Wikipedia:Peer review/Cheddar/archive1

Cheddar

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I have been watching this article for quite a while now and I would like to build this up to GA Status as previous attempts had helped. I will do anything to get it up to GA status because I take a interest in the town and would like to see it extended. I will be willing to extend it now - but I just want to get a second opinion on it first. Thank you.

Thanks, Jaguar (talk) 22:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is a nice article, generally well-written, well-illustrated, and certainly broad in coverage. I believe it's close to ready for WP:GAN. I added quite a few nbsps as I went and did other bits of proofing. (WP:NBSP has an explanation of the nbsps.) Most of my suggestions below have to do with relatively minor prose and Manual of Style matters.

Links

• I note a few places below where I think an additional link would be helpful, but I also see some overlinking. It's usually enough to link a term once in the lead and perhaps once again in the main text. I would not link "strawberry", for example, more than once since most readers of English will be familiar with it already. I don't see a lot of overlinking in the article, just a few instances.

• I've delinked a few links in the article. Jaguar (talk) 18:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Lead

• I don't believe I'd bold Nyland and Bradley Cross. WP:MOSBOLD suggests severely limiting the bolding in articles.

• As these are redirects I believe it is useful so that someone searching for Nyland and arriving at this article knows they are in the right place.— Rod ^talk 21:48, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

• Since the lead is to be a summary of the whole article, I'd try to work into it at least a mention of the missing sections such as Governance, Climate, and Transport.

History

• "the grounds of the current vicarage" - Link "vicarage" to rectory?

• Done

• "with 13 mills on the Yeo" - Link to Cheddar Yeo?

• Done

Governance

• Extremely short sections give articles a choppy look. Two solutions are to expand or to merge. I'd consider merging the subsections under "Governance" to make one larger section without subsections. The transitions between paragraphs could be made relatively seamless by changing a few words.

• Done

Village status

• "This apparently illogical situation is explained by the relative importance of the two places in historic times. While Axbridge grew in importance as a centre for cloth manufacture in the Tudor period and gained a charter from King John, Cheddar remained a more dispersed mining and dairy-farming village. Its population grew with the arrival of the railway in the Victorian era and the advent of tourism." - This explanation needs a source; otherwise it appears to be an interpretation coming from Wikipedia itself (or one of its editors). Who says the situation is illogical, for example?

• Although the two paragraphs of this subsection have one inline citation each, the citations are embedded in the text and therefore do not apply to any text that appears later in the paragraph. The later text therefore seems to lack a reliable source or sources. My rule of thumb for meeting WP:V is to include a source for every unusual claim, every direct quotation, and every set of statistics, as well as every paragraph. If one citation supports an entire paragraph, the citation should be placed right after the terminal punctuation of the last sentence.

• I've added some citation needed tags

• I have added a few inline citations in the Governance sections. Jaguar (talk) 18:44, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

District and county

• "which was formed on April 1, 1974," - Reformat as 1 April 1974 for consistency within the article?

• Done

• The second paragraph of this subsection needs a citation to a reliable source. Ditto for any unsourced paragraphs in the article.

• I would not link common words like refuse collection, cemeteries, environmental health, library, and some others that most readers of English are familiar with. Linking common terms is distracting and reduces the value of the links to uncommon terms.

• Some overlinking removed

Gorge and caves

• "is the largest gorge in the United Kingdom" - Largest in what sense? Longest? Deepest? Can you quantify "largest"?

• Good question and not clear from the sources

• Could something be included about the geology of the gorge and its limestone? Does the village rest on limestone as well? What is the elevation of the village above sea level? How old is the limestone? How did it get there?

• Could a bit of detail be added about the caves? Dimensions?

• Done

Sites of Special Scientific Interest

• "transport the water can be seen next to the sensory garden" - Link sensory garden?

• Done

Economy

• "Its owner and head brewer, Jem Ham, previously worked 15 years at Butcombe Brewery in nearby Wrington." - I'd probably omit these details, which seem unnecessary in an encyclopedia article.

• Done

Notable people

• I'd turn the list into a straight prose paragraph per WP:MOS#Bulleted and numbered lists. I'd also eliminate the subhead, "Notable people" to make a slightly larger section with fewer abrupt breaks.

Landmarks

• I'd eliminate the subheads here too. This would make room for the image, which now displaces an edit button and overlaps two subsections.

• Done

Education

• "Fairlands Middle School, a middle school, categorised at a middle-deemed-secondary school," - Should that be "as a middle-deemed-secondary school" rather than "at"?

• Done

• "The Kings of Wessex School, a coeducational comprehensive school, rated as "outstanding" by Ofsted,[70] that has 1,182 students aged 13 to 18,[71] including 302 in the 6th form." - This is not a complete sentence.

• Done

• "Community education project I.T. for the Terrified which was originally set up in Wedmore in 1999" - Should this be "I.T. for the Terrified", in quotation marks?

Religious sites

• "The chest tomb in the chancel is believed to be to Sir Thomas Cheddar and is dated 1442." - Do you mean "to contain the remains of" rather than "to be"?

• Done

• "including Cheddar Valley Community Church who not only meet at the Kings of Wessex, senior school on Sunday, but also have their own site on Tweentown for meeting during the week." - Why give more detail for this church than the others? What is Tweentown?

Sport

• "A youth sports festival was held on Sharpham Road Playing Fields." - When?

• Date added.

• Here as elsewhere, I'd merge one-sentence orphan paragraphs with each other or with larger paragraphs to avoid a choppy look and feel to the prose.

Other

• The link-checker tool in the toolbox at the top of this review page finds one dead url in the citations.

References

• Wikipedia house style takes precedence over source formatting in some cases. The all-caps title in citation 42 should be rendered in title case, "Economic Problems of the Protected Strawberry Crop in South West England", rather than in all-caps. Ditto for "Cheddar" in citation 23.

• Some done. I've spotted some other problems with the refs & can't understand how ref 2 from the New Hampshire Board of Agriculture would have area data for Cheddar.

• The abbreviation for a single page is "p." Citation 18 should be changed from "pp. 133" to "p. 133", for example.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 19:49, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Although I didn't request the review I've acted on some of your helpful comments as indicated above.— Rod ^talk 21:48, 6 February 2011 (UTC)