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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 archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 00:07, 9 September 2015 [1].

Bentworth

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Nominator(s): JAGUAR  20:09, 3 September 2015 (UTC) and ♦ Dr. Blofeld[reply]

After a complete overhaul of the sources by me, We hope and Dr. Blofeld, and with all of the source checks clarified on Bentworth's talk page, I believe that this once again meets the FA criteria. Significant additions/reductions include the removal of the poorly sourced climate paragraph (arguments for this raises the question of whether a village needs its own climate section, but surprisingly this was the only article in the region to have its own climate information), removal of all other unsourced or missing information, an entire re-work of the sources with the addition of harv-style references and a bibliography section, and finally various tweaks of most of the prose so that now the article is 100% reliant on its sources.

This article gained seven supports in its last FAC, and I'm confident that the quality of the prose remains at the optimal level. If anyone has any comments regarding the new changes, I'll be happy to address them. If not, I hope you find the new changes to your satisfaction. JAGUAR  20:09, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Squeamish Ossifrage

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Really just a drive-by observation at this time, but there are some problems with the referencing. There are quite a few references that point to Bibliography entries which do not exist, and vice versa. Some of them may be easily corrected, but some I'm at a loss about, especially the "Page 1011" reference (#43). Grab one of the tools that highlights harvref errors and you'll quickly see what I mean. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:44, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments, Squeamish Ossifrage. I've deleted ref 43 and replaced it with the existing ref for Burkham House. No idea what happened there - it was fine before the conversions made to harvrefs. Which tool did you mean? I'm going to go over them manually first but it would be useful for automated help. JAGUAR  19:01, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The one I use involves dropping "importScript('User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js');" in your common.js. There may be others. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:19, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I know that this article had a troubled history with sourcing. There's certainly a lot of reference-formatting problems remaining, many of which arise from trusting the Google Books capsule description of older works and bound journal collections. I won't say those are always wrong, but ... okay, I will. They're always wrong.

  • In general, books that weren't assingned IsBNs should have OCLC numbers (or some suitably equivalent identifier). In some cases, determining which version was consulted (and, thus, which OCLC number is correct) may be challenging.
  • Consider moving volume numbers of multivolume works to |volume.
  • The A & C Black source is so incomplete as to be imprecise. The Google Books link is, as many are for older works, significantly defective. There are a bunch of these Who Was Who books for different time periods, several of which were published in 1967. Among other problems, this makes identifying the OCLC number impossible.
  • The Bigg-Wither source is a mess. It's cited as a self-published 1907 work (with an incomplete author name, I suspect), but linked to a 2007 self-publsihed work on Google Books. In any case, I can't determine precisely what material it's being used to support; there may be WP:SPS problems here. If you're actually using the 2007 work, it has a listed ISBN; if you're using the 1907 archival material, then there are other issues (wrong link, wrong title format, etc.).
  • You appear to be citing 1858 and 1925 editions of Burke? Is some information not included in the newer source?
  • I'm not sure the "Bentworth Historical data" source is titled properly. Is there any more bibliographical information available? I couldn't find the link to it from the Hampshire County Council page. In any case, many of their resources are authored by "Hampshire County Council" and not "County of Hampshire", which will need confirmation.
  • The source credited to Jenny French is not listed correctly. First, based on examination of the source, I believe the title should be styled "Bentworth Parish Plan 2008". Second, French is not the sole author; "This document was researched, written, and prepared on behalf of Bentworth Parish Council by an appointed sub-committee comprising: Jenny French..., Colin Brooks, Tony Loch, 'Fred' Moir, Carole Barlow, Debbie Rhodes, Dave Robinson". Similarly, I think that suggests the publisher should be "Bentworth Parish Council", rather than Bentworth Civil Parish, although my lack of understanding of local UK governance may be a barrier here.
  • I'll put my hand up and admit I was responsible for changing author to Jenny French as she was the chairperson of the committee. Jaguar, because the sfn template looks for an author's name, the revert has re-instated a cite ref error for it. SagaciousPhil - Chat 08:15, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I suspect that Galfridius needs to be in title case, and Sumptibus capitalized.
  • I believe Who's Who in British Finance was assigned an ISBN; I'm less certain about the author attribution here.
  • The Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society source has insufficent (and incorrect) bibliographical information. Google Books is not trustworthy for older works. This should be citing:
Shore, T. W. (1905). "Bentworth and its Historical Associations". Papers and Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society. 4: 1–15.
  • The Transactions source is incompletely cited. It doesn't help that the scan of this one is incomplete. However, page iii still includes the full table of contents, permitting:
Smith, F. J. (1899). "The Working of the Light Railways Act, 1896". Transactions. 31: 263–310.

