Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chew Stoke/archive2

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 01:59, 24 July 2007.

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Chew Stoke

previous FAC

This article about a small English village has been a Good Article for over a year and I believe all the comments made in the the last FA nomination have been addressed. It is supported by appropriate images and all facts supported by verifiable references. — Rod ^talk 10:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support Much improved since the last review. Epbr123 11:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment WP:MOS problem right off the bat with left-aligned image at start of article; I haven't reviewed further. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Response - thanks - fixed. — Rod ^talk 18:17, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Please identify publishers on all references; we need to know that reliable sources are used. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Response I agree about the need for reliable sources& have done this where possible, adding several isbn numbers - however 2 of the books (nos 7 & 10 in the list) are published by the authors & therefore no further information is available.— Rod ^talk 07:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment It would be nice to have a floating table in the history section, giving the population of the village in each of the censuses from 1801 to 2001. Bluap 15:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Response - I've added a table of 1971-2001 population data but can't find free data for earlier years.— Rod ^talk 16:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Response I've added the data from 1801 to 1931 (from www.histpop.org). There wasn't a census in 1941, leaving just the 1951 and 61 data to be found. However, this raises another issue: in the demographics section, all of the information is about a region that is much larger than Chew Stoke. I would re-write that section, starting with the data from the parish itself, and then mentioning the detailed demographics for the larger area. Bluap 20:11, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Response Thank you for the extra data and pointing me to a (free) resource I didn't know existed. I have changed the table to horizontal rather than vertical and rewritten the text of the demographic section to reflect the new data.— Rod ^talk 21:22, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment It is a rather long horizontal table now that involves a lot of scrolling for me to see the later figures,. Have you considered whether splitting the table up into three horizontal segments (one after the other), using one per century? If this makes the data to difficult to compare, it might be appropriate to include a simple line-graph to indicate the figures as well, but I'm not sure hopw this might be viewed by others.  DDStretch  (talk) 08:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Response I didn't realise this would require horizontal scrolling (what screen resolution are you using?) - I've now split into 3 rows as suggested - but don't know how to do the line graph & the missing data may make it look funny.— Rod ^talk 09:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Response: I'm using what i think is a quite standard resolution: 1024 x 768 and I'm also using the MonoBook skin with Firefox 2.0.0.4 under Kubuntu Linux. I don't have any wierd choice of fonts, and the horizontal scrolling seemed necessary when I both allowed websites to choose the fonts and made that choice myself. Still, it looks quite good now on the three rows.  DDStretch  (talk) 16:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment I thought that having individual cites for each number looked rather ugly, so have combined the old census data into a single citation. (This makes the table a bit narrower.) Bluap 15:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I think it reads very well. Would it be an idea to put the "civil_parish" field and data into the InfoBox at all, even though the value of the field would be "Chew Stoke" (or whatever the official name of the parish is). As a final suggestion, which might not work, have you considered placing Chew Stoke within the context of surrounding civil parishes a bit more - perhaps even including a compass-table as in the largely stub article Pott Shrigley? It wouldn't be necessary, but it might add to the section and place Chew Stoke in an expanded context a bit more. I think this article is definitely one to use as a model in trying to improve other articles.  DDStretch  (talk) 08:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Response Thanks for the comments - I've added civil parish to the infobox & done a compass table of nearby parishes - I wanted to align this to the right of text in the government section but couldn't get this to work - any ideas?— Rod ^talk

