42, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Evening all. Happy to do this unless SN54129 gets there first. I’m flying back tomorrow, so will look in again tomorrow evening and do some sorting unless it’s been done before then.

SN54129, if you’re able to pop into Wikipedia:Peer review/Pasqua Rosée/archive1 at some stage, that would be great too. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 19:23, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Let me just sum up where we are. SN54129, the Sex Pistols, and SchroCat are meeting at Westminster Abbey before having coffee chez Pasqua Rosée. It's like a game of consequences. If an audit of the present article results therefrom I shall be much relieved. Tim riley talk 19:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

• Hi JRennocks, I've made a few minor tweaks to the references, but it looks in good shape already. Are there any bits you've struggled with or need some help on? - SchroCat (talk) 08:44, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

  Ah, thank you! The bit I wasn't sure about is how you decide what goes in "Notes" and what goes in "References". At first I tried just putting all books in "References" and everything else in "Notes", but there's some books that are only fleetingly cited once and some, say, conference papers or news articles that are much more thoroughly used. How do you think it's best to differentiate? JRennocks (talk) 09:04, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

• It's one of those vague areas on WP, with a lot of leeway on what terms to use. I'm taking Epsom_riot#Notes_and_references through FAC at the moment, and it works well for me. I keep "Notes" for what would be footnotes or notes in a book, "references" for the page numbers and "sources" for the list of works used. As with all things on WP, however, as long as you are being consistent in your approach, that is fine. - SchroCat (talk) 09:35, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you! JRennocks (talk) 09:44, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

• No probs - just ping me if you need any clarification on it. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 10:45, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Overall summary

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:

   Well referenced.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   Well referenced.

   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:

   Well illustrated.

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

   Well illustrated.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail: