Talk:Shepperton/GA1

Latest comment: 11 years ago by Pyrotec in topic GA Review

GA Review

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Reviewer: Pyrotec (talk · contribs) 21:14, 12 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

I will review. Pyrotec (talk) 21:14, 12 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Initial comments

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Sorry for the delay in putting my comments here. I quickly read the article a few days ago from start to finish a couple of times, and I've read the WP:PR that took place prior to this nomination, and I probably could have failed this nomination against WP:WIAGA (and given detailed reasons why). In the light of recent changes I've decided to review it starting at the History section and finishing with the WP:lead.

Some of the sections / subsections don't appear to be B-class, let alone GA-class, so some work is going to need to be done during this review to get this article up to GA standard. Others parts, particularly the Lead, start off well. Pyrotec (talk) 18:31, 19 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Note: responses, replies, comments, etc, are welcome, but if they relative to a specific comment of mine, it makes life easier it they are put under the relevant comment, rather than grouped together elsewhere on this page.
  • History -
  • I'm having trouble verifying the claim "While the name is asserted by the 1994 Borough Conservation Officer to be an early form of Shepherd's town, which would earlier have transliterated into the Saxon language as Sceapheard-ton,[2]" against A Vision of Britain (1989), as claimed in ref 2, so I went back to the reference (2) and I've not found it there either. However, I'm surprised that the "Lower Halliford Spelthorne BC Conservation Area Appraisal 1994" is being used as a citation, so I went to the "Shepperton Conservation Area Preservation and Enhancement proposals" which appears on the website and that has the wording: "........ Saxon name of Sceapheard-ton, meaning sheppard's habitation". Is the right reference being cited (see also below)?
  • I don't regard citing the two (or is it three) Spelthorne Borough council documents as a single reference with another seven documents added onto the end; and then using it (them) nine times in the article as being an acceptable means of verification. There is no reason why the two (or is it three) Borough council documents can't be cited individually where they provide verification of a statement (or even together if more than one document supports the claim). There is no reason, again, why (if necessary) an individually reference can't use (if true) a reference of the form: "Lower Halliford Spelthorne BC Conservation Area Appraisal 1994" , citing "A Vision of Britain: A personal view of Architecture" (1989), HRH The Prince of Wales", but that is not what is being done in this article at present.
  • I would question why the text "... the book Middlesex (Robbins, 1953) part of a two-volume series with the other volume written by W.G. Hoskins, ..." appears in the body of the article. It appears to be merely "padding out" the article or "dropping names", particularly as the article makes no use of the W.G. Hoskins' book. If this comment is needed in the article, I'd suggest that putting it in as Note, rather than as a Reference is the way forward. (Notes are already used in the article, there are seven at present).
  • I couldn't understand why the fourth paragraph about the River Thames had a "see the Wey Navigation.[2]" stuck on the end, so I went to Wey and Godalming Navigations and this paragraph seems to be a part "copy and paste" from that article. I began to suspect this was more "padding out" of the article, as no mention is made here of why this was relevant to Shepperton. Perhaps Shepperton did export agricultural to London via the Thames, but the article does not mention this; and I can't see any connection between Shepperton and gunpowder. I then went to check ref 2: the article has more information in this paragraph than is verifiable via ref 2, but there is a lot more information in another reference that is used in this article. A Wikipedia article can't be used as verification of another article, so that "see the Wey Navigation" has to go. I'd also suggest that this paragraph be expanded to specifically state why this information is relevant to Shepperton and the proper citation quoted (its mostly likely NOT ref 2).
