Talk:Castles in Great Britain and Ireland/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 16:50, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll review this article, but it may take me a few days to fit it into a rather full schedule. Please bear with me. More soonest. Afterthought: in the interim, please click on disambiguation link on the right of the page and follow up the anomalies. Tim riley (talk) 16:50, 22 June 2012 (UTC) Backlog nearly cleared. I hope to get to this in the next two days. Tim riley (talk) 19:23, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Comments, before getting to the real quibbles. Whether the quadruple image at the top works depends on one's computer. On my wide-screen laptop it looks excellent, but on my elderly desktop 14-inch screen the text is squeezed over to the left at about seven or eight words to the line. I don't think this affects the article's promotion to GA, but I bet you'll get sniper fire if you continue to FAC.

WP:OVERLINK: I think you should lose the links to Great Britain, Ireland, Second World War, and tourist attractions. I may add to this list as I go through the article.

First batch of comments

• Invasion
  • "The first of these were the establishment" – was, surely?
  • "communication: including" – very odd place to find a colon; a comma would be better here
  • "both in order to" – some users get very aerated about the unnecessary words "in order", and I mildly agree with them
  • "ports; Pevensey" – the semi-colon has to be a comma here or the "absolute" construction won't work
  • "Some groups of castles were located" – It's a very long way from the start to the finish of this sentence. You might consider splitting it up.
  • "whilst Windsor" – "whilst" is a fustian and unnecessary word; "while" is always better, here and in the twenty-one other occurrences in the article.

Hehe 22 actually!

• • "Recent estimates suggest that out of all of those constructed, there were only between 500 and 600 castles occupied" – unless you give us some idea here how many were built the figure of 500/600 doesn't mean much.

• Will try to find you a figure. Hchc2009 (talk) 20:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

• Architecture
  • "Stone built" – I'd hyphenate this
  • "built – a single season, made them" – I like the parenthetic dash, but you need a closing one too
  • "required an exponentially greater quantity of manpower" – I don't say "exponentially" is wrong, because I'm never quite sure what it means; but I question whether it is necessary here.
    • Compare "exponentially" to "linear"; a motte involves volume, which rises exponentially with size, thus the labour inputs. Hchc2009 (talk) 20:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
      • Phew! That's me put in my place. I withdraw. Tim riley (talk) 00:31, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

As an example (NB: not perfectly accurate, but for demonstration purposes!), imagine you're building a circular stone shell keep, like at Restormel Castle. If the king tells you he wants the castle 20 m wide and the walls 3 m high, you'll need roughly 188 blocks of stone. The king decides he wants the walls twice as high - 6 m - you'll have to go back and report you need roughly 377 blocks of stone, twice as much. If he wants those walls three times as high - 8 m - you'll need 564 blocks. Each time, the requirement is increasing in a linear way (NB: you might need to increase the width of the walls slightly in reality, but not hugely so).

Now imagine the king's after a cone-shaped motte, like Thetford Castle. First he wants it 3 m high, and with the sloping sides it will be roughly 30 m wide at the base and 20 m on top. Let's say you'll need to move roughly 310 loads of earth. Now the king decides he wants the motte twice as tall, which will mean making it wider as well; it is now 6 m high, 60 m on the base and 40 m on top. You now need 2486 loads of earth, around 8 times as much. If the king wants that motte 3 times as tall, 8 m by 90m by 60 m, then you'll need 7460 loads, around 24 times as much. The requirement is rising exponentially with the increase in height the king is asking for.

In practice, what did this mean? A little motte needed only around 1,000 man days to build in the late 11th century, but Thetford is estimated by historians at around 24,000 man days - and to build anything larger would have seen labour requirements rocket up still further. Hchc2009 (talk) 07:21, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• • "Despite motte-and-bailey and ringworks being common designs" – you either need a gerund here or (preferably) recast as "Although motte-and-bailey and ringworks were common designs".
• Developments in castle design
  • "more crude nature" – cruder nature?
  • "a keep's walls could usually only be raised by a maximum of 12 feet (3.6 metres) a year" – you don't say why, and it would be good to know

Don't know, but I don't think its essential to say so. I can remove the sentence if you like.

It's actually rather important; the reason why is because lime mortar was used, which sets slowly; you can't increase the height of stone walls with lime mortar too quickly as a result. A secondary factor is the winter; lime mortar doesn't set at all when cold, so unless you have a mild winter (thus the "usually"), building work had to stop altogether. I'll find a reference and footnote it. Hchc2009 (talk) 20:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

• Economy and society
  • "royal castles owned by the king" – as opposed to royal castles owned by whom?

not sure what you mean..♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:44, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Royal castles can mean "belonging to the royal family" (e.g. royal dukes etc.) or to the king. In this context, it means the king. Hchc2009 (talk) 20:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

That's all for now. I may say at this stage that unless I run across something unexpectedly dreadful later in the article, this seems to me a very safe bet for GA at the end of this review. More anon. – Tim riley (talk) 20:01, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, all should have been addressed to date. Thank heavens for the find and replace tool though!♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:43, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Second batch of comments

• WP:OVERLINK – you need to go through carefully, eliminating duplicate blue links, e.g. the multiple (I counted six, but there may be more) links to Beaumaris, also Dover, Tower of London etc. The Manual of Style is clear on this point: "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, links may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, and at the first occurrence after the lead."
  • Later: on rereading the details of the GA criteria I find that compliance with this part of the Manual of Style is not a specified requirement. So I can't insist that you address this point – but I hope you will, anyway. Tim riley (talk) 10:45, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
• The Anarchy
  • First para: "focusing on … centred on … focusing on" – suggest altering the first to e.g. "consisting of" and the last to "trying to defeat…"

Reworded.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:49, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• • "each about six to nine miles apart" – should this be "all about…"?

