Wikipedia:Peer review/St Melangell's Church/archive1

St Melangell's Church

I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to take it to FAC; I've never done an FAC before, so I'd like to get as much feedback on my work as possible for a good chance at success there. I've spent a lot of time on this article, and am quite proud of it. Any and all feedback about how St Melangell's Church can be improved to FAC standards is appreciated. Thanks! ... sawyer * he/they * talk 22:58, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Comments from TechnoSquirrel69

Good to be back reviewing this article, saving a spot for later! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 23:00, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Finally, here we go!

• Why is "Pennant Melangell" bolded in the lead? Also, an "eponymous" village would be named St Melangell's Church, so unless Pennant means "church of" in medieval Welsh, I think this needs to be rephrased.
  • As far as I know, "pennant" is a Welsh place-name element, but I've just removed it & unbolded Pennant Melangell -sm

• century, and → century and
  • done -sm

• several times throughout the centuries
  • done -sm

• In 1958 and again in 1987–1994 → In 1958, and again between 1987–1994
  • done -sm

• Melangell, which is regarded
  • done -sm

• 1958, out of → 1958 out of. There are several more of these unnecessary commas, which I am also guilty of using sometimes, so I feel you. I think you get the point, so I'll stop pointing them out.
  • i'll comb through for more rogue commas... -sm

• "single-naved" could be rephrased and linked to Nave.
  • rephrased it to fit the link nicer, but i think it's slightly clunkier now? let me know what you think -sm

• "according to newer scholarship" needs rephrasing/clarification. Which scholarship, and what notable changes were made because of it?
  • this is elaborated on in the shrine section; the "newer scholarship" was the design of scholars Ralegh Radford & Hemp. sorry if that wasn't clear - how would you suggest i rephrase it?

• Parenthetical translations need to be consistent within the article; § Location and surroundings has English in parentheses, but § Architecture is the other way around.
  • i've switched it to having the English names in parentheses for all of them (let me know if i missed any?) -sm

• Link hagiography.
  • done -sm

• "sought refuge at Pennant" could be read in the sense that this village existed and was named simply Pennant before Melangell got there. Rephrase as you see fit.
  • that's the implication in the sourcing; the "Melangell" in "Pennant Melangell" is derived from the saint's foundation there from what i can tell. will look into it -sm

• "Ireland" is an excessive link.
  • fixed -sm

• The article uses parenthetical dates of birth and death inconsistently.
  • removed the stray ones -sm

• Just noting that the article also has a number of supposeds and possiblys. I haven't looked too closely at the sources, but unless those doubtful qualifiers are used by the authors, they should not appear in the article.
  • many of them are in the sources, because the history of medieval Wales is quite foggy and has a lot of legend and folklore mixed in. i'll go through those and adjust where necessary -sm
    • i went through most of these and this is indeed just how the sources are; lots of possiblys, likelys, and traditionallys. so it goes -sm

• "is likely a foundation of the late ..." reads awkwardly. Just keeping it simple with "was likely founded in ..." should work.

• "No pre-Norman buildings" is really non sequitur-y to me, as I'm not familiar with British history and don't know when Normans would have occupied the area off the top of my head.
  • the Normans began their conquest of Britain in the 11th century, and attempted to conquer Wales in the 12th, so it made sense to me, but i see your point. this church is probably norman, or at least had norman influence - i have a source that i'm pretty sure digs into this more; i'll go and look through it for something to clarify here.
    • hopefully this is clarified now; i've found a little bit of supplemental sourcing to give some context -sm

• You mention timber structures twice in adjacent sentences. Could you rephrase to cut out the repetition?
  • for now i've just removed the latter sentence, per my above response. i'll add something back in later

• Prayer cards left by devotees at St Melangell's shrine
  • cut -sm

• Whose "perception of the site"?
  • the pilgrims; added -sm

• § Saint Melangell's shrine could just be § Shrine.
  • done -sm

• Saint → St
  • done -sm

• Speaking of the saint title, the article uses it to refer to Melangell inconsistently.
  • i only had it in there once, so i just removed it -sm

• "fits of frenzy and melancholy" needs attribution to whomever wrote it.
  • will fix tomorrow (probably) -sm
    • fixed -sm

• The tower and churchyard at Pennant Melangell
  • cut -sm

• "served numerous secular purposes historically" should have the adverb at the front.
  • i had been wondering why that sounded weird in my head, thanks for pointing it out -sm

• "Cell-y-bedd translates to 'grave chamber' " in which language? It's most likely Welsh, of course, but is it modern, medieval, late?
  • all of the above, as far as i know - it's just called the cell-y-bedd in pretty much every source i have

• Citation 3 doesn't seem to need Cadw as an author, which also causes a duplicate link within the footnote.
  • i used template:National Historic Assets of Wales for that cite, which is where that comes from. do you think i should just switch to a cite web maybe?
• Several citations need to use |publisher= instead of |work= or |website=. Italics are typically used to represent the name of a work, not, for example, the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust.
  • fixed (i think) -sm
• IABot doesn't seem to like any of the links in this article, but makes sure all of the web citations have archive links.
  • will do -sm

Let me know if you have any questions! If you've got the time, I would love if you could leave some comments on my FAC, which is quite in need of them at the moment. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 01:59, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@TechnoSquirrel69 i've got all of your comments either done or written down to fix when i feel a bit better. ping me for follow-ups & yea i'll look at your FAC! ... sawyer * he/they * talk 04:16, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Kusma

I can't promise a full review, but I do have at least a drive-by comment about the lead.

• The church was originally founded over a pre-Christian burial site, probably to commemorate the grave of Melangell

I was slightly confused when reading this because this sentence mixes two different burial sites, a Christian and a non-Christian one. The church is on the site of a pre-Christian burial ground that also happens to be the site of a Christian burial ground where St Melangell is said to be buried (if that is true; the body of the article does not seem to mention her grave?). I would suggest to split this into two sentences (something like "The site was used as a burial ground in pre-Christian times. The church was founded to commemorate St Melangell who was active in the area according to her hagiography"). —Kusma (talk) 10:59, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

the issue here is that the church was founded over what is supposedly her grave at the location of an existing prehistoric burial/sacred site, which is commemorated at the "grave slab" in the cell y bedd (addressed in that section of the article) and the 1994 sources are careful about making concrete claims about whether Melangell was ever actually buried at the site because it is not known for sure and details are nonexistent. all of this, as is typical for this period of the Celtic world, is very foggy and there's a lot of mixing of paganism & Christianity. that said, i like your suggestion about splitting it into two sentences - will do. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 16:11, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

done - moved some stuff around in the leade ... sawyer * he/they * talk 18:45, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

note

i have had an extraordinarily busy few weeks, so small apologies for my inactivity. i have time to edit now, so i shall be doing my best to implement changes soon. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 01:17, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, and feel free to ping me if you need my attention for anything. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 01:32, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

@TechnoSquirrel69 i believe i've gotten the vast majority of this done - if there's anything else pressing, let me know! ... sawyer * he/they * talk 04:11, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for getting that done! My only other important suggestion would be to make doubly sure that the article includes most or all relevant literature on the subject, and that you've included a sufficient level of detail — in this case, probably quite a high level — from them. Other than that, I see nothing that couldn't be fixed with a trip to FAC! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 19:00, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

awesome, thanks! i'm quite certain i've exhausted just about everything, and almost all of the detail not included is extremely granular archaeology-specific stuff that would make the average reader fall asleep. again, thanks for your review! ... sawyer * he/they * talk 19:46, 19 May 2024 (UTC)