GA review on hold

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail:

I've reorganised the article per WP:UKCITIES. I'm afraid there is a very significant problem with referencing in this article, there are too many uncited facts for this article to pass GA standards; I refrained from tagging each one with a ((fact)) template as there would be far too many, however if editors feel this would be helpful I will happily do it. This is not however the only issue, I will attempt to outline the problems.

• The prehistoric and Roman history section is unreferenced.
• The Saxon history section also needs more references, there are only two references given in a four paragraph section. WP:V states that "material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source"
• "The bury element is a form of borough, which has cognates in words and place names in virtually every Indo-European and Semitic language, as well as others. For a fuller explanation, see under borough." This is perhaps too much detail, I think a simple "Bury is an Old English word meaning 'stronghold' or 'fort'", with a source of course, would suffice.
• What is an "archiepiscopal see"?
• The Jewish community section has a ((fact)) tag which needs to be dealt with. Also the section seems a bit short, perhaps it should be integrated into a new 'Medieval history' section which would also address my concern of a lack of medieval history being mentioned, for example Thomas Becket is only mentioned in the lead and not the main body of the text.
• It's frankly ridiculous to have a one sentence section.
• Did the Industrial Revolution pass Canterbury by? There's no mention of it at all. Even if it had no effect, that's worth mentioning.
• The post 1900 section is completely lacking in references.
• The article is missing a governance section. WP:UKCITIES will give useful pointers on what should be included in one.
• The demography and landmarks sections are woefully short, they would benefit from some expansion. I would recommend looking at WP:UKCITIES for ideas. But while we're on the point, lists are discouraged when they could be converted into prose or perhaps displayed as a table, and there is a lot more to demography than merely population change, such as ethnicity.
• I'm personally fairly weak at writing geography sections, but I'm sure there's more to say about Canterbury than "it has a river". For example, what is it's position relative to local settlements. Again, I'm going to refer you to WP:UKCITIES.
• The economy section seemed solid enough until I read "Tourism is currently worth £258 million to the Canterbury economy and has been a cornerstone of the local economy for a number of years. The district attracts over 6.3 million visitors per annum of which nearly 50% are from overseas". This appears word for word in the source and is a violation of copyright. I have reworded it slightly, but it concerns me that there may be other parts of the article have been copied. Although I do understand that it's not easy to rephrase something which is essentially reciting facts. Also "the district attracts".. this article is about the city not the district.
• The transport section is again lacking in references, when controversial statements such "despite claims by the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the Canterbury and Whitstable was the first regular passenger steam railway in the world" are made they 'must be sourced. I also think there may be too much detail here, it should be a summary of the past, present, and future changes to the transport system in Canterbury.
• "Canterbury is legendary for traffic congestion". Is it really? Source please.
• "The city has many students", could this be quantified? Also the education section probably needs further sourcing.
• The local radio section could benefit from removing the bullet points.
• Some peacock terms are beginning to creep into the prose, for example "legendary shows". A neutral tone is encouraged. Also, acts such as The Clash, Led Zep, and Ozzy Osbourne probably need referencing. As does the rest of the culture section.
• I'm not sure what the point of having a section on mills is. Either the mills themselves should be integrated into the landmarks section, or they could be worked into a new Industrial Revolution paragraph of the history section.
• Everybody in the notable people section needs a reference.
• I will reiterate again that this article is about the city not the district, so I have removed the towns listed as being twinned with the district.

I believe this article has perhaps been nominated prematurely, once the above issues are addressed I'm confident it can pass GA, however these are not small issues. I will put the article on hold for the period of a week in case an intrepid reviewer wants to put in the effort required. I'd also recommend asking User:Epbr123 to have a quick copy edit of the article, he's participated in promoting a lot of Kent related articles and is familiar with the requirements of GA. I'm sorry if this seems harsh, if you disagree with my opinions you can take the article to WP:GAR. Good luck. Nev1 (talk) 17:28, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the subsections under history are very short. I'd recommend combining some of these together; a separate subsection is not necessarily needed for each century, rather, see if you can combine these into distinct periods in the city's history (medieval, industrial, victorian, modern, etc). Lots of these subsections are very short, and in need of major expansion -- as-is, it's a serious issue with the completeness criterion of WP:WIAGA.

Promote the 'culture' section; there are other things (like transportation and education) that should come last, but culture is more important.

The way I see it, the article is a good, solid B-class, but quite far from GA at this point. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mills - The point of the mills section was to partly to show the growth of the city, and how it citizens were fed. A total of sixteen wind and watermills are known in the city since Domesday. The article doens't even mention the mills now, except as an afterthought at the end. Mention ought to be made of St Martin's Mill, which is one of only twenty eight windmills surviving in Kent. Mjroots (talk) 15:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA passed

I'm delighted to say that I think this article passes the GA criteria. I'm astonished at the rate it's been expanded, it's been a fantastic effort by everyone involved. Nev1 (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! Quite impressive at the improvements! Good work! Though the economy section could still use a bit more expansion -- probably ok with GA, though, but something to work on,... Dr. Cash (talk) 21:10, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm utterly impressed! Credit to Epbr123 for his ingeniousness. Well done ——Ryan | t • c 23:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]