Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wiltshire/Archive 1

Greetings and suggestions

Greetings from neighbouring WikiProject Somerset. Can I suggest you include a couple of articles which cross the border: List of locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal which is a Featured list and Kennet and Avon Canal which is a GA. I will not add my name to the list as I'm busy enough with Somerset but if there is anything I can do to help with setting up the project let me know.— Rod ^talk 20:09, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for the welcome. The WikiProject is very new at the moment - I haven't even made a portal yet. I will mention both of the Kennet and Avon canals articles as mentioning a couple of FL's and GA's is a good boost for a new WikiProject! Thanks again for the help. I myself couldn't believe that there wasn't a already a Project for Wiltshire. Jaguar (talk) 21:47, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I mentioned this project over a year ago, to little interest, but I'm glad it's started. WIll be taking full part. Rodhull andemu 22:36, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I welcome the project, but I didn't have the energy to begin it myself. I am busy outside Wikipedia for now, but I'll try to keep an eye on this page to see if there are any requests for particular information. Moonraker (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A class

A note has been added to the project page about A class articles. Some projects (eg WP:MILHIST use this classification (and have formal procedures for their review etc, generally following GA and in preparation for FA nominations) but many do not eg WikiProject Somerset has 10 FA, 13 FL & 44 GA but no A class.— Rod ^talk 14:44, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A-class articles are very much rarer than GA-class across all projects; indeed some, such as WP:LT, do not recognise A-class at all. I went through most of Category:A-Class articles and found just one which I considered relevant to Wilts - so tagged it. It's since been reassessed. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:22, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If "A-class" is to be meaningful, it really shouldn't be a matter of "finding" A-class articles (so "we apparently have no Class A articles! Can you find any?" is a bit misleading). It's meant to be a quality grade higher than GA, and GA requires a fairly extensive review against clear and fairly tough criteria. FA has even tougher criteria and requires review by multiple editors from across Wikipedia. Projects that use A-class generally have an internal reviewing system and set of criteria, and use it for articles judged high quality "internally" within the project but necessarily ready yet for "external" review at WP:FAC. If A-class is felt necessary, then it shouldn't just be a "drive-by" assessment by a single editor. But for what it's worth I think you'd be better off without it. It's useful to the military history project because 1) their scope is huge and sprawls over many almost completely unrelated areas, so a central, internal article assessment system helps them standardize quality; 2) they have a lot of editors, so that several previously uninvolved editors can always be found to do a review; 3) the project has a reputation for mass-producing FAs, and the A-class review system ensures that any article heading for FAC has already been polished up to a very high standard. I'm not sure that any of these considerations apply to a project this small, for which there are few uninvolved editors to be able to write reviews or draw up project-specific criteria, and which currently isn't an "FA sausage factory" - if there's an article the project wants to put forward for FA, with this few editors, you'd be best just to make it a collaborative effort and have several editors from the project follow the FAC review in case their expertise is needed. That would be far more efficient than writing up a set of A-class criteria that are only going to be used for just a handful of articles, doing an internal review (that would probably need to involve about half the editors in the project to be meaningful!) and then sending it for FAC for yet another review. Just my two cents (or two pennies, I guess!) but I do think you'd be best to quit worrying about A-class for now, and like most projects, drop it from your assessment scheme. TheGrappler (talk) 11:53, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let's keep it. It is part of the Version 1.0 criteria, so all the tools work with it, it requires no customization on our part, and it qualifies an article for extra points in Version 1.0's selection scheme. It provides motivation for editors as an intermediate step across a large chasm, and identifies candidates to develop towards FA. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you do keep it, at some point you'll still have to work out what criteria you want to use for it and how you're going to assess it on a consistent, project-wide basis. The templates do work with it, but most projects don't use it for a reason. On a project this small, will it really be difficult to identify FA candidates? The project only has four GAs, so it's likely that currently we're only talking about one or two of them getting promoted to A-class. As for the long run - WP:ASSESS suggests that only 0.02% of articles are A-class; I reckon this project is likely to develop to around 1000-2000 articles so statistically only 0.2 to 0.4 articles are expected to be A-class. According to WP:GAS, only 1 in 350 articles gets to GA and 1 in 1100 to FA, so if you get up to a handful of FAs and ten or so GAs, you're doing well. It seems likely that A-class will only be ever get on a tiny number of intermediate articles, for which in theory there is a need to develop project-specific criteria and a project-wide reviewing system. This seems like a sledgehammer to crack a nut - bearing in mind that there is not such a big gap between GA and FA these days, I'm sure it would be easier to drag the couple of GAs that are most promising, straight up to FA? TheGrappler (talk) 06:06, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding criteria, the Version 1.0 class A criteria will be adequate. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 16:15, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clench

A new article Clench, Wiltshire has been nominated for deletion as a hoax - however there are sources - see the talk page. Does anyone think this is worth keeping?— Rod ^talk 14:14, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Looking at the first version of the article indicates that it definitely must be a hoax (especially the picture). But then again Clench is actually a real place in Wiltshire (OS Grid reference. Maybe the creator of the page created it especially for vandalism, I am not sure. But I will create an infobox for the article and reword it to back up its deletion. Jaguar (talk) 15:01, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Amesbury

