Wikipedia:Peer review/Little Thetford/archive2

Little Thetford edit

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I have listed this article for peer review because it has reached GA, and it is stable. I now wish to prepare the article as a Featured article candidate (FAC).

History of the article:

Thanks, Senra (talk) 18:01, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this - looks like a lovely place! I have looked this over and think it would have trouble passing FAC in its current state. With an eye to FAC, here are some suggestions for improvement.

  • The lead is supposed to be a summary o the whole article, but there are some odd things in there now, like the cost of a railway journey. I think this is too specfic for the lead (OK for the article) and would instead mention the history of the railway line in the lead.
  • The lead is also a bit disorganized - the Ouse is mentioned twice, for example. WHy not combine these in the lead in something like The Old English name, lȳtel Thiutforda (c. 972), suggests there was once a ford across the River Great Ouse, which today forms most of the village's eastern boudnary.
  • The third paragraph of the lead jumps from the ROmas, to modern day, to 1866, then back to today. Could it be made a bit more chronological?
Agreed Lead issues noted. Will work on this last --Senra (talk) 15:39, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  Done --Senra (talk) 20:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The system of references used is confusing as there are both plain numbers and nb followed by a number. Usually the nb notes are comments or asides that are not for the general text, and the numbers are cites to sources used, but I can't really figure out the differences between them and their use in this article. I think almost any single system of refs is OK at FAC as long as it is used consistently - this appears to be two systems used in a fashion I could not decipher.
Agreed. However, I will struggle to fix this. Originally I had all notes and references in one section. I then split them following the first review.
Footnotes currently consists of
  • asides such as Inflated due to local fair at time of census and
  • specific book or website page detail linked to 'Notes such as
  • Pugh (ed) VCH (1953) p. 152 col. 2[18] --> Pugh, R B, ed. (1953), The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Cambridge and the isle of Ely, 4, Oxford University Press, pp. 151–159
  • Driver, I., CHER:Bronze Age rapier, Little Thetford (1953) --> "Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Record (CHER)". Heritage Gateway. 2006. url removed for clarity Retrieved 4 July 2010.
Notes currently consists of linked references from notes to biographical or website sources; books; websites.
I need help. I examined other FA-class articles, Navenby, Stretford, Blyth, Northumberland, and Dorset. They all use different terms within a references section. Of the ones I looked at, I favour modelling Little Thetford on Dorset. I think references will end up with three sections as follows.
Section header for the section (references and notes; sources; notes and references?)
Sub-Section 1: for small asides. There will be about 9 of these. e.g.
  • No census 1941 due to WWII
  • a foot and a half long
Sub-Section 2: for all the detail. There will be about 107 of these. Printed sources such as books, journals will be summary cites with biographical detail in sub-section 3. For example
  • Pugh (ed) VCH (1953) p. 152 col. 2 in sub-section 2 and Pugh, R B, ed. (1953), The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Cambridge and the isle of Ely, 4, Oxford University Press, pp. 151–159 sub-section 3
  • A Vision of Britain Administrative unit:Grunty Fen ExP/CP:Parish level unit:Boundary map in sub-section 2 and A Vision of Britain (2004). "A vision of Britain between 1801 and 2001". University of Portsmouth and others. url removed for clarity Retrieved 4 June 2010 in sub-section 3
Sub-Section 3: Biographical detail. There will be about 20 of these such as
  • Smith, Lisa; Charlotte Davies (2008). "25, Broad Street, Ely, Cambridgeshire: Archaeological Monitoring and Recording." (pdf). Archaeological Solutions Ltd.. pp. 34. url to pdf file removed for clarity Retrieved 26 June 2010.
  • Pevsner, Nikolaus (1970), Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) (2nd ed.), Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0300095869
  • Kirby, Tony; Susan Oosthuizen (2000). An Atlas of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire History. Centre for Regional Studies, Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge. ISBN 9780907262190
What to call the main section and each sub section? I have no idea, as the example FA classes I looked at all use different styles. What do you think? --Senra (talk) 10:47, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  Done --Senra (talk) 16:23, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article has many refs and notes, but there are places that seem to still need refs - for example the last paragraph of Governance has no refs, or things like Village domestic heating is mainly oil. Some domestic properties may use wood for a fuel as a prime or supplemental form of heating or cooking. Natural gas is not mains supplied to anyone within the village. or A privately maintained microlight airfield is inside the boundaries of the village. or The club, formed in 1960, has a number of venues, including this one. Fish species caught, along the weed and reed-lined river at Little Thetford, include Roach, Bream, Rudd, Perch and Bleak. In addition, some Tench to 6 pounds (3 kg) and rarely Carp have been landed. My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref. Please see WP:CITE and WP:V
