Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Greater Manchester

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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 promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 15:51, 19 July 2008 [1].

Greater Manchester[edit]

Nominator(s): WikiProject Greater Manchester

Hello there! I'm pleased to nominate Greater Manchester for FA status, on behalf of the Greater Manchester WikiProject. I understand that's an unusual move in itself, but there has been a consensus to do so on the basis that this works well for the project (as evidenced by the FA Peterloo Massacre), and thus I will now refer to "us" as a collective! We believe this article - our highest priority article - should be an FA on the basis we agree it meets the FA criteria. This article is the result of the Greater Manchester WikiProject's efforts to provide the finest and most comprehensive page on the internet about our city region.

We believe that it meets the FA criteria, but we welcome any suggestions for improvements. --Jza84 |  Talk  21:43, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support with few comments:

  • There is a dead link at citation 45 ^ politics.co.uk Issue Brief[dead links] and Jonathan Rawle's website refer.
    • Fixed. The link had been moved AnIco (talk) 14:53, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This sentence may need a tweak: The Industrial Revolution transformed the local domestic system, and much of Greater Manchester's heritage is related to textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution and the infrastructure that grew up to support this sector.[13] ((the tense shift, "local domestic" redundancy?, may be better to state what the transformation was rather than state that there was a transformation)
  • Although the City of Manchester lost over half its population during this time (from 766,311 in 1931 to 452,000 in 2006), the total population of Greater Manchester remained almost stable.[81] - this is only about a 40% loss in population. I think remained almost stable is a generalization going in the wrong direction, I would go with something like declined slightly or lost 8%.
    • Changed to "While the population of the City of Manchester shrank by about 40% during this time (from 766,311 in 1931 to 452,000 in 2006), the total population of Greater Manchester only decreased by 8%" Nev1 (talk) 13:53, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Saw a couple of sentence that begin with numbers, which I generally don't like.
  • Curious, the economy section says 0.8% employed in "energy": how do they generate electricity? is one of the rivers dammed? or a oil/gas or nuclear plant? maclean 08:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • They don't. It means electricity and gas supply, not generation. I'll change it make that clearer. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 15:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

