Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Aldermaston/archive1

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 by SandyGeorgia 16:38, 1 May 2011 [1].

Aldermaston[edit]

Featured article candidates/Aldermaston/archive1

Nominator(s): matt (talk) 20:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it meets the criteria for featured articles, and is modelled on a number of existing FA for places. A lot of feedback has been given on the quality of the article, including two peer reviews and a successful good article nomination. A number of MOS improvements have been made since the GA review, and other general content edits have added to the quality of the article since then. matt (talk) 20:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Driveby comment: I am not convinced that File:Aldermaston Petrol.png meets the NFCC. Yes, it's an important subject worthy of discussion in the article, but the image does not add a great amount. Obviously, I would have no objection to the use of the image if it was demonstrated to be free, but, until then, its use will have to meet the NFCC. J Milburn (talk) 23:14, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure, but I think the image may be pre-1923 and so public domain. I'm not sure of that, but I'll do some digging to see if I can pin an exact date on it. matt (talk) 23:21, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

Citations to web sources need access dates
Ref 15, 16, etc: page(s)? All citations to multi-page works should generally include page numbers
Ref 21, 82, 141: which APC 2007? Check for others
What is AONB? Spell out or link potentially unfamiliar acronyms and abbreviations
Missing bibliographic info for Aldermaston Parish Council 2005
No footnotes to BBC Berkshire 2007a, Berkshire Family History Society, check for others
Use a consistent template for Further reading
Bartholomew 1887: any further bibliographic info available?
Birmingham UK or US? Where is Slough? etc. If you're going to include counties, do it for all UK locations outside of London
Why do you include full first names in Further reading but not Sources?
What kind of publication is Campbell 1982?
Publisher for Caiger-Smith 2009?
This link appears to be broken
Be more consistent in what is italicized when
What makes this a reliable source? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:57, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Image captions should meet same standards for prose, consistency, MoS, verifiability, etc as article text
File:Berks-West.png - what source was used to create this map? Is it based on a pre-existing image?
File:Aldermaston_Petrol.png - FUR could stand to be elaborated. What is the date of creation of the video, for example?
File:Aldermaston_population_nokey.svg - what data source was used to create this graph? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:57, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Other than the large clue provided by its name, the body of the article does not explain what AWE does. Oldelpaso (talk) 19:04, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done. matt (talk) 10:00, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reading through the article again, I think relegating AWE to a mention in an "other business" subsection of Economy downplays its role in the local economy far too much. The place name is synonymous with the nuclear facility, just like, say, Sizewell or Heysham. According to the AWE website, it employs 4,500 directly and 2,000 contractors. In a place with a resident population of less than 1,000 that is dominant to say the least. Oldelpaso (talk) 10:31, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. A look through the top parts showed problems that should definitely have been fixed by now. I suggest a thorough cleansing and renomination.

927 people? Sure that's not 929 or 923 now? Too exact, per MOSNUM. Nearly a thousand would be better, but when? "as of 2011"?
Very blue at the top: why not unlink "South East England", since "Berkshire" will contain a link to that broader target anyway? The infobox region, country, sovereign state is like a taxonony, or a postal envelope: do we really need so much low-value information, given that the more specific items are linked and there's an inset in the map?
I still object to the miles first, km conversion, in UK articles. The BBC has gone over to km: why this old-fogy resistance to change? Please don't quote at me the prescription for utter mess that pervades road signs etc in the UK at the moment: we don't have to stoop to that. [this is a personal comment, not actionable in terms of the FAC process; and I'm sorry to be rude ... don't take it personally.]
MOSLINK says try not to bunch up links, and link to the most specific item: why not link just the second, more specific item? Who is going to rush to the article on the US Airforce when reading this article? "United States Air Force XIX Tactical Air Command".
"Radiocarbon dating on a number of postholes and pits found in the area show activity from 1690–1390"—remove "found". Does "a number of" add anything to the plural "postholes"?
Possibly The remains of wheat ... (where there's an "of" to the right, put a "the" to the left ... doesn't always work, but usually).
"Before the 1066 Norman conquest of England the land and properties of"—comma after "England"?
Tense: "Before the 1066 Norman conquest of England the land and properties of Aldermaston had formed part of the estates of Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex, who would later become King Harold II of England." I'd be inclined to remove the "had" and make it "who later became".
"remainder of the reign"—ayn ayn. Try "rest of" to remove what Fowler called a "jingle".
World War I: linked twice in the space of three seconds. Why at all? It's rather too broad to be useful, and if a reader doesn't know what it was, they should go to bed and read for a year before emerging.
"Of the 100 men from the village that served in"—were they robots? "who".
Remove one word: "with many lots being purchased by their occupiers"
See MoS on section titles: "Post-war" what?
"village valued the village's" Tony (talk) 05:37, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Tony – I'll have a proper look through your suggestions when I've got more time. Which points are you referring to at the top which ought to have been fixed? I'm still working on the image (to find out whether it's PD or not, and whether it can be justified as fair use) and have removed it for the time-being, but I've gone through all of Nikkimaria's points to touch stuff up. Thanks, matt (talk) 07:50, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a quick zip through your points and done some changes. Cheers, matt (talk) 08:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Matt, my points are only examples to support my view that the whole text needs a run-through. Is there someone else in the field who's a word-nerd and can c-e it with the benefit of strategic distance? Tony (talk) 08:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

It has a table titled "Historical population of Aldermaston" containing blue text. This makes it look like it contains links. I tried clicking on them to see where they went but then realised they were just aesthetic. I suggest the blue is converted to black.
It says "The confluence of the rivers is approximately 0.6 miles (0.97 km) north of the village." and "The Butt Inn, is located approximately 1.25 miles (2.01 km) north-east of the village". As is common on Wikipedia, the term 'approximately' is followed by an apparently precise statistic. This creates an apparent contradiction. In any case, it's excessive precision to say '0.97 km' and '2.01 km' for the distance between a village and a river, or a village and a pub. The apparent precision should be reduced and/or the term 'approximately' removed. It's probably enough precision to quote the distances as 1 km and 2 km.
It says "Post-World War II. During the 1940s..." The text relating to the 1940s doesn't belong in that section. The section titles could do with a review. Perhaps the date related theme of 'Middle ages' could be continued and replace 'Victorian era' with '19th century' and replace 'Post-World War II' with '20th century onwards'.
I don't know what the term 'Toponymy' means. It's only used once and no explanation is provided. Is a plain English term available?

Hope that helps. Lightmouse (talk) 23:22, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.