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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Laser brain 04:35, 20 December 2010 [1].

Norwich Market

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Norwich Market (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s):  – iridescent 20:41, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A visit to the lost world of whifflers, dick fools, mass public executions and "a girl of sixteen with no bones". Norwich Market is one of the few institutions of Norman England to survive substantially unchanged through the intervening 900 years, although Norwich has dwindled from one of Europe's great port cities to something of a backwater. While the stalls are now made of steel and aluminium instead of wood and canvas, and DVDs and cigarettes have replaced live sheep and grain-by-the-bushel, were Henry V to be resurrected he'd not only be able to find his way around without difficulty, he'd find the nature of most of the stalls surprisingly unchanged since his day. I promise, this one is more interesting than the title suggests.

There are some forced image widths here, but all within MOS limits and for MOS-justified reasons, as the enlargement over the default sizes are necessary to show architectural detail. This also contains one fair-use image, but I think the justification for including it is overwhelming; it illustrates the spectacularly idiotic "improvement" scheme of 2003. Since the public outcry prevented the scheme from taking place, the architectural plans are the only way to illustrate the sheer crassness of what was intended, which would have dumped a structure resembling nothing so much as a uranium reprocessing plant into the centre of one of the most architecturally sensitive places in the world. And yes, I know that photo of Tombland is hideous, but I've looked very hard for an alternative and can't find a better one that shows the size and shape of Tombland plain (the pre-Conquest market site). – iridescent 20:41, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]


oppose File:Norwich_Market_proposed_'Pod'_redesign.jpg causes the article to fail WP:FA Criteria 3 Fasach Nua (talk) 21:12, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Any particular issue with it, or is this your usual generic "no fair use images ever" oppose? Per the lengthy FUR—explained further above—this is a truly irreplacable image (it illustrates something which was never built), essential to the understanding of the section it illustrates. – iridescent 22:39, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
yes Fasach Nua (talk) 19:40, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The offending image is now removed, as going into further detail on the 2003 schemes would (to my mind) give undue weight to one particular dispute over the centuries of rebuildings and renovations. – iridescent 11:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All images are licensed as free, and properly sourced, I have concerns over File:Norwich_Market_by_night.jpg, which was uploaded by a user active on commons for one hour and sixteen minutes, but nothing to suggest impropriety, however WP:FA Criteria 3 met Fasach Nua (talk) 21:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments 2c: is good Fifelfoo (talk) 01:21, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Precomment: Inflation: "As it was built primarily using pressed labour, modern equivalents of the building costs are virtually meaningless." Oh rhapsody, oh joy, oh pleasure before the Lord; a social history article editor who fundamentally understands inflation measurement problems, but yet contextualises historical "price" in an appropriate way.
    • I know "A Market For Our Times." is done in "wikipedia" style regarding dates for authorless works. It still grates. Bad wikipedia citation maintainers, no cookie.
    • Shrapnel, Norman (1957-05-30). column spills the page number. Bad template maintainers, no cookie.
    • Sources are good in quality.
      • I debated on whether to include modern price equivalents at all, and in the end didn't. If they are to be included I think CPI is probably the least-irrelevant measure to use—although all are virtually meaningless—given that the construction costs are effectively measures of how much it affected the merchants who funded it.
      • No way round it for A Market For Our Times. I really don't like abandoning citation templates—it means making manual changes every time the {{citation/core}} syntax is changed, which is a time sink—and that's how it treats un-authored works. I do actually know who wrote it, but they're not named anywhere in the book and I thought listing names would be too confusing for anyone who then went to try to track the book down. – iridescent 20:01, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support and further comments I'll do a proper review soon, just two comments for now. (1)Is it appropriate to describe bailiffs as "rulers"? They are glorified officials normally, but I don't know what your source actually says. (2) The fresh fish from the market is very good (this may be non-actionable) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:27, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bailiffs in this period were the officials appointed by the King to directly administer areas too far away for the King and his court to take decisions directly; they included both the Mayors (who set policies) and the Sheriffs (who enforced them). The Sheriff of Nottingham is probably the best-known bailiff from the period—see Bailiwick for a (slightly garbled) account of how mediaeval England was administered. The closest modern equivalent would be a Russian Commissar. "Bailiff" only took on its modern "court official" meaning later on. There's no real direct equivalent in England or in those countries which derive their law from England, in this age of elected officials, aside from a few vestigial oddities like the Bailiff of Guernsey. "Rulers" seemed the closest approximation. – iridescent 20:01, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've been through the article twice, an excellent article about a city (and market) I know well. I have no hesitation supporting, but just a couple of nitpicks follow Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • the population killed — I would have thought "died" was more appropriate, "killed" implies some sort of intended or accidental violence
  • Although competition from supermarkets was... — Split this long sentence?
  • "Eastern Daily Press" — italics for newspapers, I think, even the EDP
Thanks! Replies in order:
  • Reworded to "with the population falling by over 50%", which is more accurate; the post-plague population crash wasn't just caused by the initial plague deaths, but by a collapse in the birth rate and a spike in infant mortality as the agricultural economy and transport and medical infrastructure disintegrated.
  • Agree, split.
  • I suppose technically the EDP is a newspaper, rather than the Norwich City Fan Club newsletter interspersed with photos of village fetes, puffery for local businesses and the occasional hysterically overblown "those faceless London corporations don't understand our Fine City" rant; fixed. – iridescent 13:07, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

