Talk:Henry Chadwick (theologian)/GA1

GA Review

Thank you for nominating this article for good article review. I have assessed it against the six good article criteria, and commented in detail below:

1. Writing:

(a) Prose

A light copyedit would be useful to address the odd instance of awkward phraseology and clarity of expression. I'm happy to chip in with this.

(b) Manual of style

No issues here.

2. Sourcing:

(a) References

I'm not sure about the utility of the Le Monde link appended to the end of the references section. Has this been used in the article (and if so, where)? All other refs and links look good, and the sources appear to be reliable.

(b) In-line citations

Citing and correct template use appears to be very thorough, although I found a few instances of uncited material that really requires citing. I've tagged the text in the appropriate places (hopefully it's self-evident why the tags are there, but I'm happy to explain if more detail is needed).

(c) Original research

Addressed by 2(b) above.

3. Broadness:

(a) The topic is well-covered

Topic coverage is excellent. No issues here.

(b) Focus

The article remains focused throughout.

4. Neutrality:

There are one or two instances where the prose seems slightly laudatory and could perhaps be written in a more neutral fashion, but these should hopefully be addressed during the copyedit.

5. Stablility:

No concerns

6. Images:

(a) Copyright status

No concerns

(b) Relevance and captioning

I'm not convinced of the relevance of the first image (Tom Quad), though it could be that it requires a more informative caption. Perhaps it would be possible to space the images out further, to 'fill'the article? Also, do we have articles on any of his books? The reason I mention it is, if not, it might be good to get a cover image to use somewhere in the article (this is not a GA pass criterion though!)

As a result of the above review, I have placed the article on hold. This gives editors up to a week to address the issues raised (although if constructive work is underway, the hold period will be extended). I will regularly check back here to mark off those issues that have been satisfactorily resolved and to address any questions and comments you may have.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or believe the article is ready for a re-review. All the best, EyeSerene^talk 11:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On 1, I had a couple of people give it a brief look over, but I'm perfectly aware fo my short-comings as a writer. Mind you when your trying to paraphrase the work of several other (professional writers), and trying very hard to avoid direct copies, it can be quite hard to come up with an elegant way of saying something that one of the source hasn't already used.

On 2, The Le Monde link is probably a bit of a left over - various things had been added to the references section before I started the revamp of the article, most got incorporated a inline refs, this one didn't. It would be a shame to lose it completely as it would be a boon to anyone attempting a French translation - move it to external links perhaps? I've addressed most of the citation issues now - the ones I've let for th moment are covered by exactly the same ref as the sentence following, and it's always seemed a bitnaff to me to repeat a single ref on consecutive sentences - is there any way around this?

4, Well all the sources seem to agree he was a pretty good egg - there's a slightly nasty tone in bits of the Telegraph obit, but that seems aimed an Anglicanism in general, and rather paints him as an exception to some of the perceived failings of that denomination. Other than that the main thing they have to say against him is that perhps he didn't do quite as well as he might as Dean of Christ Church. A couple of the people I had look over the article before I put it up at GAN queried the quote from Williams, but it was picked up by the NYT (and the Le Monde article - if my schoolboy French has stood up to the strain) so it seemed notable enough to be included - perhps this ought to be made clearer?

6, I've recaptioned the image now, so hopefully it's a bit clearer. As for spreading them out a bit more - that's the longest section of the article, so seemed to be most in need of relief from images, both those directly relate to his first period in Oxford. Something similar could alost certianly be found for his Cambridge periods - unofrtunatley there doesn't seem to be a free image of him, so this approach seemed like the best way of getting some images in. I've no great expertise on fair use and so on, but wouldn't book covers be sailing a bit close to the wind on that front? David Underdown (talk) 23:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your work thus far.

Re 1: I've been through and tweaked the prose in places; hopefully I haven't changed the sense of anything.

Re 2: Moving it to an External links section would seem to be a sensible compromise, if the content has value beyond what is included in the article. On the remaining outstanding cites, I'm happy to accept that they're covered by subsequent citations. If you take the article further though, they may be challenged again and repeating the cites may be necessary ;)

Re 3: I agree that we can only reflect what the sources say, and if they all think he was a good chap then that's all there is to it. I think the Rowan Williams quote is fine; my main concern is following two sentences of Reputation and recognition: "He was generous with his time and knowledge, a capacious memory, and a personal library of around 20,000 books was the foundation of his broad scholarship, and he was always ready to point students in the right direction. When reviewing others' writing he was usually equally generous, though capable of a (courteous) demolition job when well-deserved." Although it's cited to multiple sources, often the fact that so many sources are felt necessary to justify a statement is an indication that the statement itself needs recasting. Looking at the sources, most of the content seems to come from obituaries (which are likely to be generous by their very nature), so perhaps it would help to attribute the praise to individuals - for example, "Other obituary writers, such as X, described him as generous with his time and knowledge and always ready to point students in the right direction.^{[citation needed]} In SOURCE_A, Y praised his generosity when reviewing the work of others, although noted that he was capable of a courteous demolition job when necessary.^{[citation needed]} ..." This would also help to split up the serial inline citations.

Re 4: The caption now justifies the Tom Quad image in the article. It's a pity that we can't get a free image of him into the article, but I think that as there are no articles on the books themselves, it would be justifiable to include them here (though I agree it is borderline!). However, as I said, this isn't a GA-blocker, so for the purpose of this review I now regard criterion 6 as fully met.

Hope this helps, EyeSerene^talk 08:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Guardian and Church Times obits are the only ones with a named authors, although presumably we could attribute it to the newspaper, rather than an individual. David Underdown (talk) 09:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, no problem with that. EyeSerene^talk 11:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right I've tweaked things a bit, thought it might get a bit repetitive to have The Times said this, The Indy the other etc, but I've attributed the setence as a whole to obits and appreciatinos, and spread the cites out to indicate whic description comes from where. How's that? Sentence could probably do with a bit of a copyedit still. David Underdown (talk) 13:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bit of a fly in the ointment with the Le Monde link, the main article content has now subscription only, which probably violates WP:EL, although an abstract is still available. David Underdown (talk) 13:20, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've noted that by the link - it may be slightly problematic, but the abstract has value in itself, and Le Monde is hardly a disreputable site, so I think we can keep it in and wait for someone to complain ;) I've also been over the article with what I hope is a very light copyedit. The only significant changes I made were to the lead and the Early life sections - I was careful about keeping cites and text together, but you perhaps ought to check that I haven't mucked anything up. I can't see any more issues, so once you've double-checked and are happy with everything, I think we're there. EyeSerene^talk 11:08, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seems fine, though you did manage to end up with a sentence consisting of "In the 1960s." at one point! David Underdown (talk) 11:12, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, thanks for catching that! OK, as we're both happy I'll go ahead and pass the article. Thank you for your work, and congratulations on achieving a well-deserved GA ;) EyeSerene^talk 11:44, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, my very first. David Underdown (talk) 11:47, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Picture

Could we use picture from this site: http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=58435. Best wishes,--Vojvodae please be free to write :) 13:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There really should be a photo of Professor Chadwick. JustTryintobeJust (talk) 15:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]