Talk:Kirkcaldy/GA2

GA Review

The article was in a poor state until a major revamp started two months agowhich not only saw an expansion but also a wealth of new information, sources and pictures. Recently, there has much of a general tidy-up of references; a couple of new links and the history section being cut down for space and conviencewith much information moving to a new page. Kilnburn (talk) 22:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It's clear that a lot of work has gone into this article since it's last GA review, but overall, I think there's still a lot to be done. For starters, the 'citations' and 'copy editing' tags at the top of the article must be addressed prior to GA status. I'm also going to Y pass the article with respect to the stability criteria, since it appears that no major editing wars are taking place. It appears that Mutt Lunker (talk · contribs) and Kilnburn (talk · contribs) are the primary editors involved in keeping up with the article.

N All of the images appears to be tagged with appropriate copyright tags, although the {{GFDL}} license is preferable over {{attribution}}. There are some minor issues. For example, 'Image:Kirkcaldy Volunteers Green Plaque.jpg' and 'Image:Adamsmith.JPG' have notes on them stating that there's a duplicate file on the wikimedia commons. I also find that several of the image captions are quite long, and should be shortened to more concise captions. You should also avoid putting reference citations in image captions. The best way of including images is to tie the bulk of the description of the image into the text itself, with the citation there, and then to include a short, concise caption on the image and place it in close proximity to the text that closely identifies with the image.

N The article does not meet the GA prose requirement, mostly due to the presence of the 'copy editing' tag. But in reading the article, there are issues with readability and organization. The lead section is not really summarizing the article, and the presence of numerous citations in the lead itself is indication that material is being discussed there and not elsewhere in the article. An ideal lead section should be a good 3-4 paragraphs, and as a summary, should include citations only when necessary (minimal). I'd focus on writing the article first, and then organizing the lead based on article content. See WP:LEAD for more tips on improving this section.

Another suggestion is to include information on the naming and nicknames into an 'etymology' section, which should come just before 'history'. You can move some of the details in the first paragraph of 'history' to here, and the bit about the nickname into that section as well.

Why are there seven citations on this sentence? "Towards the end of the 11th century saw the Scottish king Malcolm II purchase the shire of Kirkaladunt from the crown lords of Fife to be given to the monks of Dunfermline Abbey as a means for aiding the funding of their newly built church." ('history' section). Seems a tad excessive.

N The article does not meet the completeness criterion. For starters, the 'history' section pretty much ends in 1930. Did anything happen in the past 80 years here, or is this a ghost town now? The governance section is very short, and doesn't really say much about the organization of the city government, its council, its various departments, and how they interact with the citizens. Also, I could be mistaken, because I'm not british, but the section is stating that Gordon Brown is the member of parliament representing the town; isn't he the Prime Minister now?

'Geography' is way too short. It's really just an odd assortment of miscellaneous facts and needs to talk more about the overall natural geography, as well as the various neighborhoods and parts of town. There also should be a 'climate' subsection talking about the weather throughout the year. The directional table should not be placed in between both of those paragraphs, and would be best placed at the very end of the section. I'm personally not too fond of it anyway, so if it was deleted, I could care less -- but the template seems to be used in other articles, so I have no problems with it.

Move 'Demography' to its own main section; it is not a subsection of 'geography', as its not really related at all. The section is far too short and needs major expansion.

The 'economy' section needs a better introduction to tie the different aspects of the economy together. Also, there's an image in the top-left of a factory, but the article text really doesn't say anything about the industrial aspects of the economy (maybe it does, but to a non-resident, I have no idea what the businesses or employers of Forbo Nairn and ESA McIntosh are or what products they produce).

The 'landmarks' section appears ok. There are also seven reference on this sentence, too: "The significant Ravenscraig Castle which can be found to the east of the town is best known as one, if not the first in Scotland for artillery defence."

The 'culture' section needs a major rewrite and major expansion. 'Notable people' is not normally included in this section; it should be moved to its own main section at or near the end of the article. 'Media' and 'Sports' should also be in their own main sections, which can come right after 'culture'. 'Media' only has three short sentences, and looks like it could be expanded. Titles of newspapers should be in italics. You might want to move 'landmarks' into the 'culture' section, as they are "cultural attractions". The section should also include information about annual cultural events, fairs, and other things that occur throughout the year. It might help to nix the remaining subsection headers (e.g. Kirkcaldy Museum... and Theatre, and instead weave those topic areas into the main article itself, add more information that's missing, and write a good introduction for the section.

The 'education' section seems reasonably well-written.

The first sentence of the 'transport' section seems like a statement of opinion: "Kirkcaldy is one of Fife's three main towns, has good road, rail and bus facilities.", and should be fixed. Also, does the town have an airport? Where is the nearest one?

Consider moving the 'religion' section into 'demography', as the two are somewhat connected. The text could use a copyedit, and talk more about how religion impacts the population rather than just being a directory of churches in disguise as prose. There's also a 'citation needed' tag which must be addressed.

The article mostly passes the reference citation requirement for GA, with one 'citation needed' mentioned above. It also largely meets the WP:NPOV requirement of GA as well, with one minor exception in the 'transport' section.

As the article presently stands, it fails to meet the GA criteria on account of the prose and completeness criteria (#1 and #3). Dr. Cash (talk) 15:32, 29 August 2008 (UTC)