Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Northern England/archive1

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 Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 03:19, 3 July 2017 [1].

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Northern England

Nominator(s): Smurrayinchester 12:02, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Northern England is, well, the northern part of England. But it's also an increasingly distinctive cultural area, shaped by centuries of Celtic, Roman, Saxon, Danish, Norman and Scottish invasion and more recently by the rise and fall of heavy industry. In this article I've tried to summarise the region's history, its economy, and its culture to explain why there is such a North–South divide in England. Unfortunately it didn't get any feedback at peer review, but it has had some useful edits from members of Wikipedia:WikiProject United Kingdom. Thanks in advance for any reviews, comments or suggestions. (Still needs a source review) Smurrayinchester 12:02, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

• (To reviewers - the Politics section may be out of date after tonight's election (eg. if Conservatives become more popular in the North or UKIP utterly collapse). I'll update it once the results are all in and analysis of the results in the North are available from RS.) Smurrayinchester 15:42, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Updated! Smurrayinchester 18:24, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Media review

• Generally speaking maps and diagrams should be scaled up, and as much as is possible the captions should help the reader understand what the colours and symbols used represent when no legend is present.
  • Scaled up where possible (although I haven't been able to check that the page layout still looks OK one the largest screens checked). All images now have legends (except EWHealthMap, which uses a continuous scale (which should be readable at standard resolutions) and instead has a note that "Lighter colours indicate longer life expectancy").
• File:British_Isles_at_night_by_VIIRS_(cropped).jpg: source image includes a NASA tag, suggest this one should as well
  • Thanks - bug in the Crop Tool meant it wasn't carried across.
• File:012298-Baltic_Flour_Mill_Gateshead_unknown_1950_(4075866463).jpg: the statement from Newcastle Libraries is not consistent with the licensing tag given - they do not appear to have been the copyright holder
  • Have rewritten the source info, but given that the library seem to be being slightly slack here, I've taken the image out (since can't be 100% sure it is public domain).
• File:NorthernEnglandPopulationPie.svg: what was the source of the data used to create this diagram? Same with File:EWHealthMap.svg.
  • Sources added.
• Nikkimaria (talk) 21:24, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Thank you! Smurrayinchester 13:40, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Comments by Wehwalt

Impressive article, done through the bit on agriculture and only a few comments:

• " The deindustrialisation that followed in the second half of the 20th century hit Northern England hard, and many Northern towns remain deprived compared to Southern England." I would cut the second use of Northern.

Done. Smurrayinchester 07:33, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Charles had to call the Long Parliament," it wasn't Long when he called it. Suggest "what became the Long Parliament" or similar.

Done. Smurrayinchester 07:33, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

• "especially Pakistan and Bangladesh, in the 1950s and 60s " Bangladesh became referred to as such in 1971.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:50, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Have changed to say "starting in the 1950s" (the source also discusses Bangladeshi immigration in the 1970s and onwards, so that's fine). Before 1971 Bangladesh was part of Pakistan, so the sentence should still be correct without bogging the reader down in the details of the history of East Pakistan.

Thanks! Smurrayinchester 07:33, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

• "over the previous two decades" I might specify years, since you are saying previous to a two-year range, making exactly what you mean uncertain.

Done. This one was a bit tricky, because life expectancy stats are averaged over several year ranges. Smurrayinchester 11:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Even before the Second World War, the Belgian coast at Ostend had become popular with Northern working-class tourists," There is a slight hint that the war caused the coast to become more popular with British tourists, which may or may not be true, but I'm not sure it's what you're driving for.

Clarified. Smurrayinchester 11:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• "of 24 national museums and galleries in England outside London, 14 are located in the North." I might put a "the" before "24" to make it clear these are the only such museums etc.

Done. Smurrayinchester 11:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Since The Guardian moved to London in 1964" This is the first time you mention it so a link would be appropriate, as might be a way of signaling to the reader that it used to be the Manchester Guardian.

Done. Smurrayinchester 11:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• On media, can anything be said about electronic media? More generally, there doesn't seem a lot said about the internet throughout the article. Likely towns are installing wifi through the town centre, or otherwise encouraging technology.

Done. See Northern England#Communications and the internet. Smurrayinchester 11:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• "the disbanding of the Cheshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire military bands" possibly a synonym for "disbanding", considering ...

