Talk:Sheriff Hill/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Beloved Freak 11:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article contains a lot of good, encyclopaedic information and was an interesting read. Unfortunately, I think it still needs quite a lot of work to meet the good article criteria. Once you have gone through the points raised, my recommendation would be to look at as many articles as you can in the Category:FA-Class UK geography articles and Category:GA-Class UK geography articles categories. When you feel you've done as much as you can, I'd submit it for a peer review where you can get some more opinions on what could be improved. (They usually happen quickly, so I often do that myself before submitting to WP:GAN). --Beloved Freak 13:22, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
Tone needs improving, overlinking and underlinking throughout. Lead needs more information.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
Much unsourced information, several dead links, problems with verifiability and original research.
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
Some major aspects not covered, and some aspects covered in too much detail.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
Less than neutral language used in a few places.
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
I can't see any problems with stability or edit-warring. No obvious content disputes.
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):
Too many galleries, big problems with incorrectly-licensed non-free images.
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Prose / manual of style

I have corrected a few minor issues, such as references, which should be placed immediately after punctuation (WP:REFPUNC), missing punctuation and obvious spelling errors. The article still needs to be checked. There are some spellings in quotes for example, that I wasn't sure about. Some, no doubt, are archaic spelling used in the quote, but please check for any typos that may have occurred in copying them.
One problem with the article as a whole is the tone. It needs to be more encyclopaedic in tone. In places it seems a little informal, anecdotal, emotive or unnecessarily wordy.
There are many short, choppy paragraphs through the article, which disrupt the flow.
A few section-specific examples:

lead

It needs to be explicitly clear in the first sentence what exactly the subject of the article and, in this case, where it is. We have the "where", but it took me until the second paragraph to work out what Sheriff Hill actually is. A village? A town? A district? A landform?
Don't link common words such as England, hospital, village (see WP:OVERLINK)
Check that all wikilinks go where you expect them to (eg. potting)
Per WP:LEAD, the lead section should adequately summarise the main points of the rest of the article. Although the lead is a reasonable size, and you don't really want it more than 4 paragraphs, I don't think it's currently summarising the rest of the article. Also, make sure there's nothing in the lead that doesn't get expanded on later.

History

As well as overlinking common words, be careful of underlinking. Make sure you link terms that would provide a useful background to the reader. For example, you could link Malcolm, King of Scotland (pick which one you mean first)
Excessive wordiness? : "herbage still flourished ... and it was this which formed the modest means for a smattering of tinkers and cuddies " - I had to read that twice to try to get what is meant. Try to keep the language plain and not too flowery. One piece of advice I've seen floating around is: try to imagine you are writing for an intelligent high school student.

Pottery

"Pottery in Gateshead is still an area of considerable speculation..." - I'm not really sure what this means

