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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by 97198 (talk) 11:47, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

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Watford Gap services

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Improved to Good Article status by Ritchie333 (talk), SilkTork (talk). Nominated by Matty.007 (talk) at 16:39, 24 May 2014 (UTC).

  • Please decide if services is singular or plural (both here and in the article) Belle (talk) 00:44, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
  • What a can of worms! Doing a quick straw poll through book sources, it seems you've got three terms - "services" (plural), "service area" (singular) and "service station" (singular). Which leads you to the slightly confusing, but consistent and gramatically correct "Watford Gap services is a service area in Northamptonshire" (as opposed to "Watford Gap services are services in Northamptonshire") followed by "The services were refurbished" or "The service area was refurbished". Should be all consistent with that now. Also, I don't think ALT2 is really what the sources document - Hendrix thought the Blue Boar, the common name for the services in the 1960s, was a nightclub, because so many bands talked about stopping there. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:48, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
  • This is inconsistent because you call the services "Watford Gap services" rather than "Watford Gap" or "Watford Gap service area" and then treat that naturally plural title as a singular. The example you give of "Watford Gap services is a service area in Northamptonshire" is not grammatically correct unless you are treating services as a singular only because it is prefixed with "Watford Gap". It is like saying "The Smith children is twins" Belle (talk) 17:12, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Then should services be capitalised as part of the title? Or is the name of the services actually Watford Gap and you have added "services" to distinguish it from the geographical feature? Belle (talk) 07:10, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
  • The bottom line is - it's a service area. To the man in the street it's where you have a wee, buy cheap food and stretch your legs en route to holiday or an away match. It's boring. It's been at AfD twice because people thought it was insignificant. Only the fact it was the oldest, in a notable geological space and documented in multiple sources as playing host to the greatest rock bands from the Beatles and Hendrix downwards saves it from death by AfD or redirect again. So, with that in mind, it's little surprise that a Google Books search for the name brings back a mix of "services" in caps and lower case. Possibly one way of solving this is to pull Eric Corbett into the discussion, and go with whatever he says as a tie-break. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:50, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I apologise but I don't know who Eric Corbett is or why his opinion would be particularly relevant (I don't mean that dismissively; if he has some reputation on Wikipedia it has not yet reached my ears). The official name seems to be "Watford Gap Motorway Service Area" according to the Roadchef site. If you call it that then you would have no problem with verb agreement. Belle (talk) 17:18, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Full review for original hook, ALT1, ALT2 and ALT3. I am aware of the two issues raised above (singular/plural, and ALT2) and I'll discuss that after the main part of the review. The hook character counts are 61, 146, 71, 63 - all within the 200 limit. Article created 20 May; new enough (for 24 May) and long enough. No disambig links found. External links all accessible except #13 (see issues below). Original hook checks out online with citation #25. ALT1 is cited to #28 for Pink Floyd (offline, accepted AGF), #18 for the Rolling Stones (online), #29 for the Beatles (online), #30 for Hendrix (offline but see issue 2). The article is written in an objective and neutral manner, and is fully cited (but please see issue 3 about the above discussion regarding singular/plural words). Issues 1-3 below are included in this review. --Storye book (talk) 12:54, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Issues: (1) Minor point re external links: Link for citation #13 is pay-per-view; that is permissible, but it would be polite to say so in the citation. (2) Re ALT2 and ALT3. The problem here is the phrase "mistook the Blue Boar", because it reads as if Hendrix visited the Blue Boar service station and was silly enough to think he was in a nightclub - whereas what you mean to say is that without visiting it, he mistook the name "Blue Boar" for the name of a nightclub, especially since he had heard that it was a place where rock musicians went. So please may we have an ALT4 to reflect the actual misunderstanding, to replace ALT2 and ALT3? (3) The singular/plural issue raised above is still an issue to be resolved; please see my separate comments below. (4) Re copyvio and close paraphrasing: Duplicated passages are:

    initially the service area was owned and run by blue boar limited a private family company that owned the blue boar petrol station on a nearby roundabout on the a5 (citation #14)

    by selling cups of tea at 1959 prices (citation #24)