If we cannot find any sort of bibliographic data on the site, I'm not sure it's a relaible source. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Current ref 147 (BBC Orchestras) is lacking last access date. Same for current ref 149 (Launch of the BBC Connect and Create..)
Otherwise sources look okay. Links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Taking the last four. The archive was at web.petabox.bibalex.org, I checked last week, but I've moved it over, so it should be OK now. Manchester airport; fixed. Cheshire CCC ceratinly exists as a minor counties club; looking around that site suggests that it is the 'oficial' site; however, I cannot find any suitable publisher data—I could make it up, but I'd rather not. Given that it's simply supporting the fact that CCCC play in the southern half of the county, it disn't seem a major deal. The BBC orchestras press release is still there, I've put today's date in. Mr Stephen (talk) 14:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • http://www.stretfordend.co.uk/ is the official Man Utd stats site. Mr Stephen (talk)
    • www.investinmanchester.com MIDAS is Manchester’s inward investment agency. (Manchester is defined very loosely, but let's not go there today.) Mr Stephen (talk)
    • jonathan.rawle.org doesn't look like a WP:RS to me. I've linked to a House of commons briefing paper instead. I don't think its disputed that London chose to have an elected mayor. Mr Stephen (talk) 19:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • http://www.manutdzone.com suggests that the improments to OT cost £114M. A book by Mihir Bose (at Amazon) puts the spend at £112M since 1991 (the book is dated 2007, however it's the 2nd ed, and the 'time of writing' isn't given). On the other hand, this 2003 article put the costs for 1996-2003 at £140M for OT plus £23M at Carrington; this 2004 press release puts the costs for 1991-2004 at £172M for the pair. Since then (ie during 2005-6) £45M was spent on the 'quadrants' (this appears quite often). I can't find a recent total figure by googling. There are a couple of Manchester United-based FAs on Wikipedia, and their use of manutdzone.com is sparing. Best to rip the sentence out, I think. Mr Stephen (talk) 14:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Note that I am a member of the wikiproject, but not one that has previously worked on this article, excluding some small edits today. However, some small comments: Mike Peel (talk) 19:30, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Much of the region was omitted from the Domesday Book of 1086." It was? Ref? Why?
  • "The Greater Manchester Exhibition Centre (better known as the G-Mex centre and now branded Manchester Central) was a converted former railway station in Manchester City Centre used for cultural events." How does this tie into the rest of the paragraph it's in? It seems to stand separately at present
  • "Although having been a Lieutenancy area since 1974, Greater Manchester was included as a ceremonial county by the Lieutenancies Act 1997 on 1 July 1997." Ref?
  • "Chat Moss [...] comprises the largest area of Grade 1 and 2 farmland in Greater Manchester": how is "Grade 1 and 2 farmland" defined? Is there an article describing this that could be linked to?
I was a bit worried about the latter one you mentioned too (the name being a bit dubious). I can't find that image anywhere else with a google search. We have an alternative image (Image:Stockport Town Hall.jpg) which can be used to alieviate concerns. I'll take a look at the others you mention to see if I can help. --Jza84 |  Talk  12:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support—Oh, this was pretty good to read. I do hope the main authors can work on other UK articles. However, I do have a serious issue: overlinking. The article is a sea of blue, not just at the top, but throughout. Now, I see that the links have, by and large, been skilfully added; but that's all the more reason to cleanse it of the trivial ones, so your high-value links can breathe and not be swamped by the needless ones. I've removed the date autoformatting (no one minds UK dates, I can assure you—they appear automatically after everyone's signature, and autoformatting is no longer encouraged at MOSNUM). This was only a minor reduction in bright blue, though. I've removed London (about eight of them), explicitly mentioned in MOSNUM as unnecessary. There are tons of repeat links, especially for geographical items such as Manchester—it's no big deal, but if it were my article, I'd clean them out and link only the first occurrence (see MOSLINK). Long piped strings such as "largest shopping centres in the United Kingdom" that makes most of that caption bright blue could be changed to pipe with just, say, "largest". The readers will still hit it if they want to. Amazing picture. Nominate for featured status?
  • BTW, I found broken autoformatting and day/month units unformatted: MOSNUM says all or none. None is far superior in a heavily linked article.
  • The prose does need scrutiny throughout, even though there's an underlying strength. Here are the kinds of points I'm referring to, some more important, some trivial:
    • "through" rather than "via" in the lead would be nicer.
    • Semicolon before "However" in the lead, maybe?
    • Comma after "metropolitan county". No wonder they dropped the ugly "SELNEC".
    • "several independent county boroughs"—normally, I'd want to know how many, but if it's a big deal to find out, don't worry. It's just that it is exposed in the lead.
    • "The modern county of Greater Manchester was created in 1974. However, the history and heritage of its constituent settlements and parts goes back centuries." False contrast, I think, in "however". Try "The modern county of Greater Manchester was created in 1974, after a history and heritage of its constituent settlements and parts that goes back centuries." That's better, but I query "history and heritage" (just "history"?), and "settlements an parts" (just "settlements"?).
    • "The remains of 1st-century forts at Castlefield in Manchester,[9] and Castleshaw Roman fort in Saddleworth,[10] provide evidence of Roman occupation." Provide --> are.
    • "... Redhead states that this was due to only a partial survey being taken,...". The old noun plus -ing awkwardness. Please see a few exercises in this here. Perhaps "Redhead states that this was because only a partial survey was taken", but you may have a better way.

Plus more. Someone new might be better at massaging the text. Sorry about the mess-up I caused in pasting the whole article onto FAC, ouch. Fixed now. TONY (talk) 04:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the autoformatted dates from the Notes section as well, to match the article body, and in so doing corrected a few more of the (hidden) inconsistencies in date formatting you mention. All of the prose issues you raised have been addressed, and I've at least somewhat reduced "the sea of blue". --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note Tony1 that that was very constructive feedback, thanks. Thanks also to Malleus for taking the time to address the issues. :) --Jza84 |  Talk  22:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: I don't see an image review, and it's not clear to me if Ealdgyth is satisfied (actually, I'd like to exempt Ealdgyth from the capping problem :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • User:NE2 did an image review (above). He found a few "sketchy" photos, but only one which had some concern surrounding it (which has since been swapped out). --Jza84 |  Talk  23:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • P.S. Sorry, I forgot another image was removed too during the FAC period. --Jza84 |  Talk  23:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ah, I see it; I miss that big old Elcobbola red sig :-) Ealdgyth was traveling, back on board tomorrow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I see two image concerns above, one a potential copyvio. Progress on reliable sources? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How's that? (ref 66 by Barlow) Mr Stephen (talk) 23:42, 18 July 2008 (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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