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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ashton-under-Lyne/archive1

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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 SandyGeorgia 00:23, 9 August 2009 [1].

Ashton-under-Lyne edit

Nominator(s): Nev1 (talk) 21:00, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because I believe this article on one of Greater Manchester's mill towns complies with the FA criteria. It is comprehensive, well sourced, and – having recently undergone a copyedit – hopefully well written. Thanks in advance to those who take the time to review the article. Nev1 (talk) 21:00, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All of the images have alt text, except the one in the infobox, which needs an update to be made to {{Infobox UK place}}.[2] --Malleus Fatuorum 23:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • All images have alt text. The only one which might not work is the image in the infobox. The infobox is currently being upgraded to alt text and should be working soon; I've tried to add a workaround, but I'm not sure if it will work. Nev1 (talk) 23:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict)This is being worked on. It's in a queue for other upgrades to be made to the template, so I would hope reviewers can temporarily WP:IAR whilst it is implimented over the next few weeks. :) --Jza84 |  Talk  23:06, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ah, sorry, I looked at the first one, saw it lacked it, and assumed the rest lacked it. Thanks for doing all that alt text: it's really good. My sincere apologies for the false alarm; I must try to be more careful. I'll mark off this part of the discussion with hat/hab to avoid distraction.
  • That workaround works just fine.
Eubulides (talk) 23:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Query - Sorry if this is an odd question, but are you the author of Nevell works used to write the article? --Laser brain (talk) 18:24, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not an odd question at all, and no I am not. Nev1 (talk) 18:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - this is good, and I'm leaning toward support. Some fit and finish is needed, as follows:
    • "it was probably used as an administrative boundary and dates from the 8th or 9th centuries" 8th or 9th "century" OK?
    • "Ashton Old Hall was a manor house and the seat of the Assheton family, the administrative centre of the manor." Strangely worded—to me, it reads like the family was the administrative centre, but you presumably mean the Hall.
    • "The manor remained in the hands of the Ashton family until 1514 ..." Until now you've been referring to them as "Assheton" and haven't explained the leap to "Ashton".
    • "Domestic fustian and woollen weaving has ..." I would have used "have", unless I am misreading the sentence.
    • "There was a cholera outbreak in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1832, caused by a poor supply of fresh water and dwellings without adequate drainage." Switch this around to make active and avoid the awkward "there was": "A poor supply of fresh water and dwellings without adequate drainage caused a cholera outbreak in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1832."
    • That compass table is awful... 4 different fonts including the header? And why the period after the header?
    • Please check all instances where you begin a sentence with "In <year>". Some have commas, some don't. I fixed a couple but there may be more.
    • "Ashton Market Hall has undergone a £15M restoration ..." Why not just AMH "underwent"?
    • GCSE...? Spell out acronyms the first time they're used, and only include the abbreviation if re-used.

