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

The list was promoted by Scorpion0422 23:26, 28 April 2009 [1].

List of castles in Cheshire

[edit]
Nominator(s): Nev1 (talk)
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I am nominating this for featured list because I believe it meets the Featured List criteria. There is a well developed lead, and the scope of the article is well defined, meaning that there are 20 entries in the list. For each entry – as well as the location, date, and type of castle – I have attempted to give a brief outline of the history of the castle and who owned it. This information is not always available, so some entries are longer than others. Thanks in advance to anyone who takes time to review the list, and I hope you enjoy it. Nev1 (talk) 16:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from KV5
Comments from KV5

Overall, an excellent list. I have a few thoughts, though:

  • I might consider moving the first sentence lower in the paragraph, or a rework of the first few sentences; the second sentence seems like a better start to the article when compared to recently promoted lists.
  • On this point I disagree. The opening sentence provides tells you what the article is about (ie: the 20 castles in Cheshire), whereas if what is now the second second were to take its place, you wouldn't find out about castles stragiht away. Nev1 (talk) 18:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link fortified manor house at its first appearance (currently second).
  • "connected to bailey" - a bailey, and is there a link for bailey, either to Wiktionary or an appropriate article?
  • "a" added. A wikilink to bailey just takes you straight to the motte-and-bailey article, but it is explained later in the sentence that a bailey is a an "enclosure where the barracks and workshops were located". Nev1 (talk) 18:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "although lack the motte" - they lack, and again, is there a link for motte?
  • I would link "battlements" unless it's a redirect to another article already linked.
  • "Castles along the border were constructed when the Norman advance was slowed by Welsh opposition, as a result there are fewer in south Wales than north Wales" - change comma to a semicolor, and comma after result.
  • "Relatively few castles are found in Cheshire" - as compared to what?
  • "The remains are often protected in law such as the 11 sites which are Scheduled Monuments, and 5 are listed buildings." - suggest "The remains are often protected by law – 11 sites are Scheduled Monuments, and 5 are listed buildings."
  • Any reason why the castle types aren't linked in the table?
  • In the Doddington Castle entry, is "crenelate" the correct spelling? Or should it be "crenellate"?
  • Same entry - "free standing tower" - "free-standing tower"
  • I don't believe that you need to name your footnotes "alt names 1" and the like. I think that lower-case letters or single numbers would be sufficient, the former preferred because of possible misinterpretation as references.
  • Since the table is sortable, entries like "listed building" need to be linked each time they appear, not just the first time. This is because the table can be sorted into any order, so "the first" may become the fourth or fifth.
  • I've added more links to address this problem, although since listed building is linked in the lead, I don't think it needs to be linked in the table too. Nev1 (talk) 18:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Navbox doesn't contain a direct link to this article, so it should be removed.
  • While navboxes are meant to be used only when the article is mentioned in the box, I think it's still useful to the reader. I am prepared to removed it though as it's not especially important. Nev1 (talk) 18:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The general convention is that navboxes link related articles together, not that they provide a portal to other articles. For example, if there were a navboxes about castles in England or the UK, and this list was included, I would be all for it. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 19:58, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hope this helps. KV5 (Talk • Phils) 17:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support from KV5 (Talk • Phils) 12:50, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Truco

