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Wikipedia:Peer review/Sheriff Hill/archive1

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Sheriff Hill edit

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Hi. I would be grateful if someone could have a look at this in light of the substantial changes made since this article was reviewed for GA and declined. General comments are welcome as well as specific points of improvement where it can be made. I'd also appreciate someone looking at the external links section, which is quite large and I think may require some reduction.

Thanks, Meetthefeebles (talk) 21:41, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this article. While there is a large amount of information in the article, there are still several issues that I think would prevent it from becoming a GA without some additional work. I am sorry to be slow with this review, but I have been busy and I kept finding issues to mention. Here are some suggestions for improvement.

The Hermitage was a mansion with twenty rooms[208] which had its entrance on the old Mill Lane, which ran between Sheriff Hill and Carr Hill.[209] It is not clear when the house was built. The 1858 ordinance survey map shows a building on the site,[150] but later maps show a building of larger proportions.[209] It may have been added to or rebuilt.[209] According to Kelly's Directory, the house was occupied by John Cotes Copland in 1873.[209] By 1874 it was in possession of William Clarke.
  • This is a copyright violation of the source (it is not enough to reference the source used, the facts have to be paraphrased and expressed in your own words). See
The Hermitage, a mansion with twenty rooms had its entrance on the old Mill Lane, which ran between Sheriff Hill and Carr Hill. It is not clear when the house was built. The 1858 O.S. map shows a building on the site, but later maps show a building of larger proportions. It may have been added to or rebuilt. According to Kelly’s Directory, the house was occupied by John Cotes Copland in 1873. By 1874 it was in possession of William Clarke, engineer.
  • I will remove the copyvio text next. Here are the other issues I found.
  Done I agree with the removal of this material and I'm happy to leave it out for now. This was a difficult area to research in any event simply because there is so little, reliable material available so far as I can tell on Clarke, so it perhaps best to leave this out entirely. Meetthefeebles (talk) 15:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead should be a summary of the whole article and seems overly detailed in places (do all the neighboring settlements need to be named in the lead?). My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way, even if it is just a phrase or word, but the bus service and Hermitage blue plaque are two sections not in the lead that I can see.
  Done The blue plaque section has been removed entirely and therefore need not be mentioned. I have added that the settlement lies on a major bus route. The nature of the Metroploitan Borough of Gateshead, namely two dozen or so historic villages being incorporated into the Town itself, lends itself to the inclusion of the neighbouring villages I think, simply because any reader wishing to find out more about Sheriff Hill may well do so by looking for the neighbouring villages Meetthefeebles (talk)
  • The lead image is pretty, but is it appropriate for a place with over 5000 inhabitants? When I first looked at the article and saw the title, I thought based just on the article name and lead image that this was about a hill, not a neighborhood / settlement / suburb. Is there a better image that could be used as the lead image (and then this oculd be used elsewhere in the article)?
✗ Not done To be honest, I simply don't have a good enough picture to replace this one at the moment. I have pictures of Sheriff Hill taken from the top of the main road but they are of fairly poor quality and I am loathe to use them. I will check my records again and see what I have...Meetthefeebles (talk) 16:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article needs to do a better job providing context for the reader - see WP:PCR. Sometimes it is difficult when you know a lot about a place or topic to make sure that the background is clear to an interested reader who knows little about the subject. In History, for example, I am still not sure what Gateshead fell is - I think a fell is a hill, but then for some reason Wesley saw it as an all white waste (I had to look at the parent article to see it was snow) and the parent article says it was a moor.
  Done I have made some additions which I hope address this re: Gateshead Fell Meetthefeebles (talk) 15:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are relatively few dates in History. For example there is no real sense of then the Sherriff's March took place (only when it ended).
  Done Again, I have made additions to this section to include start and finish dates for The Sheriff's March Meetthefeebles (talk) 15:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some information in History is seemingly contradicted later by material in other sections in the article. The History section has a sentence These dwellings were known as 'sodhuts' and were mostly erected in 1833. However the Housing section says that there were 91 cottages in 1713 and add Most were essentially mud huts; earth mounds carved into dwellings and roofed with either turf or, in the majority of cases, sod.[79]
  Done Okay, I've removed the offending sentence Meetthefeebles (talk) 15:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The History section is not very comprehensive - there is almost nothing mentioned after the 1800s and some things alluded to in the lead (like the 1974 incorpoation) are not included in it at all.
✗ Not done This is more tricky. I am conscious that two PR's have commented on the length of the article and I am, therefore, a little hesitant to add much more. Even with this is mind, once industry died out here circa 1900, the characteristics of the village were pretty settled so there isn't an awful lot more to say. As for the incorporation, I simply cannot find a reliable source which details this but, on the other hand, I cannot really take it out without the implication that Sheriff Hill remains a village in Durham which patently it is not! Meetthefeebles (talk) 16:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


  • I tried checking one image, File:Sodhouse Bank 1920.jpg and the internet link given as the source was not for this photo. I fixed the link.
  Done As far as I can tell, all of the links were corrected prior to WP:GA and were up to date at that time Meetthefeebles (talk)
  • The references are not consistently done - retrieved on dates are not needed if things are not online.
  DoneAgain, I removed these prior to WP:GA Meetthefeebles (talk) 16:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


  • By the way, per WP:MOSQUOTE use 'single quotes' only for quotations within a direct quotation, otherwise use "double quotes" (so known as "sodhuts" and)
  Done Corrected now I think Meetthefeebles (talk) 16:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is some italic text that does not meet WP:ITALIC
  Done I think these have all now gone Meetthefeebles (talk) 16:10, 16 November 2011 (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 ><>°° 01:01, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

PS I agree the External links section needs to be pruned. I would look at some FAs on English cities / neighborhoods / suburbs and see what kind of ELs they have. My guess is that some are not reliable sources and the ones that are can largely be converted to references. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 13:42, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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