Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Grade I listed buildings in Maidstone/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by NapHit 22:33, 8 November 2012 [1].

Grade I listed buildings in Maidstone[edit]

Grade I listed buildings in Maidstone (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): DavidCane (talk) 01:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A list of all 43 of the Grade I listed buildings in the borough of Maidstone, Kent, including castles, country houses and churches. This was created last year and all entries are now linked to their own articles. This is a companion to the featured list List of scheduled monuments in Maidstone. The layout is based on similar featured lists of Grade I buildings such as Grade I listed buildings in North Somerset and Grade I listed buildings in Mendip. DavidCane (talk) 01:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 07:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • My initial thought is for you to have a look at Grade I listed churches in Merseyside, currently an FLC, but from the point of view that every entry has a really good description. I think in the case of this list, the description is probably even more important (after all, the other list is exclusively churches, this article lists all types of buildings)... No more than a few lines on each, perhaps expanding on the kind of thing you've included those comprehensive image captions?
    • There are currently three types of featured list for listed buildings: a combined list covering all grades of listed buildings in an area (e.g. Listed buildings in Widnes), one for Grade I churches (e.g. Grade I listed churches in Greater Manchester) and one for all kinds of Grade I listed buildings in an area (e.g. Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester. The last of these types, which is the one I have followed, has the most examples (eight), compared to five of the combined lists and two of the churches lists. Whilst the styles of the types are different, they are consistent within each set, so I would prefer to keep the style of this list the same as those it is modelled on.--DavidCane (talk) 22:08, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, if possible, it would be nice to have an image column too, so each building (if possible) can be visualised.
  • "The Maidstone district covers ..." could just be "It covers..." or "The distict covers..." to help avoid the repeat of Maidstone.
  • " It has a population..." what is "it"? The town of Maidstone? The district?
  • Should non religious be hyphenated?

The Rambling Man (talk) 08:04, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Reluctant oppose having just reviewed the Grade I listed buildings in Coventry list here at FLC, I find it more and more relevant to have a brief description of each building, per the two other types of lists you suggested (i.e. "Listed buildings... " and "Churches....") and for consistency, I've made this position known there as well as here. Sorry, but I think we could make these lists better (and more standalone) with some nice cited prose about each building, thus not relying on possible dubious sub-articles to provide our reader with a highlight of the information they might expect to see at Wikipedia's finest lists. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:36, 30 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I could add a Description column if you really think that it is necessary, but I thought the idea was to provide links to the related articles where they exist to avoid this kind of repetition. The situation here is different than for, say, List of scheduled monuments in Maidstone. For most of the items in that list there was no real prospect of a separate article being created because there was so little information available.
An example of the first couple of items is shown here. I can see a potential problem though: because 20 of the 43 buildings are churches, the text for these is going to be quite repetitive.--DavidCane (talk) 01:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would prefer our featured material to not have to rely on the potentially dubious quality of the pages linked from it. I don't mind repetitive text if there's nothing unique about each church. I would like to see an image as well for each place, if possible? The Rambling Man (talk) 08:18, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have now added a description column.--DavidCane (talk) 21:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • The lead defines "Maidstone" and "listed building", but "Grade I", the third inclusion criteria, is not defined in the article.
    • Grade I is defined in the second paragraph as "buildings of exceptional interest". I haven't linked it because it would go to the already linked listed building.--DavidCane (talk) 21:23, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Column headers lack scope="col"
  • In the references, I do not understand why "National Heritage List for England" and "Images of England" are in italics, as neither are works of a type that are put in italics. Any reason the latter is linked but not the former?
    • I have added a link in the {{NHLE}} template for the National Heritage List for England article. I don't think this existed when the template was created.
    • They are italicised as they are works of English Heritage - similar to the example for a web citation given in {{citation}} e.g. "NPS Focus", National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service, retrieved November 30, 2010. If this is wrong, I can change it for both.--DavidCane (talk) 21:23, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise in excellent shape. Arsenikk (talk) 10:49, 16 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies for letting the nomination slip under my radar. In retrospect I see that a description column has considerably enhanced the work.

  • An image of each entry would make this list even more brilliant, bringing out the true potential in encyclopedic lists. As far as I can see, most entries have a high-quality image available.
    • Images exist for most of the buildings, which I could add, but we don't have a complete set so I have not included these to avoid leaving gaps. One building, Milgate House would be very difficult to get a picture of due to its location away from publicly assessable areas and its being surrounded by trees.--DavidCane (talk) 22:36, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Images have now been added for those that have them.--DavidCane (talk) 23:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • If I was composing this list, and especially if horizontal space is a concern, I would chose to include the coordinates in the "location" column. I will, however, leave this decision to the main contributor.

Arsenikk (talk) 20:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from NapHit (talk) 19:33, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • references are supposed to be placed after punctuation, currently ref 3 is not
    • I have moved this to the end of the sentence. Not sure why it was out of place.--DavidCane (talk) 22:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just a suggestion, don't need to implement it, but there is a lot of white space in the tables. Personally, I would remove the forced widths to solve the issue, but like I said its only a suggestion
    • Personally, on a wide screen, I think it looks better for the table to fill the space up to the images on the right rather than have a big blank gap down the side of the table.--DavidCane (talk) 22:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

NapHit (talk) 13:53, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from TBrandley (talk) 14:38, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • "Ref(s)" add period dot
    • I don't think Ref.(s) works punctuation wise, so I have changed the column heading to "References(S)". --DavidCane (talk) 01:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just a suggestion, but I would align references in the tables to the center

