Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Great Fire of London/archive1

Great Fire of London

Selfnom. This article existed, but I have pretty much rewritten it from scratch (re-using the nice first sentence). That's not because it was so terrible or anything, but it was basically unsourced, as well as a bit fragmentary and uneven. Bunchofgrapes drew the fine maps. Bishonen | talk 06:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC).

• Support I must say that I eyed this many times on RC patrol and wondered why such a well written article remained in user space. Well written, well referenced, well illustrated. Looks fabulous -- Samir धर्म 06:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support excellent. Borisblue 07:13, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose
  • "squalid suburban slums surrounding" Made me want to support instead. :D
  • Question: would it make more sense to use "the city" instead of "the City"?
    • Comment The city of London and the City of London are not the same thing. Although the usage is odd, it is correct. MLilburne 10:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Ah, thanks. :) Ignorant American --> Gzkn 11:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Co-ordinated firefighting efforts were simultaneously getting underway... avoid forms of "to get".
  • In the event the medieval street plan was basically reconstructed, and still prevails today. Is there a missing comma after event? Also, should it be "after the fire" instead of "In the event"?
  • Lot's of long sentences that could be broken up. By the 1660s, London was by a huge margin the largest city in Britain, estimated at 300,000 inhabitants[5]—10% of the population of the entire country[6]—which made it the third largest metropolis of the Western world, surpassed only by Constantinople and Paris. This one is especially rambling: London, for seven centuries an old Roman settlement, had become progressively more overcrowded inside its defensive City wall, and had pushed outwards beyond it into squalid extramural slums and former manorial provinces such as Shoreditch, Holborn, and Southwark, and reached to physically incorporate the originally independent city of Westminster. Yikes! :) The City was then as now the commercial heart of the capital, the largest market and busiest port in the kingdom, dominated and politically controlled by the trading and manufacturing classes, including skilled craftsmen of all kinds as well as tradesmen and wealthy merchants.
  • The definition of "the City proper" could be moved up to where it appears earlier.
  • Put inline citations at the end of sentences.
  • A variety of unsourced statements. Some random examples: Pepys comments in his diary on how nobody was trying to put it out, but instead fleeing from it in fear, hurrying "to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire". Later, In the early evening, with his wife and some friends, Pepys went again on the river "and to the fire up and down, it still encreasing."
  • Consider putting the references into two columns.
  • Overall, very well-researched though! It's close to FA in my opinion, but not quite there.

Gzkn 08:12, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Unsourced statements: fixed. There was a "covering note" for Pepys, stating that "All quotes from and details involving Samuel Pepys come from his diary", which had gotten shunted too far down on the page in some structural shuffle. I've now moved it back up to the first use of a fact from Pepys' diary, where it belongs. IMO, such covering notes are a good way of keeping the number of footnotes down, especially in the case of a day-by-day description largely based on diaries (Pepys' and Evelyn's); the date itself, which is always apparent from my narrative, stands in for a page reference to the diary. The date not only saves a footnote, but is actually better than a page reference, since the date is the same in any edition the reader may be using, and also much easier to locate on a webpage.

The footnote numbers already are at the ends of sentences where possible; but where clarity requres is, they're in mid-sentence. It looks ugly and I've tried to avoid it, but clarity is king, and it's standard academic practice, too.

I'm afraid I don't agree with the stylistic suggestions, as long sentences don't in my opinion equal "rambling" —roundabout, directionless, wordy , digressive, disconnected—sentences. For my taste, the sentences you quote seem directionfull and connected. I believe chopping them up to would result in poorer flow, not better. But that's me, YMMV. I don't personally hold with any mecanical embargo on the word "get", either. Bishonen | talk 14:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC).