Ha ha, good point! Went for "dismissal" Smurrayinchester 11:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• There is some unsourced matter under "rugby". Also under "Rail"

Assuming you're referring to the lists of rugby teams and list of light rail systems, done. Smurrayinchester 11:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Jews were forcefully expelled from England by the 1290 Edict of Expulsion" This may be an ENGVAR thing, but "forcefully" comes across more as "energetically" in American English. Also, "expelled ... Expulsion". consider "forcibly banished" or some such.

Done - your wording sounds better. Smurrayinchester 11:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Links between Northern cities remain poor," It's unclear to me if this sentence is a follow-on from the previous, about freight transport, or is a commentary on transport in general, which is the subject of the previous sentence, the topic sentence of the paragraph.

Have clarified. Smurrayinchester 11:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

That's all I have.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:45, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! Smurrayinchester 11:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Support Very nice article on a large and somewhat indefinite subject. I certainly learned a few things from it!--Wehwalt (talk) 02:22, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Support by Edwininlondon

I enjoyed reading this well-researched, well-structured, well-written article. A few comments so far:

• This has left the North a region of contrasts -> not quite sure what This refers to

Removed the sentence. It doesn't add anything, and it reminds me of Bart Simpson's awful "Libya is a land of contrasts" essay filler. Smurrayinchester 18:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• Roman place name are in italics, but I don't think that's what [BADITALICS] tells us to do

Yeah, this is unclear to me. Foreign names should be in italics, but proper names generally not. Going to follow the FA Greater Manchester and unitalicise them. Smurrayinchester 18:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• Great Britain in 878 caption -> it may be my monitor but the darkest brown on map does not look much like the darkest legend

I also thought that when I created the legend, but I just double checked and they are identical colours (#dfc779). I guess it's an optical illusion caused by the contrast with the grey box around it. Smurrayinchester 18:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• many place names and surnames -> an example of each would be good

Have added some examples of place names (for the most part, Northern surnames are taken from place names - Scargill is Norse name for instance, but it's derived from the village of Scargill. The sentence is already a bit bloated, so I've just taken out the mention of surnames) Smurrayinchester 18:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• Following Norman subjugation, monasteries returned to the North seeking to -> sounds a bit odd to me, monasteries as actors

Added a mention of missionaries. Smurrayinchester 18:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• Pilgrimage of Grace -> delink second link

Done Smurrayinchester 18:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• the United States or to other colonies -> US no longer a colony at that time

Yeah, that's a slightly confusing sentence. Changed. Smurrayinchester 18:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• chiefly to the US -> inconsistent with United States just mentioned

I think this is OK - United States at the first instance, US afterwards. I do the same thing with European Union/EU. (MOS says that US and EU are both widely understood enough that they don't need explanation.) I just don't like having two uses of "United States" right next to each other. Maybe it's just inelegant variation. Smurrayinchester 18:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• Yorkshire and Humber and the North West both -> Yorkshire and the Humber and the North West both

Oops! Thanks. Smurrayinchester 18:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

A bit more later. Edwininlondon (talk) 16:05, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

As promised, here's more:

• 55.85% --> 2 decimals feels a bit over the top accurate, and inconsistent with other stats

Fixed Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• register of places of worship registered --> 2 x register

Fixed Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• the entire north is covered by -> capital N perhaps? Without entire, you would have written "the North is covered by", right?

Yep, fixed. Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• United Kingdom or UK? I think it's ok to have United Kingdom once and then do UK, but not "United Kingdom outside London" and "The first mosque in the UK " so far down in the article

Changed. Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• in same era caused bus use -> in the same era caused bus use

Fixed Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• public tram system in UK -> public tram system in the UK

Fixed Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• footnotes: all of them need references

All the footnotes are referenced.* I've changed a couple to nested footnotes where the footnote needs a separate citation, but in cases where the footnote is simply a parenthetical remark (i.e. explaining the non-standard definition of "English-speaking", or enumerating the 10 most deprived boroughs) to a sentence that is cited, I've not added a reference, per WP:CITEDENSE ("Wikipedia requires inline citations based on the content, not on the grammar and composition elements."). *(With the exception of footnote 2, which explains terminology used in the article rather than an external fact) Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

In general the formatting of the references needs quite a bit of work still:

• not all books have ISBNs; those that do have inconsistent format: either all ISBN 13 or all 10. I always use http://www.isbn.org/ISBN_converter to get to ISBN 13

I'm going to try running a pywikibot task to convert all these - there are 87 ISBNs in this article. Run! (The only books I can see now that lack ISBNs are those are older than the ISBN system; The English Catholics in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth for instance doesn't have an ISBN in any catalogue I checked, because it was published in 1920. There are also some university theses and white papers, which don't have ISBNs either) Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• books need a location of the publisher too, I believe

Per MOS:REF, it's optional, and I don't include it because a) it's not always available and b) it clutters the reference without adding any useful information. Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• quite a few books don't seem to have a publisher listed at all (just as an example, but there are more: Upton & Widdowson)

Thanks. I think I've caught all these now. Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• I can't work out what rules determine whether something is listed in Bibliography or not. Take Highways England (2016). Northern Trans-Pennine Routes Strategic Study (PDF). Department for Transport. pp. 8–9. Why is that the only one with page numbers in Bibliography? Should it even be here?

