Talk:Exmoor

Template:Somerset selected article

Project Devon

Hello! I'm trying to start up a wikiproject:Devon, to create and improve articles about Devon (Cornwall already has one...) follow this link and add your name if you wish: [1]. Cheers! Totnesmartin 22:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

External links

The following two sites have been repeatedly added to Exmoor and other articles related to Exmoor e.g. Minehead

• www.visit-exmoor.eu
• www.visit-exmoor.info

Repeated posting of these commercial links have already resulted in one user's account being blocked for spamming - 85.70.123.202 (talk · contribs). visit-exmoor.eu is a list links to a number of commercial enterprises on Exmoor such as hotels, restaurants and holiday accommodation - and is very clearly linkspam. visit-exmoor.info contains very similar information buried among some more useful tourist information. As there is already a link to the DMOZ category on Exmoor which contains a number of commercial links, there is no need to have any more such external links within the article itself. Please do not add them to the article, they will be removed. Repeated insertion will be reported an may result in blocking. --Cheesy Mike 17:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Just to say that I completely agree with Mike - this is not a USA v UK issue, these are links that are not appropriate to this article. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a web directory - thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Assessment

This is my assessment of the (revision) in which the article was reviewed. Preceeding edits had succeeded in providing sources for claims marked with the fact tag. Below is my findings:

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   (No edit wars etc.)

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail:

Further analysis:

• Image used is appropriately captioned and has no copyright violation etc. outstanding on or in it's history. Y
• References are various, well placed (i.e used appropriately and compliant with MOS) and are reliable. Y
• I can find no original research and all soures use the {{cite web}} template. Y
• Hardly any grammar, spelling mistakes.Y
• Only one issue I can bring up:
  • Just a few references are missing Y

But I'm sure you'll be able to find them. Good luck! — Rudget _speak.work 19:28, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all your comments. I've added a few refs for the link between the River Exe and Exmoor names and for the ongoing hunting - if more are needed please let me know.— Rod ^talk 20:59, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

They have since been  Done. I am now willing to pass this article. Congratulations! Best, — Rudget _speak.work 21:53, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect (GA review)

With all due respect, I think that this article has been listed as a GA prematurely. I think it's close, but it's not quite there yet with regard to the good writing criteria. I had considered de-listing it, or taking it to WP:GAR, but it's probably easier just to fix the problems. :)

• Two sections are lists Places of interest Yand Cultural referencesY. They should be converted to prose.
•  DoneThere's inconsistent use of BCE/BC; one system or the other ought to be used consistently throughout the article
•  DoneSome parts of the text don't seem to make sense: "The resident population of 10,600 people, 208 scheduled ancient monuments, 16 conservation areas and receives 1.4 million visitor days per year."
•  Done"The Chains and surrounding high ground is the source for rivers ..." sounds strangely vague.
•  Done"It is possibly a Cougar or Black Leopard which was released sometime in the 1960s or 1970s ..." That's getting on for 50 years ago. How long do cougars/leopards live for?
•  DoneThere were lots of places where the metric/imperial measurements weren't being used consistently; I think I've found and fixed most of them now, but there may still be others I haven't seen.
•  Done"Exmoor has 34 miles (55 km) of coastline including the highest sea cliffs in England reaching a height of 1,350 feet (411 m) at Culbone Hill. However, this is more than a mile from the sea ..." How does that work? Sea cliffs that are a mile away from the sea?
• There were and are other issues as well, but I've tried to sort as many of them as I could when I came across them.

Please understand that I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade; I just want this article to be worthy of its GA listing. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I have attempted to tackle some of these as indicated above. I will turn the lists to prose asap (give me a few hours), but I don't know what to do about the cougar/leopard - I don't think it exists, but it is strong enough in local folk-law to deserve a mention.— Rod ^talk 08:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Done remaining other requirements. — Rudget _speak.work 11:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple of other bits and pieces I think:

•  Done"A restored Victorian water-powered sawmill in the village, which was damaged in the floods of 1992 ..." What village? was it the village or the sawmill that was damaged in the floods?
•  Done"Exmoor's coastal woodlands include 10 miles (16 km) of cliff between Porlock and Countisbury, where the trees spread right down to the beach in places." I'm not sure if that's saying that the trees reach down to the beach throughout the 10-mile stretch, or just at places in Countisbury.

--Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 12:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I've never been to Exmoor, but I'll try my best ro reword it. And most probably reference it. — Rudget _speak.work 12:16, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully we've now met concerns - thanks to editing from lots of people. Rudget if you get the chance to visit it really is worth it.— Rod ^talk 12:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I've been to Combe Martin, is that in Exmoor? The hills there are scary! — Rudget _speak.work 13:00, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Combe Martin is approx 10 miles (16 km) west of Lynton/Lynmouth and just on the westernmost boundary of the park.— Rod ^talk 14:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I'm happy this article is a worthy GA now. Thanks to everyone involved for all the work that's been put in. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 13:03, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks I do think the extra "challenges" have improved the article.— Rod ^talk 14:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations!

