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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sieges of Taunton/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 01:35, 20 August 2015 [1].

Sieges of Taunton

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Nominator(s): Harrias talk 14:40, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

During the First English Civil War, Taunton exchanged hands a few times in the early years, but then underwent a series of three sieges. The second destroyed large parts of the town, and along with some economic factors, set back the town's development by centuries. Robert Blake, better known for his naval exploits commanded the defence of the town through all three sieges, establishing temporary earthen defences as the town had no permanent wall or gates. This is a long way from the cricket articles that I have brought here before, but as always, I'm eager to see your thoughts. The article underwent a Good article review, Talk:Sieges of Taunton/GA1, and a Military History A-class review, Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Sieges of Taunton. This is a WikiCup nomination.Harrias talk 14:40, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Image check - all OK

Comment - only 1 quick point for now:

  • Lead - "where historians believe they could have tipped the battle in favour of the Royalists." - even in the lead, such a claim should be immediately sourced. Also, I don't see this important conclusion repeated in the main text (MOS:LEAD). The main text describes the troop movements, but doesn't explicitly draw the same conclusion. GermanJoe (talk) 15:48, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@GermanJoe: Good spot. I think I must have thrown that in the lead while I was working my sources out to put in the body, and then never finished! I've added a couple of supporting references into the lead, and added more detail into the body as well, in the third siege section. How does that look? Harrias talk 07:51, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Looks fine, thanks for the tweaks. GermanJoe (talk) 15:25, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - very nice article. The article is well-written and -sourced, and appears to be comprehensive. The content is accessible and logically structured. Images and map are appropriately licensed and relevant for the topic. GermanJoe (talk) 15:25, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – Pithy and most readable. Harrias has successfully packed a lot into less than 3,000 words. Seems thoroughly comprehensive and well balanced, and is thoroughly and widely referenced. Clearly meets FA criteria, in my view. A pleasure to read and review, and I look forward to seeing it on our front page in due course. Tim riley talk 20:38, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support; taking it on faith that it's accurate as this is a subject I know almost nothing about, but it appears to cover everything that needs to be covered without going into unnecessary detail. (I don't particularly like the single left-aligned image with everything else right-aligned, but can understand the position that the subject looking out of the picture is more problematic than the images not flowing neatly.) The one recommendation I would make is to add some kind of map to the Background section; as I understand it the sole reason Taunton, and Somerset in general, was thought worth fighting over was its strategic location rather than any intrinsic value of the area so the geography is important, but I would wager that most English readers, let alone readers in other countries, have only the vaguest idea of where Taunton is, let alone Chard, Dunster or Lyme Regis. – iridescent 15:57, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lean support. I think you handled Toulmin's alternative chronology the best way you could. I'd echo Iridescent's opinion that a map would be nice; I certainly had to look up where the key locations are. Also, because I'm contractually required to find something to complain about in reference formatting: the Bush and Morris sources should have their ISBNs properly hyphenated to match both the standard and the rest of the entries. My only other inquiry is to ask about sources not currently included (for the purpose of comprehensiveness):
  • Gardiner, Samuel R. (1894). History of the Great Civil War. Vol. 2 (New ed.). London: Longmans, Green, and Company. OCLC 707090927. This one has the benefit of being available online. To my eye, there's a lot of material on the topic, but I can't immediately determine how much is redundant. We don't have an article on Gardiner, but he was a respectable scholar of his day, by what available information I could find.
  • Green, Emanuel (1905). The Siege & Defense of Taunton, 1644–1645. Bye-paths of Bath and Somersetshire History. Bath: George Gregory. OCLC 852052348. I don't have access to this source, but given the title, it's impossible not to wonder about.
Otherwise, very approachable and very nicely done. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:16, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Iridescent and Squeamish Ossifrage: Thanks both for your comments. I've added a map into the infobox for the moment, but I'm going to have a play with some other maps which will label all the key locations in a bit. With regards to those sources mentioned, I wasn't aware of either. I'll look through the first, and take anything useful, but the second isn't available for loan in the local libraries, only for reference in the archaeological library, which I'd probably have to get a reservation to visit, and their opening hours tend to coincide with my working hours! Still, I'll look into it if I can, thanks. Harrias talk 17:28, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we have one, I'd be inclined to use one showing the roads and hills. As I understand it (I may be wrong) the reason the road, railway and canal all go through Taunton even today is that it's the only route between London and (strategically vital) Exeter, Plymouth and Falmouth which avoids the Quantock Hills to the north and the Blackdown Hills to the south, which presumably would have been a major consideration for armies relying on horses to lug their cannons about. I'm sure someone at Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Map workshop could knock one up from existing relief maps. ‑ iridescent 15:52, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sort of on board with Iridescent here. To be fair, I think some map is better than no map, because otherwise, as an uncultured American, I haven't got the faintest clue where Taunton is. But I do think a better map could highlight why this is strategically important; with just the cities, Taunton looks like it's more in the middle of nowhere than in the middle of an essential transit route. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:01, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fair enough. I think a map of that scope is probably going to take longer than this FAC, unless I get really lucky, but I'll start looking into it; the main difficulty is getting hold of, and effectively copying, maps of the time that show the roads. Harrias talk 20:06, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not consider the absence of such a map to be an actionable objection to promotion. I do think it's a good idea, and I'd like to see it in there eventually, but I don't think there's a strict order of operations that demands its presence before attaching the bronze star. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:20, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support -- recusing from FAC coord duties, I copyedited/reviewed and, with the caveat that I'm not an expert on the era, ultimately supported at MilHist ACR...
    • Checking changes since I last saw the article, no concerns with prose, structure or content.
    • Image licensing was fine when I looked at ACR and that seems to have been confirmed by Joe above.
    • Source review:
      • No issues I could see with reliability (the one ref I had concerns with at ACR was swiftly removed).
      • All external links worked for me.
      • Format-wise, you link some publishers with WP articles but not all (e.g. Pen & Sword) -- suggest link all or none. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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