  • This whole section consisting of nine paragraph is a bit jumbled up in respects of dates: it starts with the Saxons and the 14th century in the first paragraph (which is logical, since it's discussing names); then we go into the Doomsday book, followed by 19th century, followed by the 13th century onwards; and then back to 19th century. There are also quite a few two-sentence paragraphs. I think one paragraph (at least) "the Thames" could be moved up to follow on after the "Doomsday" paragraph. I also think that the "tithes paragraph" could be appended onto the "Davo aptio, Argo fidelior, ipso Sanchone facetior" paragraph, or alternatively its merged into the following paragraph which also mentions "poor law". I don't have a strong preference, but I don't like one and two-sentence paragraphs, and neither does the wikipeida Manual of Style.
  • There is some OVERLINKING, Surrey is wikilinked twice in the final paragraph; and later in the article I recall three wikilinks of the same name in two consecutive paragraphs. Its extremely annoying and its also somewhat insulting for the reader as it is being implied that their short term memory is that bad.
      • Use in semi-fiction -
  • This whole sub-subsection is unreferenced. I think we can accept that the books were written, but claims that subjects in the book relate to real life objects need a a reliable source as a citation.
    • Conservation areas -
  • Church Square in Old Shepperton -
  • This subsection needs a clean up. I don't believe that this is up to a B-class standard, let alone GA-class. The first paragraph refers to listed walls, listed buildings and Shepperton Manor. The first sentence of the second paragraph refers to "The riverside manor" and the second sentence starts off "Also Grade II* listed is the ...."! Well, what else is Grade II* listed (the manor)?
  • The final sentence starts off: "Listed in the same high category of listed building is ..." and the second paragraph starts off (yet again) "Also architecturally Grade II* is restored ....".
  • What is needed is an unambiguous statement of what buildings are listed and what their categories are. If they are all the same category perhaps they could be combined in a better way than what is current written?
  • The second and third paragraphs are short three and two-sentence paragraphs, could they be merged: and why is the last occurrence of listed building wikilinked? The first occurrence is normally linked (if considered necessary), but before that is "listed walls", which could be pipeline linked, e.g. .... [[listed building|listed]] walls .....
  • Lower Halliford -
  • This is a collection of one-sentence (x4), two-sentence (x4) and three-sentence paragraphs (x1). In its entirety, its almost a single sentence (the first one) followed by eight bullet points, but without the bullets. The "paragraphs" seem to be discussing topics that appear to be arranged in random date order (its a mixture of buildings and "things", so I not sure that there is an order, perhaps its spatial?).
  • One of them refers to Upper Halliford (this is about Lower Halliford, perhaps the title needs a rethink)?
  • The seventh one starts off: "The tern is applicable also to the mostly riverside homes ....". Perhaps "tern" should read "term", but if so what term?
  • Manygate Lane -
  • I really don't understand this at all. The first sentence states: "The field land and large houses on this estate were bought by Lyon Homes from landowner and developer Edward Scott in the 1950s.", which suggests that these houses pre-date the 1950s, but no details are given.
  • The second paragraph states: "This estate of buildings on this street are in a conservation area for proving a successful modular development in geometric, white-painted modernism from in the 1960s, one of very few private sector estate housing experiments of the 1960s with terraced, white panelled communal landscaped front gardens by Swiss architect Edward Schoolheifer; this American Radburn style was also used by Eric Lyons Span Developments in Ham Common, Richmond, London, Blackheath, London and New Ash Green, Kent.[2]". Well, I understand that the bit about American Radburn style, but what does the bit before it say / mean to say ?

