Talk:Blackburn
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Blackburn was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: May 1, 2008 |
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 To-do list for Blackburn: |
edit · history · watch · refresh |
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[edit] Bill Fox
Bill Fox, chairman of Blackburn Rovers and president of the Football League from 1998 until his death in 1991, was born in Blackburn on 6 January 1928.
apparently became president of the football league 7 years after he died, think this may need checking out!!!
- Looks like a typo... maybe it should have read "president of the Football League from 1988", but I don't have a source to check the correct date. Anyone? - Motor (talk) 12:40, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Blackburn Rovers heading
Quite amazing how Blackburn Rovers gets a top-level heading, should replace with 'Sport.' Skinnyweed 23:01, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] History section
The history section is disgusting, it's simply some copy and pasted unreadable nonsense. Needs to change. Skinnyweed 22:20, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
- Have attempted to get something down here. Pretty garbled at the moment and I'm only up to the medieval period, but am gathering sources to add some more information.Theelf29 14:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] "Famous Blackburnians" cite tags
There's too many, I think it's pointless to have a cite after every mention. Skinnyweed 19:29, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Diseases of Blackburn
I've got an exam coming up in Blackburn in a bit. Is the area known for particular rare diseases I should famiarise myself with before examining its inhabitants? JFW | T@lk 16:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Section removed
This will fail a GA nomination. removed until improved. TreveXtalk 17:05, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Areas
Blackburn consists of a number of areas:
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[edit] GA review
Hello, just a note that I will be reviewing this article within the next 24 hours. --Jza84 | Talk 14:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
- OK, I've read through Blackburn and found it to be of mixed quality, i.e. some very strong but also very weak sections.. What's glaring to me is the lack of material on Blackburn's industrial heritage, which I'm really surprised about. The images are fairly good, and the article is thorough in parts. The weakest parts are the lead, lack of industrial history and culture/sports. The Governance section is strong, but perhaps too "recent" and overbares the article. Although there are many barriers to GA at the moment (too many to list extensively) I've set some challenges below to help Blackburn along.
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- Here's how it looks against the Wikipedia:Good article criteria:
- 1. Well written?: Somewhat. No glaring spelling or grammar errors, but some "stubby" one-sentence paragraphs.
- 2. Factually accurate?: Fail. Several unsourced statements/paragraphs.
- 3. Broad in coverage?: Broad(-ish), but by no means thorough.
- 4. Neutral point of view?: Pass
- 5. Article stability?: Pass
- 6. Images?: Pass
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- Here's how it looks against the major elements of WP:UKCITIES:
- 7 Lead: The lead is weak and thin. I would've expected at least 3 paragraphs on such a major town (you have upto four to play with). I suppose a comparable lead to look at would be that of Oldham, a town which not only shares a simillar kind of historical experience, but has a featured article here on Wikipedia. Simillarly, "Local Authority" should be decapitalised.
- 8 Infobox: I'd like to see a "static image" in the infobox, preferably a townscape (see Runcorn, or Barnsley). Other fields could be filled in, like the distance to London, and the population density (see Template:Infobox UK place/doc/England).
- 9 History: John Bartholomew's description does not relate to Toponymy. The first paragraph in Prehistory is unsourced. Under Medieval Blackburn, define "traditional". The History section tails off in the Middle ages. Where's the industrial history?
- 10 Governance: I'd rename the section per WP:UKCITIES. This is a strong section, but perhaps too detailed and sprawling. The Local government part has too "recentism" and almost wholly pertains to the Blackburn with Darwen area, not Blackburn specifically (perhaps move it there?). I think the "Far right" material might be better served from a historical perspective, and go under History - that way one can explain historical migration. The "Straw/Rice" section is almost entirely unsourced; although this is notable, it doesn't tell me a great deal about Blackburn, and I'd consider a rethink. Coat of arms is completely unsourced.
