Talk:Kirkcudbright Tolbooth/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Gog the Mild (talk · contribs) 10:37, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

• "a new, larger town house". "town house" doesn't sound quite right. I understand that it is common in Scotland, but today it means something else in most of the world.

  Reworded. I may at some point do some work on Tolbooth which would allow me to provide an explanatory link, since in this contect 'town house' is the correct phrase, but for now I've gone for the more generic 'premeses'.

• "it remained in use as a prison". Which building is "it"?

  Clarified

• "Many people were incarcerated in the tolbooth during its use as a prison." Is this a little redundant?

  Good point - I've merged it into the next sentence.

• "Amongst them were people accused witch trials". Something missing?

  Yes, I was having problems with words when I wrote that.

• "the word tolbooth derives from the role the buildings played as the centre of that commercial administration". I am guessing that comes from "toll" and "booth", but perhaps spell it out?

  Do you really think this needs to be spelled out, since I've mentioned the levying of tolls in the previous clause?

• A lot, even most, of the "red sandstone dressings" seem to have been replaced. Perhaps "are made of rubble with red sandstone dressings" → 'are made of rubble and originally had red sandstone dressings' or similar?

  Are you looking at the picture? They're still there - the larger stonework around the windows. It's not a great picture, I'd like to go there on a sunny day and get a better one; the stone is more pink than red in truth, but all the sources call it red sandstone, I suspect because it's this stuff.

I was looking at this, where to my untutored eye much of the obviously red dressings seem to have been replaced with a nastier grey stone. But I am not too bothered, don't know that for a fact, and am happy to leave it in your capable hands.

• References: several p./pp. errors, both ways.

  I think I caught them all.

• Publisher locations for Gibson and Hume?

  Added

• Add the ISSN for Devereux.

  Added

• "By 1735 there was sufficient weight behind the idea that the practice of witchcraft, as traditionally understood, was not possible." I think this needs rewriting.

  Reworded - see what you think.

Nice one. See what you make of the above. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:24, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Gosh Gog the Mild, you've got a good eye. Delighted to be working with you again, thanks for looking at this. I've addressed most of the comments in the article, couple of comments above. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 11:56, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I think that it comes from serving my Wiki-apprenticeship at GoCE. Likewise; I have been watch listing this since you flagged it up, meaning to look it over - so two birds with one stone. A cracking little article. A more general one on Tolbooths would be great. Looks to me as you could pretty much cut and paste and have a B class! Gog the Mild (talk) 12:50, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Gog the Mild! Very much appreciated. I've treated myself to a couple of books about the Scottish burghs and its municipal buildings, which go into great detail about tolbooths, and how they morphed into 'town houses'. Our article would currently have you think they're the same thing, but they're not, the one form replaced the other, and the older buildings were sometimes retained, as was the case here. Something to keep me busy anyway. :) GirthSummit _(blether) 13:23, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Girth Summit, just what you need!! Gog the Mild (talk) 13:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed