Talk:Scotland in the early modern period/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: North8000 (talk · contribs) 23:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I am starting a review of this article. North8000 (talk) 23:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Review discussion

This looks like really good work.

There are a few sentences which use the term "long minority" with no link or explanation of what that means. Without that a reader can't understand what that portion of the sentence is saying. Could you clarify? I tried doing it myself but couldn't find out what the term means. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:12, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

 Done I linked to minority reign.--SabreBD (talk) 18:40, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Resolved. North8000 (talk) 23:17, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Similarly, under Charles 1, could you explain "ruled without recourse to parliament"? North8000 (talk) 02:36, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

 DoneI substituted calling parliament - hope that does it.--SabreBD (talk) 18:40, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Resolved. North8000 (talk) 23:21, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

One vague comment. I'm guessing that it comes from having expertise from being from England/Scotland or knowing the history/culture, or expertise that comes from knowing the unique words of British English, (I'm from the US and my friends consider me to have a large vocabulary) but as I work through the article I do find myself making a lot of "trips" to the dictionary or to other Wikipedia articles to understand what is written. I've been adding a few internal links or tweaks as I go along, or bringing up open issues, and this comment is merely to let you know where I'm coming from rather than being an issue or needing a response. North8000 (talk) 23:16, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Resolved (no specific issue)North8000 (talk) 23:18, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

These were the December 16th questions from GA1

Mary,Queen of Scots

1. defeat at Battle of Langside-who defeated her? Note 1
2. she took refuge in England-where in England? Note 2
3. leaving her young son-who is that son? Note 1

James VI

1. How did Esme Stewart became his powerful male favourites? I mean what did he do? Note 2
2. "who provided him with two sons and a daughter"-what does it mean? Note 3

Note 1: I believe that that would be a good idea to add this, if the info is available, but does not rise to the level a problem that needs resolving to pass GA. What do you think?

Note 2: IMHO, while it might be good to add this info, IMHO I see no particular strong reason for doing so.

Note 3: To me this is quite clear in it's context.

Regarding, #1 and #3 under "Mary Queen of Scotts" above, I believe that that would be a good idea to add this, if the info is available, but does not rise to the level a problem that needs resolving to pass GA. What do you think about adding that info? North8000 (talk) 23:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I think it is no problem. I just need to find the sources (or check that it is in the existing sources).--SabreBD (talk) 08:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I have done 1 and 3 under Mary. Not quite sure where you stand under the ones for James. Does something need adding here?--SabreBD (talk) 22:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Response to Sabrebd and BlueMoonset. When I review and article for GA I try to be "middle of the road" regarding toughness. That includes taking, valuing, respecting and appreciating thoughts and input such as that from BlueMoonset. However, if I made the standard to make following all input from everybody mandatory for meeting GA, then that be a much much higher standard. So on these things I feel that I should follow a "middle of the road" standard course that I set. A my though on these is that most of them are very good ideas and suggestions, and none are mandatory to pass or of impact on the "middle of the range" GA standard that I am working to follow. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:48, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

i'll be honest, North8000: if I thought I had asked for anything complex, or requested that good prose be upgraded instead of problematic phrases, I could see you making that argument. It isn't about following input from everybody, it's about meeting GA standards: that's the guiding principle. I have specified what I consider to be prose in the James VI section that does not meet the "clear and concise" standard for an article to become a GA (all of the article's prose has to be clear and concise, not just some of it, even with a "middle of the road" course)—and am very disappointed that SabreBD has not addressed these easily solved issues that anyone, once they've been pointed out, ought to fix as a matter of course. (I have just made adjustments to the Mary section to address the other issues I raised, since they don't require specialized knowledge.) I don't understand why you aren't supporting what are—let's face it—fixes that are not only needed but that would take maybe ten minutes for someone knowledgeable on the topic to do (up to half an hour if additional research is required). Having seen the problem and knowing the standards, I don't feel I have a choice: if this short section is not improved to the "clear and concise" standard and the article is listed anyway, I will pull it into a Good Article reassessment until it is: this is, I feel—and I have 30 Good Articles to my credit—the minimum that must be done to the paragraph to bring it up to Good Article quality, as it is not at that level now. Regards, BlueMoonset (talk) 04:22, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

First my apologies for the delay. I was watching my watch list and missed the updates here until today. North8000 (talk) 15:30, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we can sidestep the area of disagreement (which is simply whether those issues are on the level to preclude GA status) by asking if User:Sabrebd, yourself or anybody wants to work on those items? North8000 (talk) 22:17, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

BlueMoonset, I applaud your work, and respect your work and comments. And regarding the items in your post, the real issue is whether the items as written should preclude it from GA status. IMHO those are just "it would be nice to add additional information" ideas. And so IMHO, the answer on whether the current stat should preclude GA status is "no" both by the "middle of the road" interpretation of the GA standard that I try to follow / implement, and even by an interpretation a few levels tougher than that. Again, I respect your work and comments, but if you feel that those should preclude GA status, I must respectfully disagree. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:10, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• North8000, if I had access to the cited sources I would happily revise all the prose if only to have this done with; unfortunately, I can only get a limited view of those pages. I did apply the suggested correction to the final sentence of the section, so that's taken care of. I have posted comments to the section you started on Sabrebd's talk page. Finally, I've made the change I suggested regarding moving "Earl of Lennox" (and adding "Duke"), and added a "clarification needed" tag to the one unclear section remaining. Obviously, it is inappropriate to list an article as a GA while such a tag remains on the article, and equally inappropriate to remove the tag without doing something to address the problem. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:08, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Sabrebd could you clarify what "but the 1621 levy was still being collected over a decade later" means in the "The Crown" subsection? North8000 (talk) 02:22, 1 March 2014 (UTC) North8000 (talk) 12:52, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