References / verifiability

There are several dead links which need to be fixed. Some have been marked, but please check them all. If they are courtesy links for sources that are offline, it's not too much of a problem, but if they are online-only sources, we need a link to the site, or an archived version.
There are bare urls in the references, which need to be fixed, and several that have a title, but no other information. Citations need to contain enough information to make the information we present verifiable to readers. As we can already see, links to change and break, just citing something to a url does not help the reader find the info when the link breaks. Where possible, try to include the title, website/publisher, date, author and retrieval date (ie. when you accessed the website) - this helps readers and future editors find archived versions if links break in the future. Please see Wikipedia:Citing sources for more on this. The various citation templates can take a bit of getting used to, but can really help you to fill in all the details, and keep the references consistent.
There are quite a few instances of ibid in the references. Unfortunately, this is not ideal on Wikipedia. Since anyone can edit the article, anyone might (and probably will) come along later, rearrange text, add or replace references, and the order that the references are in now, will change. ibid becomes meaningless. (see WP:IBID)
Although there are a few different ways of presenting references, what many editors do is have a separate bibliography, under the notes section. Then, it becomes clearer which book you are referring to. At the moment, I find your references a bit confusing. For example, at the moment, the first reference you have is "Manders, 1973: 308". This is meaningless to me; who is Manders? I looked around, but with all the info presented in the references, I could not immediately see the source in question, and ended up using the "find" function in my browser to track it down. It would be very helpful to have a bibliography beneath the references. See for example, the references in Cheadle Hulme.
There is a good deal of the article that has no source at all, so many more citations need to be added. Certainly anything contentious or likely to be challenged. Basically, anything that isn't common knowledge, and isn't easily verifiable for readers already.
In addition to some information that is currently unsourced, but presumably could be sourced to reliable, secondary sources, there seems to be quite a lot of original research / insider knowledge that I doubt has appeared in reliable independent secondary sources. For example:
- "An unexpected reference to this early designation of Sheriff's Highway could until recently be found on the bus stop outside of the Queens Head public house, located on the road ... it appears that a more up-to-date map has since been considered and the error has been corrected."
- "Like its near neighbour Ye Olde Cannon, the venue has suffered from a large number of new managerial appointments in the last five years or so, resulting in a venue which is usually open for business but which struggles for trade and which has recently resorted to selling beer at near cost price simply to cover overheads. At the turn of 2011, the Queens Head remains a going concern."
- "The decision to play music of this genre initially surprised many local residents and drinkers, who had become accustomed to the establishment catering to the typical North Eastern patron."
- "The Traveller's Rest ... caters to a strong core of locals and regulars, who make up the vast majority of the patronage."
- "The church is a fundamentally important and energetic contributor to the Sheriff Hill community."
- "The church also opens each day to allow local residents to parktake in 'coffee-morning' style drop-in sessions."
- "Whilst this will certainly have removed many of the 'dens' and hideaways created by local young people, local residents have voiced their concern..."
- "In wet weather there are also a plethora of toads and frogs, which often can be found on the narrow pathways running alongside the main road as well as on the road itself (with predictable consequences)."
"...mention of both the Cannon and the Three Tuns are made in various documents ... as well as Trade Directories listed in Gateshead Central Library (searched July 2010)." - this is original research. As reliable as your research may be, unfortunately we cannot take your word for it, unless it has been published in reliable sources
Please check that all sources used are reliable. An example, what makes this source reliable?

Neutral point of view?

Much of the article is written in a neutral, balanced way, but not all of it. Unattributed opinions have crept in. For example:

"...Gateshead's many fine, small parks..."
"...a picturesque dene..."
"...stunning panoramic views..."

Broad/focused

I am concerned that there seems to be quite a lot of information that should perhaps be elsewhere, even if it means creating new articles. For example, there is a lot on Gateshead Fell, and, if I understand it correctly from the article, this is an area that cover[s/ed] more settlements than just Sheriff Hill. in fact, it seems that there is enough coverage of this area in secondary sources to make it notable enough for an article of its own. Although I would expect some historical background on the area prior to the founding of the settlement, I'm concerned that the article goes off on too much a tangent into the history of Gateshead Fell. It's not completely clear in some parts whether you are talking about Sheriff Hill or Gateshead Fell. For example "The major road in the settlement ..." - in Sheriff hill?
Likewise, there is an awful lot of information about Sheriff's March - could this be a separate article?
There is great detail on the pubs of the town, possibly a bit too much. It may be that some of them are notable enough for their own article, particularly if they are listed building, or if there is significant coverage of them in reliable sources. Same with the churches, some of them could have their own article, and the info could be summarised a bit more in this article.
As far as making sure the article is "broad" enough, I suggest checking How to write about settlements, which will give you some idea of what is normally expected. I would expect a section on the economy of the town. You have some good inifo on the industry, but this seems to all be historical. What is the economy like today? What about demographics? What about education?

Images

There are a lot of images in galleries, which is not generally encouraged. Use images in the main body of the article, and then provide a link to a relevant page or category on Wikimedia commons at the bottom (probably this one)
Images don't need a source added in the image caption on the article, but they do need a clear source on the image page.
I have a big concern that you are using images that you have uploaded under a creative commons license but have been taken from the Gateshead council website. They do not appear to license their pictures for reuse (I'll look into it a bit further) and you should not be licensing them as if you own the rights. Pictures that are not licensed in a way that is compatible with out license, may occasionally be used in articles, under "fair use" as non-free content. This usually applies to situations where we could not conceivably obtain a free equivalent, such as an image of a deceased person in a biography, or an album cover in an article about the album. This is very unlikely to apply to this article; any use would need to accompany commentary in the article about the image, and would need a fair use rationale on the image page.

As there is quite a lot of work to be done here, I don't envision it meeting the criteria within seven days, so I won't place the article "on hold". It can of course be renominated at any time in the future, if you feel it meets the criteria. Please let me know if you have any questions on what I have said. --Beloved Freak 13:22, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking the time to review this article.