Page number was a copying error. Any book where more than one page/page range is cited appears in the bibliography, so Harvard referencing works. Books that are only referenced once are simply footnoted - I don't think it helps to clutter the bibliography with books that are only mentioned to cite a single fact. Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• Bibliography items at the end don't seem to be in alphabetical order anymore.

They should be, although I listed the books without named authors (i.e. the IPPR North and Highways England whitepapers) after the ones with authors. I could mix them in if that makes more sense. Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Edwininlondon (talk) 10:47, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! If I can get pywikibot working, I should be able to iron out the last point later today. Smurrayinchester 12:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

OK, have managed to convert the page to ISBN-13. (pywikibot doesn't make it easy!) Smurrayinchester 19:56, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

All fine. I support. Edwininlondon (talk) 16:33, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Source review

• Many of the comments by Edwininlondon have resulted in the sources being cleaned up a bit, so that's already good.
• Everything in the article that needs a citation appears to have one. No deadlinks.
• Sources are of encyclopedic quality.
• Spotchecks: I looked at the sources for footnotes 29, 92, 122, and 241. All are represented correctly in the text.
• To conclude: everything looks good as far as sources go. --Coemgenus (talk) 12:35, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Smurrayinchester 18:18, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Comments from Mike Christie

I've copyedited; please revert at will. Overall this is in outstanding shape and the prose is excellent. I have a few nitpicks.

• The paragraph on the Anglo-Saxons could be a little clearer, I think. In particular:
  • It was only the Angles who settled in the north.

    I don't understand this comment. The only mention of Angles is in the sentence "After the end of Roman rule in Britain and the arrival of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes..." which makes clear that there were several different Germanic settlers. Could you explain a bit more? Smurrayinchester 08:57, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

    I've struck this -- the point I was making was just that the Saxons and Jutes did not settle in the north, and I thought it might be worth reconstructing the sentence so it was apparent that Bernicia and Deira were kingdoms of the Angles. However, there's no room in an long article like this for much nuance about subtopics, and it's not wrong as it stands, so I think it's OK. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Wait, that was my misreading (I thought you said "not only"). OK, changed and all clear. Smurrayinchester 11:38, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

• • Bernicia and Deira did not stretch west of the Pennines until well after unification as Northumbria; this is implied by the later sentence about Rheged and Elmet but not clear when they are first mentioned.

    Thanks, have rearranged that bit. Smurrayinchester 08:57, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

  • The word "Celtic" isn't used in the article till after the mention of Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, which seems odd.

    Done (have clarified that the Brigantes were Celts) Smurrayinchester 08:57, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

• "of which the latest is the Northern Powerhouse": perhaps an "as of 2017" would be appropriate here?

  Done. Smurrayinchester 08:57, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

• Suggest glossing "devo-max" inline; outside the UK I can't imagine many readers will have ever heard of it.

  Done (actually, I removed the term and just explained what the proposal is). Smurrayinchester 08:57, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

• "The unusual situation of having two archbishops at the top of Church hierarchy suggests that Northern England has been seen as a sui generis cultural region for centuries": I may be missing it, but I don't see support for this in the cited source (Dobson, p. 3). It seems odd to say "centuries", since the archbishopric goes back to 735.

  It's there, the sentence that ends "at least this inertia implied an assumption, as it still does, that northern England is at least in one important way absolutely sui generis." I've reworded the sentence a little. Smurrayinchester 08:57, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, missed that. I think it was a good idea to remove "for centuries". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

-- I expect to support once these minor points are addressed. A very impressive article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:33, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: Thanks for the comments! Could you explain the first one a little more? Smurrayinchester 08:57, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:16, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Coord note

Appear to be quite a few duplinks in the article; I won't hold up promotion over them but pls check and rationalise as appropriate (you can use this script to highlight -- note that it boxes the initial instances in green and the subsequent/duplicate instances in red). Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:19, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks like quite a few crept in during editing. All resolved (except for links that duplicate those in the lede). Smurrayinchester 08:30, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 03:19, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.