I probably missed some things, as I was skimming after midway through. I did not examine the sources in the References section, only the Bibliography at this time. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I started a second pass, trying to look at some of the sources in references:

  • Website sources are not consistently formatted, especially as regards use of the |work and |publisher parameters. Also, there's quite a few instances of URLs being used as though they were publishers' names.
  • A few references have wikilinks (ESPN, in #32, for example). But there's not really any consistent approach to them (personally, I'd cull them, but it's an editorial stylistic choice if applied correctly).
Sources which are verifiable online should be linked, I've done it in previous FAs.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:03, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry if I was unclear, I didn't mean the problem with linking to the source. I meant actually linking the publisher field to our article on ESPN, but not doing that for stuff like BBC News. It's fine either way, but should ideally be done in some consistent manner (no links, all blue links, first appearance ... whatever is good, but this seems random). Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source quality is not strong overall. I'm going to need some convincing that the Roman Britain Organization (#9) constitutes a reliable source. Why is the Lasham Gliding Society a reliable source about the Golden Jubilee of King George III? Modern-Day Explorers is just a Blogger-hosted blog. And so on.
The society source was the only one which could be found mentioning the actual planting.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:03, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Got a replacement source for this one:
  • Palmer, Arnold (1949). Recording Britain. Vol. 4: Wiltshire, Somerset, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Sussex, Kent. Oxford University Press. OCLC 222907793., p. 132.
Hope that helps. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:55, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Papers of George Cecil Ives" is titled incorrectly; per the source, it should be "George Cecil Ives: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Center".
Cevil is clearly a typo.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:03, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Mea culpa. That typo is on my part; it's the title styling that I wanted to highlight. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • #35 is not an adequate citation for Google Maps. See Template:Google maps, or something like it (if you wish to avoid that template's wikilinking habits).
Use of that template is not essential.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:03, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, the template isn't essential, but the information that template accepts is; right now, there's just a link to Google Maps, not to any actual map section used as a reference. And that's not sufficient. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, I stopped looking at reference formatting to examine what the sources actually say. I really, really did not want to do this, but I'm going to have to oppose promotion on the same grounds that failed the previous FAC. This article needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, with a careful checking of facts against the sources. Let me highlight a handful of problems:

  • The article says: "The Romans built a road between ... Silchester ... and the Roman settlement of Vindomis ...". Besides the awkward prose of "Romans ... Romans", the real problem here is that it implies that Vindomis was the destination of that road, when both sources invoked (their quality notwithstanding) indicate that Vindomis was just a waypoint on the Sinchester–Chichester road.
  • The article says: "The Ives family later shared ownership with the author George Cecil Ives who lived for a time at the hall with his paternal grandmother." This prose is not FA quality to start with. I'm not sure how "the Ives family" would share ownership with someone who is facially a member of that family. But more importantly, that's not what the source says. "[George Cecil Ives] was raised by his father's mother, Emma Ives, and referred to her as his mother. Ives and his grandmother primarily resided in England at Bentworth Hall, or in the South of France." There's nothing about ownership of the property whatsoever.
  • I talked about the misformatting of the Transactions reference, earlier, but the content has also been badly misconstrued. Wikipedia currently says: "Land was taken from the villages of Bentworth and Lasham to provide for the railway station." But that's not what the source says; instead: "It is noteworthy that neither owners nor ratepayers of Bentworth and Shalden will contribute a share of the cost of constructing the railway by way of betterment, or otherwise".
  • The article says: "The lower ground to the south-east of Bentworth and to the south of the nearby villages of Lasham and Shalden drains towards the River Wey which rises to the surface near Alton.". The source does not mention Lasham nor Shalden whatsoever. Additionally, the source is badly mis-cited, treating the source and publication date of the last blockquote as though they were the source and publication date of the work in its entirety. In short, reference #36 was not published on 11 July 2008 (it even quotes a 2010 source earlier in the text!), and was not authored or published by the Alton Herald. Piling on to the other problems, in fact, I'm not sure this is a reliable source at all.
It's a notable enough regional newspaper I think.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:03, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If this were actually from the Alton Herald, absolutely. But what's being cited isn't; its just from this Wey River website of uncertain editorial oversight. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the Transport section, the article says: "The line was reopened in 1924 as area residents pressed for the reopening of the railway. The railway transported only goods until its final closure in 1936." That's misleading, because it implies that it was a purely freight line beginning with its 1924 reopening. In fact, as both the cited source and our article on the station note, it transported passengers until 1932, and only goods thereafter until 1936. Of course, since the source used neglects to even observe that the line was closed for a time, it might be worth discarding it in favor of the more comprehensive sources already used to reference Bentworth and Lasham railway station.