Whilst I confess that I am by no means a Wikipedia expert, I found a number of your points somewhat disconcerting. Certain points raised here relating to referencing and underlinking are understandable and easily enough corrected, but my main concerns relate to content and research.

You refer to 'original research' and state that trade directories come into this category. I fail palpably to understand how this can be so. The trade directories are not available online but are available, in hard copy form, at Gateshead Central Library and are perfectly verifiable by anyone who takes the time to do as I did and go to read them. This in no more 'original research' than is reading a textbook in the same library and citing that. I appreciate that most people tend to find that using websites as sources can substitute for this kind of primary research, but as a professional academic I would much rather cite a primary source kept in a reference library than some 'secondary' source online. Additionally, you mention the BPEARS website. I have spoken personally to Brian Pears and am utterly satified that he is a reliable source- I have seen both his academic credentials and some of his published research. This is true of every source I have used on this article- they are either primary sources, published secondary sources or sources which have not been subjected to academic scruity but which I have investigated myself and (as someone who writes and peer-reviews academic journals as well as someone who sets and marks undergraduate research dissertations) I am thoroughly satisfied of their authenticity. You have to appreciate that Sheriff Hill is not London- if I wanted secondary source material on London I would find and read texts until my heart's content! However, Sheriff Hill (and I have found Gateshead itself) does not have the kind of depth to source material that major towns and cities do. The material sourced here is ALL that there is, so far as I am aware, and I have verified as much of this material as has been possible to do so.

You also refer to a number of passages which you found 'difficult' to read. Each of these was taken directly from a source and cited verbatim: they are not my own words. One of these, relating to the herbiage on the Fell, was cited directly from Manders: an eminent historian whose work is considered the definitive history of Gateshead. It seems that you are suggesting that I should paraphrase this work rather than cite it directly because you cannot understand what he has written...

Your suggestions relating to extra articles seem somewhat odd in light of the dim view you have taken of this one. I cannot see why I should compound the apparently weak standard of this article by producing another two (on the Sheriff's March and Gateshead Fell) which would no doubt also suffer from similar, wide-ranging faults. Besides, Gateshead Fell no longer exists in a historical sense- it is now split into a pair of villiages (Sheriff Hill and Low Fell) which both have their own page here.

You mention adding material to the article and I do have additional material relating to industry, education, housing etc which could be added. However, this material comes from my own research into the text I am writing on Sheriff Hill and, under the criteria you list, would probably all come under the heading of original research so would be unusable. This is notwithstanding that I am loathe to add material to which I own the copyright to an article which is used by anyone and which you have torn to pieces.

The images issue I have responded to elsewhere, but what I would say is that I wouldn't upload images which are subject to copyright (I am a qualified solicitor and a professioal, legal academic) and would have preferred if you had waited for my response (I work most days) before tagging them all for deletion. I am now going to have to go to the trouble of dealing with all of these to prevent their removal after I had gone to the trouble to seek permission from Gateshead Council to use these...

My main concern, though, is that you have not only rejected the GA review request but have even gone to the trouble of downgrading the article from a B-Class article to a C-Class article. I cannot for the life of me understand why this has been done. This article has already been reviewed by another senior member and that member felt the article B-Class and, with some amendments (which were undertaken), a GA candidate. Whilst I accept that there is always going to be a subjectivity in such things I am baffled that one reviewer can describe an article as 'very good indeed and a possible GA candidate' whilst another states 'not yet B-Class really I'm afraid'.

A marked difference of this type cannot, in my opinion, be justified on mere subjectivity. This article has already been peer-reviewed and copy-edited yet you have simply ripped the entire piece apart. Either you are correct and the first review was completely wrong or you are wrong and the first review is correct. User talk:meetthefeebles| —Preceding undated comment added 14:30, 11 March 2011 (UTC).[reply]

You raise a number of fair points there, and I will respond in detail when I have the time. Hopefully, this will be tonight (UK time). I'm sorry if this has been a negative experience for you, perhaps I could have explained some points in more detail and will endeavour to do so. Regarding the images, again, I'm sorry to cause you trouble with those. As I have said, I'm no expert on media copyright issues, it certainly sound like you know a lot more about it. I haven't tagged the images for deletion, but listed them at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files so that more knowledgeable editors can discuss them and we can make sure they have the correct source and licensing information and hopefully won't be deleted. I know you commented at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, unfortunately, as my original query has been "answered" by one editor, it may be that it is passed over from now on. The best thing to do would be to comment about the individual images at Wikipedia:PUF#March 10. As for the rest, please bear with me and I will try to answer your concerns later on today.--Beloved Freak 15:34, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, here is a more in-depth response. I'll try to address each of your points.