Agreed Striking each one as I go --Senra (talk) 10:47, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  Done --Senra (talk) 15:01, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article has quite a few short (one or two sentence) paragraphs that impede the flow for the reader - could these be combined with others or perhaps expanded?
Agreed working through them --Senra (talk) 11:12, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  Done Boundaries and public services are still light. I may be able to fill boundaries a little more, but I will struggle with public services I feel. Perhaps I should remove the sub-sections within public services? Let me know, but for now done. --Senra (talk) 15:06, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  Done Boundaries done. Public services will have to wait as this needs further research to expand --Senra (talk) 18:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems odd that History ends in 1941.
Agreed I am part-way through floods of 1919 and 1947 which may help a little here. The village population has nearly trebled since '50's due housing development. I could mention that. There was a fire which destroyed a c. 1300 house in Little Thetford in 1930? Also Dave Lee Travis and Pans People were present at the opening night of the Fish & Duck at Little Thetford in the '80's but I thought this useful for a trivia section; not history. --Senra (talk) 15:47, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  Done Added a news story about a fire in 1930. I cannot find anything useful for post 1941 except housing development. To be honest, fidning history in a 2 sq mi village has been a nightmare anyway! I am not ungrateful. Job done for now --Senra (talk) 20:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Much of the Archeology sections seems like it could become part of History, perhaps.
stet for now. I would like a 2nd opinion here. The archaeology section as it stands discusses Little Thetford from an archaeology finds perspective. It would need considerable re-working to make it useful as a history paragraph or two. Plus it would need to be threaded through the history section. I am prepared to do this of course. As it is a lot of work, would another editor confirm please? --Senra (talk) 11:17, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would agree with the comment by Ruhrfisch. All of the finds described in the archaeology section illustrate the long history of human occupation of the area & I would work them into history by the dates they illustrate ie late Neolithic, Romano-British, Iron age, Saxon etc rather than focusing on the dates when the finds were made.— Rod talk 14:22, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed will work on this --Senra (talk) 14:51, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  Done --Senra (talk) 19:50, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 04:42, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments. I will work on these over the next couple of days. --Senra (talk) 08:48, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  Done for now. I need further input on the references section before I can complete this. --Senra (talk) 20:44, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My preference would be to have all the comment notes as "nb #" where # is a number like 1, 2, 3, etc. So any sort of comments like "There is no village of Great Thetford since the unfortunate alien invasion of 1899" would go there ;-) I would make anything that is a reference to a relaible source would be a numerical reference. I also think that some or perhaps all of the comments will need references. There are many different ways to do references - if you want to see a recent FA I was the main author on that has comment notes, references, and lists sources with page numbers separately, see Ganoga Lake as a possible model. I am sure there are many others - River Parrett is a recent English Geography FA that splits its references (but has no comments notes) - it may also be a good model. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:40, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  Done --Senra (talk) 16:22, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A bit more - this looks better, but the history section still ends in 1941 with the air attack - nothing of note has happened in almost 70 years? I also am a bit confused about the reference for the air attack - the quote is attributed to someone in 2010, but the ref is to a 1941 mewspaper article. It is also not clear from the areticle - did the King and Quenn travel through the village on that day in 1941? Ruhrfisch ><>°° 13:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I will work on this. I will add something about the 1947 floods which also affected the area. Frankly nothing else has happened. Anyway, I have closed the review. Thank you very much for your help. It is very much appreciated --Senra (talk) 13:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]