Talk:Glastonbury/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Malleus Fatuorum 15:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll comment on the article section by section as I read through it.

Lead

• "Glastonbury has been described as a New Age community where communities have grown up to include people with New Age beliefs". Can we not do better than to say that Glastonbury is a community of communities?

• Reworded

• "The presence of a landscape zodiac around the town has been suggested, along with a collection of ley lines, but no evidence has been discovered. The Chalice Well is a holy well at the foot of the Tor. The Glastonbury Festival takes place in the nearby village of Pilton." This reads rather like the author just dumped a few facts to finish off the led. Is the Chalice Well really important enough to mention in the lead? There are of course three consecutive sentences beginning "the" here as well.

• Chalice Well removed from lead, various rewording. Guilty to adding these to finish off the lead and ensure it "summarises the article" - hopefully improved?

Prehistory

• "During the 7th millennium BC the sea level rose and flooded the valleys and low lying ground surrounding Glastonbury so the Mesolithic people occupied seasonal camps on the higher ground". "So" isn't right here; it suggests that the sea level rose and so on enabling the Mesolithic people to occupy higher ground rather than forcing them.

• changed

• How close to Glastonbury is the Sweet Track? Close enough to support the level of detail given on it in the first paragraph of this section?

• The Sweet Track is approx 4 miles from Glastonbury town centre & 1-2 miles from Glastonbury Lake Village - likely to be precursors of the earliest town.— Rod ^talk 19:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• The Sweet Track article says that it "was the oldest timber trackway discovered in Northern Europe until the 2009 discovery of a 6,000 year-old trackway in Belmarsh prison", but this article claims that it's "the oldest timber trackway discovered in Northern Europe".

• added.— Rod ^talk 19:17, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• Similarly, Glastonbury Lake Village is three miles from Glastonbury, and Sharpham Park is two miles away. I'm struggling to see the connection with Glastonbury's prehistory.

• The lake village was probably the earliest settlement (but difficult to "prove"). All of the notable people from Sharpham are described as being from Glastonbury in the sources.— Rod ^talk 19:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Middle Ages

• "During the Middle Ages the town largely depended on the abbey but also had important interests in the wool trade which reduced in the 18th century." I'm unclear what reduced here; was it the wool trade or the town's interests in the wool trade?

• The significance of the wool trade to the towns economy.— Rod ^talk 19:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• Reworded

• "During the Second Cornish Uprising of 1497 the defeat of Perkin Warbeck occurred when he heard that Giles, Lord Daubeney's troops, loyal to Henry VII were camped at Glastonbury." I can't make sense of that. He was defeated just because he heard that some troops were camped at Glastonbury?

• According to the sources, when he heard there was a significance force of soldiers camped at Glastonbury, he gave up because he realised he wouldn't win.— Rod ^talk 19:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• So he wasn't defeated, he surrendered. Malleus Fatuorum 22:00, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• Changed

Early modern and modern times

• This is a strange subsection; three short paragraphs and nothing happened between 1705 and 1999, when some cannabis plants were discovered.

• I will look for more between those dates.

• "In 1693 Glastonbury, Connecticut was founded and named after the English town." And this has what to do with Glastonbury's early modern history?

• Expanded & moved earlier

Geography

• "Although underlain by much older Triassic age formations that protrude to form what would once have been islands—such as Glastonbury Tor." Doesn't seem to be a proper sentence.

• Reworded

• "The project commenced in January 2009 and aims to restore, recreate and reconnect habitat. It aims to ensure that wildlife is enhanced ...". "Aims ... aims".

• Reworded

Governance

• Is it really true that Somerset County Council is responsible for public transport in Glastonbury? Trains? Buses?

• Reworded

Economy

• "Although the redevelopment has been slow, clearance of the site has begun with a dramatic change to its appearance." Reads like it was lifted from a promotinal brochure.

• Removed

Transport

• Are there no bus operators in Glastonbury?

• Added

• "Road transport is provided by the A39 ...". The road doesn't provide transport.