My point about original research and trade directories refers not to the work done itself, but the note that you added:

"It is not possible to identify exactly when this public house opened but it is almost certain to date from somewhere in the eighteenth century as mention of both the Cannon and the Three Tuns are made in various documents describing the old turnpike road as well as Trade Directories listed in Gateshead Central Library (searched July 2010)."

You are referring to research that you (I presume) have carried out. You are drawing conclusions from the sources ("it is almost certain to date from somewhere in the eighteenth century"), instead of merely presenting the facts: e.g.. "Both the Cannon and the Three Tuns are listed in White's Directory of Gateshead, 1853.<ref>Full reference for the directory</ref>" You don't need to give a date for when you accessed an offline source, and you don't need to say where you were when you did the research. Describing how, when and where you have carried out research is not necessary for Wikipedia, just provide the full references for the sources you have used.

I know that the point I made above probably seems strange, and is only really bordering on original research; it's more the way you have written it than the information that is the problem. However, we do need to be very careful with primary sources. Not only do we need to be careful not to make any analysis ourselves, they should also be used quite sparingly. We need to rely on secondary sources as much as possible. Please see primary, secondary and tertiary sources for more on this. This can be a stumbling block for many people coming to Wikipedia from academia, especially if you are used to analysing primary sources and presenting your findings. In the example above, it would be better if you found a reliable secondary source (eg. a book) that stated that "It is not possible to identify exactly when this public house opened but it is almost certain to date from somewhere in the eighteenth century as mention of both the Cannon and the Three Tuns are made..." etc., and then cited that secondary source. I realise that such a source may not exist, and occasionally using primary sources is appropriate, just try to stick to secondary sources as much as possible.
Accessing offline sources from a library is, of course, fine. In fact, most articles on Wikipedia could do with many more offline sources such as books, newspapers, and journals. I'm sorry if I gave the impression that online sources are preferred; that is not the case.
Please don't take personally my questioning the reliability of sources. It is routine for good article (and featured article) reviewers to question any source that they're not familiar with. The guideline we look at is Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. The things we would be looking for are "does the source have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy?" "is the source cited by other sources that we already consider reliable?" Now, I am familiar with GENUKI, but I'm not 100% sure of how it works in that it seems to have many different contributors. Is the information added verified in any way? I do not know who Brian Pears is, so how do I know if he is reliable? Unfortunately, although I have no reason whatsoever to doubt your word, we can't just accept a source based on "I have spoken personally to Brian Pears and am utterly satisfied that he is a reliable source". However, the next thing you said, sounds promising. "I have seen both his academic credentials and some of his published research". Ok, I haven't seen his credentials or published research, so this is where you get to enlighten me. If he is considered an expert in his field, then his work will be considered reliable. Has he published books? Has he had work published in journals? It sounds like you're well-used to using only the best sources; this is one of the advantages of having academics writing for Wikipedia. In this case, it's probably just a matter of making some of the sources a bit clearer in the citations, and/or being prepared to explain what makes them reliable to a clueless reviewer. If I had placed the article "on hold", you would have had the opportunity to explain that, I just felt that this time, it wasn't close enough to the good article criteria to justify putting it on hold.
Believe me, I fully understand the additional challenges of researching small settlements somewhat north of the Watford Gap.
I'm not sure where I've said it was difficult to read - can you point that out? Was it my comments about flowery language/verbosity? If language has come directly from sources, it needs to be marked as part a quote (note, for example, "herbage" is not part of a quote.) I'm unsure what you mean by "It seems that you are suggesting that I should paraphrase this work rather than cite it directly". If you're quoting, then that's fine; reproduce whatever kind of language they use. If you're not quoting then, yes, it needs to be paraphrased. Forgive me if I've misunderstood your point on this bit.