Comments by Truco

Lead
  • "There are 20 castles in Cheshire, a county in North West England." -- Do not bold, only bold the title of the article. castles in Cheshire is not the title
  • Debolded.
  • "Also, Warrington Castle is historically a part of Lancashire but is within the current boundaries of Cheshire." --> In addition, Warrington Castle is historically a part of Lancashire but is within the current boundaries of Cheshire. (sounds better IMO)
  • "Castles were introduced to England by the Normans – although there are a few sites in the south-east pre-dating the Norman conquest – and were owned by the social elite." -- The dash should be an emdash without spaces
  • Per MOS:EMDASH - Parenthetical (Wikipedia—one of the most popular web sites—has the information you need). A pair of em dashes for such interpolations is more arresting than a pair of commas, and less disruptive than parentheses (round brackets).--Truco 22:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • True, but since ndashes are a stylistic alternative to mdashes, it doesn't matter which one is used. IMO mdashes are ugly and ndashes are far more elegant. Nev1 (talk) 22:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The key phrase here is "stylistic alternative", meaning that ndashes can do everything that mdashes do. From MOS:EMDASH "Spaced en dashes – such as here – can be used instead of unspaced em dashes in all of the ways discussed above. Spaced en dashes are used by several major publishers, to the complete exclusion of em dashes." Nev1 (talk) 14:53, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The primary purpose of a castle was military: to be used as a base of operations and to control the surrounding areas." -- Add for the before "military"
  • I don't think "for the" is necessary, also it wouldn't quite be correct as there was no standing army in the Middle Ages and forces were raises by local lords. The castles belonged to the social elites rather than being a communal fortification. Nev1 (talk) 19:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "They consist of a motte (a mound) – surmounted by a keep or tower – connected to a bailey, an outer enclosure where the barracks and workshops were located." -- no spaces [emdash]
  • "Ringworks are similar to motte-and-bailey castles although they lack the motte;[6] although contemporary with motte-and-baileys, they are an uncommon form of fortification." -- replace the second "although" with another word like however,
  • That doesn't flow well, you would need to change that however to ;however, My suggestion seems to work better.
  • You're right, it still doesn't flow well, however neither would "however contemporary with...". I'm going with the simple solution and have changed the first "although" to "but". Nev1 (talk) 22:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A fortified manor house was the administrative centre of a manor – a division of land in medieval England – and was usually the home of the local lord." -- same thing here about the dashes
  • "Compared to north Wales, relatively few castles are found in Cheshire as many were built on the western side of the River Dee, such as Holt Castle." -- Comma before "as many"
  • "Most of these castles were motte-and-baileys and were originally of turf and timber construction, although they were sometimes later replaced by stone structures if a long-term castle was needed."
  • "As well as the 20 known castles in Cheshire, Salter in his 2001 gazetteer of the castles in Cheshire and Lancashire lists Mud Hill in Coddington ( [show location on an interactive map] 53°05′29″N 2°49′03″W / 53.091352°N 2.817631°W / 53.091352; -2.817631 (Mud Hill)) and Peel Hall near Manley ( [show location on an interactive map] 53°13′17″N 2°44′59″W / 53.221258°N 2.7497°W / 53.221258; -2.7497 (Peel Hall)) as possible sites of castles." -- who is "Salter"?
  • A historian (now mentioned in the article) who wrote a gazetteer of castles, not just in Cheshire but across England and Wales IIRC. He's a very reliable source. Nev1 (talk) 19:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Table
  • The notes may need a good copyedit because I see some statements with WP:WEASEL words like "probable" and "probably".
  • When dealing with buildings that are often about 800 years old, records are usually incomplete. As a result, there is some uncertainty about issues such as when they were built. Where there is no archaeological or documentary evidence, historians have to make an educated guess. Rather than me taking what historians say is probable and reporting it as certain or undisputed would be academically wrong. Therefore, there is some uncertainty around these issues and it will remain so as I will not be removing "probably" or "probable". Nev1 (talk) 19:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh okay, but I would still seek a copyedit or wait for a reviewer to review the notes because I've never seen a table with that amount of notes, the most I've seen is like 2 or 3 sentences.--Truco 22:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Under the constructed section, the first word needs to be capitalized regardless. In addition, be consistent with "probably" and "probable"
  • No, as far as I know there are very few medieval castles scheduled to be built in the 21st century ;-) In this case, scheduling refers to legislation protecting some of the castles. The term Scheduled Monument is explained in the lead and the column has now been renamed "Scheduled Monument". Nev1 (talk) 19:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh okay, I misunderstood. Everything checks out except the dashes, copyedit of notes.--Truco 22:52, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - A comprehensive list with a good lead and much detail (for a list) about each castle. (My own involvement has been with images and tweaks only.) A valuable addition to information about the heritage of Cheshire. Peter I. Vardy (talk) 18:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm a bit confused about this bit: "Castles along the border were constructed when the Norman advance was slowed by Welsh opposition; as a result, there are fewer in south Wales than north Wales" - why do we care how many castles there are in the north/south of Wales in an article on castles in Cheshire? I don't really see what that bit is doing in there, unless I'm missing something...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good point, the article isn't about Wales so the part after the semi-colon has been removed. I think the first part is still relevant as it explains why some castles were built. Nev1 (talk) 12:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment A fascinating article, and you've clearly done a lot of research on it, but it's spoilt for me by the list part being crammed into the sortable-table-squashed-up-by-a-column-of-pictures-up-the-side format. That's an ideal layout for genuinely tabular data, such as sports stats, but not for reading lengthy annotated prose from. Did you consider having two sections? (1) containing the left-hand part of the current table, as a sortable table, but without the detailed notes, each line linking to (2) the detailed notes, in normal-size print so those of us with imperfect sight can read them, each castle having its own subsection or its own paragraph in a bulleted list. Then arrange the pictures as appropriate. Would have been rather more user-friendly... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • This all started with list of castles in Greater Manchester (on which this list is based); originally, that list was section based rather than tabulated. In the FLC discussion consensus emerged that because a few entries were short (only a few sentence) it would be better presented as a table [2]. I initially opposed a tabulated list as I feared it would lead to information being lost, however I was wrong and as a result you see the current table. To some extent, the problem with some stubby sections: if the table was to be converted to prose, or just the notes separated, about half a dozen a dozen entries would be very short. Also, separating the information would complicate navigation and I think would actually be less user-friendly. Re images: there sadly aren't enough for them to be distributed evenly throughout the article (for example, there are three of Beeston Castle used in the list). Perhaps they could be moved to a gallery at the end of the list to give the table more room to breathe. The smaller text size was chosen to make the table look neater, but if it causes problems for some users I will happily return the text to the normal size. Nev1 (talk) 15:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't really see the problem with the section lengths in the older version of Castles in Greater Manchester: if the level 2 headings had been changed to level 4, say, it would have looked quite tidy, but that's by the by. You may well be right that separating the information would be less user-friendly, I haven't really thought it through.
  • As it stands, with the pictures up the side, which basically forces use of very-reduced font (90% is very small indeed), it pretty much fails on Criterion 5(a) Style/Visual appeal: last time I found a relevant bit of MoS, it said we shouldn't use reduced fonts without a good reason, and I don't think having the pictures next to the table is a good enough reason. With the full width available for the table, as Manchester Castles has, then the notes would still look tidy at 95% font size if having it full-size makes the larger entries excessively tall or messy.
  • Couple of other things: the Constructed column doesn't sort chronologically (neither does the corresponding column in Manchester castles); presumably they should? and
  • Where metric conversions result in fractions of feet, shouldn't you convert into feet and inches rather than decimal feet. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:49, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've moved the ribbon of images to the end of the list, in a gallery, and have increased the text size of the table. The construction dates sort fine for me (and now so do the ones on Greater Manchester, thanks for reminding me), so I'm not sure what the problem is. Good point about feet and inches, it should now be converting to that rather than decimal. Nev1 (talk) 17:48, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This list does indeed sort chronologically, I must have misread something the first time, sorry. But it seems odd that Kingsley Castle (Medieval, possibly Norman) sorts between 1100 and 12th century, while Dodleston Castle (Medieval) and Warrington castle (Medieval), whose notes say "probably built in the Norman period", sort after 15th century. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've tweak Warrington Castle's entry so it now sorts properly, but for Dodleston Castle I thought I'd just stick it at the end as medieval is so big a range (revealing Cheshire's website describes Dodleston Castle as medieval, the range it gives for medieval is 1066 AD to 1539, not particularly helpful). Nev1 (talk) 18:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dodleston's fine, it was really just the mention of Norman in Warrington's prose. Comment(s) satisfactorily resolved, and I just got an edit conflict with you when I went to remove the |thumb|right's from the gallery :-) Thanks for your patience. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 19:14, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support Looks good. Dr. Blofeld White cat 15:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support, all issues resolved. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved issues, Dabomb87 (talk)
Weak oppose from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs) Just a placeholder while I review
  • "Castles were popularised to England"—"in"-->to
Never seen a place holder vote before, but that minor change has been implemented. Nev1 (talk) 23:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is just so that the FL directors don't promote the list while I review. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "although there are a few sites in the south-east pre-dating the Norman conquest"-->although a few sites in the south-east pre-date the Norman conquest
  • "The primary purpose of a castle was military: to be used as a base of operations and to control the surrounding areas.[2] However, the purpose of a castle was not solely militaristic." The second sentence is largely redundant. You said primarily, which implies that there are other uses too. If you had said "only", that would have been different.
  • "Castles can take a variety of forms"-->Castles can take several forms
  • "Castles can take a variety of forms, the most common of which is the motte-and-bailey.[4] They consist of a motte (a mound) – surmounted by a keep or tower – connected to a bailey, an outer enclosure where the barracks and workshops were located." "They" is ambiguous—are you referring to castles in general or the motte-and-bailey?
  • "castles but they lack the motte"
  • "played an important part " "part"-->role
  • "Away from the troubled borders, baronial " What do you mean by "troubled"?
  • I would have thought it was clear from the earlier mention of Cheshire's strategic position as a defence against Wales and the need for castles that the borders were troubled. (Wales and Cheshire had very poor relations in this period.) I have removed "troubled" for now as it could be construed as POV. Nev1 (talk) 23:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "which survives to a height of 5.2 m"—what do you mean by "survives"?

Sources look good. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


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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