Talk:Bentworth/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: BelovedFreak 10:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid that this article does not meet the good article criteria at this time. I acn tell you that almost immediately because of a severe shortage of references to reliable sources, inline maintenance tags and a lead section that does not comply with WP:LEAD. I will go through it and give you a more thorough review though, so that you can work on it. As there is much work to be done, and I won't be able to comment on everything, I would strongly recommend putting it through a peer review, after you've worked on my suggestions and before another GA nomination. With regard to grammatical issues, if writing's not your strong point—don't worry there are many good Wikipedia editors who don't excel at prose!—then I wold defintely recommend putting in a request, either to an editor you know that is good at writing, or at the Guild of Copy Editors, where someone will whip the prose into shape for you.

I will compare the article against the GA criteria:

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   Noticeably, the lead section does not comply with WP:LEAD, there are grammatical errors

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.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

I will now go through each section and note any issues.

Prose/Manual of style issues

Lead

• As I mentioned, the lead section does not comply with WP:LEAD. This is a requirement for GA. The lead is not just an introduction, it should summarise the whole of the rest of the article, acting as a kind of "mini article", bearing in mind that many readers will not read past the table of contents. At the moment, there are many things mentioned in the article that are not summarised in the lead. In addition, there should be no information mentioned in the lead that is not expanded on later on. At the moment, almost the opposite is happening, for example, you say more about George Wither in the lead than you do further down.
• I'm not sure what you mean by "historic village" - Surely most English villages are historic? Or is there a specific meaning to that?
• Don't think you should call it a "large" parish, because it immediately makes me think "how large? Large compared to what?"
• "just of the A339" → just off the A339
• "roughly 5.5 square miles" - "roughly" sounds a bit, well... rough! "Approximately" might be better. Remember to put the metric equivalent.
• The structure of the lead is a bit mixed up, but as you develop the structure of the rest of the article, the lead should follow.
• Be careful of overlinking; no ned to link Bentworth and Lasham railway station twice in quick succession.
• "In the south-east of the village, the large estate of Bentworth Hall is located there, next to Gaston Grange wood." - this sentence is not great, grammatically. How about, The large estate of Bentworth Hall is located in the south-east of the village, next to Gaston Grange wood.
• "George Wither, a famous English poet .." - this sentence, as a whole, does not make grammatical sense.

History

• "Bentewurda or Bintewurda (xii cent.); Bynteworth (xiv cent.)." - what?? Actually, I realise what this is, but it needs to be in prose, it probably wouldn't mean a lot to some readers.
• "its manors and houses has been passed on countless of times" - this is vague (the "countless times" bit) and grammatically incorrect - the "has" and the "countless of times"
• Watch out for "redundancies" - words that don't really add meaning. For example, "One time when it was in the reign of King John, January 1207–8,...." - "one time" is not necessary (By the way, see User:Tony1/How to improve your writing for some great tips)
• "Bentworth Hall was searched and had found many hidden medieval remains" - not good, grammatically
• Alton links to a disambiguation page

Manors and houses of Bentworth

• Is Mr. Fisher somebody who's likely to have an article written about him? If not, delink his name!

St. Mary's Church

• "inclosed" → enclosed
• Check out WP:UNITS for how to present units of measurement
• "1800's" - needs no apostrophe (1800s)

Parish

• "In its boundaries contain four hamlets..." - ungrammatical
• "settled by descendants of England's Royal Family." - this is a bit vague; descendants of whom exactly? Can you name a specific monarch?
• "BURKHAM (Brocham, xiv cent.; Barkham, xvi cent.; Berkham, Burcum, xviii cent.)" - shouldn't be in all capitals and the name details should be in prose. As it stands, gives the appearance of being copy/pasted from a gazetteer
• You probably don't need a subheading for each of these hamlets, they'd work just as separate paragraphs
• "Wivelrod is arguably the highest point in Hampshire." - this is not good for two reasons. Firstly, no reference, which I'll come back to later. Secondly - "is arguably" - sounds like original research and is not what we want in an article. You need to be able to state that it is the highest point, or don't mention it at all. Of course, such a claim needs a reference to a reliable source
• Medstead links to a disambiguation page
• "which is surprisingly in the Bentworth parish " - don't call something surprising, unless it's been notably described thus by reliable sources. Otherwise it comes off a bit tabloidy; readers don't need to be told to be surprised.
• "Holt End is New Copse,..." - not sure what this means
• "It is close to Wield and is often mistaken for being in the wrong parish" - this is vague - mistaken by whom? What is the wrong parish?
• Is Gaston Grange a building? If so, why's it not mentioned in the houses section? Ditto Thedden Grange. If these are in distinct places from Bentworth, then perhaps they shouldn't be in this article? Just a thought...
• Don't put a wikilink in a heading (MOS:HEAD)

Bentworth and Lasham railway station

• Film titles should be in italics

Famous People

• Headings should be in sentence case (MOS:HEAD)

Population Figures

• That's an interesting image, but I think this information would be better in a table. Did you actually create the image yourself, on a computer? Or is it from somewhere else? Anyway, it would definitely be more appropriate in a wikitable.

References, citations, sources

• Ok, this is a big problem here. You have a grand total of 2 inline citations, one of which is just to a pub website, not a secondary source. There is one {{citation needed}} tag, but there could be many, many more. At the moment, this article does not comply with WP:V; a very important policy. You need references to reliable sources, and many more of them! I'm not going to go through each section becauseevery section needs citations. Some examples are the claim of "highest village", and the population figures, but really all of it needs references. See if you can find books that mention the village. I'm curious as to where all this information has come from.

Other thoughts

• External links: far too many! Remember, Wikipedia is not a link directory, there's no need to provide the web addresses for the school, the church etc. Readers will know how to use google.
• The license for File:Bentworth St Mary 01.jpg is not correct. If you dodn't take the photo, you are not the author. On the website it came from, it states that the photos are for personal use only, and that is not compatible with Wikipedia's license. Luckily, there is this one: File:St Mary's Church Bentworth - geograph.org.uk - 105318.jpg available on commons. There is also this one on Geograph which you could upload.
• General formatting of the article could be improved so that images aren't hanging between sections and pushing headers out of the way. it's best to leave images at their default size (eg. the church one has been set at a bigger size).

I know I've mentioned a lot of things here, but I wanted to give you a lot to work with. Try comparing with similar articles that are already GA or FA (like Navenby, Chew Stoke, Penmon and Chew Magna). Also, if you haven't already, have a good look over Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements. Let me know if you have any questions, and good luck with developing the article further.--BelovedFreak 11:35, 8 June 2010 (UTC)