Talk:Monks Brook/GA1

GA Review

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Starting GA review.Pyrotec (talk) 16:04, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary review

This is an readable and well illustrated article; but it is not yet a GA-class article (see River Parrett and River Irwell, which are UK GA-class river articles, as examples of what is achievable). The article is a good B-class, but in order to be rated as GA-class it must comply with Wikipedia:Good article criteria. I have provided a summary of some of the problems and my recommendations below.

You may be able to correct and improve the article sufficiently in the next week, or so, so I will put the article On Hold for now.

Problems:

In first part of the article, before the Contents box is known as WP:lead. It is supposed introduce the article and to provide a summary of the important points. These "facts" seem to appear in the Lead and nowhere else:

" ...River Itchen, which it joins at a medieval salmon pool in Swaythling. The brook is formed from seven streams that rise in the chalky South Downs, with the official source of Monks Brook being known as Bucket's Corner. Monks Brook drains a clay catchment of 49 square kilometres. The brook is designated a main river, which means the operating authority for managing it is the Environment Agency, not the local government authorities for the areas through which the river runs. In 2007, a 250 metre stretch of a tributary to the brook that had been culverted in the 1970s to make way for a golf course was uncovered as part of a £2.5 million community regeneration project."

These "facts" should be copied from the Lead into the main body of the article, and expanded.

It is stated that the brook is a river, but this cannot be verified as ref 5 is broken; and verification appears to be taken from Southampton City Council, not from the Environment Agency, which this article states, made the designation.
The descriptions of this river are inconsistent as the terms, river, brook and stream appear to be used interchangeably.
The Infobox should be expanded to cover some of the summaries provide in the River Parrett and River Irwell Infoboxes. For instance the length of the river is unknown (the article does not give it); and there is no informative given on elevation or geographical coordinates.
In-line citations are needed to provide verification of claims, as per WP:Verify, yet:

Ref 2 has a broken link.
Ref 5 has a broken link.
Ref 6, 7 & 8 are a bit light, they are almost WP:Spam. Ref 9 is slightly more informative.
Ref 10 has a broken link.
References 1 and 11 appear to be the same reference.

The claim that "Monks Brook was a feature of the gardens of South Stoneham House, landscaped by Capability Brown" is unverifiable as no citation has been provided.
There is no discussion of where the name "Monks Brook" came from, it may indicate that it was owned by a monastery, or passed through monastic lands. This should be clarified.
Apart from the Lead there is no discussion of the geology of the area that the river drains.
I assume that the the river passes through mostly built up-land, the article makes no mention of this, but the phrase "green corridor" is use several times as is the phrase "community regeneration project". This should be clarified, and if so some discussion of the change of use of the land over time be provided.
Some of the references used are quite light weight, e.g. newspapers and advertiser web sites. With a name of "Monks brook" this river may have provided long-standing legal functions such as land boundaries. This should be investigated, and where appropriate added to the article.

Pyrotec (talk) 18:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Pyrotec, very useful comments. waggers (talk) 12:30, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GA review

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Has the potential to make GA, but needs someone to make the effort.

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:

B. MoS compliance:
WP:lead needs attention - see comments above.
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:
Broken links

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
Broken links

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:
see comments above

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Overall:
Pass or Fail:

I'm regretfully failing this article for lack of (any) progress. It has the potential to make GA.Pyrotec (talk) 11:15, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]