Talk:Siege of Guînes (1352)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Harrias (talk · contribs) 15:18, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Initial thoughts that don't really come under the GACR

First and most obvious thought is, why isn't this at Siege of Guînes (1352), given our encyclopaedia page for the commune is at Guînes?

No idea. I never pay attention to titles. (Unlike some people!.) I will change it as soon as this GAN is over.

I'm not really keen on the coat of arms next to Geoffrey de Charny's name in the infobox, it doesn't really convey any useful information, and being completely honest, it isn't really clear what information it is conveying unless you already know that information. This is just my opinion though, and not part of any GA requirements.

Gone.

Can you flip "Saint-Omer" in the map to show on the left of the dot, so it doesn't go over the border; this would make it easier to read.

Sure.

References

Is "Edward's army laid siege to the port in September 1346. With French finances and morale at a low ebb after Crécy, Philip failed to relieve the town, and the starving defenders surrendered on 3 August 1347." really split between pages 144–147, 182–183 and 204–205 in Burne 1999? Seems a lot of pages!

Well, yes and no. Some were arguably the wrong pages. I have boiled it down to Jaques for a summary and Burne for a chapter length treatment. Actually more pages, but it looks more coherent.

"Ayloffe, Joeseph (1773)" is that spelling of Joseph a typo?

Cough. Yes.

Presumably "Kaeuper, Richard (2013)" is the same chap as "Kaeuper, Richard W. & Kennedy, Elspeth (1996)", in which case link him on the 2013 introduction too please.

Link moved.

Why the need for "Prestwich, M. (2005)" to mention "(published 15 September 2005)"? I'd get rid of it.

Sorry. No idea how that snuck in. Gone.

I don't understand the need to split the "Wagner, John A. (2006)" source into six different references: surely having them all in one would be more intuitive for the reader. We are providing page numbers after all.

I really don't care, but it is usual to list references to encyclopedia articles separately. I use Wagner in this way in a dozen or more FAs and it has not been queried.

That's fine. Are the titles for 2006b and 2006c meant to be the same, given they are listed separately, and are about 30 pages apart? Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 16:48, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Gog the Mild: if you can pick up on this, and remove Tuchman, which doesn't look like it is used anymore, we should be done.

Harrias, d'oh! Done and done. Gog the Mild (talk) 09:30, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 09:19, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All sources appear to be to reliable secondary sources.

Images

All images are appropriately tagged and captioned, though it is a bit odd that some have the caption centralised, and others don't.

Fixed. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:48, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Prose review to follow. Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 15:18, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Prose

You're probably not going to be shocked by me saying this, as I know it is a fundamental difference we've had for a while... but I think the background is more detailed than it needs to be to provide suitable context for this siege. (GACR 3b). The following comments on this section are obviously irrelevant if it is heavily cut down.

Well ... no. I have trimmed a bit. Probably not as much as you would like.

"He then undertook a large-scale raid through Normandy.." Try and get rid of the easter egg link, maybe something like: "He then undertook the Crécy campaign, a large-scale raid through Normandy.."

Done.

"..intended to bring a temporary halt to the fighting..": As a personal preference, I'd prefer "..intended to bring the fighting to a temporary halt.."

I prefer the original. (Although I struggle to say why.)

"It was to run for nine months to 7 July 1348.." How about "Initially it ran for nine months to 7 July 1348.."?

But it didn't it was extended after about six months - I would need to look up the details. What may seem odd phrasing is not accidental.

"Despite the truce being in effect the French commander Geoffrey de Charny hatched a plan to retake Calais by subterfuge.." When did this happen?

Ah, oops. Added.

"..seems that Doncaster had had the opportunity to examine.." To avoid the slightly awkward "had had" construction, could this be rephrased something similar to "..seems that Doncaster had been able to examine.."

Rephrased. Differently from your suggestion - that sentence was a bit of a mess.

Wikilink or footnote for "drawn and quartered"?

Added a link.

"And so the war resumed." This seems a bit 'pop history novel'.

You don't like pop history novels? Removed.

"The resumption of hostilities caused fighting to flare up in Brittainy.." Typo?

Grr. Fixed.

"This did not occur, as John was persuaded.." The last John mentioned was John of Doncaster, so while I think it should be obvious who this means, I think it needs to be spelled out.

Replaced with "the French king".

That'll do. I reserve the right to add more, change my mind, or anything else, as it has been a long time since I last did a GA review! Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 20:06, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers Harrias, good to see one of your too rare appearances, even if it is to torment me over this GAN. Your points all addressed above. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:46, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]