Talk:Wesley College, Melbourne/GA1

GA Review

I am reviewing this article and will report shortly. Brianboulton (talk) 14:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Preliminary comments

I have read the article carefully. In my view it does not at present meet the required standard for Good Article, for the following reasons:-

• Prose: the prose is in need of considerable attention. Here are some examples of poor practice:-
  • Multiple repetitions of Adamson's name in the short "Adamson era" section
  • Clumsy sentence constructions, such as: (please note these are examples)
    • "In 1942 the Australian Government, in response to the growing threat of Japanese attacks, requisitioned that Wesley hand over its campus to the Australian Army..."
    • "By the mid-1980s, Cato was struggling financially and in 1986 agreed to integrate with Wesley, which was completed by 1989"
  • Sentences with unrelated clauses linked by "and", e.g. "Wesley had seven headmasters in its first 35 years, and struggled for numbers over the same period".
  • Unexplained jargon terms, e.g. L.O.T.E, Association of Public Schools (APC) competition (what sort of competition?), and unexplained roles of President and Chairman.
  • Inappropriate capitalisations, e.g. Co-educational, Major Building Development

• Referencing
  • The article is seriously short of in-line citations in some sections. The "Campuses" section has one citation, House system and pastoral care has none, Sustainability has one. There is an existing "citation needed" tag in the Development section, and there could be many more throughout the article.
  • Choice of sources: Your main sources come from the College itself (through various websites) or from a book entitled "A great Australian School". Why are these sources reliable? (Incidentally, I couldn't get [1] to work). These sources do not suggest that the information you have gathered for the article is particularly neutral. Are there no unconnected sources that you could have drawn on? I am also concerned about [22], where it is not clear what the source is, and [30] which appears to be a copy of a job advertisement.

I do not think that these are in any way irredeemable faults, only that a fair amount work is necessary. You've probably looked already at Aquinas College, Perth, which has a better balance between history and the present day, and might be a useful GA model for Australian school articles.

I am putting the article on hold for seven days, to give you a chance to respond, and will look at it again then. Please contact me on my talkpage if you have any specific queries. Brianboulton (talk) 16:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Your feedback re the GA nomination is valuable and helpful, and I have begun attending to the article in regards to prose and balance of history versus other elements. Having contributed most of the history content, I was aware at the time that I was relying heavily on the most recent school history, which although written "independently" by a credentialled historian, was nevertheless initiated (I think) or at the very least endorsed by the school. I was comfortable in relying on it however to the extent that it does provide quite a "warts and all" commentary, thus at least suggesting it has a sense of balance and NPOV. Overriding this however has been the lack of reliable alternative sources. Most others (where they exist at all) come from the school or from less reliable sources some of which are still connected in some way with the school. On balance I took the view that notable elements of the school history should still appear even if the source provided wasn't as "pure" as it could be. I also note that the Aquinas College, Perth article which you suggest as a useful model has no less than 21 references to a similar school history which appears at least according to this to perhaps have been initiated by that school. Your thoughts? Murtoa (talk) 06:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your note. I suppose that it's the nature of a school history that it tends to come from the school itself, or from someone closely associated with it. It's just a pity that yours is called "A Great Australian School", which tends to undermine its credibility. I don't know anything about the Australian education system, but here in the UK all schools are subject to a body called OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education), which reports regularly on schools, these reports being in the public domain. There are also the government's performance league tables, published each year, which rank schools in accordance with their students' exam results - again, I don't know whether this happens in Australia. A school like Wesley College has lots of famous alumni, many of whom will have written memoirs or had biographies written, and these will probably contain information on their schooldays. These are suggestions for getting some more objective comment and/or data into the article - do they make sense to you? Brianboulton (talk) 09:51, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks for the prompt feedback. Interestingly, reporting on school standards is a current point of debate in Australia - the relatively new Rudd government is planning into introduce nationwide league tables along the lines you suggest. But there's not much in that vein at time of writing. Regarding the history, the suggestion to consult biographies is a sound one (notwithstanding it could entail many hours of labour!) I appreciate the title of the most recent history of Wesley is unhelpful for those seeking neutral references, although hopefully this concern is partially mitigated by the sections I have referenced which hopefully do come through in the article as not unduly singing Wesley's praises. The largely unsourced or directly school-sourced sections in the article are a concern and have been a constant source of debate regarding their inclusion. Your feedback could be helpful in resolving these areas, but I fear not within the next seven days! Thanks again. Murtoa (talk) 10:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I realise that you may not be able to do it all in seven days. However, let's see where we stand at the end of the period, and then consider what kind of timeframe may be necessary. Brianboulton (talk) 19:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Final GA comments

The article is in better shape than when I last looked at it; obviously a lot of work has been done. It cannot yet be promoted to GA, for the reasons which I have listed below. I understand that this is the editors' first shot at a GA, and it's a commendable effort which, with a little extra work, should definitely get there. At the end of the review I've given some suggestions as to how to proceed from here.