Response: Sorry, I'm not sure how to do it. May be contacting the original author User:Lupin of the table might be an idea?  DDStretch  (talk) 09:32, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Response Thanks it's now aligned & has a caption.— Rod ^talk 20:56, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support Reads well and has every indication of being well researched. A good example for articles on other villages to follow. Probably too parochial a subject to make it to the main page, but an excellent article just the same. Gaius Cornelius 15:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
• Comments:
  • Why so many sub-sections in the History section? It results in stubby paragraphs, like the fist one.
  • Who is a Robinson? Some kind of historian? archaeologist? village elder?
  • The term "boasts" and "x had a remarkable y" and "Points of interest" all sound travel-guide-ish.
  • "References" 42 to 47 are just ext.links to businesses.
  • "Many residents commute to Bristol or Bath for employment." Any reason why we should believe that? I'm not necessarily looking for a reference here, just an explanation. What evidence is there for this? --maclean 01:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Response: Concerning the "who is Robinson?" question: Robinson, if you had followed the subscripted footnote, can be clearly seen to be the author of the work which provided the evidence and the verification for the claim made in the sentence. The form of words is quite common and typical in any kind of serious writing. I don't think it needs altering in any way.

Concerning the references 42 to 47: They give verification to the claims that the village has particular kinds of industry in it. I don't see how else such claims could be easily verified. Again, I don't see them as being given with the aim of being any kind of advertising pitch at all.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:23, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Response to Questions and Concerns Thanks

• History section - the subsections and short paras in "recent history" each relate to specific periods or dates and therefore combining them may lead to single paragraphs which discuss several different events/eras but I'd be happy if someone wanted to do this.
• Robinson - as described by User:ddstretch this refers to the Author of the book on Somerset place names.
• travel-guide-ish words. I have changed "boasts" to "is the site of" and "remarkable" to "long lasting" (over 200yrs one family in same occupation). I changed "listed buildings" to "points of interest" following someones previous suggestion - but I'm happy change it back or use another term meaning "points of interest" if someone can suggest one.
• References 42-47 as described by User:ddstretch these are to the only small/light industry (apart from agriculture) in the village & are not intended as adverts - happy to remove the links if required.
• Commuting - I do not have a reference for this (but will go away & look for it in the library next weekend), but this is based on personal communications with many of the residents, it perhaps reflects the limited employment opportunities and (most likely) the attractiveness of the village for people working in the two local major centres of employment.

I hope these explanations & changes are useful but if you need more please let me know.— Rod ^talk 20:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose
  • Comprehensiveness: The Geography section is dominated with transportation issues, with nothing about its geographic setting, natural features, village layout, etc. In the Government section please give some examples of what services the Chew Stoke Civil Parish provides. In Demographics is there information on the average age, household size, etc. (I understand if this info is not available, just asking)?
  • Prose: Stubby paragraphs (last paragraph in Geography and transportation, first and fourth paragraphs in History, the entire Industry section), random people and businesses thrown in (Robinson still not identified - yes I see the footnote but this is not a reference problem it is a prose one, he is introduced as just some random person. Give him some authority: "According to local historian Stephen Robinson, it was known..." or "According to the author of Somerset Place Names it was known as...")
  • References: See further comment below. In the Industry section, 6 footnotes are being used as an excuse to place external links to businesses. Also, if specific business are to be named, at least relate them to the village (eg. are they the largest employers, small businesses, chain franchise, headquarters, etc.)
  • Actually I like "listed buildings" better than "Points of interest" which sounds like a hodge podge of neat features (reminds me of when Trivia sections proliferated). The predominant theme is "historical buildings" or "heritage buildings" (move "Bridges" to the Transportation section?). This point is not part of my objection (I leave it up to you to decide) but I would either integrate the topic into the History section, or name this section (minus the bridge) "Historical buildings" or "Historical sites". --maclean 20:24, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Response Thank you for explaining your objections which I have tried to address:-

• • Comprehensiveness: I have added more about the geography, features, layout etc of the village (and moved the bridge into this section). I have given some examples of the (minimal) remit of the parish council. The Office of National Statistics census data doesn't go down to the parish level and can only provide the data you suggest at "Chew Valley North" level which includes Chew Magna - however I suspect the profile is similar - but can't support this.
  • Prose: I have combined & reworded some of the paragraphs to overcome the stubby paragraphs & given the authority you suggest for Robinson.
  • References: these business were described as small business but I have now removed this level of detail - and the references that went with them.
  • Points of Interest: I've now changed this to historic buildings (having removed the bit on bridges).