I can understand you thinking I have taken a dim view of this article, or that I think it's "weak". After all, I posted a fairly long review, full of criticism. I actually think it's very good (I hope you don't take that as patronising) and I really did enjoy reading it. This is one of the problems with writing for Wikipedia. Anywhere else, the article would have been fine, but with thousands of people writing for WP, we do have certain standards, for consistency apart from anything else. It's why I recommended you reading as many Good and Featured articles on settlements as you can. It's not that they are necessarily any better than yours, not in the real world, but they adhere to certain standards for layout, style and certain content that tends to be included. The criteria for Featured and Good "status" are quite specific. Additionally. our policies on verifiability, original research and neutrality are core to the project, and these policies are upheld in certain ways that might feel unnatural to you at first. (As an example: using ibid is problematic on a wiki, and as a result can make it harder for readers to verify the information presented.)
I mentioned the possibility of those other articles purely because we try to keep articles as focused as we can, and I felt (subjectively, others may disagree) that this article goes off on a tangent a little in the places I mentioned. In the context of an encyclopaedia, it might be better to put some of this info in separate articles. (See Wikipedia:Summary style for more on this).
You're right that unpublished original research you have done wouldn't be able to be used here, and I can fully understand you not wanting to use the fruits of your own work here anyway. If and when you do publish that work, that might be a different matter. There is a certain amount of information available online regarding demographics (from the 2001 census, for example), and there may well be on education. Again, if you look at similar articles, you'll be able to see where that info has come from.
"which you have torn to pieces" - ok, I really am sorry that it seems that way. Again, I can understand that, following a review which has highlighted points that I see as negative. I hope you can look at my points as constructive. You may not wish to act on any of them, but my intention is only to help you to meet the Good Article criteria. I can understand if you no longer wish to do so after this experience, but I hope you do.
The images, I have mentioned above and on your talkpage. Although it's great that you took the time and trouble to get permission from Gateshead Council, I didn't know that by looking at the images. We have huge problems on this website with copyright infringement, both of images and text. I didn't know you had permission, I didn't know you are a qualified solicitor, I didn't even know if you would be back here within the week. Please don't take it personally, the trouble with a website like this, is that anyone can be anyone. I don't want to see the images deleted, and hopefully they won't be. There is though, as someone else has noted elsewhere, a problem if the images are only to be used for "not for profit". This is not compatible with our license, which includes commercial use.
As to what is apparently your main concern - that I "downgraded" the article to C class. You know, to be honest, it probably would have been kinder of me to leave it as it was. What class the article is assessed at isn't really important. FA class, GA class, and A class are all assessed through the review process. B-class and below can be assessed by anyone, and are subjective. Looking at the B-class criteria, I didn't feel that criteria nos. 1 and 2 have been met. There are problems with verifiability, as I have mentioned, and I can see obvious omissions. Anyway, I should probably should have left it as it was, particularly as this seems to have upset or annoyed you more than anything. You can change it back if you feel I have been unfair, I wouldn't revert you. The editor who originally thought it was B-class may also wish to change it back, and it would be their right to do so. Again, please don't take this as a personal reflection on your work, it's more about meeting specific criteria. Has the article been peer reviewed? I cannot see where, I'd be interested in reading that if it has.

To conclude, this has obviously not been a positive experience for you, and for that, I apologise. I stand by my opinion that this article is good, it just doesn't meet the specific Good Article criteria at this time. I am particularly concerned that you feel I have "ripped apart" your work; that was certainly not my intention, and perhaps it means I should try to write my reviews in a different way. If you look at Featured Article Candidates, the reviews there can be very nitpicky and only focus on what can be improved. Many GA reviews are like this too. Not all are as in-depth and another reviewer may have given a much shorter review. The length of my review is actually a reflection of the amount of help/advice I wanted to give, not how "weak" I thought the article was. I would be happy to help further if I can, but I understand if that's the last thing you want! I still recommend peer review, there are some very good reviewers there. Also, if you feel that my assessment has been unfair, you have every right to ask for a Good Article Reassessment, where other reviewers (usually several) will look at the article, and my review, and make an assessment. You could also informally ask for a second opinion either at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations, or from any of the people listed here. If I haven't covered everything, or you have outstanding queries or complaints, please do ask here or at my talkpage. I hope this goes some way to explaining the process. --Beloved Freak 20:31, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, thank you for taking the time to respond. I have taken your points onboard and will see what I can do Meetthefeebles (talk) 17:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]