Talk:Watford Gap services

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Watford Gap services has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 24, 2014	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on June 21, 2014.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Watford Gap services were a popular meeting place for rock bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix?

This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

Keep, 05 September 2009, see discussion.
No consensus, 13 July 2005, see discussion.

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Watford Gap services/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: SilkTork (talk · contribs) 16:00, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'll start reading over the next few days and then begin to make comments. I am normally a slow reviewer - if that is likely to be a problem, please let me know as soon as possible. I tend to directly do copy-editing and minor improvements as I'm reading the article rather than list them here; if there is a lot of copy-editing to be done I may suggest getting a copy-editor (on the basis that a fresh set of eyes is helpful). Anything more significant than minor improvements I will raise here. I see the reviewer's role as collaborative and collegiate, so I welcome discussion regarding interpretation of the criteria. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time}

Passed. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:47, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tick box

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose is clear and concise, without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. Has an appropriate reference section:

B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

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

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 tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
Overall:
Pass or Fail:

Comments on GA criteria

Pass

Image is OK. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Article is stable. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:55, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Has an appropriate reference section. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:25, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No evidence of bias. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 12:01, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Prose is clear and readable. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:37, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Query

MoS WP:Layout: "A bulleted list of recommended relevant websites, each accompanied by a short description." How do the three non-official website links meet the criteria? Having looked at them, they offer no information that is not available in this article - indeed, there is a lot of repetition. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:03, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The simplest explanation is probably that the sites were all better than this article until it got improved to GA status. I'm not sure about what we do with these - I'll have to take a closer look at them. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:11, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is "Watford Gap services", "Watford Gap Services", and "Watford Gap service station" in the article. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:07, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Let's go with "Watford Gap services" for consistency. Should be fixed. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:11, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the 50th anniversary have a section to itself rather than be part of the History section? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:07, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Primarily because that's why a significant number of news sources used as references exist, to cover the anniversary. It was the first notable coverage by multiple press outlets in decades. Also it helps break up the flow of the article a bit. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:11, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fail

General comments

I had hoped this would be a quick read through and a pass, as the topic is fairly discrete with little history; however, I am struggling to get past the lead without restoring to some research. The lead mentions the name Watford Gap name comes from a geological feature. This is vague, uncited, and not mentioned in the main body, and research is proving difficult as there doesn't appear to be much information easily available, however, there appears to be a long history of a rest stop on this site, as there was a coaching inn with the name The Watford Gap pretty much in the same location. There is some information here: [1], and here: [2], but not much. However, there is enough to whet the appetite for more. The location is interesting because it is in the easiest spot to traverse the ridge dividing the north from the south. Road, canal, rail, motorway have all come by this way, and it appears there has been a rest stop on the spot for at least 300 years. Could we dig a little deeper, and see what we can find? SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:27, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have a book source that has two pages dedicated to the location and history of Watford Gap, that is now in the article. Hopefully that should be a comprehensive background into the location of the services, and its name. It also means the "Location" section is more than one paragraph long, which I believe is against the Manual of Style recommendations for layout in a Good Article.

I don't think your second book source is accurate though; based on the information we have about land ownership, there would not have been a coaching inn directly where Watford Gap Services is, as the main coaching road did not go there. The author is probably getting confused with another coaching inn, possibly the original Blue Boar, or an inn in Weedon Bec or Kilsby. Similarly, the British History source won't reveal much as until the M1 arrived the place was in the middle of nowhere (both the railway and the canal tunnelled round it) and there was little to document. Hope that's of use. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 17:59, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I like the new addition. I've been looking for confirmation that Telford diverted because of the quicksand, but can't find it. I assume it's only available in Parker's book. I've ordered that. In the meantime, could you check to see that is what he says. I am aware that Stephenson had problems with quicksand when building the Kilsby Tunnel, and wonder if these two facts have got conflated. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:59, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Parker's book is a good read. The relevant text on page 161 reads "he [Telford] was forced off the route here by quicksands - which is why the A5 makes a sudden westward lurch into Kilsby village." I would imagine the West Coast Mainline had the same issue in the same place, but due to the straightness of railways resolved it with a tunnel instead. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:11, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Passed

This is a very useful article on Britain's most interesting, important and iconic motorway services. There's a few minor outstanding quibbles, but essentially, on the main points, this meets GA criteria. Interesting information has been researched and collected to provide a very useful overview of Watford Gap services. Well done. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 14:47, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for a dilgent review, with some good suggestions. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:11, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rock bands in the lead

Crookesmoor (talk · contribs) has removed information from the lead that was present in the GA review (see above) and responsible for the Did you know? nomination, where it says it was an important stopping point for 1960s and 1970s rock bands. I think this is important because it takes the article away from a run of the mill bit of architecture to something more significant. What are other people's views? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:45, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The previous version of the lead seems fine to me - I don't think mentioning the names of the bands or the 50th anniversary is excessive detail. I'm not sure what "clarity" was achieved by omitting this information.-- P-K3 (talk) 13:01, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, but I want to make sure there's a consensus before hitting "revert". Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:17, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

North of the Watford Gap

The text in the 'Location' section currently includes these sentences:

'In popular culture, the Watford Gap is often considered to be a dividing line [sic; it's a point, not a line] that separates the north and the south of England. The phrase "north of the Watford gap" [sic capitalisation] may be shortened to "north of Watford", inviting confusion with the larger town of Watford further south in Hertfordshire that is also linked by the M1.'

This is a common misconception. In fact, the phrase "north of Watford" was first recorded in 1935 and steadily grew in usage over the following decades. There's no recorded use of "north of the Watford Gap" until the 1960s, after people had become familiar with the services. I believe it was felt by some that the town of Watford was too near London to constitute a dividing point between the north and the south of England. This may be reasonable, but the fact remains that the original phrase was "north of Watford". Russ London (talk) 09:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is your source of information? The current text is cited to two books. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:27, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One source - see last paragraph 10mmsocket (talk) 13:26, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The two do seem to be used interchangeably. Take a look at Hansard, for example, and you'll find examples of both. 10mmsocket (talk) 13:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for responding to me on this. Just to clarify, I'm not disputing the statement that the Watford Gap is often considered to be a dividing point that separates the north and the south of England. And 'north of the Watford gap' and 'north of Watford' are indeed sometimes used interchangeably. And sometimes not. I'm only questioning the wording of the sentence: "The phrase 'north of the Watford gap' may be shortened to 'north of Watford'." I now see that the cited source (Joe Moran, Reading the Everyday) does indeed say: "This is often abbreviated to 'north of Watford' ...". But he's mistaken in putting that way, as 'north of Watford' came first. However, the only source I can presently cite to back up all the facts I've stated above is Brewer's Dictionary of London Phrase & Fable (Chambers, 2009, p.360–1) and the problem is that I wrote that book – and I can't cite my own research (and I did research it very thoroughly, even going to the British Newspaper Library (as was) to see the first recorded appearance of 'north of Watford' [in the context of a pejorative reference to northerners] in the Evening Standard, 30 May, 1935). I'll try to find some other published evidence to support me on this, but in cases like this it's notoriously hard to prove that a cited source is wrong, which is what I'm trying to do. Nevertheless, I'll add that The Oxford Dictionary of English (third edition, 2015), under its mention of Watford (Herts), devotes several lines to defining the phrase 'north of Watford', including an example of usage, and it makes no mention of the alternative possibility of referring to the Watford Gap, let alone to the idea that 'north of Watford' might be a shortening of 'north of the Watford Gap'. Russ London (talk) 19:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]