Talk:Middlewich

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Good article Middlewich has been listed as one of the Geography and places good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.

Assessment Report

  1. A bit more minor tidying up, and perhaps this should be put in for "Good Article" status at least. may be it would easily achieve that, in which case, it can then be re-assessed.

 DDStretch  (talk) 20:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Contents


(15/12/05) I've significantly changed the ordering of the page and tried to get the article to flow and tell a story, rather than being bitty and repetitive. I've also removed some time dependent information - e.g. who played the folk and boat in 2005.

[edit] Links

This page has way too many links at the bottom, especially compared to other town pages. A fair portion of them look like link spam. Any suggestions on which should be kept and which should go before I start culling them. I think the pubs and bars is unnecerserry as well as the estate agents bit. I think the facilities should also be incorporated in to the external links section. Ydam 14:53, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Agree. See Wikipedia:External links for some guidance. You're right about the pubs too - Wikipedia is not a travel guide (see WP:NOT)--JBellis 15:58, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
I've trimmed down the links a fair bit(I took out all the links to maps for one) but it still needs more work. I'll do that a little later. Ydam 17:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Right, I've seriouslly trimmed down the external links now as well as doing a bit of tidying up. Not sure the h2g2 link should stay but I've left it for now. I welcome any suggestions on any links that should go back in. Ydam 10:46, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article Status

Anyone else think this article should be nominated for good artcle status? It's got plenty of references and pictures and plenty of facts. Ydam 13:55, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. There is still significantly more information which needs adding.Salinae 20:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't see why that should stop it from reaching good article status though. Everything can be improved but that doesn't make this a bad article.
  • Anything can be improved, as you say. Just depends on how significant the missing information is considered to be. Good articles need to "address the major aspects of the topic". Does this article do that? ---- Eric 22:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Links to maps

Given recent history (for example Kinderton electoral ward now includes the old township of Newton and no longer contains the township of Kinderton, Weaver is now on the western side of Winsford) providing links to the maps gives useful information on where these townships were.Salinae 20:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I took them out as I've never seen any other article constantly provide links to maps when a location or place was mentioned. I thought they made that article look messy. I can't seem to find any specfic wiki policy on not doing it though so if you think they're that necerserry feel free to reinsert them.
Speaking of which all the www.fhsc.org.uk links are going to have to come out or updated if poss as they're dead. Ydam 21:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I know about fhsc.org.uk - they're moving to a new server, once it's in place I'll update them allSalinae 11:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Theatre vs Amphitheatre

Are there any refs to the Bull Ring being developed as a Roman theatre rather than an amphitheatre?

I can find the following after a quick google search to support amphitheatre

and nothing to support theatre. It would be good, given that it's referred to so often as the Amphitheatre to at least have a ref to back up the name.

FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH Yes, I'm well aware of the various misinformed references by the various local Councils and Press to the Bull Ring redevelopment as a Roman ampitheatre, which still persits today. However, when options were put forward for the redevelopment, Congleton Borough Council's Planning Department produced two sketches: one involved refacing the then existing wall with Roman mosaics and the other involving demolition of the wall to open up the view towards Hightown and replacing it with a convex curved set of steps. Being a member of both the Town & Borough Council at the time, I suggested that in view of the recent success of the Roman Fesitival and interest in the Town's Roman Heritage that a variation of the steps theme be considered and produced a "back of an envelope" sketch of a Roman Theatre.

The Borough Council then prepared a third sketch based on this and all three were dispayed in Middlewich Victoria Building (the Town Council offices) in 2001 and visitors were invited to vote on their preferred choice. The Roman Theatre sketch was the most popular choice, however when the Borough Council announced the result they misstated it as a Roman Ampitheatre, i.e. a fully enclosed eliptical arena, however, being semi circular, it clearly is not that! One of my last tasks as a Middlewich Borough Councillor in 2002 as a member of the Joint Town, Borough, County & Heritage Panel was to approve the awarding of the grant for the Bull Ring redevelopment.

I recall a press article by local historian Brian Curzon shortly after the official opening, criticising the Council for getting the name wrong. Its style is clearly that of a Roman or Greek Theatre and was what I had in mind when I conceved the idea. My recent amendments to the entry merely reflect this.

