Talk:St Mary's Church, Acton

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GA review (see here for criteria)

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This is a nice piece of work, but it still has some shortcomings with respect to the good article criteria.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   See below for usage issues

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):

   See below for coverage issues

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):

   Image is atmospheric, but color shifted

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   I'm sure these comments can be addressed.

• • Thanks for your helpful comments. My responses are below: Peter I. Vardy (talk) 18:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
    • OK. Some further responses from me. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:43, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Some specific comments:

• On the image, I love the atmospheric nature of it, but it does seem a bit color-shifted towards purple. I don't know if you're local to the church and can get an additional photo; if not, nevermind.
  • This was the only free-use image I could find. Actually I thought it was pretty awful, rather than atmospheric. So I've had a go at enhancing it. I'm not very good at this and felt it ought to be cropped as well. I have replaced the old image with an amended version, which is not very good, but it does show the fundamental architectural features. I do not live close enough to get my own photo at short notice, but maybe in the summer.....
    • The enhanced version seems worse to me — resolution is poor and it looks like the church is under attack by a moss creature. I'd go back to the previous image. Lack of images is the Achilles' heel of WP, but eventually more can be taken and added to this one.
      • Original image reinstated.
        • OK.
• There's one sentence in the lead section, "The church continues to be active as a parish church." I'd like to see that expanded — how active is the parish, what role does the church play in the community, how has the size and role of the parish changed over time, etc. Religious structures are built to serve religious functions, not just be examined as architectural works, so I like to see that side of the story developed.
  • I put this sentence in to show that the church was still active, ie. not redundant. I accept what you say but have not been able to find any references to cite about some of the subjects you suggest. The link provides access to information about what is happening now. If this were to be expanded in the article, it would be too much for the lead. I could provide a separate section at the end of the article headed "Present activities" or something like that (you could maybe suggest a better title), then give a synopsis of what is on their website. Or delete the sentence, leaving the article to deal just with the architecture. What do you think?
    • I would definitely recommend adding a section on activities, and then adding material there. The article is about the whole church, not just its architecture.
      • Section on "Current activities" added. Fortunately the church has a good and up-to-date website, which is something of a rarity for churches.
        • OK, looks good.
• There seems to be an inconsistent use of last-name-only references. Is the scheme that writers about the church are referred to by last name only, but people involved with the church are referred to by both names? If so, then "Paley and Austin" deserve first names; you can check the article for other outages.
  • The term "Paley and Austin" does of course refer to individuals but in the context of the article it is the title of a business (like "Marks & Spencer"), (see Edward Graham Paley), rather than the names of two individuals. I have changed the links to reflect this and I think it works. But if you consider that the individual names should be given, I can do that, although I think that might be less "accurate". I have not given Pevsner's first name because the convention in architectural circles is to refer to him just by his surname. But I can always add "Nikolaus" if you think that is better.
    • The architectural convention is fine with me, the revised link for Paley and Austin makes things clear now.
• In the infobox, the website shouldn't just show as [1], but rather as http://www.cross-country-group-anglican.org.uk/ or perhaps Cross Country Group of Parish Churches.
  • I prefer your latter suggestion and have changed it to this; the former version always looks a bit "naked" to me. I couldn't find any advice on this in the MOS; Do you know where I could find the "standard" line?
    • Looks good the way you have it now. Not sure if the MoS covers this kind of link context or not, but WP:COMMON works for me.

Anyway, I'll add further comments if and when I come up with them. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• I think all the comments made to date have been covered. Peter I. Vardy (talk) 09:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
  • One more thing that I noticed but forgot to mention the first time around: The "See also" section is inappropriate — per WP:ALSO, "See also" entries are only for internal links within Wikipedia. If this Thornber page is used to support anything in the article, it should be footnoted like everything else; otherwise, it should be an entry in "External links" section. Once this is fixed, we should be done. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Sorry about the aberration. Fixed. Many thanks. Peter I. Vardy (talk) 09:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
      • I see the change, but the cite format it's in is wrong for "External links". Per WP:EL#External links section, it should just be one bulleted item that reads as Craig Thornber's A Scrapbook of Cheshire Antiquities: Acton and nothing else. The way you have it, it could still be confused as a source used for the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
        • I take your point, but your suggestion does not tell the reader much. WP:EL#External links section states "you should give your reader a good summary of the site's contents, and the reasons why this specific website is relevant to the article in question". Would this be more in line with this advice — Photographs of the exterior and interior of the church by Colin Thornber? Peter I. Vardy (talk) 15:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
          • Yes, you're right, that would be better (except you misnamed Colin for Craig). Wasted Time R (talk) 00:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
            • Done. Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
              • OK, you're GA. Good work! Wasted Time R (talk) 14:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Commons gallery

I've created a commons gallery for Acton including some pictures of the church and churchyard features: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Acton%2C_Cheshire —Preceding unsigned comment added by Espresso Addict (talk • contribs) 23:04, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for replacing the (poor) image in the infobox and for the other images. I have moved the Anglican Portal box, mainly because it was messing up the "edit" links. Peter I. Vardy (talk) 18:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

It works better there. I'm glad you think my photos are an improvement. They're by no means my best; I've been there with a camera three times now, and somehow the light/weather is always wrong for photos! Espresso Addict (talk) 18:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)