Just noticed that Jaguar marked Amesbury as high importance to the project. I have no objection to this, but I just wondered if there was any particular reason for it? I'm actually pretty pleased to see it there, but I guess my main wonder is what factors will affect the criteria for importance for this project? I'm guessing that in this instance its the proximity to a mangled heap of stones that somebody dumped next to the 303! I have a fair few books on the town's history so I can easily help upgrade it bit (just never got around to doing a GA standard article yet). Cheers, Ranger Steve (talk) 19:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Based on experience with other projects I believe it is useful for project members to discuss the criteria for importance assessments. I have been adding the banner with class assessments (based on Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment which should be the same for all projects) but leaving importance blank. Some ideas which might be useful for clarifying importance are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Somerset/Assessment#Importance which were developed after discussion amongst members and a similar table is at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/Assessment#Importance scale which I also helped develop. While I'm here I have noticed lots of Wilts village articles still have stub labels on the article pages, when they are clearly start or C class. Now that lots of articles are tagged the project might also like to consider using tools such as Cleanup listings (although this has not been updated in ages), Article alerts (which are currently undergoing repairs and recognised content updates by User:JL-Bot/Project content (which saves manually updating FA, FL, GA etc lists). Getting back to Amesbury you could always select this article for a collaboration & work together to get it up to GA standard.— Rod ^talk 19:58, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's true. Also, marking something an article as high importance doesn't have to be involved around a project. Amesbury for example is only marked as high importance because it's pretty notable in Wiltshire. The town of Amesbury has Stonehenge in its parish, making it notable. Stonehenge, for another example is the 'toppest' of the top importance because it's one of the ancient landmarks of the world (and it's in Wiltshire), . Marking something by importance is different from classes - I'm not sure if the criteria has to affect the project. Jaguar (talk) 20:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Importance Criteria

I think it seems to me that we need to work out an Importance Criteria to rate articles.

General Guidelines: The importance of articles is a more local criterion. It reflects the project-wide importance scheme, but in relation to a publication purely about Wiltshire as opposed to a general encyclopaedia. Remember that Wiltshire's subdivisions and major settlements might not appear as stand-alone entries in a general print encyclopaedia but they would more or less be essential inclusions in an encyclopaedia of Wiltshire. Jaguar (talk) 19:52, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

**Need:** A measure of a subject's importance, regardless of its quality
Top	Subject is a must-have for a print encyclopedia.
High	Subject is exceptionally important.
Mid	Subject contributes a depth of knowledge.
Low	Subject fills in important details.
NA	Subject importance is not applicable.

My Thoughts/Proposal:

Top	Large settlements or landmarks, very notable from outside.	Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral, Swindon
High	Smaller settlements and places of interest with awareness outside the county.	Wootton Bassett, Salisbury Plain, Warminster,
Mid	Smallest settlements and areas. Places of importance to notable residents, including more notable schools and colleges. This overviews the whole of the county.	History of Wiltshire, Kennet and Avon Canal, List of places in Wiltshire
Low	Everything else, generally only important to a smaller number of people in the county. Low importance articles are commonly known as stub class articles.	Conholt, Calne railway station, Alderbury

I don't see a need for |importance=no. If Priestley is in any way relevant to Wilts, he merits at least |importance=low; if not, why does his talk page bear the {{WikiProject Wiltshire}} banner at all? For no-importance cases, it would surely be better to simply omit or remove the {{WikiProject Wiltshire}}.

By comparison, here are the importance criteria for some neighbouring projects:

Importance	Bristol, Buckinghamshire	Cornwall	Devon, Northamptonshire	Dorset, Worcestershire	Herefordshire	Somerset
Top	Articles that are central to WikiProject Bristol/WP Bucks Cities and major towns	Places, icons or topics recognisable or of interest to the whole UK or further	Well known nationally	Articles with international recognition	This article is of the utmost importance to this project, as it forms the basis of all information in a key area	Articles that are central to WikiProject Somerset Articles about the whole county
High	Major landmarks/areas/buildings County-wide topics The universities World-famous residents Professional sport teams Minor towns	Articles with recognition in the Westcountry or all of Cornwall	Known of nationally	Articles with national recognition	This article is important to this project, as it covers a general area of knowledge, or it covers a specific topic which has wide significance	Settlements, typically cities or towns, with a population in excess of 50,000 Districts & unitary authority areas Nationally significant buildings Large rivers and primary roads, canals and railways World Heritage sites Major landmarks and/or areas National Parks Seas, channels, firths, major estuaries, major lakes and other large bodies of water National Trails Mountain ranges, mountains with a relative height of over 300 metres (980 ft) World-famous residents Professional sport teams
Mid	Nationally known residents Well known areas of the city/county Nationally-known secondary schools Parliamentary constituencies Top-level non-professional sport teams	Articles with recognition in most of Cornwall or specialist topics	Known within Devon/Northants	Articles with regional recognition	This article is relatively important to this project, as it fills in some more specific knowledge of certain areas	Settlements, typically towns, with a population in excess of 5,000 but less than 50,000 Grade I listed buildings and Scheduled Ancient Monuments Sites of Special Scientific Interest Less important roads, rivers, canals and railways AONBs Bays, inlets, small lakes and reservoirs Long-distance footpaths of 20 kilometres (12 mi) or more Nationally known residents Nationally-known secondary schools Parliamentary constituencies Top-level non-professional sport teams
Low	Minor areas of the city/county Most schools Miscellaneous articles	Articles with very localised recognition	Not known across Devon/Northants	Articles with local recognition.	This article is of little importance to this project, but it covers a specific area of knowledge and/ is needed for completeness	Settlements, typically villages, with a population of less than 5,000 Civil and ecclesiastical parishes Grade II* & II listed buildings Minor streams, roads, canals and railways Local footpaths and cycle routes Minor areas of the county Most schools Miscellaneous articles

Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire don't have WikiProjects; Berkshire does, but I couldn't find their importance scale; Hampshire's scale is the same as that at {{Importance legend}} (which is displayed first in this section); Surrey uses a different "standard" scale, {{Importance Scheme}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:38, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Great research!
I generally support the outcomes and clarity of the Somerset criteria, though they are a little wordy.
The one modification I would make would be to promote many of the 'High' articles in the Somerset criteria to top, as there is plenty of room in "Top" for example, for all of the towns (there are only about 21), for biographies of international importance like Joseph Priestley, John Aubrey and Michael Tippett, and for the main rivers, roads, rail links, canal and World Heritage Sites.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:11, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that, I have adjusted the No Importance section. NA importance doesn't have to be articles, it can be categories or templates. Articles with NA status are rarely used. Jaguar (talk) 14:52, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Having read your latest amendment, I now see that you are confusing No-importance with NA-importance: the two are different. See Category:NA-importance articles, which contains thousands of templates, categories, redirects, dab pages etc, and Category:No-importance articles which has, by comparison, hardly anything; and I rather suspect that it only exists because two projects have been set up incorrectly.

In general, if a project banner is placed on the talk page of a non-article page, and |class= is omitted or left blank, the talk page will be automatically classified as "Template-Class", "Category-Class", "Project-Class" or "Portal-Class", if the relevant one has been set up for the project; otherwise, it falls back on "NA-Class".

For project banners on talk pages of non-article pages, when |importance= is omitted or left blank, the article will automatically be assessed as "NA-importance".

Consider Template:Closed stations Wiltshire. The talk page of that has two banners:

{{TrainsWikiProject|UK=yes|stations=yes}}

{{WikiProject Wiltshire |class=template }}

The first of these lacks both |class= and |importance=, and the page is in Category:Template-Class rail transport articles (also Category:Template-Class UK Railways articles) and Category:NA-importance rail transport articles (also Category:NA-importance UK Railways articles).

The second does have |class=template, but WP Wilts is not set up to recognise that, so it falls back on Category:NA-Class Wiltshire articles. Whether or not this had happened, it's gone automatically into Category:NA-importance Wiltshire articles. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:10, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I understand now. I have removed the 'no importance' scheme. I don't think we even need one yet there are no articles that requires no importance. Jaguar (talk) 11:01, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Wikipedia:Wikiproject Wiltshire/Importance Criteria has been created. I've moved that to Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiltshire/Importance Criteria, so that it is correctly recognised as a subpage of Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiltshire (the capitalisation matters).

I have also written a new version of Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiltshire/Assessment (the old one looked like a category page), largely based upon Wikipedia:WikiProject Somerset/Assessment; into the former page I have transcluded Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiltshire/Importance Criteria. There is a link in talk page banners, ie "This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.", which links correctly when using Internet Explorer 7, Google Chrome and Opera, but doesn't in Firefox 3.6 - I don't know why not. To fix this I may need to move the section header back to the Assessment page, which will unfortunately lose the "[edit]" link for the importance scale. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:04, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

St John the Baptist Church, Inglesham

Since the start of this project I have been adding the project banner to lots of relevant article talk pages and also been writing articles on redundant churches in Wiltshire under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. I've now started work on St John the Baptist Church, Inglesham which is a bit out of the ordinary! I will be nominating it for DYK soon, but think it could go on to GA status. I would be grateful for any help you can offer:

Inglesham (Swindon) is a redlink as it doesn't have an article yet & will need one
My books on old churches don't cover Wiltshire does anyone have any suitable sources?
My prose is generally poor and it would be great if someone could give it a copyedit.

Any help appreciated.— Rod ^talk 08:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I will be happy to help on developing it towards GA status. I've created the page Inglesham, although it is now a stub, I will develop Ingelsham as well. I hope this site might be some use for the church. Jaguar (talk) 10:42, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried asking Motacilla (talk · contribs)? This user is hot on churches and villages in Oxfordshire, and may well know where to obtain the info you require. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:11, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]