Wikipedia:Peer review/List of Old Guildfordians (Royal Grammar School, Guildford)/archive1

List of Old Guildfordians (Royal Grammar School, Guildford)

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to submit it as a FLC, but I feel that it could do with the input of other contributors first.

Thanks, Glanis^Talk 10:37, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: As a general point, were any criteria adopted for inclusion in this list. e.g. some level of notability recognised in a formal way? In the absence of such rules, if these are personal selections, it might be that the list carries a POV element. Specific points:-

• Lead prose
  • Schools are not founded "by the death of..." someone. I assume you mean that Beckingham's will provided funds for the endowmwnr of a school, and you should reword accordingly.
  • Second paragraph: the word "though" in the first sentence is inappropriate. We have two sepaarate statements here: "The school initially educated 30 of the "poorest men's sons"; and "This has since grown to approximately 900 students, 300 of whom are in the sixth form." The form "This has" doesn't work, since "this" is not defined, so I'd begin "Numbers have since grown..."
  • Why are you including information about the school's admissions procedures? They have nothing to do with a list of Old Guildfordians.
  • "Former pupils of the school are referred to as "Old Guildfordians" and as such are sometimes listed "(OG)" after their name." Perhaps so, but "sometimes listed" is very vague. Where would they be listed in this manner, except in reports or correspondence directly related to the school? And tou need to say "listed with"
  • "Amongst the schools alumni..." → "Among the school's alumni..."
• List
  • Maybe I'm out of date, but the term "Class year", to signify the subject's leaving year, seems like an Americanism that I have not seen used much in the UK.
  • In this column the number of blanks - more than half the entries - is surely excessive. If the exact year of leaving cannot be established with certainty, then an approximation should be given. For example the source relating to Mackenzie Taylors tells us that after Taylor left RGS he worked for four years in an accounts department. Then "In 2001..." etc; this suggests a leaving date of approx. 1997. I'm particularly surprised that you can't give a date for Bob Willis, who has published an autobiography, or for Terry Jones.
  • Your "Notability" column is used to explain briefly who each subject was. For Sir John Allison the entry says "Royal Air Force",. which is not adequate
  • I think the term "Royal Navy" means the British Navy; no need for British Royal Navy.
• References: I haven't carried out a detailed check, but I notice you employ different ways of indicating that ODNB entries require subscriptions, and in at least one case this information is missing. Also, ref 29 looks incomplete, and its page formatting "p115" is inconsistent with other entries.

Enough to be going on with. Brianboulton (talk) 16:50, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for having a look at the list for me, with regards to the criteria for inclusion, the one I have adopted is any person listed by the school who meets wikipedia's notability guidelines, and then any other persons who can be proved to have attended who already have a wikipedia article, hopefully there is no POV there?

I think I have now addressed most of your other concerns/suggestions, specifically the lead, and working detail into the list, I have also changed the term "Class year" to "Leaving year". Glanis^Talk 08:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment from Cirt

• Nice job with the reference formatting. ;)
• I don't think there should be the two columns, Notability and Reference.
• Combine them into one column, Notes.
• Then just add the referenced cites at the end of the text about info on the entry.

-- Cirt (talk) 18:57, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments, the only reason they are separate columns, is firstly, I have been following the lead of two other alumni featured lists List of Benet Academy alumni & List of Boston Latin School alumni, and secondly a number of the references are not specifically related to the notability field, as the content for that comes from the main article on that subject. The references are in most cases used to prove attendance and leaving date, so I am not sure they should be merged? Glanis^Talk 08:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, they really should be merged. The field should not be called "Notability", but rather, "Notes". The former sounds ... to circular and self-referential to Wikipedia — the latter sounds encyclopedic. -- Cirt (talk) 16:44, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll do that then. Thanks Glanis^Talk 20:15, 6 June 2011 (UTC)