TBrandley 06:16, 30 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. (For the record, I'm the nominator of Grade I listed buildings in Coventry, which has undergone substantial change while at FAC after comments from TRM) and others.) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree with TRM that it would be nice to have an image of every building on this list where there is one available. We disagree over the best format for displaying them, but the consensus on the Coventry FLC was that they should be in a column in the table.
  • I can also (now) see the benefit of having a description in the list—it makes the list much more interesting (from a reader's point of view) and it wan't as difficult as I thought it would be with Cov.
  • Personally, I'd like to see the number of buildings at the very begginning. YMMV.
  • In England, the authority for listing under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 rests with English Heritage, a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; local authorities have a responsibility to regulate and enforce the planning regulations. That's a very long sentence with a lot links. Could you split it up and perhaps reduce the number of links? Also, I'd be tempted to use a dash instead of that comma.
    • I have just carried this forward from the previous featured lists this was based on so I'm not precious about how it looks. I've chopped out the bit about the Department of Culture, etc.--DavidCane (talk) 21:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would the last two paragraphs of the lead benefit from being merged?
  • Have you forced the column widths deliberately? I'd be tempted to narrow the "Reference(s)" column to better fit its contents. I used "Ref." with the Coventry list to keep the column narrow, but again, YMMV.
    • I changed this per one of the comments above which wanted a full stop added to "Ref(s)". "Ref.(s) did not look right and as I had more than one ref in a couple of the rows I spelled it out in full. I'm happy with "Ref." if others are.--DavidCane (talk) 21:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Considered" is an opinion; if you use the word, you need to tell us whose opinion it is (or just remove the word).
    • Considered by English Heritage. I think the context is clear from the following sentences.--DavidCane (talk) 21:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This list is coming along nicely, but I do have some comments (not all of which are requirements for a Support).

  • I think it is incorrect to say that the authority for listing rests with English Heritage. According to the wording of the law, it rests with the Secretary of State: "... the Secretary of State shall compile lists of such buildings, or approve, with or without modifications, such lists compiled by the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England (in this Act referred to as “the Commission”) or by other persons or bodies of persons, and may amend any list so compiled or approved". As I see it English Heritage, or indeed any person or body can make a recommendation, and it is up to the SoS to approve or reject it. Or have I mis-read it? The way I have worded it (and it has been accepted here) is as follows: "In England, buildings are given listed building status by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, acting on the recommendation of English Heritage".
    • OK. I have changed it, though, in practice, it is rare for the Secretary of State to reject English Heritage's recommendation. When Jeremy Hunt rejected EH's recommendation to list a building in Broadgate last year, the decision received quite a lot of criticism.--DavidCane (talk) 22:36, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am also disappointed in the number of photographs — and these are Grade I listed buildings. Even Listed buildings in Runcorn (urban area), which includes all the grades, has a photo for each item. IMO six photos for 43  items is inadequate. And, as you will guess, I am a fan of a photo in the row, rather than in the column at the end (with the inevitable white space).
    • I'll add these - see comments above.--DavidCane (talk) 22:36, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Others disagree with me, but I prefer the refs to be at the end of the description, rather than in a separate (IMO unnecessary) column. As I see it, the refs apply to the whole row, not just to the description box.
    • The refs do apply to the whole row. If they were placed in the description box, I would have thought that would make it look more like they applied only to the description.--DavidCane (talk) 22:36, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I note that your format was based initially on the North Somerset and Mendip lists, but these were promoted way back in 2009. My observation is that FLs have developed since then, and possibly become more demanding (they are after all "featured", not just "good") and ought to have something which adds a degree of value to a mere plain list.
--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 13:32, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PS I agree that the coordinates would be better in the Location column; I would prefer them in a smaller font, as they are rather obtrusive at the current size; and IMO four decimal points is well adequate for buildings of this size (maybe five points for an object with a small base, such as an obelisk).

  • See comment above. I will see what level of accuracy works best for each.--DavidCane (talk) 22:36, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • coordinates have been adjusted to use just 4 decimal places in most cases. The bridges needed a bit more accuracy because they are so narrow.--DavidCane (talk) 23:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 20:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Vast improvement again. Just two more suggestions. I would prefer the Location to be the second column (adjacent to the Name column); it seems to make more sense there. And can we please have a (centred) m-dash in the empty cells (where there is no photograph). As I will be unavailable for further comment for over a week, if these are carried out, I give a Support. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have done the em dashes, but we have conflicting requests regarding the appropriate location for the photo column. On lists where photos appear it does seem to be more common to have these in the second column.--DavidCane (talk) 19:47, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment/Support. Sorry for the short FA-review, but I don't normally do these. All issues raised by reviewers seem to have been addressed, even where they have not been collapsed, with the exception of Vardy's last comment. I'll take a slight exception to that comment, though. I think the images make the most sense if they remain in their current second column - if the columnes are changed, however, the images should be moved to the fourth - having them in the third (where they would end up if just the location column was moved) would look awkward, I think. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 22:29, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Crisco 1492 (talk)
*Comments
File:Leeds Castle2.jpg could use a crop
Personally, I like this one because it includes the swans, which is something the castle is known for. I have changed it for another with a slightly tighter focus on the buildings.--DavidCane (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
File:Linton Park - geograph.org.uk - 48852.jpg could use a crop
I have cropped it to narrow the focus on the house a bit more.--DavidCane (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
File:Nettlestead Place - geograph.org.uk - 331642.jpg - The building is really outta focus. Are there any better shots?
None that I have been able to find. It is not so bad at full size.--DavidCane (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Stephen de Penchester - Why the deviation from Stephen de Pencester?
It is one of several alternatives including Pencester and Penshurst. I used "Penchester" because it is the spelling more commonly used in British History Online and the National Archives. The English Heritage reference has, uniquely, "Penctester", although this seems more likely to be a typo replacement of a "h" by a "t".--DavidCane (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've given a copyedit, be sure to double check. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on prose and images. Looks solid. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:54, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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