 Done.--SabreBD (talk) 13:52, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

First my apologies for the delay. I was watching my watch list and missed the updates here until today. North8000 (talk) 15:30, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

A wording problem still remained. I tried to fix, based on what I think it meant. Can you check me on that? North8000 (talk) 02:21, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Resolved. North8000 (talk) 01:11, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Outside comment

I wanted to point out that a number of issues brought up in the initial (and never completed) review here have yet to be addressed by the nominator, and I think they need to be before this review can be closed as successful. The original review only covered the first 10% or so of the article, so I imagine there will be additional fixes needed in the remainder, but there is still some work to be done from before. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:03, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I did not carry through on those suggestions because I was not able to discuss them with the reviewer. They are all about adding more information. I am fine with that if it is deemed necessary in a review, but this article is already very long and I was trying to keep the narrative to a minimum, so there needs to be some consideration of the balance of two issues here.--SabreBD (talk) 08:05, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I did read the previous review a couple of times to gain insight, but this is a new review, and so any questions should be raised here. Regarding those types of areas in general:

• IMO, an average reader should be able to understand what a sentence is saying, possibly with a quick look at a dictionary or a provided link. When I see a case where is such is not the case, I'll bring it up. I brought up a couple. I'm still having trouble with "regency" even though I added an internal link. In the first review Sabrebd indicated that they explained it; possibly I missed that.
• When a statement sorts of leaves the reader in a lurch by an omission, I tend to mentioned those. For example, if it says XYZ's army attack the castle, but doesn';t say the result, I'll usually ask for that to be added (if the info is available). I haven't seen any of these yet here.

That said, if it is just a case where additional depth of coverage might be desired by someone interested in that particular area, I tend to think that such might not even be a good idea for this article, much less a requirement for GA. The article is huge already and about a huge topic, with many many sub-articles. And there are hundreds of cases where a reader interested in that particular area might like to know more. I think that it would be mistake to try to accommodate all of those in this article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:30, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I thought that all of my comments were germane, and were not asking for any significant expansion, just more clarity and/or better worded. You could certainly have discussed them with me, SabreBD, but you didn't. I'm happy to discuss them now, if you think they aren't necessary. Or, North8000, if you'd prefer, I can repost the relevant comments here to make them part of this review, too. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

The situation at the first review looks complex / interrelated and now partially obsolete and I'm really not up for dealing with it or a cut and paste of it. The pre-Dec 16th comments were responded to and that was the end of the thread on those. The Dec 16th comments were open and then you commented on the comments. If there is an area where you know how to fix/improve it (i.e. have the requested info as I think you indicated in a few cases) I'd recommend just putting them in. Also if you have any specific comments about the article that you care to put in here as being your current thoughts, I'd be very happy to see those. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

North8000, here's what I think needs fixing, as taken from my comments on the GA1: I think that the Mary section needs just a bit more detail: The first paragraph should certainly make it clear here that Mary's son was by Lord Darnley, since there are three husbands mentioned in the course of the paragraph. I agree that the next paragraph should at least mention who defeated Mary at Langside. It might be worth mentioning where in England she took refuge. Finally, I'd just replace "young son" with "James VI"; it's the same as the previously mentioned "infant son", but the conflicting descriptions may lead some readers to think it's two different sons. It would take maybe a dozen words to add significant clarity here.

In the James VI section, both of the comments are also indicative of writing issues. It is unclear what "the first of the 13-year-old James' powerful male favourites" means in this context: is it that James had many favorites as a 13-year-old, but Stewart ranked first among them in popularity and/or temporal power (or some other criterion), or was it that James started gathering favorites at 13, and Stewart was the first? He was Stewart at the time (1579), and since he gained the titles of Earl of Lennox and Duke of Lennox in 1580 and 1581 respectively, it's clear James (who had to grant the titles) did favor him. (If you mention this at the end of the above quoted sentence, you can omit "and future Earl of Lennox" earlier.) The "who provided him with two sons and a daughter" was questioned, I think, because the wording isn't clear (she could have been previously married and brought stepchildren to the marriage); "who bore him two sons and a daughter" is more to the point and isn't ambiguous. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

GA criteria final checklist

Well-written

• Meets this criteria. North8000 (talk) 01:11, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Factually accurate and verifiable

• Meets this criteria North8000 (talk) 22:25, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Broad in its coverage

• Meets this criteria. North8000 (talk) 21:25, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each

• Meets this criteria. North8000 (talk) 19:55, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute

• Meets this criteria. North8000 (talk) 02:01, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Illustrated, if possible, by images

• Meets this criteria. Article has 39 images. It has no non-free images, so no article-specific use rationales are required. North8000 (talk) 23:43, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Result

Congratulations, this has passed as a Wikipedia good article. What an immense amount of quality work and information! Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 10:51, 21 March 2014 (UTC)