Talk:Seax of Beagnoth/GA1

GA Review

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I'll be reviewing this article later this evening, and the first impressions are good. Nev1 (talk) 20:33, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Sorry the review's a day later than promised, but the article is well up to scratch regardless. It currently meets the GA criteria, but below are some comments which might be useful in improving the article.

Discovery

• What was Briggs doing in the river? It might be worth noting his occupation so the reader knows if it's relevant.

  I assume that he was mudlarking in his spare time (or perhaps the boss of a gang of mudlarks), but I'm not sure that I will be able to find any refs for this. BabelStone (talk) 00:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• How much did the museum pay?

  That would be recorded in the BM registers, but I do not know if the amount is recorded anywhere that I can find it. BabelStone (talk) 00:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• Why didn't the seax rust away, ie: what were the conditions it was found in.

  I don't know. There was some discussion of the metal on the talk page, but there does not seem to be any available discussion of its metallurgy. BabelStone (talk) 00:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Description

• Good description and the context of contemporary decoration of other seaxes adds depth.

Epigraphy

• "The first nineteen runes are in the correct order, but the next four ... are in a confused order": should be copy edited to avoid the repetition of order.

  Y Done by S Marshall. BabelStone (talk) 23:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The lead is engaging. The article's structure seems logical.

• "The last two runes (27–28: ᚣᛠ) are also swapped": I think "also" should be dropped as the jumbled runes mentioned earlier weren't swapped.

  Y Done. BabelStone (talk) 00:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• "Secondly, the 16th rune (ᛋ) is very small, and appears to have been squeezed in between no.15 (ᛉ) and no.17 (ᛏ) as an afterthought": it's implicit that the 16th character in the sequence was between the 15th and 17th, so I think this sentence can be simplified to read "Secondly, the 16th rune (ᛋ) is very small, and appears to have been squeezed in as an afterthought".

  Y Done by S Marshall. BabelStone (talk) 23:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• Halfway through the section you start giving the Old English names along side the runes; this is slightly inconsistent and as the table is just above it might be easiest to ditch them, although that's entirely up to you.

  Y Done -- I'm all for consistency. BabelStone (talk) 00:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• "Daniel Haigh, in an 1872 study of the runic monuments of Kent, considers the possibility...": needs to be clarified who Haigh in the same manner as was done for Elliot.

  Y Done. BabelStone (talk) 00:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• The final sentence of this section could do with a reference.

  I agree. I am sure that I saw some brief discussion of the symbols to the right of the name somewhere, but I can't find the reference now -- I'll try and see if I can find something. BabelStone (talk) 00:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Date and provenance

• "Several seaxes of the same type as the Seax of Beagnoth...": perhaps rephrase "Seax of Beagnoth" to "the Beagnoth example" to avoid repetition of seax?

  Y Done by S Marshall. BabelStone (talk) 23:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

• "One Beagnoth was a witness to a charter (S30)...": what does (S30) mean?

  Y Linked "S30" to Sawyer number which redirects to Peter Hayes Sawyer who is the author of the standard catalogue of Anglo-Saxon charters. BabelStone (talk) 00:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Significance

• Good stuff, no problems here.

Images

• A good range of interesting and relevant images, and the way they're spaced makes the article visually appealing.
• File:Runen Themsemesser.jpg needs a description in English over on commons and the source needs to be added. I realise the user who uploaded the image isn't involved with this article so it may be tricky, but if this goes to FAC it's bound to come up. The image certainly looks old and intuitively I'd assume the license is fine but I'm not hot on images. As the inscription is given below anyway, is it necessary?

  Y I cannot find a source for the image, and it is mis-licenced as PD-Art which it clearly is not (it's a 3D object not 2D artwork to start with). From the look of it, I would think that it is an illustration from a mid 20th century book, and thus most likely still under copyright. As it is not essential to the article (the photograph above shows the same details and the drawing from Haigh shows the runes clearly) I have simply removed it. BabelStone (talk) 00:55, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps merge a few of those one sentence paragraphs? Also, but have you contacted the British Museum to see if they have a curator willing to comment on the article? If you're interested in taking the article further (seems to me like it would stand a good chance at FAC) that some input or guidance from someone familiar with the subject might help fill any holes that might not appear obvious. I've made some minor copyedits you'll want to check to make sure I haven't changed the meaning of anything. Anyway congratulations on a good article on an interesting subject. Nev1 (talk) 14:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the very helpful and painless review. I will ask Witty Lama if he can get a curator to look at the article. BabelStone (talk) 00:58, 19 August 2010 (UTC)