Cllr John Brown, currently Borough Council Ward Member for Holmes Chapel (e-mail: clrjbrown@aol.com)

I've thought it was a bit of a strange name, given that it is definitely not an amphitheatre, however I've seen examples elsewhere where similar structures are called amphitheatres. Thanks for explaining the background to this. Salinae 23:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism??

Interesting to see the page has been semi-protected. Didn't expect a Cheshire town page to be a vandalism target. --SunStar Nettalk 02:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:Northwich. Richard W.M. Jones 10:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA review - 1st nomination

Reviewing this article against the good article criteria, I can't say it meets them. the article is a **good start**, and has most of the sections of a good city article. But most sections are just stubs within themselves, with very little actual content.

The lead section should adequately summarize the article. The geography section is unreferenced, and also contains no information about the climate. The history section is very well-developed, but the prose can be choppy at times, and it's divided awkwardly into several sections. The history section should tell the story of the city from the time it is first established to present day. Instead, it seems to deviate into some discussion on salt production (which might better be suited for the economy section), to two uncited sentences on historical townships, to population changes, and then finally gets back into the 19th and 20th centuries. I think it might be better to include fewer subsections here, and just tell the story of the town.

Promote the demographics section (should be just after history). Expand this and provide more references. Where did this demographic data come from? Simply saying 'data from the 2001 census' is not sufficient; whose census, provide a link to the census on the web, if available.

The landmarks section would best be moved to a 'culture' section as a subsection on 'cultural attractions'. Describe some of the main cultural attractions in the city, and include photos. 'Places of interest' can be moved into this section as well.

Media & sports should probably also be subsections under 'culture' as well.

'Economics' - change to 'economy' and expand beyond its two sentences. 'Retail/commerce' can come under the 'economy' section as well. As a matter of fact, most of the subsections under 'present day' should be moved to other areas - I have yet to see such a section in any article on any city, yet. What is the purpose of the picture of a seat in the Roman theatre? A single seat? Huh? the stage might be better here,...

'Transport' should be a main section unto itself. 'Schools' should also be in a main section as well, probably call it 'education'.

You might move the 'in literate' main section to a subsection under 'culture'. More should probably be written here than just reproducing two quotes.

It might help to review WP:CITE for tips on including and formatting inline citations, as well as the good article criteria and manual of style.

Hope this helps! Good luck! Dr. Cash 04:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Towards GA

I have made a few, mainly minor modifications, either little errors or amendments to fit (so far as I read it) the WP:MOS. If you don't like any of them please revert or replace them. I think it's pretty good now but here are a few suggestions which might make it even better.

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements#Introduction states that in the lead the population is "required" (I know it's in the infobox, but that's what they say). Also in the lead it might be worth including that it is in the borough of Congleton.
  • "History" They don't like the use of "The" in titles and subtitles so it might be a good idea to get rid of them. They also don't like slashes (/) so perhaps a dash or an "and" between Nantwich Road and St Annes (should it be Anne's) might be better.
  • In "Politics and administration" maybe a bit more linking the hundreds with the present administration; date of becoming part of the borough of Congleton, wards, parishes - that sort of thing (with citations).
  • "Demographics" needs more citations.
  • "Notable residents" - they prefer prose in this section rather than a list. I got GA for Runcorn with a list here but I have since re-written it in prose and I think it looks a lot better - they also want citations.
  • "Further reading" - if you can find ISBNs for the later books, it's worth adding them.

Then I should be surprised if you didn't get GA - or at least an "on-hold" for a few minor tweaks. Good luck (and I hope you get a British assessor this time). Peter I. Vardy 15:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review - 2nd nomination

Great work, I only have two issues with this:

  • Excessive subdivision: subdividing is great -- helps break the article into convenient chunks, and helps you find things through the ToC. Too much subdividing though makes the article too fragmented and difficult to read, and the ToC becomes unusable as it's so full! Single paragraphs don't need their own subheadings, and I don't think it's worth subdividing any section with six or less paragraphs. I don't think that any of the second level subheadings are justified here, though an argument could be made for them in the history section.
  • Very minor one: there's a reference in the introduction -- the intro should be a summary of the rest of the article, so any claim made there should also be elsewhere in the article, in depth, and with references. The population figure should therefore also be mentioned in the demographics section, along with the reference. It could perhaps be in the context of an additional sentence or two on population change (presumably the village has grown over time?).

