Talk:The Gherkin/GA1

GA Review

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Preliminary review

I don't yet feel qualified to pass or fail a GA nominee, but I'll give my thoughts. Firstly, the article seems rather short. I sense that there is surely more that could be said about this building. (Although I have just checked Empire State Building to try and make a comparison. That also strikes me as rather short; it is currently graded a B-Class article). I guess one thing that appears to be missing is any sense of the interior of the building. The interior is covered to some extent by discussion of its heating/cooling methods, lifts and so on... but perhaps more could be given about anything notable in the restaurant, bar, what a typical office floor is like, the lobby? And with all these a picture would be wonderful.

That complaint aside I don't see any glaring criticisms to be made; it seems well referenced, tidy and the prose is OK.

I notice from the talk page that we've had input from someone who worked on the building. It would be great if that contact could be chased up for a review of the article as he will obviously have particular insight, albeit that it will be difficult if not impossible to use his knowledge for references and that he is unlikely to be familiar with Wikipedia article assessments.

I hope someone else will review this who has more experience with GA nominees.

Reviewer: bodnotbod (talk) 13:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Review

Thanks bodnotbod for your review and comments. Starting review. Elekhh (talk) 02:47, 8 March 2010 (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:

I reviewed the article, and I think it is well focused and not too far to become a GA. While in some aspects (references) it has been improved since the last GA nomination in March 2007, in other aspects, such as the description of architectural design it lost content. Its only major weakness is that it does not cover several key aspects of the building, and thus is not broad enough in its coverage. I think this might be the reason why bodnotbod perceived it as too short. However, it should not be difficult to fix this given the abundance of available references. Following is a list of areas needing improvement:

• Coverage
  • The article does not provide information about the architect, and how he came to design the building. Norman Forster is mentioned in the lead and in the infobox, but not in the main part of the article. The text jumps from the architect of the previous scheme (GMW) directly to the builder (Skanksa). Why was the architect changed? Was there a design competition for the building?
  • The design of the building (why this shape?) is not properly explained. No mention of the Stirling Prize for the design of the building;
  • There isn't much information provided about the uses of the building besides that of company headquarters: no mention of the shopping arcade [1], not explained that office space is provided to a number of companies - not only head offices, not clear what other uses are inside.
  • No information is provided about the large "plaza" (publicly accessible square) at the base of the building.
• Facts
  • The number of storeys given in the article is 40 based on this source, however is 41 according to most other sources (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc). I would assume the first source was wrong as it also has other errors such as "the project in figures: 131 m".
  • Floor area is provided only in the infobox as 47,950 m² without reference, while other sources state 76,400 [2], 41,805 m² [3].
  • The use of the term (and wikilink) double-glazing is inaccurate. The correct term to describe the building is Double-skin facade.
• MOS
  •  Done There is an inconsistency in the use of units of measurement: while in most cases measurements are in metres (feet) format, in two instances the order is reversed.
  •  Done Two of the image captions are bit too long, and contain unnecessary information, while two other captions a bit short, and do not explain from which street are the images taken from.
  •  Done I think there are too many external links, probably the first two would suffice. See WP:EL
• Other improvements
  •  Done I think the section title "Origin of Gherkin nickname" is superfluous. The first paragraph does not talk about the name at all. Both paragraphs could be part of the "History" section.
  •  Done An image of the interior (like this) would be more useful than this construction image. Also would be good to have a better image of the plaza. (however not a GA requirement).
  • I find that the layout could be improved (not a GA requirement). The highest quality image (FP) is currently squeezed towards the end of the article.
  • I would be interested to read more about how the building changed the London skyline.

Please let me know if any editor wishes to address these issues, and I will put the review on hold. Elekhh (talk) 08:11, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I see that in the past week some work has been done to fix minor issues, however the main problems remained unaddressed. I will provide a few more days for these to be addressed. Elekhh (talk) 05:12, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I am disappointed to have to fail this article, but the major issues highlighted above haven't been addressed in three weeks. The article is not broad enough in its coverage, and requires substantial work to expand it. With 25-30,000 views per month, it appears that unexperienced editors are often trying to fill the gaps, but sometimes this is eroding the article's quality. I was surprised to see that quality content from the 2007 version has been removed since. Thus in order to remain stable, it is very important for the article to provide a complete coverage of the topic and to be appropriately referenced. I hope it will be soon improved and re-nominated. Elekhh (talk) 07:50, 29 March 2010 (UTC)