- 11: Geography: This section is of mixed quality. Units of measurement are used inconsistently here (use miles first, then km conversions); references to distances in terms of "time" (eg. Manchester is less than an hour away) have got to be converted to units of length. "industrial revolution" needs capitalising. We're also missing material on climate, divisions and suburbs and landuse and the built environment (refer to WP:UKCITIES or see Manchester/Stretford as local examples)
- 12: Demography: The second paragraph here is unsourced.
- 13: Sports: Is completely unsourced.
- 14: External links: This section is in breach of WP:EL. Look at Manchester (a major city), which limits these to a minimum. Remember, Wikipedia is not a directory.
- I hope this helps. I would like regular editors of this article to take a look at some of WP:GM's work (namely Oldham, Manchester, Stretford, Altrincham, Shaw and Crompton) which share a simillar historical experience with Blackburn and I think could inspire some sections here. I'm going to place this article on hold for one week to see how the article develops against this review. If there are any queries/concerns, please feel free to contact me. --Jza84 | Talk 16:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
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- Wow! Thanks for this. Quite a lot to be getting on with :-) 86.1.249.35 (talk) 12:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
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- Hi Jza85. I would like to add my thanks to those already offered for the work you've done here. I've begun to address the lack of industrial history in the article. I've only cited two sources so far and I'm currently looking for more to broaden the range of reference material. I may also have some new, original photos (I'll be taking them myself) later today, including a townscape for the infobox. Beejaypii (talk) 10:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
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- Hello again! It's been one week, and, as promised, I'm back to review the progress of the article. :)
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- I'm really pleased with the progress made so far (and give my greetings to Beejaypii!). The lead is now much more befitting to the article, and the infobox has been utilised to its potential with the "advanced" features of the template. As stated, a townscape would be great (like something Huddersfield has perhaps?), but the current photo is quite satisfactory to my tastes and sensibilities. This all said, infobox and lead are a GA pass.
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- I think the next step would be to "trim" the Governance section. Salford has quite a strong example of this section, which explains how the place is (and importantly, was) governed. Alot of the existing material in that section is good, but perhaps better served in the History section (under a new subsection entitled Political history, Migration, or Social history?), or at the Blackburn with Darwen article.
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- I've done some reorganisational work and trimmed the Governance section. See new talk section. Beejaypii (talk) 09:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] Close... for now?
Hi, it's been two weeks and, although there's be huge progress, I think it's only right that we close the GA candidature as a fail for now. At the current pace of change, I envisage that it will take at least another three-to-four weeks to start meeting the GA criteria in full. What do you guys say though? --Jza84 | Talk 17:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
- Hi Jza84. I agreed with you: the article probably isn't going to come close to meeting GA criteria soon. However, I for one will be continuing to work on it. Perhaps we can subject it to the GA review process in another month or two? Beejaypii (talk) 11:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Survey
WP:Good article usage is a survey of the language and style of Wikipedia editors in articles being reviewed for Good article nomination. It will help make the experience of writing Good Articles as non-threatening and satisfying as possible if all the participating editors would take a moment to answer a few questions for us, in this section please. The survey will end on April 30.
- Would you like any additional feedback on the writing style in this article?
[Adding these comments from Beejaypii's talk page in response to a question: "What I really meant was that I'm pretty confident when it comes to things like grammar, vocabulary, paragraph structure and general writing style. These are aspects of Wikipedia editing which I feel I don't really need much help with. On the other hand, I find the kinds of recommendations made by Jza84 as part of the GA review for the Blackburn article very useful. Beejaypii (talk) 18:00, 24 April 2008 (UTC)]
- If you write a lot outside of Wikipedia, what kind of writing do you do?
- Is your writing style influenced by any particular WikiProject or other group on Wikipedia?