--Laser brain (talk) 20:43, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think we've dealt with everything apart from the compass table, and there's not much we can do about that as it's a template (the alternative template isn't any better IMO). Nev1 (talk) 21:18, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would be nice if an upgrade was made avaliable, but I suppose that's a matter outside of this FAC. --Jza84 |  Talk  23:34, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:26, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've fixed the publisher field for refs 125 and 126 (there was a typo so the field didn't appear); all are now using template:citation; and I've sorted out sources 3 and 51 as suggested. [3] I've not got a page number for the gazetteer though, so the reference looks a bit odd. I've replaced runtrackdir.com with the sports club's website. Nev1 (talk) 20:51, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, sorry it took me a while to get back here but I believe it is up to standard now. --Andy Walsh (talk) 16:56, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support and comments Article is comprehensive and up to standard. I made one tiny edit to remove a repetition of "around".
  • or else to Ashton's proximity to the Pennines not clear to me how this relates to "under Lyne" and the ref is opaque. Can you clarify the link, if any, between "Pennines" and "Lyne"
  • A bit of a tendency to the passive voice, which I particularly noticed in the "History" section, was founded occurs a bit too often, and, as an example, the Oxford Mills bit would read better in active voice
  • Some images have forced image sizes. it looks as if that's a conscious decision, but I'd welcome reassurance that it's not just a breach of MoS
  • Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:33, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe the "under-Lyne" was (or perhaps still is) something to do with being 'under the line' of the Pennines, or even (so I once read) 'under the line' of Lancashire's county boundary with Yorkshire. Shouldn't be hard to clarify. --Jza84 |  Talk  15:56, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The three images with a fixed size are done so because the details are difficult to make out at smaller resolutions. I suppose it's not essential that the Portland Basin and town hall pictures are large, but the image under the geography section does need to be as at the default 180px you can't see the town. A few instances of passive voice have been changed to active and I think Casliber has changed a couple. As for "under-Lyne", Wilson doesn't explicitly state why the town's proximity to the Pennines leads to "under-Lyne", however Jza84's explanation is the likely implication. Nev1 (talk) 20:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • My concerns have been addressed, so I've struck the comment header. I'm happy with the picture size, just wanted confirmation that it was a deliberate choice rather than an oversight Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:45, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Comments - I'll begin a lookover and might massage prose I find, please revert if I inadvertently change any meaning. I will note queries below nice to fix those below but neither are deal-breakers: Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:13, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The "under-Lyne" facet --> suffix? (more exact?)
In the 19th century, Ashton-under-Lyne was hailed as a "new Jerusalem" by John Wroe. - this leaves me hanging and wondering why. Even a single sentence would be helpful.
I've changed facet to suffix as it sounds better, it's the word I was searching for when I originally wrote the sentence but couldn't put my finger on. Also, I've clarified that Wroe tried to turn Ashton-under-Lyne into a "new Jerusalem" rather than proclaimed it as such for any property it possessed before he arrived. Nev1 (talk) 20:05, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
PS. Thanks for the copy edit, everything seems fine. Nev1 (talk) 20:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment
When you calculate the percentage change (table within the Population change section) you should divide the difference by the old number not the new one. --Jpeeling (talk) 22:00, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Damn. Thanks for finding that, I've now fixed it. Nev1 (talk) 22:13, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image licensing comments
    • File:Ashton-under-Lyne old hall.jpg; the tag gives multiple ways it can be freely used, but it's not really specified in the description when the image was first published, merely a date I would assume to be the year of capture. Was the image previously published before the cutoff date, or was it never published before then? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 01:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The photograph was taken before 1890 (as that's when the building was demolished), so my understanding was that it comes under "A photograph, which has never previously been made available to the public (e.g. by publication or display at an exhibition) and which was taken before 1st January 1939". As for publication date, the book it's taken from doesn't give details of first publication. There is a date of 1931 handwritten below the image (which I cropped out for wikipedia) but I'm not sure what it relates to. Nev1 (talk) 17:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It looks pretty good overall, but I do see glitches in the prose. Here are examples.
    • "resulting in it being granted honorific borough status in 1847." Ungainly and probably ungrammatical. See noun plus -ing. "resulting in the granting of"?
    • US units and metric units seem to swap places as main/converted at the bottom of the lead. Looks like a case for km/miles at the top.
    • Numerals or spelling out for centuries? Both appear.
    • "probably became a settlement sometime after the"—not "sometimes", but two words, I think.
    • "when it became useful as a means of distinguishing the town from"—"useful for distinguishing"?
    • "Afterwards the effigy would be hung up and shot and then set on fire."—Neater as "Afterwards the effigy would be hung up, shot, and set on fire."?
    • "The first recorded occurrence of the tradition is in 1795"; present tense? And do traditions occur? What about "The first record of the tradition was in 1795. The ritual may be even older, and continued into ..."? I've avoided the repetition of "tradition", too.
    • "The manor remained in the hands of the Ashton family – whose name had changed from Assheton over time – until 1514 when the line ended"—I was uncomfortable with the "over time" bit. Isn't a name change instant? If parts of the family did and parts didn't, perhaps "during the second half of the 15th century", or something like that?
    • "large-scale" hyphenated as an adjective.
    • centred around? Do you mean it was at the intersection of? Unsure.
    • MoS on chronological vagueness: "(today about £600,000 and £60,000 respectively)"—I think "as of 2009" is better.
    • "A poor supply of fresh water and dwellings without adequate drainage led to a cholera outbreak in the town.[42] "—When? The decade or year or year-range?
    • Does "secondary industry" carry a technical sense? Primary is agriculture? Unsure. "Coal mining was a secondary industry in the town compared to the textile industry ...". Was second in employment and output to the textile industry"?

That's down to but not including "Governance". Perhaps a look through by word-nerd colleagues? Tony (talk) 08:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Malleus has addressed most of the comments you made intends to scrutinise the article further. As for the other comments, I've added the year of the cholera outbreak and clarified that the evidence comes from Ashton Moss as "centred around" is a bit vague. Looking at the source again for information about the Assheton family, apparently the name did not change (the reason a vague phrase such as "over time" was used was because I couldn't find a date... mainly because one didn't exist) and I had mixed up the name of the family and manor; I did not twig as it was not uncommon for names of places or people to change. Regarding "secondary industry", you are right that it does have a specific meaning so I've removed the term and clarified that coal was not as important as textiles [4]. Nev1 (talk) 17:28, 6 August 2009 (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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