I hope these meet your objections - but obviously if there is anything else just let me know.— Rod ^talk 22:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• I still find the Geography section lacking. From what you have wrote, as well as other Chew-related articles here, and Google Earth, I have written something like I am looking for here. I included info about its geographic situation, its layout and tried to be descriptive.
• I sympathsize with the lack of sources for small villages, I've found (with the areas I work with) that there is a 1000 people barrier, under which sources disappear. But the Industry section is really lacking.
• If that is all the parish does then it is fine. They are defined as a civil parish in the first sentence but is only followed-up (expanded) by this one sentence in the Government section (not interested in local politics, eh?). But it is much easier to include when they do so little. --maclean 00:15, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Response Thank you for your suggested text for the Geography section, which I have largely adopted (with a few tweaks). I'm not sure what else to add about industry as the only employment is the small workshops, I recently removed from the article, & service industries with people working in the shop, pubs or school - any ideas appreciated? I will try to look further at the remit of the parish council & include something additional.— Rod ^talk 09:24, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Reference check:
  • Reference to romanbristol.tripod.com/avon and weldgen.tripod.com/ and the webforum Chew Stoke Forums: The History of Chew Stoke are stretching Wikipedia:Reliable sources, specifically WP:V#SELF.
  • The reference (currently #12) to "^ HRH THE PRINCESS ROYAL visits Chew Stoke. Chew Stoke Forums : The History of Chew Stoke : Press release by Rural Housing Trust." goes to that same posting on that webforum. There is no mentioning of a press release, nor any princess.
  • Could you explain the placement of footnote 19 (to St Andrew's Church, Chew Stoke. GENUKI.) I'm ok with it as Reference, I just don't understand its use as a footnote in that sentence. --maclean 04:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Response to reference check

• I have changed the references to romanbristol and weldgen to a book source & briistolhistory.com with both provide the same info. The history of bell making I've removed as 2 other refs provide the same info.
• HRH visit - I've removed the bit about the timecapsule as I can't find another source for it - but kept in the visit & referenced to the Government News Network
• The Parish Council response to planning application submitted by Westbury Homes (Holdings) Ltd. Also points to the Chew Stoke forums - but is not available anywhere else & is a major issue (& has been focus of discussions in the area for years) so I think that one needs to stay in, but I have added a reference to a report in the local paper.
• I've removed the GENUKI ref as the Queen Elizabeth I item is covered by what is now ref 17.

I hope this meets your concerns?— Rod ^talk 14:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• I specifically didn't mention your third point there (to the Parish Council response) because I also think it is appropriately used. --maclean 19:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• Final Analysis: As my available time is about to be reduced I can no longer provide consistent full evaluations, so here is my final analysis:
  • The prose is a little rough around the edges with a few non-universal terms (ramblers?) but nothing a careful copyedit can't fix.
  • It has a really weak Industry section.
• I leave it up to the proponent, Raul654, and other reviewers to determine if these points are (a) relevant to the criteria, and/or, (b) satisfactorily addressed. -- maclean 19:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose—1a. In particular, unidiomatic wording and weird turns of phrase. Needs a thorough copy-edit throughout by someone new to the article.
  • Why are obsolescent US miles given first?
  • "The village has a long history, illustrated by the range of listed buildings, and now lies at the northern end of Chew Valley Lake close to the dam, pumping station, sailing club and fishing lodge." It's the range that illustrates its long history, is it? Rather than force unfamiliar readers to hit the link, consider piping thus: heritage-listed buildings. Has the village moved over time ("now lies")? Whether it has or not, it's an odd thing to write.
  • "A tributary of the River Chew runs through the village, possibly called Strode Brook, as it rises in the village of Strode, although it is not named on any maps." Possibly called something needs a reference, and is an odd way of putting it, here. "As" is not good here (means either "at the same time as" or "because/since", and we don't want to have to read further to find out which).
  • "The village has a population of about 1,000 and has"—has, has
  • Again, "mile", but this time not even graced with a metric equivalent. Get with the times: the UK has adopted the metric system.
  • "The village has some light industrial units, but is largely agricultural, with many residents commuting to nearby cities for employment."—What is a unit, here? "with" could refer back to the previous phrase, and again, we don't want to be forced into retro-disambiguation. "many residents commuting to nearby cities for employment"—odd expression. Try "... agriculture; many residents commute to jobs in nearby cities"?

