Talk:Welsh devolution/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: David Fuchs (talk · contribs) 18:38, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Happy to help if any improvements are required to get this article over the line for GA. Titus Gold (talk) 18:21, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

{{doing}} Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:38, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Hey, just a heads up. Had to go out of town so I'm behind on my wiki-work, but this is still coming :) Sorry for the delay. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 17:44, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

No problem. Happy to help if any improvements are required to get this article over the line for GA. Thanks. Titus Gold (talk) 02:00, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Review as follows. Overall, this is a solid start, but I think there's some substantial work needed

• General:
  • There seems like a bunch of "why's" are missing from this article. The history section, for example, gives us a lot of names and dates but not a lot of context for events. When we get to the '19th and 20th centuries devolution movement' section, for example, there's no explanation for why the Wales Act 1881 was passed, or what changed from the last date (1746) to the next (1881). Then in the next section we get a contextless quote from Chamberlain without understanding what it's really relating to. Basically, there's not really a "story" being told in this article—it feels more like a loose collection of facts or an outline of assembled tidbits.
  • Beyond that, I think the article assumes too much familiarity. We get socked over the head with a bunch of blue links without any explanation of who the people or organizations are.
  • I have some concerns with the neutrality of the article; while it would obviously focus on proponents of welsh devolution, the language involved (for example, The report was a damning criticism of the UK government's funding of justice in Wales) push it into biased territory. There's no discussion of the cons of devolution or who actually supports or opposes it beyond polling and the "Political party position on devolution" section, which again feels like it should be prose not just a bulleted list.
  • The entirety of the "Referendum results and opinion polling" section I don't think is all that useful or relevant. Important polls should be covered in prose, and given that these are asking different questions at different times to different people I don't think throwing them together is actually offering any illumination (not to mention it is again more data without context.)
• Prose:
  • The lead doesn't feel like it adequately covers the article at present. I streamlined some of the background info in the first paragraph, but right now it doesn't really give a good indication of how Welsh devolution and sentiments around it have changed; for example, the second paragraph tells us starting in the 19th century there was growing movement for devolution, but that in 1979 a referendum was decisively rejected. The very next paragraph tells us a referendum years later was successful, but doesn't elide why this was.
  • "far-reaching federalism"—who says this? The Labour Party?
  • I think a line or two would be useful to set up the body and background more than just "England invaded Wales", insofar as how long "Wales" had been a thing, etc.
  • In 1470 Edward IV formed the Council of Wales and the Marches. and this is important... how? It's not really made clear.
  • The caption Monument to Llywelyn the last Prince of Wales seems like it should be formatted like it is in prose (Llywelyn the Last, Prince of Wales).
  • Why are sovereigns like Henry IV, Richard III, the Welsh King of England Henry VII not linked?
  • The leader of Plaid Cymru, Gwynfor Evans won the party's first-ever seat in Westminster in Carmarthen in 1966, which "helped change the course of a nation". who said this quote?
  • and a broad consensus on the previously divisive issue of the Welsh language and so the consensus on the language now was...?
  • officially changed the status of Wales from to country — missing word?
  • What are AMs?
  • The act also changed the model of operation of the devolved institutions from a "conferred powers model" to a "reserved powers model". Which means what?
• Media:
  • File:Tony-blair-neil-jenkins.png is for sure a copyright violation and needs a fair use rationale to be included.
  • Other images seem appropriately sourced and licensed, although the number and forced stacking of them all isn't really all that attractive, and breaks up their connection with the relevant text—I would focus on using fewer, more germane images.
• References:
  • Per WP:LEADCITE, most of the citations in the lead probably shouldn't be there, either because this material should be cited when it appears in the article body, or because the lead shouldn't be going into such specifics that it needs to be specifically supported by explicit citation tags (I think the "far-reaching federalism" ghost quote is one such example.)
  • References need to be consistently formatted (some have only URLs e.g. senedd.wales, others have publishers instead, e.g. Welsh Board of Health.) There are missing author and date information from news articles, etc. And, again, the choice to have so many of these sources come from the Senedd and nationalist sources is also problematic. In particular, what makes Nation.cymru a reliable source?

I think given the structural issues I've identified, I don't think this is something that could really be addressed in the span of a good article nomination, so I'm failing at present. I would suggest getting additional feedback on the article from related wikiprojects, especially to get a more useful opinion on sourcing used. If you have additional questions, you can ping me for clarification. Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:09, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much for this. I think this has been mostly addressed now. Titus Gold (talk) 05:41, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I notice that you have resubmitted this for GA review. I don't think the issues above are adequately addressed, so before that review ends in disappointment, here are some things to note:

• References
  • MOS:LEADCITE was specifically raised as an issue. The article then had 10 references in the lead. Now it has 9. There are still too many citations in the lead, indicating the lead is not a summary of the main.
  • Reference formatting remains a mess. See below about random "op cit." references copied from somewhere. I would recommend conversion to SFN to allow consistent referencing in a bibliography - a process that will take a bit of work but would involve checking every reference.
  • This article has a lot of history but is relying on BBC history pages and newspapers. It really shouldn't be. The reviewer asked what made Nation.Cymru a reliable source for this? We have no answer to that but still 17 citations to that newspaper alone. In moving to SFN it would be good to phase out all newspaper sources. They are simply not good enough for this kind of article.
• Media
  • I don't generally have much to say about images, but not really sure why a monument to Llywelyn the last or the castle at Rhuddlan are suitable leading images for an article on devolution.
• Prose
  • I think I have comments on this too, but will leave until I have time to read the whole thing in one sitting.
• General
  • I don't think the concerns about neutrality are resolved.
  • I do not see what has changed in the referendum and opinion polling section to address the concerns raised.
  • The other general comments are really also about prose which I am leaving for now.

I think if this is a serious candidate for a good article, it needs a lot of work still. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:15, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for these comments, much appreciated.

• I've removed all but one of the citations from the lead (all but two citations in the lead were essentially already mentioned in the body).
• Images point there seems to have since been addressed.
• I've changed party support bullet points into sentences.
• NationCymru is regulated by Independent Press Standards Organisation like many large news article producers. It is often the only news organisation that reports on certain Welsh matters. I could swap in other news articles instead so that Nation.Cymru is used less?
• Neutrality: The body of the text looks neutral. Perhaps an addition concerning criticism of devolution perhaps?
• Changing references to SFN: I'd be happy to move to SFN but perhaps you would be able to turn your hand to that more easily than myself as it's not a format I'm particularly experienced at using. I'm not sure that everything would be covered without the use of some news articles?

Thanks again Titus Gold (talk) 16:42, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

The sections "Assessment of devolution" and "Lack of economic impact" are both new since the original GA assessment also. This heading now includes criticism of the devolution settlements from various viewpoints as well as criticizing the UK and Welsh governments. Titus Gold (talk) 17:02, 16 April 2023 (UTC)