Okay, that's enough for now. I really don't think this is a situation where dedicated editing during the FAC period can remedy the problems. This article has an enormous history, and a lot of work has been put into it... but at least some of that work is simply wrong, and fixing it is going to be an equally daunting effort. I can't even check whether some of the sources were interpreted or cited correctly because of defective citations and limited availability (to me, anyway). And, unfortunately, I just can't assume good faith on them given the errors I found on cursory checks. I'm really, really sorry. But I have to urge withdrawal. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by SagaciousPhil

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Like Squeamish Ossifrage above, this is a bit of a drive-by rather than an in-depth review at present. I have fixed a DAB for Valentinian (please check this is correct). I have also attempted quick fixes to some of the cite ref errors he mentions above; there are still some remaining. To address these I would suggest that refs to, for instance, "County of Hampshire" (currently ref # 7), "Government of Hampshire" (ref # 11) and others like it are re-formatted as the problem is caused because no author name is available. Likewise the ref to "A & C Black" needs to be re-formatted as A & C Black are the publishers? SagaciousPhil - Chat 09:03, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your fixes and comments, SagaciousPhil! The dab for Valentinian is correct. I would prefer "County of Hampshire" over "government" as I've never heard of the latter before, so I've changed that in both the bibliography and its refs. A & C Black is an old publisher, like a lot of the refs in this article, some are missing authors because the books are so old. JAGUAR  19:01, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • If alt text is used it should follow WP:ALT
  • File:Bentworth_Telegraph_office_c_1905.JPG: when/where was this first published? Same with File:Bentworth_-_Ivalls_cott_from_the_Star_1900.jpg
  • File:Bentworth_CP_2012b.jpg: what is the source for this image?
  • I explained this in the last FAC, I spent around an hour searching for any information despite finding the author, but not his date of death. Nikkimaria is this going to cause a problem for the FAC? I'm not at all opposed in removing this image as I can easily replace it with a photo of George Wither (a portrait made in the 1600s, which has to be in the public domain)? JAGUAR  21:43, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you can't show that the author died over 100 years ago, you can look for another PD rationale, such as an earlier publication. If you can't find that either, probably best to swap in a different image. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support - The article looks in much better shape than its previous FAC and I must commend yourself, Dr. Blofeld and We hope for the efforts in overhauling the article by checking all the sources for which I had great interesting of watching over. Only one minor issue that I found while reading the article:

  • Manor and Hall sub-section: "As of 2010, the lodge originally at the entrance to Bentworth Hall is no longer considered part of the property." It this still the case as of 2015?