I can see other areas where the article can be improved, but I don't think they should stand in the way of this getting Good Article status. Joe D (t) 15:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA failed

I have reviewed this article according to the GA criteria. I'm not sure if the above GA review was a complete review or not, so I have reviewed it as well. At this time, I don't think that the article should pass based on some things I listed below.

  1. "Middlewich is historic market town in the borough of Congleton, within the county of Cheshire, England, with a population of 13,101 in 2001." The first sentence needs some cleanup. "Middlewich is a historic...". Also reword the two clauses that both start with "within" and "with". This sounds redundant, and a rewrite would let this flow better.
  2. "Middlewich lies on the confluence of a number of natural and man made features:" Add a hyphen in between man and made.
  3. The first and second paragraphs mention the production of salt, put the information about salt together in just one paragraph. This may require you to move some sentences around.
  4. "That this has happene" Reword, this isn't a very good start for the sentence. Also the rest of the sentence should also be reworded as well, and may be seen as OR.
  5. "During the last decade or so there have been moves to increase the volume of tourism into the town, through events such as the annual folk and boat festival, the Roman and Norman festivals, farmers markets and so on." Do not use "or so" or "so on". There are better words that could replace them.
  6. In the Geography section, the first two paragraphs start with the same exact phrasing; rewrite one of them to avoid sounding redundant.
  7. "Similarly to the west the ground rises away, however because of the greater number of buildings on this side of the river the views are not so commanding." Reword, "not so commanding" also doesn't seem appropriate.
  8. "There are few days when snow is lying on the ground[5], although there are a some days of air frost" Inline citations go directly after the punctuation (this also happens several other times throughout the rest of the article) and there should be a period at the end of the sentence.
  9. "Middlewich lies on a railway branch line between Sandbach and Northwich, however the local station, which opened in 1868 was closed to passenger traffic in 1959, and has now been demolished." Add inline citation.
  10. In the "Transport" section, there are a few sentences that stand alone. Either elaborate on the single sentences or add them to another paragraph.
  11. The "History" section should not have so many subheadings, especially when there is not that much information in each one. I recommend that you remove the headings for "Etymology", "Prehistoric", "Norman Middlewich", and "English Civil War". You can merge some of these sections together, or consider moving them elsewhere.
  12. In the "Industrial revolution" section, nineteenth is spelled wrong.
  13. "In the middle of the nineteeth century Middlewich is described as a town with principal works being the surrounding farming district" Middlewich "was" described. Also change it in the next sentence.
  14. "In common with the rest of the United Kingdom, Middlewich suffered a decimation of its young male population during the First World War." Possibly reword the beginning to something like "Similar to the rest of...".
  15. "The period between the First and Second World Wars and shortly after the Second World war saw extensive housebuilding within the town, with significant quantities of houses being built in the King Street area to the north, the area bounded between Nantwich Road and St. Anne's Road to the West, and especially Cledford to the south" War and South should be capitalized. Also add an inline citation.

At this point, I have decided to fail the article, because there are too many mistakes for the article to be put on hold at this time. Based on the above suggestions, go through the rest of the article and see if there are any similar mistakes. I think it would be best for the article to have a third party grammar/copyedit look over and possibly a peer review. Once you have done these things and addressed my above suggestions, do renominate again. If you disagree with this review, you can get an alternate review at Wikipedia:Good article review. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Nehrams2020 22:49, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I've now included these comments into the article. The following describes the changes that have been made (or not).
Point 1 - already done
Point 2 - OK
Point 3 - already done
Point 4 - OK
Point 5 - OK
Point 6 - OK
Point 7 - OK
Point 8 - OK (although the wikipedia style advice for inline citations is wrong)
Point 9 - OK
Point 10 - Paragraphs in transport section are road, rail, water and air. Can't really usefully merge them.
Point 11 - OK
Point 12 - already done
Point 13 - Disagree, standard English
Point 14 - Disagree, Middlewich suffered a decimation in common with the rest of the UK (of which Middlewich is a part), rather than similarly to the UK which implies that there is no intersection between the two.
Point 15 - south in this context is not a noun, so no capitalisation required. Caps have been removed from west for the same reason

Salinae 22:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review for the Cheshire WikiProject

There's a lot of well-organised, well-referenced information in this article. Generally the level of detail felt appropriate, though some areas (as noted) need more or less. The images let the article down somewhat; there were no really striking images, and several of those used are rather dull or irrelevant to the section they are located in. A light copy edit would be useful; in particular, there are lots of weak phrasings (eg "a number of", "currently") throughout, many one sentence paragraphs, and occasional punctuation problems. Although there's a long list of section by section comments, most of the concerns are fairly minor and easily fixed.

Lead - All incorporated

  • There is repetition between paragraph 2 and paragraphs 3 & 4
  • "The town's population at the last census was 13,101" -- perhaps too specific; should the census date be given?
  • "Middlewich lies on the confluence of a number of natural and man-made features: the Rivers Dane, Croco and Wheelock; the Shropshire Union and Trent and Mersey Canals; and the A533, A54 and A530 roads." -- clumsy, and do roads have confluences?
  • "These good motorway and road links" -- previous sentence doesn't mention motorways
  • "a removal of manufacturing jobs" -- removal doesn't seem the right word
  • "In part to address some of these issues" -- very vague, best deleted?

History

  • The history feels rather thin prior to the 20th century; perhaps some material from the subpages could be reinserted? The 20th century section possibly could be condensed slightly. I'd also suggest splitting the section into at least 2 or 3 subsections for ease of reading, though I note a previous GA review suggested removing subheadings.
  • Several statements in this section could use probably use specific references, with some paragraphs unreferenced
  • "It is also supposed that" (para 1) -- vague phraseology
  • "In Whittaker's History of Manchester it is asserted that the Cornovii took Kinderton as their capital" -- Kinderton not previously mentioned
  • The section on the 20th century doesn't go into the industrial development/decline mentioned in the lead, nor the growth of tourism

Governance - All incorporated

  • Not sure why this needs subsections. I don't know what the specific guidance on this point is, but in readability terms, perhaps the Civic history section could be amalgamated into History?
  • Civic history -- "later it became part of the Northwich hundred" -- what date? Why mention the Encyclopaedia Britannica?
  • Political representation -- could expand to include eg European parliament. What layer of government do the two wards refer to?

Geography - All incorporated

  • More references would be useful for the geography section
  • Repetition of the material on rivers in two places
  • Some repetition of words reads a bit oddly eg lies ... lies ... sits ... sits
  • "Middlewich also sits on the Middlewich branch of the Shropshire Union Canal, the main route of which joins Wolverhampton with the River Mersey at Ellesmere Port, and the Trent and Mersey Canal which joins the Bridgewater Canal at Preston Brook (which gave access to the River Mersey at Runcorn) to the River Trent in Derbyshire." -- I found this hard to follow. Perhaps it could be broken into several sentences?
  • "The high ground in Kinderton is also the start of the ancient Roman road of King Street, and the Roman fort at Harbutt's field which has a dominating view of the river and the area of Roman salt workings." -- Reads oddly; perhaps swap the start of the road and the fort?
  • Climate section is rather sketchy, with no numbers
  • Missing information on elevation

Demography

  • Needs to start by repeating the total number from the lead. Where (approx) does this place Middlewich in terms of UK? of Cheshire?
  • Proportion of children should be stated
  • How does owner occupation & the car use compare with average?
  • There is no mention of elderly, nor of ethnic mix

Economy

  • Can you give a breakdown of %ages working in various industries? - Don't have this info
  • How many people are employed at British Salt? - Added
  • Is the Ideal Standard factory the largest single employer?
  • Why is this section illustrated with the Roman theatre? Would probably be better moved to Culture.
  • Paragraph 2 needs references, and feels a bit pointed (Nantwich, for example, still has much of the old shopping centre). - Done
  • "There are a number of shops" -- vague. Perhaps better to rephrase along the lines of "The two main shopping streets are Wheelock and Lewin Streets..." What types of shop are there? - Rewritten
  • Mentioning the supermarkets is probably enough, without giving locations