Congratulations to everyone involved in getting this article from GA to FA so quickly. And to think that that only a few weeks ago I was dubious that it even deserved its GA listing. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Spoken version added

I have added a spoken version of this article; see the link above. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 21:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Grammatical train wreck

The following sentence:

The three largest settlements are Porlock and Dulverton, and the combined villages of Lynton and Lynmouth, connected by the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway, which together contain almost 40% of the National Park population.

is a grammatical train wreck. First of all, while reading it I was taken by surprise as the first comma and went back to check that it said three settlements and not two. This would be acceptable were it the only problem. The real problem is that without doing further research I have no idea whether that Railway connects Lynton and Lynmouth or Lynton/Lynmouth, Porlock, and Dulverton. And furthermore I don't know whether Lynton and Lynmouth comprise 40% of the population alone or if all three-and-a-half do. I don't know how I'd go about salvaging it, but I'd start by replacing the first "and" with a comma. If you can make the Lynton/Lymnouth amalgam singular (e.g. "the Lynton and Lynmouth metropolitan area") then you avoid confusion about the subject of "contain." But it really should change, here and on the main page. ^L_Wizard @ 02:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

As it's my grammar which caused the train wreck I would appreciate help from others - although I can help with the factual basis. Lynton & Lynmouth are combined into one parish, Lynton being at the top & Lynmouth at the bottom of the cliff. The cliff railway joins the two but goes no further. The 40% of the population of Exmoor live in the three settlements of Lynton/Lynmouth, Porlock and Dulverton - the rest of the population being widely distributed in small villages & farmssteads. Any help with wording this more appropriately appreciated.— Rod ^talk 07:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

How about: The largest settlements are Porlock, Dulverton, Lynton and Lymouth, which together comprise 40% of the park population. Lynton and Lynmouth are combined into one parish and are connected by the Cliff Railway. Simon Q (talk) 07:43, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Fine by me.— Rod ^talk 08:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

BC vs BCE

BC was introduced to the article in December 2007 as part of its GA review to ensure consistent usage of dates, as previously both BC and BCE were used in the article. It user here is also consistent with other Wikipedia:WikiProject Somerset articles such as History of Somerset. Use of BCE is controversial, especially in mainly Christian countries. --TimTay (talk) 19:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Dimensions and areas

When I checked the references for measurements given in the article I found that a number of facts were unreferenced, others referred to sources which quoted metric measures and a few which gave Imperial measurements first. I have provided references and made others consistent with the sources quoted. However, this has resulted in some inconsistency. I think it would be better to make the article consistently metric first. Any comments? Michael Glass (talk) 04:31, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your improvements. As we discussed in relation to the Somerset article I would agree that consistency is important and would appreciate it if you "worked your magic" of ensuring they are metric first. Just one small point .. I note from the article history that AnomieBOT has "rescued" a couple of "orphaned refs" which you had deleted - we need to ensure that measurements etc (& other claims) remain cited to reliable sources.— Rod ^talk 08:50, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I think I've got it consistent now. Please check it over because I usually miss something. Michael Glass (talk) 12:36, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work on this. The only possible issues I can see are:

• In Coastline "more than a mile (1.6 km) from the sea"
• In climate we don't have any conversions for "800 mm in the east of the park to over 2000 mm" & "more than 225 mm of rain fell"
• In history do we need to convert "5 tonnes"? & we have no conversion for "35.4 km"
• In Places of interest - is "about 31 km or just over 19 miles away" OK?

Thanks again.— Rod ^talk 14:06, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I have now provided conversions for the amount of rainfall and 35.4km. However,

• The tonne is 98% of the long (British) ton. I think they are so close that a conversion really isn't necessary. If there was a conversion, what do we convert it to, kg, pounds or short (US) tons or two, or three or all four?
• The distance in Places of Interest was just over 19 miles. 19 miles = 30.577536 kilometres so "just over" would be even closer to 31km. I had the problem of making the units of measurement consistent (metric first) and also to insist on accuracy. This was my solution but I have now added brackets.
• The source said that the crest of this coastal range was more than a mile from the sea [2]. One would need a topographical map to work out where the watershed would be, and I am afraid that this is not available to me in Australia. Perhaps someone in England could advise us on how far the watershed is from the coast. The answer would be something like "from 1.7 km at X to about 2.4km at Y." In the mean time, I have left it as is. Michael Glass (talk) 06:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC) On second thoughts, I have changed this last measurement to be metric first. Michael Glass (talk) 07:03, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again - all looks good to me.— Rod ^talk 08:32, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Conversion of units

User:91.110.53.158 seems to be converting all units from metric (imperial) using the convert template to imperial(metric), and has also linked centuries. This article achieved its FA status with metric (imperial) after lots of discussion amongst the editors. I have put a note on User talk:91.110.53.158 without any response. Should these edits be reverted?— Rod ^talk 12:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I've put back as many of these changes (& linking of centuries) as I can find.— Rod ^talk 14:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Further Edits

I agree with the fact that the sentence: "The three largest settlements are Porlock and Dulverton, and the combined villages of Lynton and Lynmouth, connected by the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway, which together contain almost 40% of the National Park population." is confusing and very vague and should, if not already, be edited. Perhaps to: The three largest settlements are Porlock, Dulverton, and the combined villages of Lynton and Lynmouth, the latter of which are connected by the Lynton ans Lynmouth Cliff Railway. Together, these metropolitan areas make up around 40% of the total population of the National Park.

---CrucialCoconut--- 11:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)