    . When issues 1 and 3 are resolved - and we may need a consensus for issue 3 - this nom should be OK. --Storye book (talk) 12:54, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
    --Storye book (talk) 12:55, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
1) I've replaced The Times paywall source with a free local news source. It's one of several that cites the temporary sheds used on opening.
2) I agree as stated above
4) I've fixed the first one, but I'm at a loss to know what to do with the second without making the prose worse, and have to disagree that the 8 words count as "close paraphrasing". Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:08, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
  • My opinion on issue (3): singular/plural. For starters I'll declare my interest here: my background is in south-east England (the South-East includes Watford Gap - that's the nub of the British-humour north-south joke) and the Estuarine dialect (which I love), so my British-English verbal usage is identical to the self-nom's usage of singular/plural in this article. I have also visited the Watford Gap service station many times so I understand the subject of the article fully. However as a professional user of Standard English and being experienced in the problems of using English in an international context, I fully understand (and support!) both sides of the above discussion of the matter. The point at issue is that from the WP point of view we are on an international platform here, and (for DYK purposes at least) there is no benefit in simply confusing other cultures with a British-English usage which is mostly verbal. From the British-English point of view, this is an article about a service station which in some ways represents British culture, and that culture is partly represented in the various forms of the service station's names. All we need to do now, is to make this absolutely clear in the article, so that no-one is confused any more, and everyone is satisfied with the final edit of the singular/plural aspect before this nom is passed for DYK. If we can agree on that, then all that remains is to work out how to make it clear. Suggestions: (a) Move the title to one which can be used without singular/plural grammar confusion, e.g. "Watford Gap Service Station". The service station's other names can remain as redirects. (b) Replace all instances of singular/plural grammar confusion (as objected to by reviewers above) such as "services is" with phrases which our objectors will accept, such as "service station is". (c) Since this matter is culturally significant, it would be valid to add a new section to the article, carefully explaining the British-English common usage of "services is" etc - but we keep that stuff in that section. Note: I hope that solution will allow everyone here to get what they want, and to speed this nom into DYK. Sorry this section goes on a bit; I've bolded bits of it so you don't have to read it all. --Storye book (talk) 12:54, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Thank you, Ritchie333, for your reply of 17 June and your corrections. (1) You have replaced citation #13 with a deadlink. I think you want this url: http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/60s-legends-who-called-m1s-3072659. Issues (2) and (3) are now resolved. Note: Please understand the need for initial thoroughness: exposing all issues now for quick discussion and elimination is quicker than ignoring stuff and then having other reviewers in good faith delaying the nom later on with it. Summary: If issues (1) re deadlink #13 and (3) re singular/plural above can be resolved, this nom should be OK. --Storye book (talk) 13:06, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I think a) is problematic because as can be seen here, the signposted name is "Watford Gap Services", (Note "Services" in caps!) and I think that's the common name that people will want to search for. c) I don't really think such a section really belongs in this article, but in a general one about motorway service areas instead. That leaves us with b). I've gone with "Watford Gap services are motorway services on the M1 motorway in Northamptonshire, England." It's grammatically correct, it reads okay (motorway services is a valid redirect), and it keeps the article's title (ie: the common name) at the front of the lead. As far as I'm aware, all other instances in the article use "services are" or some other use of the plural "services".

Incidentally, the reason I mentioned Eric above is because from experience he (and his army of talk page stalkers) have extensive experience in grammatical correctness as discussed here, and would be comfortable in treating their opinion as good advice. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:40, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

  • Thank you, Ritchie333. Well I'm not here to delay this with discussion, but we had to cover it. Consider it now covered. If you want control over which remaining hook is promoted, please kindly strike out one of them asap. --Storye book (talk) 16:58, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Well it's taken nearly nine years for the article to get to this stage, and it's been at AfD twice, so a few more weeks of discussion to iron out all the issues and make it better for readers all round won't hurt. Thanks for helping to resolve this. ALT1 is my preferred choice of hook, so let's go with that. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:01, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Good to go for ALT1 which is preferred by nominator.--Storye book (talk) 16:58, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
I've copyedited the hook slightly - it's not the Watford Gap services. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:24, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
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