• Support I'll make the required edits to change it if there's consensus for what's mentioned above. SunStar Net 10:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support An extremely impressive article. MLilburne 10:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support: From the point of view of prose (tone, variation of sentence structure, variation of verbs, avoidance of serial to-be verbs, well-chosen adjectives, vivid description, structures that move the reader quickly toward points), this is one of the finest articles we've had on FAC. From the point of view of the subject matter, it is one of the most important events in London history, and yet it is covered fairly ("fully" would need a book). From the point of view of scholarship, the article employs up to date references, avoids the tired "it's all for the best" stories that riddle most accounts, takes account of the dispossessed and uncounted, and sets the central event in a local historical context. From the point of view of appearance on the page, it is illustrated well. Geogre 12:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Just excellent. However, a few things need fixing. The date format in the first caption is different from that in the first para. The second para is crying out for one or two references. Compared with, not to, for contrasts. "i. e." needs to be "i.e.,". A pity not to get someone who's unfamiliar with the text to run through it. Then it could be used as a model WP article. Tony 12:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I was hoping sombody would fix the mysteries of WP dating, yes. But I believe that crying sound you hear from the lead section is rather because any footnotes have been forced on it, considering that it summarizes stuff which is properly sourced below. The reason I put in any notes at all in the lead was that I thought some of the relevant notes below were awfully far away, mainly those in the "Deaths and destruction" section at the end. The question whether or not to have notes in the lead section is a vexed one, without consensus AFAIK. I believe, for instance, that Raul654 is on record recently stating that he thinks inlines are unnecessary in the lead. Bishonen | talk 14:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC).

I guess the crux of the matter is whether the information is referenced further down. If so, not a problem. (I wasn't on the look-out when I read through the article, I must admit, and I was guided to make that comment because other paragraphs in the lead are referenced.) PS As usual, I didn't check who nominated the article when I made the comment: it comes up to your usual extremely high standards, and despite my quibbles, is a pleasure to read. Tony 14:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Minor object; excellent article in almost every respect, but the date formatting really must be fixed. The first sentence, in particular, has such an absurdly convoluted form ("Sunday 2 to Wednesday 5 September 1666") that it's difficult to understand what it actually means on first reading it. Kirill Lokshin 13:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Krill, I actually don't mind it—this is a common British/Australian format for dates. Perhaps just adding another "September" after "2" might satisfy your misgivings? Or change to the "nd", "th" method, although I prefer the numeral alone. Tony 14:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, another "September" would be an improvement (although, if we're going to do that, we may as well add the needed links for date preferences to work); should it have some commas in there, though (i.e. "Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666")? Kirill Lokshin 14:12, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. There was a "covering note" for Pepys, stating that "All quotes from and details involving Samuel Pepys come from his diary", which had gotten shunted too far down on the page in some structural shuffle. I've now moved it back up to the first use of a fact from Pepys' diary, where it belongs. IMO, such covering notes are a good way of keeping the number of footnotes down, That logic works fine for a static article, but not for a dynamic encyclopedia that anyone can edit. You could be hit by the proverbial truck tomorrow, and years from now, all editors currently involved in the article could be gone from Wiki, leaving new editors to try to determine which statements are covered by that sentence and what was added in the interim. Citations should reflect the dynamic nature of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Sandy (Talk) 14:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Begging your pardon, but that's just silly. Samuel Pepys is singular. There is only one work by him, and there is universal agreement on the text. I don't even think one needs to cite the diary at all, because anything attributed to Pepys is from the diary. There simply is nothing else, has been nothing else, and, if there ever is something else, it will be that which will require citation. Any scholarly book you read will simply refer to facts taken from Pepys, much as one would from Anthony Wood. The covering note is a belt with suspenders, and you are suggesting that it's just too insecure? Honestly, there is just one Pepys. Geogre 15:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support Par for the course of Bishonen's work. Highly re-searched and well written. I don't understand the quibbles above as the article meets all criteria more than adequatly Giano 14:40, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support An outstanding example of the type of work Wikipedia should produce. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 14:59, 31 October 2006 (UTC)