Attention is required:-

• Earlier points not yet dealt with
  • Still no explanantion of the role or function of the "President"

• • Ditto for the role of Chairman, which is only mentioned in the infobox, not in the article.

• Infobox: I think there's too much information in here, including some of a transient nature. I suggest you delete Fees (which will frequently change), Revenue (for the same reason) and No. of employees (not interesting enough)

• Prose: the prose is generally OK, but we want it to be excellent. I find it a bit pedestrian at present. I've done a couple or so tweaks to improve the flow, but it needs more comprehensive attention. The best treatment would be a full copyedit from one of the Wikipedians that specialise in this; there is a list of names on WP:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors.

• Lead section
  • "Wesley is the largest school in Australia by both student enrolment and school size". What does "school size" mean in this context? In my experience the size of a school is always reckoned by student numbers alone.
  • The fact that the fees are the highest in Victoria is mentioned here but not elsewhere in the article. The general rule is that anything mentioned in the lead shoud e reflected, in greater detail, in the body of the article.

• History section
  • The decision of the state government to grant land and funds should be dated
  • Apart from being benefactors, who were Alfred and Geoge Nicholas?

• • I have a problem with the projection of £200,000 in (presumably) 1933 to a 2004 value of $A75 million. For a start, why 2004? According to Measuringworth.com, £200,000 in 1933 has a current sterling value of about £10 million, which converts to around $A25 million. Can you check the basis of your figures?
  • The second sentence in the final aragraph needs a citation
  • Re McArthur: Four years is a pretty short tenure, and to talk about "the latter period" of such a brief time seems wrong. I'd omit the words "the latter period of" from the sentence.

• Images: Image placement causes problems on my screen, whichever of my two available browsers I use. On Mozilla Firefox, the subsection edit links become displaced, and all bunch together around the Sport section On Internet Explorer that problem doesn't arise, but instead a huge white space appears under the Facilties heading. I tried solving the problem by some experimental image placements, but this didn't work. I wonder if either of these problems occur on your screen? Whether they do or not, it's something that needs fixing, and I don't know how to do this. I suggest you take the problem to WP:Help. (NB Overimaging may be the root of the problem)

• Structural point: why are Performing Arts and Sports not subsections of Facilities?

• Wesley College Institute: The nature of this body needs more explanation - and the link to the specialist article isn't a lot of help. Does it have premises, staff, a corporate structure? Who funds it? In other words, is it an actual body, separate from the school, or is it a name which the school uses to pursue certain activities?

• References: Much improved, but still a problem area.
  • Lemon's book needs to be listed as a "Source", not as Further reading. The same is true of other books that you have cited, including Blainey et al and various Wesley College publications.
  • The following online references do not appear to be formatted properly: [4], [10], [25], [33], [34], [38], [39]
  • Ref.[8] should state that this source is a pay-to-see subscription service
  • [40], [42] and [43]: Is this a book? If so, it should be listed with other source books
  • Saying that something is "available on request" isn't really good enough. If the letter hasn't been published, it shouldn't be cited as a source.

• MOS:
  • Single page numbers should be formatted as "p. 27" not "p.27"
  • Page ranges should be formatted as "pp. 247–48", with an ndash rather than a hyphen in the range.
  • "See also" sections come before the references list.

I appreciate that this is quite an agenda, but it's all quite do-able. My suggestion is that when you feel you have done as much as you can to resolve these issues, you contact me via my talkpage so that I can look at it again. I'll advise you if I think it is ready for another shot at GA then. My best wishes for the article's future. Brianboulton (talk) 16:41, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Overall GA result: Fail

Individual GA criteria:-

Well written: Fail, prose still requires significant attention

Verifiable: Fail, further work needed

Breadth: Pass

Neutral: Pass

Stable: Pass

Images: Technical problems to be resolved.

Alfred and George Nicholas made their fortune in pharmaceuticals, especially commercially available aspirin. There is a Nicholas Gardens in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria, Australia. [1] StephenSmith (talk) 23:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)