Wikipedia:Peer review/Architecture of Birmingham/archive1

Architecture of Birmingham

I've listed this article for peer review because I recently expanded this article and improved it significantly. I want to help develop into a Good Article and then a Featured Article, however, I want to know want I (and other users) need to do first to get it to these standards. I think it maybe close to reaching Good Article status but I really do need the opinion of other users.

Thanks,

Erebus555 15:34, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR _t 19:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

4u1e's comments

Very short lead. See WP:LEAD for details, but the lead should give a brief summary of the whole article. For an article of this size I'd say it should be 1 - 2 paragraphs (I know, but paragraphs of a decent size - i.e. at least 3-4 sentences!), but really it's driven by what is needed to summarise the article.
There's something in the Manual of Style about not wikilinking bolded words, I think.
The article launches into St Martin's parish church rather abruptly. I'd expect to see some kind of introduction to the overall topic (i.e. like the second para of the lead, but expanded a little further), and also for the 11th-17th century section to have a one-liner introducing the period.
Looks to be well referenced. You need to provide more detail for the web references, including when the web page was retrieved. Similarly page numbers are needed for the hardcopy references. See WP:CITE for more on this. See New York City, History of Saffron and Brabham BT19 for some examples of more detailed refs. You might find it useful to use reference templates to organise the information, but you are not obliged to.4u1e 22:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing on the geography of the city - is this relevant to the architecture in any way?
"In 1704, William Wilson is believed to have made his mark in Hall Green when the Job Marston Chapel (now the Church of the Ascension), which is believed to have been designed by him, was completed". Repetition of 'believed' - can this be avoided?
I'm not convinced by the reference to the two towers from The Lord of the Rings. The source, from Birmingham city council's website says only 'the pair are said to have suggested the title of the second volume of The Lord of the Rings; The Two Towers', with no indication of who says that. There are two problems here: The first is that that article goes well beyond what the reference says by claiming that the real towers were the inspiration for the towers in the book. The second problem is that even the website's lesser claim sounds dubious, being rather vague and possibly inspired simply by the desire to find landmarks in the city that can be connected to the currently profitable Tolkien industry. If possible, find a better reference, see if WP:M-E can help - there may be something in JRR Tolkien's Letters. If a better ref cannot be found, the claim needs to be toned down to something like: 'Birmingham city council claim that these two towers were the inspiration for the title of the second book of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings'.

Having looked through the index of JRR Tolkien's Letters, the name 'The Two Towers' was only coined long after the book was finished, to provide a title for the second volume of the book, as the publishers had decided to publish it in three parts. It was one of several considered for the second volume and played no role in its creation. It seems Tolkien himself was ambiguous about which two towers it referred to. It was most likely Orthanc and either the tower of Cirith Ungol, as Tolkien claimed in several letters, or Minas Morgul, as suggested by other decisions he made. Barad Dur and Minas Tirith are other possibilities. In the books none of these towers are close to each other, as the Birmingham city council suggestion would seem to require. There is no reference to Perrot's folly in the letters. 4u1e 17:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'The need to house the many industrial workers who flocked to the city from other areas during the Industrial Revolution led to the construction of many streets and terraces of back-to-back houses, some of which were later to become inner-city slums.' That's a good example of putting the architecture in context, but some parts of the article are missing this context, suggest trying to add it throughout.
'which was completed by his son Frederick Martin after his sudden death in 1883' Whose sudden death, Chamberlain's or Martin's ;-). No real chance of confusion, but could be re-arranged to be less ambiguous. By the way, how did they come to have different surnames? Was Martin a son-in-law?
'The street has retained many of its fine Victorian buildings, providing - above modern ground-floor façades - an insight into how the city once looked. Although, many of the buildings, which had leases of 99 years, were demolished in the postwar period.' Would this be clearer as: ' Many of the buildings, which had leases of 99 years, were demolished in the postwar period. However, the street has retained many of its fine Victorian buildings above modern ground-floor façades, providing an insight into how the city once looked.'

Hope that's helpful. Overall it looks fairly complete and well referenced, but could do with more work on 'telling the story' of Birmingham's architecture, i.e. going beyond listing what is there. Cheers. 4u1e 11:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]