....Stopping for now. To be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 18:31, 19 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

  • Localities -
  • Why put "The conservation areas of Old Shepperton and Lower Halliford are described above. Littleton and Upper Halliford are the other areas of the Shepperton post town, with postcode TW17 which have their own Wikipedia articles because of a CoE parish and the largest population of the six neighbourhoods, respectively"? The acceptable way of dealing with this to create a subsection for them, add a {{main}} link and then provide a brief summary. Such a link is used in respect of Shepperton Studios, so these two places are nothing different.
  • The subsection Conservation areas could be moved out of the History into here; and a proper description of the locality given as an introduction to this section.

I would suggest that the guidance at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements be considered, before going any further. Note: its not a requirement of GA for articles to comply with this, but as a reviewer I am entitled to refer to it in assessing the article's scope. Pyrotec (talk) 19:16, 19 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

  • Charlton -
  • The first paragraph is unreferenced.
  • Shepperton Green -
  • Unreferenced.
  • High Street and economy -
  • Ref 26 confirms the figure of 422,000 but not the discussion afterwards. So ref 26 should be attacked to the first clause, the rest is mostly unreferenced. Note: Ref 26 also indicates that about 50% of entries are due to seasons tickets, and about 25% each are due to full entries and reduced entries, the figures for exits are identical; but this is not mentioned / discussed.
    • History board -
  • Unreferenced.
    • Public services -
  • The whole of this section is unreferenced.
  • The first two "paragraphs" state; "Four infant/junior/primary schools, a senior comprehensive school and senior private school are in the village. See List of schools in Surrey". For an GAN, this is quite sloppy. Why do we need a List of schools in Surrey? For a start it is very unclear how many schools there are - possibly six. As there are so few, why not name them in full?
  • The third paragraph states: "Home Office policing in Shepperton is provided by Surrey Police". OK, so what do they provide, there is no detail at all. Do Shepperton have a police station, what about crime figures, etc (they exist for Spelthorne since I found them at http://www.surrey.police.uk/my-neighbourhood/spelthorne/spsl).
  • Notable people -
  • This has two {{citation need}} flags going back to July 2013.
  • I checked Olivia Anderson and the citation does not provide any verification of a link to Shepperton. I've not checked any more, but this is a non-compliance with Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons.

At this point, I don't see any point in continuing this review: this article appears to have been prematurely nominated. The last peer review Wikipedia:Peer review/Shepperton/archive1 recommended another peer review before nomination, but this does not seem to have happened. Pyrotec (talk) 17:39, 20 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Overall summary

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GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria


A article that starts off well with a good lead, but the body of the article has numerous problems and is not to the same standard as the Lead. The article appears to have been prematurely nominated at WP:GA.

  1. Is it reasonably well written?
    A. Prose is clear and concise, without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:  
    Poor grammar, many sections have one-sentence and two-sentence paragraphs. Some of the statements are vague / unclear.
    B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:  
    Many sections have one-sentence and two-sentence paragraphs. Some of these one and two-sentence paragraphs appear to be bulleted lists without the bullets.
  2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
    A. Has an appropriate reference section:  
    B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:  
    Numerous unreferenced sections / subsections. Two {{citation needed}} flags going back to July 2013 (the same month that this article was nominated). Non-compliance with Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Some claims are not verifiable using the citations given (but they could be verified using existing citations). One reference is at least two (possibly) three named reports with another seven books appended. It is used nine times in the article, one of which seems to be verify material copied elsewhere from wikipedia (there is partial verification in this case).
    C. No original research:  
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. Major aspects:  
    Vague in parts, Information on parts of this locality excluded on the basis of, e.g. "Littleton and Upper Halliford are the other areas of the Shepperton post town, with postcode TW17 which have their own Wikipedia articles because of a CoE parish and the largest population of the six neighbourhoods, respectively".
    B. Focused:  
    Some of the information appears to be padding and / or name dropping. There is other material that also appears to be padding, having checked the citations some of it does have relevance to the Shepperton, but the article fails to mention the relationship(s).
  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 tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:  
    B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:  
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:  

This article was WP:PR-ed shortly before nomination (see Wikipedia:Peer review/Shepperton/archive1) and the view expressed was that the article was underdeveloped. A further WP:PR was suggested before nomination, but this does not seem to have been done. The article has been improved since it was nominated at WP:GAN, particularly in August 2013. In its present form the article is probably C-class, certainly not B-class as currently assessed for two WPs. Detailed recommendations for improvement are given above, but I've not reviewed the whole article. I'm not chosen to put the review "On Hold" since: firstly, that would involve reviewing the whole article which is not effective use of the reviewer's time (WP:PR should be used for that); and, secondly, I don't consider that the existing problems can be resolved in a week or so. Pyrotec (talk) 17:39, 20 September 2013 (UTC)Reply