Talk:Portishead, Somerset/GA1

GA Review[edit]

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Reviewer: LucidLinus (talk) 00:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
MoS is fine and inline with the well acccepted guildline of WP:UKCITIES. No grammatical errors that I could find

It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
All citation issues were resolved prior to review, No evidence of Original research.

It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
Follows WP:UKCITIES guildline and stays on topic.

It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
Generally NPOV, the only thing I have to nitpick is the lead, The population is now expanding as the UK population as a whole is expanding this is true for most towns. If portisheads expansion is dsiproportionate could you cite a percentage increase, otherwise it might just be a good idea to include "Like many towns in the region, Portishead is in a period of expansion", I'll leave it up to you.

I've added a figure (with reference to a local newspaper) that the population growth is 40%, well in excess of surrounding towns etc.— Rod ^talk 08:55, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
No problem at all

It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
All images tagged, captioned appropriatly and relevent. Article well illustrated

Pass/Fail:
Very good article, only the single npov issue, other than that it seems to be of a GA quality.

New reviewer. LucidLinus asked if I would take over this review, which I agreed to do.

I agree with Lucid that the article is stable and neutral, and the text is generally well-written. Citations are in good order, but for consistency the retrieval dates should follow a single style. I wouldn't let this hold it up at GA, as all cites do appear complete, but it would obviously be an issue at FAC, and it would look tidier if they were sorted.

accessdate standardised— Rod ^talk 16:42, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are no page numbers offered at all for a couple of the refs which appear to be books (Smith; Winter). This should be fixed.

This will take a little while to get the books from the library— Rod ^talk 16:42, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The coverage across subject areas is very uneven, which I would suggest puts the article on the borderline when it comes to covering all major aspects and staying focussed. It goes into good depth on 20th century history, and geography, but other aspects can be a bit brief. The "culture" section contains two tiny factoids, neither of which is actually about culture in Portishead. (I can hear the eponymous band making some cruel jokes at this stage). Does Portishead have no cultural centre, no theatre, no annual festival of any sort etc? For one possible lead, see this history of the local choral society, but of course you'd need to move from there to reliable source reporting of things.

I've added various events & societies etc— Rod ^talk 20:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The pre-20th century history seems too brief for a place that has seen settlement since Roman times. There must be some regional historical society publications or similar that would give more on pre-1900 points. Just typing in "Portishead history" into Google scholar turns up a couple of leads that don't look to have been pursued.

I've expanded this section— Rod ^talk 20:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The following phrase, incidentally, is incomprehensible to a lay reader: "...and which Fairfax took from the Royalists in 1645". It needs context.

Explained during English Civil War for context— Rod ^talk

On the subject, I think note 5 reference (GENUKI) is wrong, and is more likely to be: "'Poolton - Portishead', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 593-596. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51219 Date accessed: 17 March 2010. Author/editor can be found there as well and should be included. Please check.

Hopefully sorted— Rod ^talk 16:42, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not looking for a comprehensive history, and my point about the references isn't that they have to be comprehensively consulted (as though this were an FAC), but that enough needs to be done to balance the history so that the reader feels they've been given a basic introduction to the pre-20th century period.

Is enough included now?— Rod ^talk 20:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ref 38 (Azores High) only supports the one sentence at the end of which it appears. Thus all the climate data about Portishead is actually unreferenced. This needs a fix.

Up to date ref for SW England from the Met office included.— Rod ^talk 16:42, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It would be good if the governance section told us something about current / historical parliamentary representation. Eg. "the current member is X of the Y party / the constituency has returned a member of Z party for the last X elections" or something like that.

I've added a paragraph about the MP & Constituency— Rod ^talk 20:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll leave this on hold and am happy to discuss. hamiltonstone (talk) 09:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Progress[edit]

That is looking better. More issues:

Now that I've looked more carefully, the article was in serious need of copyediting. I've done most parts, but not sure whether there might be more.

Thanks to User:Malleus Fatuorum this has been improved.— Rod ^talk 16:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is referenced info on population in the lead that actually isn't in the body text. It needs to appear in the demography section in particular, and just be summarised in the lead.

Revised.— Rod ^talk 12:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The geography section is deficient. Although it contains some interesting info, it actually lacks the most important info: where is Portishead?! This should be the first paragraph. Some of this info is in the lead. I mean where is it in space: on the severn blah, x kilometres west of London or similar; and where is ti politically: in the county of x etc. The lead has this: "is a coastal town on the Severn Estuary within the unitary authority of North Somerset, which falls within the ceremonial county of Somerset England," and this is exactly the sort of thing i mean, with a little more detail.

I've added quite a lot here.— Rod ^talk 12:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a Gordano School and a Gordano Society. Is there a person by this name who is signficiant in the town's history who needs mentioning in the history section?

What a very good question (which has defeated the reference books I have). As you will see from the additions to Geography there are lots of local placenames linked to Gordano but the origin has so far escaped me.— Rod ^talk 12:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've found an explanation and reference from a local paper.— Rod ^talk 16:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 23:09, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just about done[edit]

Thanks to both Rod and Malleus, this now looks much better. Rod, i will assume good faith that you will get those references from the library and sort the page numbers. Obviously there is still some unevenness in the information that is presented, but for a town this size it is inevitable that there may be limited material, for example, on the town economy. In any case, some of that subject matter is covered in the history section. That said, I will pass this now at GA. hamiltonstone (talk) 22:41, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review and comments, which have improved the article. I've tracked down the Smith & Winter books and hoping to visit the reference library later today for page numbers.— Rod ^talk 07:51, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]