Transport

  • The historical information here might be better under History. There's also some overlap with Geography, and it would feel more intuitive to put them back to back here, but that's not the order recommended in Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements
  • Short paragraphs could do with amalgamation
  • Shortest canal claim could do with a reference

Communal facilities

  • I've not seen this section elsewhere. It would seem more usual to divide it between culture and sport, though I'm not sure what section Health usually goes under.
  • The short paragraphs need amalgamating, and variation to prevent so many paragraphs starting with Middlewich would be useful.

Culture

  • Need a reference for "highly regarded" (para 1) - There already is the ref - mudcat
  • The coverage of the Roman festival seems disproportionate to the better known folk festival

Places of interest

  • This is sadly thin, and largely repeats sites mentioned elsewhere. It should either be expanded greatly or amalgamated with Culture

Religion

  • This should be expanded to cover more than just a list of churches, eg what proportion of the population attend church? What proportion of the population is of a non-Christian faith, and what facilities are there for non-Christian faiths? - Added information on percentage pop religious, percentage Christian and facilities for non-Christian faiths. I doubt if information on proportion of pop attending church is available for Middlewich.

Education

  • The historical information might be better under History
  • How does Middlewich do compared with national averages on exams?

Notable residents

  • Some statements could do with references

See also - Removed

  • The style guide suggests that this should not duplicate items mentioned elsewhere

References

  • Page numbers should be given for book references

External links

  • This seems to have a fairly appropriate selection, though perhaps the Middlewich Community Church should be deleted
  • The Congleton borough council page has moved

Images

  • Could a representative image be placed in the top of the infobox (per eg Runcorn)? - Done';
  • Lead image (St Michael and All Angels) is a bit dark/dull, as is Image:Middlewich -Narrowboats.jpg
  • Several illustrable sections lack images eg Geography, Places of interest, Education, Notable residents
  • A sketch map of the town would make the river/road/canal etc information easier to follow
  • Captions should probably not include date unless significant - Done
  • I'm not sure about the policy on galleries -- it might be preferable to place the useful images in the article and start a Commons gallery for those that can't be accommodated. If the gallery is retained, duplicate, poor-quality or less-relevant images should be thinned out. - Removed
  • Image:Middlewich Population.svg needs axes - I don't have enough SVG skills to add them - the image is hand written not from a package

Hope this is helpful and not too overwhelming -- as I said above, I think the majority of issues are very easily fixed. Espresso Addict 01:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC) |nested=yes

[edit] Getting ready for GA

A few of the points raised in the Peer Review are still to be tackled, so we probably ought to start with those. One of them jumps right off the page:

  • "In Whittaker's History of Manchester it is asserted that the Cornovii took Kinderton as their capital, however this is unlikely. It is probable that the Cornovii did inhabit Kinderton for its salt making potential." This needs to be explained and given a context or removed. What do the Cornovii and Kinderton have to do with Middlewich?
  • Some of the Notable residents seem to be straining credibility, for instance James Hargreaves, who appears just to have been a director of a company in Middlewich.
  • "The town has good motorway links to the nearby cities of Manchester and Liverpool, and consequently has seen a large influx of people in the last thirty years ..". This seems to be a non-sequitor. The motorway links would make it just as easy for people to leave the town. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 15:58, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, I've done the first and last - I've left James Hargreaves in, using Edward John Smith in Runcorn as an example :-) Salinae (talk) 23:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Runcorn failed its FA; we're aiming to get Middlewich to pass its GA. ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "The close proximity to the M6 motorway has led to the creation of a large distribution and employment park ..". What's an employment park?
  • The education section uses the words "current" and "currently", but those are words that age. Current as at when? There's also what seems to be a lot of discussion about which school has the oldest building. Is that really interesting/important?
  • "the area which is now known as Middlewich is thought to have had one brine pit" Is that had a brine pit, or was a brine pit?
  • "The population of Middlewich rose during the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of this rise is attributable to a number of parishes being combined, for example parts of Newton were added to Middlewich in 1894, with Sutton having previously been added to Newton in 1892, however some must be due to increased industrialisation of the salt making process." Must be due is pretty strong stuff without a citation.
  • "Over the past twenty years there have been moves to increase the volume of tourism into the town". Over the past twenty years starting from when? 2008? 2007? 2006? ... I really need you to help me with this article Salinea. The issues aren't just about how things are being said, they're about what's being said, and about what isn't being said. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
OK I've made those changes. See what you think Salinae (talk) 22:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Nice work, I think we're starting to get close. Can you find a reference for the Wardle Canal being the shortest in the UK? That's the kind of thing that you can guarantee will get challenged. I think we're still looking a bit weak in the Economy section as well. Is there no census data to say what the industries of employment are in Middlewich, how many jobs there are in the town, how many people are employed vs. how many jobs there are in the town, that kind of thing? I know that you probably think I'm being a slave-driver, but the article really is close now to getting the GA listing that IMO your hard work deserves, so please stick at it and we'll face the GA review together. Issues will always come up during the review, but I'd like us to be in a position where we've thought of most of them ahead of time. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll have a look at that, but it'll take a little while. Salinae (talk) 23:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Reference #21 looks like it's a work in progress. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:51, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know who added that, but I've tracked down a ref. Salinae (talk) 23:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
How long does the boat and folk festival last? Does it take place over a weekend? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:12, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Done Salinae (talk) 23:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I find refs 22 and 25 strange - comments? Salinae (talk) 23:10, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

What do you find particularly odd about them? Is it that they contain a number of refs, bundled up together? If so, it does look a bit odd like that to me, too. One more point is that I have moved away from citing books in this section, but have Footnotes and Bibliography subsections within the main References section. That means one can make multiple refs to the same book, though to different pages within it, in a way which doesn't lack clarity. I think it looks neater as well.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:10, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The alternative is to have a long list of blue superscripted numbers in the text, which I think looks ugly and distracting. DDStretch, I too prefer separate notes and bibliography subsections, within the main References section, for exactly the same reason, it becomes possible to give page numbers. Something that more and more reviewers are starting to insist on, and mandatory at FA. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
This is caused partly because the manual of style insists on having refs at the end of a sentence. If the refs are put within a sentence at the right point, then you don't get this long list. Plus, you know exactly what is being ref'd at each point. Salinae (talk) 23:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
However, that said, I would rather have a long list of individual refs. There are a few reasons for this - reference reuse through named references; allows external programs to create databases of references; and, allows references to be easily inserted/deleted. Salinae (talk) 23:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
The advantage to the grouping system is precisely that you can group a bunch of references together under one name, and easily insert that group elsewhere. In the case of this article, the group isn't used again, but I would still argue that the grouping makes the article a little easier on the eyes. We're writing stuff that we hope will be read, so our priority ought to be for intereste of the readers, not the editors. I wouldn't fight you over it though. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:06, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "... a book about Roman Middlewich was written by the consultant archaeologist ...". The consultant archaeologist for what?
Done Salinae (talk) 23:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "... it is estimated to bring in an extra 30,000 visitors to the town during the festival period, along with 400 narrowboats." That's going to need a reference. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:25, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Done Salinae (talk) 23:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I think there needs to be more consistency in the way the references are given: at the moment, some give authors' first names in full, whilst others give initials only; similarly, some give initials before the surname and others give them after (I know some styles treat first authors differently from later authors in this matter, but I'm not mixing these up in with this point); and finally, the order in which the various fields of a reference are given varies (e.g., author, year of publication, title, etc). This really needs some attention to give a more consistent and even a more professional look to the article. I personally don't care for the author templates (I like to do them by hand), but using them would certainly give a standard feel to the relevant sections (including the "Extra Reading" section.) There are other issues of reference consistency I haven't mentioned.  DDStretch  (talk) 19:37, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Using the {{cite book}} or {{cite journal}} solves the consistency problem. The thing I'd like to see more consistency with is in the footnotes, where some editors give the book title (Potts, A History of Witchcraft, p. 137) and others give the publication year (Potts (2007), p. 137). My slight preference is for the title over the year.
Specifically with this article though, I'm not keen on seeing in the Further reading sectons books that have been cited in the article. Further reading should be for additional sources that were not used in the writing of the article I think. And having looked at that section again more closely, I notice that at least one of the book titles doesn't match what's given in the References section. I think your point about the layout is an important one that we ought to address. First impressions matter. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:07, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I think we should stick to using the templates though, rather than handcrafting them. The reason for this is so that the reference data can be easily loaded into an external database using the templates, and because the markup is already there its possible to change the templates to get the look and feel you want. Salinae (talk) 23:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree, templates should be used, but I don't think they were being used in the best way in this article. I think that moving the {{cite book}} templates to the new Bibliography subsection gives a much cleaner result. And one that allows for a response to the almost inevitable objection that specific page numbers need to be referenced, not just the book. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "Middlewich lies on a railway branch line between Sandbach and Northwich, but the local station – opened in 1868 and closed to passenger traffic in 1959 – has been demolished." Can we say what the closest railways station(s) to Middlewich are now? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Using a combination of streetmap to get a rough centre to Middlewich in terms of a postcode (CW10 9BH), and then plugging this into http://www.upmystreet.co.uk, yielded on this page the answer Winsford railway station at 2.25 miles. It also gives some distances for other nearest transport types. A useful trick which I've used before, as one can use the web address as a web-reference to provide verification for the claim.  DDStretch  (talk) 01:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
(Further comment) One can also just use the name "Middlewich" in the upmystreet site, which yields the distance 2.22 miles for Winsford railway station.  DDStretch  (talk) 02:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
A useful tip, thanks. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
It would be good if someone could add something about bus services to the Transport section as well. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thunderbirds are go?

