Talk:Thomas Quiney/GA1

GA Review

This appears to be a thorough biography of a long-dead, barely-in-the-records person. It is well-organized and well-written. Here is what needs polishing:

• The marriage was controversial because it took place during a prohibited season - This will probably be unclear to modern readers.
  •  Done Rephrased as The marriage took place during a season when a special license was required by the church, and the couple had failed to obtain one, leading to Quiney's brief excommunication.. --Xover (talk) 22:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Is everything in "Business and municipal offices" sourced to footnote 4? If so, you might repeat it at the end of every paragraph. It would make that clearer.
  •  Done Repeated ref for each paragraph, and added additional references. --Xover (talk) 22:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• His accounts for 1662 and 1663 were first voted “imperfect” by the council in his absence, but were later passed. - This needs to be explained to the reader.
  •  Doing... I have an idea for expanding this bit that should provide more context. --Xover (talk) 22:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done Rewrote to provide more context, added facsimiles of the relevant bits of the account, and additional sources. --Xover (talk) 20:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
    • The facsimiles are a nice touch. I will add the publication information to the images myself. Awadewit (talk) 18:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

• Presumably they had posted the required banns in church, since Walter Wright of Stratford was cited for marrying without banns or license, but this was not considered sufficient. - The Walter Wright section is slightly confusing - I understand it, but I think some readers might not understand why he is being mentioned.
  •  Done I rephrased the sentences to make clear why we're mentioning Walter Wright there. --Xover (talk) 22:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Looking at the quotations in the footnotes, I think you should use more quotation marks in the article. Quite a few phrases come directly from the source and should be acknowledged as such.
  •  Done I've rewritten to incorporate direct quotes (marked appropriately) where that seemed sensible, and rephrased to avoid echoing the source for the other instances I could find. Some of these are unavoidable without major artificial contortions since they're mainly a listing of facts where a further rewrite would be in danger of changing the meaning. --Xover (talk) 21:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not sure why all of the quotations are in the footnotes. I would delete all of the ones that do not add extra information to the article. Reading the notes is like reading the article for a second time.
  • Well, the quotes in the notes are to make it easy to spot issues such as the above point; and because Shakespearean biography if rife with examples of one scholar writing something and another citing him but changing the meaning. By quoting the relevant excerpts that are cited the reader can easily verify that the article doesn't contradict or misunderstand the source. In fact, in researching this article we came across what is probably just such a case; one early scholar had written the name of a play and later scholars had taken it to be the name of the playwright. The mistake got cited in yet later works and spread until it was accepted wisdom. I'm quite attached to having the quotes in the footnotes, but it's not something I'd fill the moat with burning pitch over. :-) --Xover (talk) 21:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Ok, but usually readers expect to find extra information in the footnotes, so it is important to recognize that reading everything twice can be a bit frustrating! Awadewit (talk) 18:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

• The article basically relies on two scholars: Chambers and Schoenbaum. Having a third source would be a good idea. Two seems slim.
  •  Done Added a ref to Honan (one ref to 8 dense pages, which is cheating a little, but will hopefully do). --Xover (talk) 19:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
    • And Halliwell-Phillipps, and Fripp, and McRea, and Eccles, … :-) --Xover (talk) 21:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• Image:Quiney arms.gif - This image description should include information about where the design was taken from - how did the maker know this was the Quiney arms? You might also want to make it clear that the copyright holder and the uploader are one and the same. The "I" in the copyright release is a little vague right now.
  •  Done Image in article is now cited to Chambers, and image description page updated with an Information template. --Xover (talk) 19:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Image:Plan-trinity-church.jpg - This image needs some sort of source (where did this schematic come from?) and needs to clarify the copyright holder released it as well.
  •  Done Actually I think it was you that added the image over on the Judith Quiney article and I just brought it over in a cut and paste. :-) In any case, it appears to be a photo of a floor layout taken at Holy Trinity which puts the copyright status in… unpredictable state. I replaced it with a CC-BY-SA exterior view of Holy Trinity from geograph.co.uk. --Xover (talk) 19:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
    • I've recently become much more aware of image issues! Awadewit (talk) 18:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I hope these suggestions help! Awadewit (talk) 03:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Passing - thanks for working so hard on this article! Awadewit (talk) 18:37, 8 August 2008 (UTC)