Talk:Great Plague of London/GA1
GA Review
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Reviewer: LT910001 (talk · contribs) 06:28, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Hello, I'm LT910001 and occasionally contribute to these GA reviews. I haven't contributed or edited this article.
Initial Comments
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I will make some initial comments:
To elaborate on these points, I think this article would be ready for GA status when:
From a medical perspective, I would love to have this article compartmentalised into sections outlining the risk factors for the epidemic, transmission vectors and so forth, but I think that the current historical narrative format, with a bit of tightening, reflects this. Given this is a historical article I think this could be said to be an appropriate format. I welcome any feedback and in the meantime have upgraded the article to C class. Kind Regards, LT90001 (talk) 06:28, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
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The Review Proper
editOverall a great article; please have a strong cup of tea (or other beverage) before viewing what I have written below! LT90001 (talk) 13:23, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Lede
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Background
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Outbreak
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Aftermath
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Impact
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Citations
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Conclusion
editIn conclusion, overall I find this article an engaging and well-written! On deeper inspection there are two things I think need to be fixed to move to GA status.
- Firstly, the sources used need to be better. Unsourced tertiary reports can't be relied upon (WP:SCHOLARSHIP), and quotations should be taken from the initial source where possible (WP:RS)
- Secondly, there are occasional deviations into imputing the motive for actions. Such statements would be better represented by a quote from a primary source, rather than a factual statement, as it's very hard to make this statement objectively without strong evidence.
Despite this, I hope you're not deterred by the large amount of comments I have made above! Most are very small, and this article is very good. Kind Regards, LT90001 (talk) 13:23, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- I have made many but not all of the alterations you have suggested above. I could remove some of the bits where I attribute motives to people. However, I am not a historian and normally write articles on Biology. I have no access to original documents and will be quite unable to fulfil most of your suggestions on citations. I was inspired to work on the article by the book by James Leasor. He mentions "authorities" in various places but I know nothing of local government at the time. Though I might guess it was the Corporation of London who gave the orders, I don't know whether that was the case. Seeing that I am not going to succeed to get this to GA status as outlined by you, I think I had better abandon the idea. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:16, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Nooo-ooooo! I'd hate to have deterred an article this close to GA from pursuing GA by virtue of my review! To be clear, this review is intended as a to-and-fro, not just a reviewer prescribing what's "right", so please feel free to disagree with some of the points I raise and I'll happily demur (for example of another review, see Talk:Aphthous stomatitis/GA1). For example, what you say about Leasor not mentioning who the "authorities" are is quite legitimate, I didn't realise that - so there's no way to change that. With the sources, you actually cite the original diary in section, so you can alter the two website diary citations to that one, and although it may take a week or two to find a more reliable source for the other things, you could use google or google scholar to find a more original source. There's no requirement that this article respond to a review in one day (or at all!) and I'd be happy to wait a week or two (or more) while you find some sources (considering we also all have an extra-wiki life!) LT90001 (talk) 22:23, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- So, have faith! This is a really good article and deserves to be GA-nominated, and I would lastly like to note one very good indication of this is that it seems to be, word-for-word, providing the majority of the blogging internet's and other wikis musings on the Black Death (this article came first!)... so, it certainly can't be that bad! LT90001 (talk) 22:23, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- OK. I will work on making further improvements over the next week or so. It occurred to me (thinking about the matter in bed) that as the GA criteria do not require an article to be comprehensive, I can omit entirely any bit to which I cannot find an acceptable source, as long as I leave a cohesive whole that covers the main points of the subject.
- With regard to one of the points you made, I am not sure about the death rate and will do some research. My guess is that the drivers of dead-carts may have been resistant to the disease or perhaps had already had it and recovered. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:05, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Yep, that was just a tangential comment :). I look forward to your changes and will be happy to continue the review when you're ready. LT90001 (talk) 10:01, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- I have now dealt with all your comments (I think) apart from the last section on "Citations" which I will work through next. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:50, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
- I've done a census of the changes made to keep track of everything. I'll await your changes to the citations section and, seeing as Leasor is a pretty important part of this review, see if I can get my hands on a copy to verify 3-4 of your references. LT90001 (talk) 12:26, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
- I have now dealt with all your comments (I think) apart from the last section on "Citations" which I will work through next. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:50, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
- Yep, that was just a tangential comment :). I look forward to your changes and will be happy to continue the review when you're ready. LT90001 (talk) 10:01, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- With regard to one of the points you made, I am not sure about the death rate and will do some research. My guess is that the drivers of dead-carts may have been resistant to the disease or perhaps had already had it and recovered. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:05, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your recent edits. I think this article meets the good article criteria (WP:GACR); namely, that it is well-written, verifiable, broad, neutral, stable and illustrated, and am therefore promoting it to Good Article status. LT90001 (talk) 06:40, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you for the thorough and detailed review. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:25, 9 September 2013 (UTC)