I think we're just about ready to put this article forwards for GA. It's stable and I think it pretty much now meets the GA criteria. There would be a lot more work needed to get it to FA I think, but that wasn't our goal. I've still got some slight reservations about the Economy and Communal facilities sections - in the first case there isn't very much of it, and in the second there are too many short paragraphs. But I won't be the reviewer, so my opinion doesn't matter, and I think that we can probably deal any potential issues there pretty quickly anyway.

So unless anyone objects, I would suggest that Salinae nominates this article for GA again. And may God have mercy on our souls. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Did one change to the Religion section. It seemed a bit strange that the parish church - "the one building, in a depressing town, which is mellow and dignified" as described by Richards - didn't get a mention!
I've now nominated it for GA again! Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and severe amounts of editing that have been done in the last few days, particularly Malleus Fatuorum and  DDStretch . Salinae (talk) 23:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Yay! Game on! --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox image

Resolved.

Hello,

Any chance of reducing the infobox image to 240px to bring the infobox inline with the rest of the UK? Also, I'd be inclined to include a caption on the image's content, say like Glodwick, Chester, Manchester, Wormshill etc. I think this would help, -- Jza84 · (talk) 18:03, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I think I may have done it. Feel free to mprove upon it if it isn't as good as it could be.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Great stuff! -- Jza84 · (talk) 20:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I've changed the title of the picture to reflect the view (I'd originally captioned the picture for the History of salt in Middlewich page. Salinae (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

From the perspective of the writing, prose, and manual of style, this article is very good and overall meets the GA criteria. I think the lead section provides a reasonable summary of the article, although it would be nice if a brief description of "wich town" could be added, so that readers not familiar with the terminology don't have to click on the link to understand it. The history section is well written and informative, though a citation would be nice for the 1980s development information.

In the geography section, two things. First, it would be good to begin the section with, "Middlewich is located at ____." Use the {{coor dms}} template to provide the exact coordinates, and link them to google maps. While the link is at the top of the page, it would be good to have an additional reference to this in this section, to give the reader a more specific frame of reference right there. Second, many city articles also have a table with monthly high/low temperatures, as well as monthly precipitation figures. It might be good to add this, which would make the section a little bit longer and give the article a bit more depth.

