Talk:Shrewsbury/GA

Just a couple of things

Nothing too serious, just a couple of really minor things in an otherwise outstanding article. They're things I've seen as an impartial reader with fresh eyes, that could be tightened up without causing any significant change. The following could be seen as barriers to GA status:

• There are a few instances of "recentism" e.g. "In recent years the town has experienced severe flooding problems from the Severn". A better way would be to define "recent years", perhaps by saying "Since the turn of the 21st century" or something simillar.
  •  Done (I think)
• The first paragraph under Suburbs and surrounding settlements could do with a rephrase. I.e. "Shrewsbury has a large number of distinct suburbs and surrounding villages." is POV, albeit innocently.
  •  Done
• Units of distance (imperial/metric) are used inconsistently. I'd personally recommend using miles first, and imperial as the conversion (I actually think there's a MOS page on it somewhere from memory). Whatever the system however, it should be consistent throughout.
  •  Done
• In Economy, define "Historically". Was this since time immemorial or during its early, medieval history?
  •  Done
• There are some weasel-type words used (again innocently), that really ought to go. "Popular(-ly)", "Famous(-ly)" are the main two offenders, but others like "the town is well known as/for..." make un-needed assumptions.
  •  Done (as well as I can)
• There are a few instances of grammatical redundancy. Try to look through the article for the following words and see if they can be removed without damaging the meaning of the sentence: "some", "many", "several", "has" "few". User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a: redundancy exercises is a good page about this.
  •  Done (as well as I can)

That's it for now really. Some personal preferences would be to move the Coat of arms section into Governance (as they pertain to the council) and elaborate a bit more on how Shrewsbury was governed historically (i.e. was it once a county borough/municipal borough? When did it obtain borough status or its market charter?). Hope these things help! --Jza84 |  Talk  18:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I've done the two easy ones, and attempted to remove some of the recentisms, weasel words etc, although it is hard to spot them! I shall endeavour to remove more soon. Asdfasdf1231234 (talk) 19:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

The article, as it stands, is very close to meeting the GA criteria. It is very well written (though I cleaned up a few minor grammatical issues), well cited, and very thorough. It follows the guidelines of WP:UKCITIES very well, though I did reorder a few of the sections (education & sports should be located a little closer to 'culture', instead of near the end). A few things need to be done prior to GA:

• The history section does a good job of describing the early and medieval history, but it largely skimps on modern history. There is a sentence, "In 2000 and again in 2002, Shrewsbury unsuccessfully applied for city status.", which seems rather out of place and doesn't really seem to connect well to the paragraph that it is a part of. I would think that a good start to finishing of the modern history would be to move the contents of the 'future' main section into the 'history' section, and reorganize it, adding details as necessary ('future' really shouldn't be a main section as it is anyway).
  •  Done Have attempted to expand modern history somewhat, although not a lot happened. Also removed Future section and incorporated its (sourced) material into History.

• The 'climate' section is a bit on the short side. It seems just barely sufficient, but I think it could be expanded to discuss the overall climate better.
  • I'm unsure as to what else I could add, can't really find any more information on the town :( Any ideas?

• While the article in general is written in a neutral POV, the statement on Darwin being, "one of the greatest scientists of all time" could be construed by some as violating WP:NPOV (though I think he's certainly one of the more notable scientists out there, I think some of my fellow Americans might disagree ;-). The specific statement of him being one of the greatest scientists of all time isn't backed up by the source anyway, so I think this could be revised.
  • The statement has been 'toned down'. If it's still a bit POV then I'm quite happy just to have it say 'Charles Darwin was born here at...'

I think those are the major issues with the article as I see it. I wasn't aware that Jza84 had reviewed the article previously because he didn't tag it as such at WP:GAN; nonetheless, his comments are good, too, so they should be addressed as well. Once these issues are addressed, I think the article can be promoted. So I will put it on hold for a week. Cheers! Dr. Cash (talk) 23:31, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the review, I'll get on to doing these points over the weekend! :) Asdfasdf1231234 (talk) 12:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've addressed most of your concerns, and hopefully all of Jza84's! I'm a bit stumped on 'Climate' though; I really cannot find any more info on it! Asdfasdf1231234 (talk) 10:57, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The article looks good. It will be listed. Good work!

Moving forward, there's a couple of things that could be done to make it a bit better. First, the article seems a little image-heavy, and maybe the image placement/image size can be adjusted to make the text flow a little bit better around them. Second, you may want to take a look at the current FAC for Navenby, and this might offer some suggestions for further improvement. Cheers! Dr. Cash (talk) 17:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)