Coordinator note: I'm disappointed to see this here again when more than one veteran reviewer is still easily finding problems with the sourcing. Jaguar, there are open issues from the last FAC, here, and even on the article Talk page, where Brian pointed out that every source and reference must be checked. They obviously haven't been (or they need to be by someone with a better eye for problems), and I don't see where you have queried anyone (including your co-nominator) as to whether the article is ready for re-nomination. I'm not sure what the rush is, and I'm going to be inclined to archive this soon if it seems that substantive problems remain. --Laser brain (talk) 14:17, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've been out all day today which explains my lack of addressing these issues so far, but nevertheless this FAC has always been on my mind and I intend to address them, albeit one step at a time, as there has been a radical change of the referencing style and I'm still getting my head around it. I addressed all of Brian's issues on the talk page and I pinged him last week to continue, but he has not yet got back to me, so I checked with Dr. Blofeld and we agreed to send it to FAC again. Me, Dr. Blofeld and We hope checked every source at least twice - it took me around twenty minutes to proof read and search for each one. No rush at all - I'm trying not to get burned out by addressing these all at once. JAGUAR  21:43, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that the sourcing has changed in many parts or been removed so it's difficult to keep track of what has been sorted. I spent a good few hours perusing the sources and identifying duds but still issues were identified. I didn't think there were any major issues remaining. With due respect, Squeamish finds a lot of problems with most articles, remember he found a lot of issues with Bramshill House!♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:07, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm rooting for it to succeed, as I do with every nomination. :) --Laser brain (talk) 00:03, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Jaguar did indeed ping me, on 28 August, to ask if I would look again at the sources before he resubmitted the article to FAC. Unfortunately I was away from 28 August – 1 September, as a note on my talkpage indicates. Jaguar's ping ended "no rush, of course", so when I came back I didn't give this task immediate priority. When I looked, on 3 September, I found that the article had been renominated, and that Squeamish was beginning to look at sources. I thought I would leave the field to him, at least initially – it would be confusing to have two sources reviews going on simultaneously. However, I did look at the George Cecil Ives entry in Who Was Who, since there's an unanswered note on the Bentworth talk page, dated 28 August, implying that this ref (then #98, now #102) may not include all the details cited to it. The relevant sentence from the article reads "In his earlier life, George Cecil Ives (1867–1950), an author, criminologist and gay rights campaigner, lived at the post-1832 Bentworth Hall with his mother, Emma Gordon-Ives. The Ives family are buried in Bentworth churchyard.[102]". The Ives Who Was Who entry, which I have complete, does not mention that he was a gay rights campaigner, nor does it state where the Ives family are buried. So again, apparently, we have material wrongly cited – even after this was flagged by We hope's 28 August note. Whatever the reason, this is not encouraging. At the very least, this ref should be replaced with a link to the Who Was Who online page rather than to a scruffy and unreadable google page – and the text ahould reflect what's in the source. Brianboulton (talk) 16:55, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose WP:UKVILLAGES provides an excellent template for settlement articles. In this one there is nothing about Governance, (but there is a section named Administration which strangely describes a list of villages and hamlets) Economy, the church needs a separate Religion section. I would expect Demography to include some statistics from Office for National Statistics

I haven't looked in detail beyond the lead which doesn't adequately summarise the article. I found several problems and the prose is not up to the standard required for a Featured Article, it needs a good copyedit.

  • How large is a large civil parish? Large is meaningless without context should be dropped.
  • Bentworth has a long history.... so do most settlements should be dropped
  • The VCH says Bentworth was probably included with Odiham, no mention of the hundred
  • Bentworth formerly had a railway station, Bentworth and Lasham, on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway until the line's closure in 1936. Too many Bentworths. Why not "The village station, Bentworth and Lasham, on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway closed in 1936?

