Talk:History of Hertfordshire/GA1

GA Review

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Starting review. Pyrotec (talk) 17:12, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Initial comments

This article appears to be well-referenced, well-illustrated, and fairly comprehensive in scope. I took an instant dislike to the prose in the WP:lead and there are some one-sentence and two-sentence paragraphs; but article as a whole is probably GA-material.

I will continue the review, section by section, but leaving the WP:lead (with its instantly dislikeable prose) until last. Pyrotec (talk) 21:29, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At present I'm only concentrating on "problems"; so if I don't mention a section that probably means that I regard it as compliant with WP:WIAGA. I'm sorry if this comes across as "negative"; but the good points only do get mentioned at the end of this review.

Early history -

This paragraph is fairly reasonable, well apart from the marketing hyperbole. Does it really "boast" several Iron Age forts: ref 3 only provides verification of one?
It apparently has a "wealth of Iron Age burial sites in Hertfordshire, making it a place of international importance in the study of the period"? Ref 3 more modestly states "Several very wealthy late Iron Age burials are known from Hertfordshire including three from the Welwyn area, two from Baldock and a Caluvellunnian ‘royal’ burial from Verulamium, which is one of the most impressive burials known from Celtic Britain and Europe"; nothing about International importance.
The paragraph is well referenced; well apart from the claim: "the Saxons partitioned the area between the Kingdom of Mercia and the Kingdom of Essex", which is unreferenced.

Early Middle Ages -
- Tenth century -

"vastly important document" - more subjective hype? - Done Pyrotec (talk) 10:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would be better in ref 14 pointed to some history (which is what it claims to WP:verify) rather than Top Stories. - Done Pyrotec (talk) 10:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...to be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 22:03, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Early history: Yes, there are several iron age forts in Hertfordshire. (This is, essentially, what "oppidum" means.)

Sorry if my comment was too subtle, I was really objecting to the WP:peacock word boast. I was looking for a word like "has". Pyrotec (talk) 10:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reference 3 says: "Indeed Hertfordshire is one of the best areas in which to study the late Iron Age in Europe and many of the remains are of international importance."
Said claim is now referenced.

It looks like you referenced an unreferenced claim in Early Middle Ages / Origins rather than Early history. Pyrotec (talk) 10:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Early middle ages: Aethelgifu's will is pretty important, yeah, hence note #5. I've cut "vastly", which sounds like peacockery.
Reference 14 now points where I intended. :)

High Middle Ages -
- Eleventh century -

- Ref 23 is a book that has been converted into a (long) web page. A page number(s) aught to be provided - they appear in the right hand margin as, e.g. [Pg 4].

- Twelfth century -

- I don't particularly like these one, two, and three-sentence paragraphs. They look more like bullet points without the bullets.

Various changes made. I don't intend to combine the paragraphs in "twelfth century"; it's better to start a new paragraph when addressing a new topic, and I disapprove of this tendency to stitch paragraphs on unrelated topics together in order to make longer paragraphs, which is an artifact of Wikipedian GA criteria, not an aspect of good writing style. (Fowler's has nothing to say on paragraph length at all. Strunk merely says a paragraph should be more than one sentence, except in speech.) Since the sources I have available do not supply any more detail on these topics, expanding the paragraphs would just be an exercise in padding or waffle.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 11:21, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Late Middle Ages -

Appears compliant.

Renaissance -
- Sixteenth century -

- Ref 50 provides verification of the charter, but the previous statement about the three heritics appears to be unverifiable.

Modern era -

Appears compliant.

WP:lead -

Adequate, but could be expanded to provide a bit more "summary" of the main points.

Overall summary

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Quite a comprehensive summary of the History of Hertfordshire & well referenced.

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:

B. MoS compliance:
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
Well referenced.

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Well illustrated.
Overall:
Pass or Fail:

This is a good article and I'm awarding GA-status. It has taken some time to review it and I've made a few critical comments above, however considering the length of the article these were not all the significant. Congratulations on the quality of the article. Pyrotec (talk) 20:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Pyrotec. :)—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 06:22, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]