It's not part of my oppose, but I continue to dislike infoboxes such as this one. It doesn't even look good. Why use bold, and why the grey background? And there's an ugly red pimple on the face of Britain. Tony 05:23, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Response Tony thank you for your comments & suggestions.

• • Copyedit - I have put a request on Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/proofreading for someone who has not edited theis article before to look at this.
  • miles v kilometers - Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements suggests that miles should be given before km as they are most commonly used - certainly all the road signs etc around here use miles. Perhaps this is for wider debate than this specific FAC as several other UK articles which are already FA use this convention.
    • There are a few odd suggestion coming from that guideline. --maclean 04:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Long history - I have changed the text as you suggest
  • Strode Brook - I've changed the wording - is this better?
  • Population has, has - reworded
  • Mile - the only occurance of mile without the Km conversion is a direct quote saying what is written on a milepost.
  • Industry - I have reworded but am having problems with this section as there is little else to say.
  • Infobox and map - again this seems to be the accepted convention for writing about english settlements - the ugly red pimple is supposed to help readers get an idea of where the village is.

I hope this meets some of your concerns - further advice appreciated.— Rod ^talk 10:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment: A replacement for the old compass table was edited into the article. I think the new compass table to be far too large and ugly. I have reverted it to the old compass table, but some formatting issues may have arisen. My thoughts are that if the new compass table is the one that articles are obliged to use, then it is better to not have one at all, but to list the adjacent civil parishes in the text. Apart from that, I think the suggestions I made have all been addressed and the article has been improved. I'm not sure what the "odd suggestions" coming from Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements might be (as mentioned by maclean), and wonder if maclean can expand upon them as at the moment it is difficult to know what the oddness is that is being referred to.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:08, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I also concur with DDStretch; I would urge for WP:UKCITIES to be applied a little more tightly (I think this would strengthen the article). As for "Infobox and map", I'm finishing off a localised map for Somerset as we speak, which will aid in contextualisation. Jza84 19:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

ResponseI don't mind which compass table is used, but have rearranged & renamed some of the sections to make it more closely fit with WP:UKCITIES. Thanks for the Somerset map it does help to put the vilage in context. — Rod ^talk 14:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. The history section has no information on the time between the Middle Ages and the 20th century, besides the section on the Bilbie family.
  • "It is likely that there was other occupation during Roman times in the village, as there is in the surrounding area, although no definitive evidence has been found." What source is this statement taken from?
  • In the "Middle Ages" section: "Farming, both arable and dairy, continues today." The question is rather what it was like back then.
  • "On 10 July 1968 torrential rainfall led to widespread flooding in the village, which water reaching the first floor of many buildings." Huh?
  • "The damage in the village was not as severe as in some of the surrounding villages such as Pensford, however, fears that the dam of Chew Valley Lake would be breached caused considerable anxiety in the village.[8]" That sentence contains the word "village" three times. The over-use of this word can be found in the whole article.--Carabinieri 17:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

ResponseThanks for your comments.

• There doesn't seem to be anything written, in multiple sources, about the period between the middle ages and the 20th century - therefore I am not able to expand this section.
• I have removed the sentence about probable roman occupation as I can't find the source it directly - although I have plenty of source detailing other roman sites in the valley.
• as with point 1 there doesn't seem to be much description available to cite for middle age farming & life in the village in those times.
• I have reworded the sentence about the 1968 floods to say "with water reaching..."
• I have removed 2 occurences of "village" in this sentence and approx 20 from the article as a whole (leaving 12 in the main text)