Fixed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:49, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• The spread of castles in Scotland, Wales and Ireland
  • "Henry II of England" – second blue link for him here; is it needed?

Fixed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:49, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• • "their cavalry enabled … and castles enabled"

Rephrased.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:49, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• Military developments
  • Third sentence: two "popular"s

Changed one to common.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:55, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• • "less or no dead zones" – fewer or no

Fixed

• • "quarrels" – perhaps either bluelink or explain in the text
  • "crossbows were primarily built" – unexpected verb: are bows built rather than made?

Well spotted, changed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:55, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• • "prevented mining the castle" – a comma after mining would help the reader

Reworded so no longer needed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:55, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• • another construction where grammar calls for a gerund construction (the prince's mining) or rephrasing such as "although the prince mined...etc"
• Welsh principalities and Edwardian castles
  • "castle building program" – programme, unless it was by Microsoft

Changed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• Introduction of gunpowder
  • "French siege in 1377; the Crown reacting" – comma, not semi colon needed here

Changed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• Tower Houses
  • "It was originally argued" – when?
  • another "in order to"

Removed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• • "linked to period of instability" – "a period" or "periods"?

Changed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• Further development of gunpowder artillery
  • "England had lagged behind Europe" – As England is part of Europe I suggest you say "the rest of Europe"

mainland Europe.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:09, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• • can one lag behind a cutting edge?

• As my writing style shows, I'll usually give it a go! ;) Hchc2009 (talk) 10:03, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

• • "Nonetheless, improved gunpowder artillery played" – there are three "relatively"s in this para, which I think is two too many
• The Restoration
  • "cost efficient" – I think perhaps this should be "cost-effective" ("cost efficient" is unknown to the OED)

(Outsider) Done. ⇒TAP 11:02, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

More to come. – Tim riley (talk) 09:32, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Last lot of quibbles

• Social and cultural use
  • "partially because contemporary tourists" – I suggest a plain "partly" is preferable
  • "…William Gilpin. Gilpin published…" – perhaps "…William Gilpin. He published…"?
  • "architects such as Wyatt." – he could do with a blue link
• Military and governmental use
  • "…gunports in order to provide…" – another "in order to"
  • "In Ireland Dublin Castle played an increasing role in Ireland" – too many "in Ireland"s
• Social and cultural use
  • "being charged six-pence" – I imagine that's from a quotation in your source, but in modern(ish) usage it's "sixpence" (i.e. 2½p)
  • "tourist tours" – not happy phrasing
  • "A similar trend can be seen at Rothesay" – note to Dr B: I just knew Bloody Burges would crop up sooner or later! (Hchc2009, please ignore this irrelevant aside.)
  • "prehistoric structures and medieval buildings" – it's easy to misread this: I suggest replacing the "and" with a semi colon
• 1900–1945
  • "used to briefly detain" – some readers (of whom I am not one) cling to the superstition that splitting an infinitive is wrong. I try to avoid upsetting them, and I'd write "used briefly to detain". There's another split infinitive later in the article, but I recommend you leave that one as it is: it reads much better that way, and you could get into a right old tangle trying to unsplit it.
  • "used as basis for defences" – missing a definite article, I think; and in the two following examples you have "was used" rather than just "used". Do you mean "were used" for Dover's foundations?
  • "produced significant official concern. Some of the more significant cases" – too much significance
  • "Partially as a result" – another place where the plain word would be better, I think
  • "acts of parliament … An act of Parliament in 1913" – capitalise both or neither
  • "state funded" – probably needs a hyphen, I think
• 1945–21st century
  • "Several major bodies now own most castles" – This reads very oddly. I'd go for something like "Most castles are now owned by x major bodies."
  • "international film industry" – a bit late to blue link it here, having already mentioned it in the previous section
  • "very practical decisions … the practical challenges" – too practical
• Historiography
  • "arguing convincingly" – says who?
  • "next twenty years was characterised" – were characterised.

Right, that's my lot. Nothing there to delay us. Stand well back and give me room to swing the champagne bottle.

Overall summary

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   Prose is readable and adequate

   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:

   Most impressive range of citations.

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   Impressively comprehensive

   B. Focused:

   The article is long, but could not IMO be profitably broken into smaller sub-articles

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:

I greatly enjoyed this article, which wears its considerable learning very lightly. In terms of content it seems to me to be of FA quality, but the prose – fine at GA level – would need a wash-and-brush-up before going on to FAC. I'd be happy to undertake that if wanted. And do please consider culling the overlinks and be sure to fix the dab links. Meanwhile, my warmest congratulations on a fine piece of work. – Tim riley (talk) 13:46, 30 June 2012 (UTC)