Talk:The Tower House/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 11:12, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Will review. May take a few days before I give first comments. Tim riley (talk) 11:12, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't approve of GA reviewers who think their job is to rewrite an article, but as we are old comrades in Wikipedia I take the liberty of setting out some points that you might want to address. There's nothing to frighten the horses here, and only one thing serious enough to stand in the way of promotion to GA, and even that will be easily dealt with. But you might want to ponder these points before I get stuck into the formal review.

• Lead
  • "the house was substantially built" – does that mean mostly or solidly?

Done

• • Burges' – surprised to see American form of possessive, rather than the English (Burges's) as used in the Burges article. I see you use the English form lower down (in 1970s to present, Exterior and design, and Furniture) but you should do so throughout, I think.

Done

• • Sir John Betjeman – he wasn't Sir at the time, and you should remove all the "Sir"s here and below.

Done

• • "actor Richard Harris … guitarist Jimmy Page" – I bang on about this interminably, but without a definite article in front of the job title these are either Americanisms or tabloidese. Most unsuitable for a high Victorian aesthete.

Done

• • "Victoria & Albert Museum" – why the ampersand rather than the correct "and"?

Done

• History
  • "The house descended" – strange verb. You mean he inherited it?

Done

• • "Colonel T. H. Minshall DSO" – we don't usually put in post-nominal letters in mid-text

Done

• • "washstand to fellow Victorian architecture" – another missing definite article

Done

• • "Betjeman gave them to Waugh to placate his wife, Penelope" – whose wife was she? (JB's, I know, but from the wording it could be either)

Done

• • "The Irish actor Richard Harris" – is his nationality relevant?

Done

• • "Liberace had bought the house but had not put down a deposit" – in that case he hadn't bought the house, surely?

Done

• • "slept in its garden" – that's a tease: either explain what the Hell he was doing sleeping there or don't mention it at all

Done. I suspect he was sleeping off a hang-over, but have no source and it's not essential

• • 'little bastards' – not clear why single not double quotes here

Done

• • [10],[25] – having a comma between the two refs looks rather peculiar

Done

• Exterior and design
  • 'like other fashions… – single quotes

Done

• • "The architect Richard Norman Shaw" – This should be piped to show either "R. Norman Shaw" or just "Norman Shaw". He never used the "Richard". See here and this is from a letter he wrote to my office (before my time, thank you): "I think I must have been in a frisky and extravagant frame of mind when I saw the suggested frontages on plan A adjoining Vigo Street…as a stupid muddled headed old architect I find myself always longing for a general scheme…pray pardon my prosiness and believe me to remain, yours very faithfully, R. Norman Shaw."

Done

• • "Cardiff Castle" – already blue-linked. No need for another one here. Other duplicate links lower down are Zodiac settle, Geoffrey Chaucer, Victoria and Albert Museum (without the ampersand this time), Woodland House, Little Holland House, Zodiac settle, Great Bookcase (twice), Charles Handley-Read (twice) and Richard Popplewell Pullan.

Done, and the repeated links to the Park House and Castell Coch.

• Interior
  • "If Burges shunned exterior decoration at the Tower House, he more than compensated internally." – That's wholly POV unless you can find a source that justifies such a large claim. This is the one thing on this list that really must be dealt with before promotion to GA.

Done. I think the quotation is actually rather better than my POV

• • "The room's decorative scheme is 'the tender passion of Love'" – more single quotes.

Done

• • "Carved figures from Geoffrey Chaucer's Roman de la Rose" – er? It's a medieval French work. Chaucer may or may not have translated some or all of it into English, but you mustn't call it his work.

Done

• • "Geoffrey Chaucer's The House of Fame" – as this is his third mention we can manage without his given name.

Done

• • "mementoes" – I thought the plural is mementos, but I see the OED admits both.

Done. In line with the esteemed reviewer's wishes

• • "'the Storming of the Castle of Love'" – more single quotes

Done

• • "The bed is painted blood red and features a panel depicting Sleeping Beauty" – God bless and save us! (No action needed. I just needed to blow off steam to avoid spontaneous combustion.)

Noted, nothing done. I was sitting in St Paul's under the dome about a month ago and looking at the contrast between the plain Wren nave and the late-Victorian decorated choir and apse. It really is astonishing - like two quite different buildings. What would it have looked like had Burges had free rein?

• Furniture
  • "Much of Burges' early furniture … was originally made for Burges' office" – "his office", perhaps?

Done, not by me

• • "and subsequently moved to the Tower House" – the earlier "was" covers this perfectly grammatically; all the same, a second "was" would remove the surreal image of the washstand strolling across from Buckingham Street to the Tower House

Done

• • "Bedford in Bedford" – seems a bit excessive

Done

• Scholarship
  • "Matthew Williams'" – another American possessive

Done

• References
  • "The title of Callan's book is shown as "Square Richard Harris", which I think is probably incorrect.

Um. It is incorrect, but I can't see it in the reference itself. Help!

• • "UK Stationery Office?" – Who ever heard of such a thing. Either Her Majesty's Stationery Office or just the Stationery Office.

Done

• • Not sure what your criterion is for linking to authors' articles from the book list. If (like me) you link only to those not already linked in the text you should remove Danny La Rue's.

Not done, but only because I need to work out how

Now understood and done

No rush for replies on these points. I know KJP is away for a few days, and as I haven't begun the formal review there's no need to put this on hold. I'll look in again after the weekend. – Tim riley (talk) 19:49, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick response! Yeah I think it's best to wait until KJP returns but I'll try to address some of the more minor concerns over the weekend.♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:18, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Tim - you are an absolute star. A quick scan doesn't suggest anything that can't be fixed. But my partner will lynch me if I spend our 20th anniversary in Prague doing a Wikipedia review! So, it will have to wait until next week. Thanks and all the very best. KJP1 (talk) 07:46, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Tim - Hope I've addressed your preliminary comments. Great to be working with yourself, the Doctor and Gareth again. Look forward to receiving the main GAR comments. Gareth did the great majority of the work on expanding the Tower House article, so I'll check with him as to how he wants to handle these. And if we get through this, how about reviewing Castell Coch. The Doctor thinks we should tackle this next - at least, as a complete rebuilding from virtually nothing, your sensibilities will be less offended than by some of the great man's "renovations" of earlier classical structures! KJP1 (talk) 23:11, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. 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:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Well, that was easy! Clearly meets the GA criteria, in my judgment, and looks like a potential FAC to me. – Tim riley (talk) 14:43, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Easy if you don't do your job properly perhaps. Eric Corbett 20:18, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Errare humanum est, Eric, for us fallible mortals. Tim riley (talk) 22:33, 4 February 2014 (UTC)