Talk:First Presbyterian Church of Marcellus/GA1

GA Review

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I'll be reviewing this article over the next several days. I'll begin with a copyedit. Kathyrncelestewright (talk) 12:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat slim on sources but meets GA criteria. PASS with congratulations! Best, Kathyrncelestewright (talk) 15:20, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This GA review was conducted by an account subsequently discovered to be operated by a user that made use of multiple accounts. Importantly, there is nothing that supports a concern passing their own GAs or passing 'sub-GA' articles authored by others occurred. In the interest of transparency and rigor, discussion agreed reviews against the underlying articles be checked.

The article is well-constructed. Mitchazenia, three things: you use 'and' a lot; it has a tendency toward proseline in places, which I've tried improving with a light copyedit; among my changes was reducing the use of Reverend, for ease of reading. My understanding is preferred style referring to an ordained cleric is the 'Rev Michael Wall' (thereafter 'Mr Wall'). After confirming that in a style guide, I switched those, keeping 'Reverend' on first occurrence in each section for clarity. Having next looked at the changes the reviewer made that you say you had to go fix, I see Revd back to Reverend was the main one. Oops! I'll leave the matter as an editorial consideration for main contributors.
I was unsure why Rev Bill Grossman wasn't in the Pastors table, though later saw the website states he's interim pastor.
One thing to be careful of is using older sources when stating what's "present". You state half of the present eighteen elders are women, and your reference backs that up. The reference is from 1978, placed online in 1997. The ratio might have changed. The official town website at marcellusny.com reports the church governing body comprises twelve elders. It's an easy thing to miss, and address.
Although the article ends with a long quote, its terminology would make rephrasing difficult, I think. The article doesn't rely heavily on quoted text in any case.
Four sources are used. Two, self-published—used as a source of information about themselves, are each used once. A third, used once, is a publication of a State-level governmental body. The remainder relies on a book. It's linked to a 'Rootsweb' page, which would not normally meet reliable source standards. Determining if it was a reliable source took a while.
- The extract, as part of asserting copyright, gives the name it was submitted by, which is a name listed as a trustee of the local historical society on a 3-year term. The web extract is linked, from the website of the 1960-established Marcellus Historical Society. I'm satisfied the linked content doesn't violate copyright.
- The author Kathryn C. Heffernan (d. 1995) was a longtime resident of the town of Marcellus, and was trustee of the community's library. On retiring in 1970 after 26 years as a teacher and director of elementary education, the school district renamed the elementary school in her name as a tribute. She wrote the history book in her retirement. I found little information on the publisher. It may be self-published, or be from a small publishing house. The role of custodian of local or regional history information is often held by historical societies. This one's long established, recognized by the official town/county site, and it's very clear from their site they regard this as a definitive and well-researched work on history of the area. Regional libraries, carry around 20 copies; some further afield. Together, these factors place the book as meeting our Reliable Sources standards. The work probably stands as the best source editors could use for an article of this type. All sources are reliable. They back up what's claimed; there are no issues of close paraphrasing.

Overview: I agree with the review's pass of the article and with its comments. The review and GA status should stand.