DAB/EL Check - no dabs, no external link problems, though ref 23 is slightly redirecting. --PresN 22:41, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's working as a direct link for me; where is it redirecting you to? I have a feeling BBC links may work differently depending on your IP's location. – iridescent 15:39, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments A very interesting article. Just a couple of comments/questions:

Resolved comments from — Rod talk 15:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
*In the section "Transfer to city control" it says "The market soon began to recover from the plague years". What is the timescale for soon - the previous date is 1397 then we get to 1565 - not very soon to my mind?
    • The jump is between 1377, when the population stopped falling, and 1404 when the Guildhall starts to be built. Since "recovery" is an arbitrary term, I don't want to use a term more specific than "soon", as there are multiple places one can draw the "end of the Plague Years" line. – iridescent 2 15:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In "Guildhall and new market cross" should pinnacle be wikilinked?
    • I've no strong opinion, but I think it veers towards overlinking—surely the majority of readers know what a pinnacle is? – iridescent 2 15:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not sure they do - particularly in relation to the architectural usage rather than a general highest point.
        • Linked it; as I say, no strong opinion.15:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
  • In "Guildhall and new market cross" "parliamentary" is wikilinked to Parliament of England - should a link to Norwich (UK Parliament constituency) be included?
    • Probably not; linking Norwich (UK Parliament constituency) but not Norfolk (UK Parliament constituency) would make it look incomplete, but including them both would make an unattractively long sentence. – iridescent 2 15:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • The Norfolk consituency article specifically says it excludes Norwich. Unless election hustings for both consituencies were held in the market place then I would link to the Norwich (UK Parliament constituency) article. If both were held there then I would think it was worth a long sentence (or two sentences).— Rod talk 18:12, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Pre-1832, elections were held at the county town. (This was one of the main causes of the Peterloo Massacre and the subsequent reform of the English electoral system; despite its importance Manchester was effectively disenfranchised as anyone wanting to vote had to travel 45 miles to Lancaster, a journey that took a whole day in the pre-railway age.) I really don't want to include a long description of the pre-1832 electoral system in an already long article. – iridescent 2 15:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In "Other uses of the market square in Tudor and Stuart England" I'm not sure how useful the long boxed quote from Thomas Baskerville, 1681 is?
    • You're entitled to your opinion, but I'll fight tooth-and-nail to keep that in. To my mind contemporary descriptions are both more informative to readers, and more useful in terms of indicating how something was perceived, than translating them into dull Wikified prose. – iridescent 2 15:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In "Other uses of the market square in Tudor and Stuart England" should reformation be wikilinked to Protestant Reformation?
  • Presumably the Guild of St George is different to the Guild of St George?
  • Should St George be wikilinked?
    • No; who the Guild happened to be named after doesn't really have any relation to its activities in relation to the article subject. If the GoSG had a purpose related to St George or the public perception of him (keeping Norfolk free of non-English influence, say) it would be worthwhile, but it was just a trade guild that happened to be named after him. – iridescent 2 15:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should Aldermen be wikilinked to Alderman?
  • In "Developments in the Georgian period" we are told the "castle mound was levelled" but we have not previously been told about any relationship with Norwich Castle

In general it seems a well written and referenced article & I hope the questions above are relevant.— Rod talk 23:31, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your responses all seem reasonable and have convinced me to support.— Rod talk 15:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In the Norwich Market in the Middle Ages section, the size of Norwich is mentioned early on in hte first sentence and then in the thrid last sentence. it'd be nice if a way could be found to rationalise this to one cohesive mention of city size.
I know it repeats the 20,000 figure but I can't see an obvious way around it. I think it's necessary to give an idea of the size of the town at the start, so readers have an idea of the scale of operations. Later on, when we get the the plague, I think it warrants mentioning the population drop from 20,000 to 6,000 rather than just "and the population fell to 6,000"; the paragraphs in between are quite number-heavy, and readers might not remember the 20,000 figure. It could be rephrased to "the population fell by 70% to 6,000", but to my eyes that's slightly harder for readers to process. – iridescent 11:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see your point. Nothing sprung at me either and I suppose the current arrangement is hte most logical. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
and in 1369 East Anglia—whose farming economy had collapsed in the wake of the plague—was struck by famine. - pity there isn't another term for "East Anglia" which has been repeated here - "the region", or that might be too amibguous...?
I know it means "East Anglia" three times in a row, but I think "the region" is a bit ambiguous, as it's not clear whether that refers to Norfolk, East Anglia, or the East of England (all of which have specific and different meanings). – iridescent 11:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yea, I was tossing up with "pair o' counties"...but nothing else specific came to mind either...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
..and many stalls were left empty for some years after - the final word here is redundant?
Don't think so (although I leave it open to others); it's saying that the stalls remained disused after the plague/famine period finished, as well as during the 1349–69 crisis itself. – iridescent 11:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
fair enough. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely no biggie at all, but I think my Oxford Shorter English Dictionary (p. 401) is a more reliable source than Darren Brown. It gives both spellings but priority to "conjurer" (1727) as "one who practises conjuration, a magician". Although the word is derived from the Anglo-French "conjurour", the old French "conjurere" and the mediaeval Latin "conjurator". So, it's not a case of WP:ENGVAR, more like take your pick :-) I concede that your spelling is likely to become the Br Eng standard. But in the 17th century they were probably called conjurers. I very much enjoyed reading the article, and look forward to seeing it on the Main Page.


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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