At any point during this review, let us know if we recommend any edits, including markup, punctuation and language, that you feel don't fit with your writing style. Thanks for your time. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] "Town hall extension"
This may have been the official name for the the borough's tower block offices in the 1970s. This is now referred to as the "new town hall".[1][2] The term "town hall extension" does not appear once on Blackburn with Darwen's website.[3] Furthermore, the angle of the photo makes the tower appear as it may be a physical extension of the 19th century town hall. This is not the case and this impression should not be reinforced by the caption. For this reason, I am reverting TreveXtalk 20:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
- TreveX, please note the following:
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- "...Lord Rhodes officially opened the new Town Hall Tower Block extensions..." (20th Century Blackburn, Andrew Taylor, 2000, p.102"
- "Blackburn's £650,000 town hall extension..." (Blackburn: Official Handbook, Ed. J. Burrown and Co. Ltd., 1970, p. 16"
- "...the town hall extension has been re-clad." (Blackburn: A History by Derek Beattie, Derek Beattie, 2007, p. 337)
- However, I can see your point. I would prefer to retain the word extension but its presence in my version of the caption was perhaps mis-leading in the way you describe, especially to those unfamiliar with the buildings in question. Nevertheless, I do think the tower block is an extension (to the town hall complex if you will) rather than a counterpart. I think the phrase "1960s counterpart" doesn't tell us whether the original is still in use as a town hall or not, whereas the word extension does. Perhaps "The italianate 19th century town hall and the reclad 1960s tower block extension (the two are linked by an enclosed footbridge)", or something similar, would be a good compromise. What do you think? Beejaypii (talk) 08:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
- What about "The italianate 19th century town hall and its 1960s tower block extension are linked by an enclosed footbridge"? How about a 'civic buildings' section where we can go into detail - we could link directly to it from the caption? TreveXtalk
- I'm not too concerned about the caption at the moment. I think it's acceptable as it is.
- However, I've acted on some ideas that your suggestion of a civic buildings section inspired. Rather than adding a civic buildings section I've re-organised the Landmarks section so that significant buildings can have their own sub heading. I decided to do this after looking at the Oldham article to see how the section is arranged there. If we get a townscape photo for the info box we will now be able to move the town hall image from the info box to the newly-created Town hall subsection of the Landmarks section.
- I retained almost all the info in the Landmarks section by moving some of it into an Other landmarks sub section. My thinking is that significant buildings which are currently briefly mentioned under Other landmarks can be given their own subsection if and when enough relevant info has been sourced. What do you think? Beejaypii (talk) 20:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
- What about "The italianate 19th century town hall and its 1960s tower block extension are linked by an enclosed footbridge"? How about a 'civic buildings' section where we can go into detail - we could link directly to it from the caption? TreveXtalk
[edit] Governance and politics
I've taken much of the material out of the Governance section and put it in a new section: Politics. Hopefully, the Governance section is now much more compliant with the relevant guidelines in wp:ukcities. I think the material I've moved into the new Politics section still suffers from too much "recentism" (as Jza85 remarked in his suggestions per the GA review). However, my main aim with this edit was to improve the Governance section. Beejaypii (talk) 23:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
- I've moved some of that material to Blackburn with Darwen or the Blackburn (UK Parliament constituency) articles, as it didn't pertain to Blackburn proper as such. --Jza84 | Talk 10:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Demography
I've made a few changes to the demography section. Instead of using the census figures for Blackburn with Darwen, I've sourced the figures for Blackburn as a parliamentary constituency. These figures seem to relate more specifically to the town itself and are, I think, more appropriate. I've decided to remove the small amount of info on health and households as these subjects are not amongst those recommended for inclusion in this type of article at wp:UKCITIES. I've also had to reduce the size of the satellite image for the time being because the section has reduced in size. Hopefully, the whole section is now properly sourced, resolving one of the problems highlighted in the GA review. Beejaypii (talk) 16:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] External links
As part of the ongoing attempt to bring the article up to good article standard, I've removed most of the external links, leaving only the Blackburn Council, cottontown.org, and Lancashire Telegraph ones intact. I've also consistently formatted these remaining links and edited the descriptions. I think the section now complies with the recommendations given at the wp:UKCITIES and wp:External links articles. Hopefully, this is another step taken towards good article status. Beejaypii (talk) 10:49, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