I hope this meets some of your concerns and I apologise for the lack of data relating to the village in the middle ages.— Rod ^talk 19:35, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response. If, in fact, nothing is known about the village's history during this period, then this should probably be stated explicitly in the article. Because as it is, the history section just seems really incomplete. Perhaps one could also add a bit of information about the region in general as long as it also pertains to Chew Stoke. Also:

• The "Economy" section is both really short and unsourced. A reference should be added, and merging it into another section (demography?) might also be a good idea.
• "Farming has been important in the area for hundreds of years." Wasn't this true for almost all of Europe excecpt for a few large cities until industrialization?--Carabinieri 01:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Response sorry for the delay in responding this time I was caught in Summer 2007 United Kingdom floods yesterday. I have added a comment about the paucity of writing about phases in the village history also:

• I have moved te economy section into demographics as suggested and referenced the comment about commuting. I should point out that that this section (once called industry) has been reduced significantly during this FAC as the URLs for the light industry units at "Fairseats farm" were criticised as link spam. There is very little employment in the village and this means that the section has always been short.
• I have reworded the piece about the age of the farmhouses reflecting the history to show that this is not unique to this village.— Rod ^talk 09:05, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Response The standard secondary source for the history of UK Parishes is the Victoria County History. Unfortunately, this is a work in progress, and the volume covering Chew Stoke has not been published (and probably not even started). I am sure that there are manorial rolls etc that cover the history of the village, but they are primary sources, and using them directly in Wikipedia would be original research. The only options I can think of for secondary sources would be the report for the country of the Royal Commission for Historial Monuments in England (written around 1950, and possibly not covering the history of the village), or articles in local history (or family history) magazines. Given the lack of a VCH history of the village, I wouldn't be surprised if there were no suitable secondary sources at all. Bluap 19:35, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• I've been asked to re-assess the writing. I went straight to the lead and the short first section on Prehistory.

I try to be generous in revisiting nominations when asked, but I found far too many issues in this very exposed opening to even consider supporting this one. Here is my copy-edit of that portion, to demonstrate my point (I've had to guess a few things). Although a few of the changes are personal choices aimed at making it more stylish, most would gain the agreement of professional editors generally (it is required to be of a professional standard). There was one breach of the MOS.

I balked before at "industrial units", and it remained. I've substituted "sites" without knowing what it means. I suppose they're factories and the like. "Units" is far too vague (sounds like the units of production that factories turn out). There are still dictionary terms linked, which I complained about last time: why bother our readers with a blue spattering of "apples", "pears" and the like? Please remove them.

To satisfy myself that the prose is problematic generally, I cast my eyes down at random. "The area of Chew Stoke is surrounded by arable and dairy farms"—um, arable farms? Why would you farm land that isn't arable? The two adjectives are very strange bedfellows, even if arable made logical sense. "While much of the area is cleared for farming"—"has been" is a little more comfortable, yes? "An older centre is located along Pilgrams Way which loops onto Bristol Road and features an old stone packhorse bridge, pedestrian only now, and a 1950s Irish bridge, used as a ford in winter." Starting a dependent clause, "which" must be preceded by a comma: MUST. "Pedestrian only now" is bad per se and in relation to the rest of the sentence ("restricted to pedestrians"?).

The article has merit, so why is the prose still bad? Tony 14:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the specific issues you raised have now been addressed, although I'm not certain what was the breach of MOS you hinted at.

On the point about "arable farms", I don't know how it works in the rest of the world, but we do have both arable and dairy farms here in the UK. The distinction isn't to do with farming land that isn't arable, it's to do with using the land to raise livestock—most often cows—as opposed to growing crops. Perhaps what we call a "dairy farm" would be called something else in other parts of the English speaking world? --Malleus Fatuarum 23:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You're quite right: I've looked it up—crop-related word. The rest wasn't hard to fix, because I did it for you. It was, of course, an example of why the whole text needs attention. THe MOS breach was the lack of a space before "km". Tony 13:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Response The whole text has received attention from a number of copyeditors, and has been greatly improved as a result I believe. --Malleus Fatuarum 21:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.