And many more. J3Mrs (talk) 15:09, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WP:UKVILLAGES is a rough guideline, and for such a small village it's generally unfeasible to expect all of the sections you'd expect in a city article. A government section would be redundant to the wider district as would a section on economy when it has little more than a pub or two and a few farms.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The article on Rivington, population less than 150, has a section on Governance and I don't think it's in any way "redundant". J3Mrs (talk) 17:11, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the village. I've authored a lot of articles on settlements and while for larger settlements there's a general expected standard layout and content, small settlements tend to differ case by case in what is available in sourcing. I don't believe there was anything worth adding for Bentworth for economy and governance. It's never going to be Paris!♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:36, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of a requirement of economy and governance in its peer review or previous FAC? Bentworth (and most villages for that matter) don't have economies, even if we did mention it has a few farms here and there I don't think it'll be worth writing a section about it. Nor would it have any sources to back it up, as information is scarce at it is. The administration is the closest thing to a government section, and in the lead it says it's in the East Hampshire district. I agree with the doctor, it's not really worth putting a economy and governance section in. JAGUAR  19:01, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
An economy section is often a desirable one and something can often be found for villages but I believe I did try to find something to write on it for Bentworth and didn't find anything except the local pubs which are mentioned anyway.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:08, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If the lead says it is in the East Hampshire district, it should be in the body of the article. The requirement is that it is comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context. Even villages are governed, they might have a parish council, be represented on county councils, have MPs. In reading this article, I have no way of knowing. Part of the Administration section is really Governance, the rest is about settlements in the civil parish or geography so I think it's somewhat muddled. Figures from the ONS site might be useful in indicating economic factors. J3Mrs (talk) 19:16, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is actually a section on Administration though J3Mrs in which we found what we could. Can you find anything in detail on local council and MPs? The requirement is that it is comprehensive". I agree, and that's one of the reasons Squeamish has opposed, even if indirectly. Bentworth happens to be a small village with very little written about it in decent sources so a lot of sources will either be snippets put together or local society sources to put something together. It is often unavoidable. This is so difficult to source in fact that a lot of previously existing material had to be removed. By all means see if you can find potential content on either to be added but I'm under the impression this is already super comprehensive given the lack of detailed content on it.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:29, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just pop in to comment on this topic, since I was mentioned and all. My opposition is really on 1c (well-researched) grounds rather than the typical 1b (comprehensiveness); I haven't evaluated the content sufficiently to form an opinion as to whether this is a comprehensive treatment of the topic or not, although I'm inclined to think that may be an issue as well. It's odd to cite a work published by the Bentworth Parish Council (which, as an uncultured American, I can only presume is the village-level government?), but not actually mention that body. Also, the Transport section seems to be exclusively about the former light rail line. Even if there's no other source for it, that 2008 Parish Plan document includes information about the relevant roads (mostly A339) and bus service. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:55, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Jaguar: While part of me thinks "For goodness' sake, how difficult exactly is it to produce an article with 100 sound sources, throw the dog a bone here" sort of thing, judging by the comments now venturing into prose (and astoundingly even comprehension) issues I think it is best we withdraw this as it isn't under the right conditions to succeed here. I think the best thing would be to open another peer review in a few months time when this has been forgotten and ensure everything really is spot on before renomming. Then all people concerned with it currently can hopefully provide input before you renom. There's a lot of Squeamish's comments I find selective picking to form an argument that it's somehow still a grossly inadequate article, aside from the fact that he's missing the fact that Bentworth is a place with next to nothing written in detail about it so inevitably many sources will be derived from snippets and local societies, but I think he has a point about some of the formatting (minor) issues.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:05, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It has taken 15 minutes to find these,
Parish council,
Downland Ward,
constituency,
MP.
Sorry this is not comprehensive and the onus is on the nominators, not me to find info. J3Mrs (talk) 20:06, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you genuinely think the article isn't very comprehensive I suggest you spend more time in perusing what actually exists on the village. It's a small village with next to nothing written in significant detail about it. A number of people have already commented that they were impressed that so much was gleaned together to write it. That there's some extra details which could quite possibly be added, to say "The article is not comprehensive" overall in all honesty is nonsense.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:10, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware of the village size and I genuinely think it isn't comprehensive for the reasons and sources I've supplied. I won't be browbeaten into changing my mind. No mention of the conservation area either. I've spent more than enough time, as I said the onus is on you. J3Mrs (talk) 20:19, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No mention of conservation? "The Home Farm area consists of 336 acres (136 ha) of farmland, copse and uncultivated land.[44] Part of this area between Burkham and Bentworth was bought by the Woodland Trust in 1990. Before the Woodland Trust purchased the property, it was scheduled to become a landfill.[45] The Trust planted trees in 1993. This is the only nature preserve in the area.[44]" I'm not seeing the abundance of political information in any of those sources you linked either. A trivial list of local councillors or maps of local wards.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:21, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You obviously don't know hat a conservation area is. J3Mrs (talk) 20:25, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And what exactly have we failed to mention in [2] except "Bentworth was designated a conservation area in 1982". We cover all of the landmarks listed within it I think. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:34, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've added one sentence to history mentioning it. Anything else? What about the resident cow population?♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Laser brain: I think it's best that this is withdrawn as I can see this escalating, not that I agree with many of the points, but it's clearly not the right environment to promote this yet. I think the best solution would be to open another peer review in several months and really ensure every minor issue is dealt with before heading back here. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:57, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'd like to thank everyone for taking the time to review this and for providing their extensive comments, but even I have to relent now and say that it's best that this should be closed. I agree with Dr. Blofeld, it's becoming increasingly impossible for us to attempt to take this further given the circumstances. JAGUAR  21:22, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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