• Reworded

Landmarks

• "Total depth is about 9 ft (2.7 m) Wooden well-cover with wrought-iron decoration made in 1919." Something's gone wrong with that sentence.

• Rewritten

• "The well itself is built of stone blocks and forms two underground chambers." Does it form two chambers or does it consist of two chambers?

• This is what the source from English Heritage says " The well itself is built of stone blocks and forms 2 underground chambers, the inner one reached through an rchway at the foot of the west wall of the well-shaft."

• Fair enough, who am I to criticise the official prose of English Heritage, but that gives me a more serious problem, which is that it's identical to the text in the article. Malleus Fatuorum 21:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• Removed & bit about underground chambers incorporated into next sentence about depth.— Rod ^talk 22:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Education

• "A tertiary institution and further education college which provides education for 16+ students after they leave secondary school, these courses are usually A-levels or Business and Technology Education Councils (BTECs)." The second half of this sentence doesn't match the subject of the first half.

• Sorry I don't understand this one - Most of the courses are A-Level or BTEC (see Strode College web site) but they also provide university level courses particularly foundation degrees. Can you explain what the problem is with this?— Rod ^talk 22:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• The sentence starts off talking about a college and its students, then abruptly switches to talking about "these courses". Malleus Fatuorum 22:36, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Culture

• This section is a thinly disguised 'In popular culture cum Triva section, and needs to be pruned. I mean, "Glastonbury is also portrayed in Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon the third instalment in the Broken Sword series of computer games ...". This tells me what about Glastonbury? I realise that it's a constant battle to keep this kind of trivia out of what ought to be a serious article, so it might be worth considering hiving at least the worst of it off to Glastonbury in popular culture.

• An article with a similar title to Glastonbury in popular culture or the mythology of Glastonbury or something similar was created years ago & then merged with this article following a lengthy debate but I'm having trouble finding it in logs/history etc.— Rod ^talk 19:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• I've had several such debates in recent months, most recently here, but it's worth doing. Malleus Fatuorum 20:10, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• Major pruning of the "trivia" in this section done.— Rod ^talk 22:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• "Glastonbury has been described as a New Age community where communities have grown up to include people with New Age beliefs." By whom has it been so described?

• 2 refs added.— Rod ^talk 22:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• "Hasn't the material in the second paragraph, which bangs on about Avalon, already been done to death in the Mythology and legends section?

• Removed.— Rod ^talk 22:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Notable people

• "The juggler Haggis McLeod and his late wife, Arabella Churchill one of the founders of the Glastonbury Festival." Doesn't seem to be a complete sentence.

• Completed

• "Bill Bunbury who was born in 1940, moved on from Glastonbury to become a writer ...". Why is the year of Bunbury's birth significant? Birthdates aren't given for anyone else.

• Birthdate removed

• "Bryan Lobb a first-class cricketer who played more than 100 times for Somerset County Cricket Club died in Glastonbury in 2000." Undoubtedly a tragedy for his family, but hardly much of a link with the town. Same goes for Trevor Redmond.

• Both entries removed

References

• If you ever take this to FAC you're going to have questions asked about the reliability of some of the sources used, like arthurianadventure.com, but as a veteran of that arena I'm sure you know that as well as I do. I'm not sufficiently concerned about the information being relied on by such dubious sources to make it a sticking point for this review though.

• Thanks for your comments and edits, hopefully some have been addressed? When I first saw this article it was almost all myth & legend & almost totally unsourced - I have doubts about the credibility/reliability of some of them but it is important to include the myth & New Age stuff as it is a significant part of the town & reliable sources tend not to dabble in such stuff! As far as taking this further there are plenty of other Somerset articles which need to get to FA first - eg Somerset Levels if you fancied taking a look and applyiong your excellent copyediting skills.— Rod ^talk 22:20, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• I think you've dealt with almost all of them, with the exception of that still rather strange Modern history section. Malleus Fatuorum 22:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• I've now expanded the modern history section.— Rod ^talk 08:22, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

---

OK, that'll do for me. I'm listing this as a GA now, but I wouldn't rush to FAC with it. Malleus Fatuorum 23:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.