Several sections could use more text in them. Some of this could be accomplished by merging (merge 'demography' with 'religion', since they're somewhat related; maybe have a subsection within demography for the religion stuff, but the two should definitely be closer together). Other sections, like 'Economy', are just really short. Maybe this is just a small town, so the economy section won't have much, but I would think more can be said that just a few sentences. 'Culture' might be merged with 'Places of interest' (again, a subsection?).

  • I've added a bit about tourism to the Economy section. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Possibly demote that 'transport' section. It doesn't seem quite as important as culture, and I usually see this section closer to the end, nearby 'education', as well as 'government' or 'governance'.

  • I've moved the Transport section to be consistent with the WP:UKCITIES guidelines. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:49, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Merged the Culture and Community facilities sections into a new Culture and community section. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

You might want to put the part about the libraries into the education section, and expand the discussion on parks and sporting activities, putting it into a section called 'parks and outdoor recreation'. If the town is more of a smaller town, there's probably more outdoor activities, hiking trails, and parks that could be discussed here. The hospital information could be moved into an infrastructure section; maybe talk about other infrastructure info there, too (electricity generation, water sources, etc).

  • There's not much that can be done with this, Leighton Hospital is simply the closest Hospital to Middlewich, so it's not really part of some local infrastructure. Similarly for electricity (National Grid (UK)). I'll add something about the water and sewage company being United Utilities. Salinae (talk) 23:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Other than these issues, the article is in good shape. I'll put this on hold for one week for now. Dr. Cash (talk) 16:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The article is very close to GA, but the order of sections is still troublesome, as it puts information in very odd places where they are not related to each other. Demographics & Religion should be close together, as they are related. Culture and community should be promoted, probably right after demographics/religion. Landmarks should probably appear close to the culture section. Governance, Education, and Transport are all not as important as the other sections and should appear near the end in the order of sections. Although I do see that WP:UKCITIES does have governance near the top, right after history, so I could accept that. But the other sections need to be reordered so that their content and topic areas flow better within the article and actually make sense. Dr. Cash (talk) 14:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Religion renamed to Religious sites, and the demographic information it contained moved to the Demography section. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Culture and community moved as suggested. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I believe that the ordering of sections is sensible now, while still remaining consistent with the WP:UKCITIES guidelines. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The article meets GA criteria, and will be promoted. Good work! Dr. Cash (talk) 14:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Additional sources

Not sure these have been spotted before, but there is this and this from Vision of Britain and this and this from British History Online which could be utilised here as source material. I'm specifically thinking of a "historic population" table in Demography (see Stretford) and expansion of material under Geography (like that of Oldham#Geography). Hope this helps guys! --Jza84 |  Talk  04:03, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I went back to a very early version of the page to find the data that went into the SVG graph. It was as follows

Population growth in Middlewich since 1801
Year 1801 1851 1901 1951 1970 1991 2001
Population 1,190 1,235 4,669 6,736 7,500 10,098 13,170

Theres a good agreement with the Vision of Britain data see below (apart from 1970/1971 which is probably a rounding). The data prior to 1851 comes from [1]

Population growth in Middlewich since 1891
Year 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1939 1951 1961 1971
Population 3,706 4,669 4,909 5,115 5,458 6,390 6,736 6,863 7,853

Personally I prefer the graph to a table, however I don't really want to put the extra data in the SVG file (which you need to hand edit). Salinae (talk) 23:21, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't spot that you were doing this, so I added a new population growth table based on the data I found; I'll add in your earlier data. We could pretty easily get Excel to produce a new graph if we wanted to keep both though (I don't see any reason why we shouldn't) couldn't we? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
You can do it in Excel (originally it was) but it was tagged as an image that should be in SVG format - hence the new version. I'll see if I can patch the new data into the SVG and update it. Even if we only use the table, the image should be consistent. Salinae (talk) 07:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Added data to picture, merged into table. Salinae (talk) 07:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Middlewich cemetery

http://www.ukwilduk.co.uk/ was added and then removed as vandalism. I'm not so sure though, since http://www.ukwilduk.co.uk/Middlewich%20Cemetery.html is actually a link to the burial records for Middlewich cemetery. If it belongs in Wikipedia is another matter.... Salinae (talk) 21:40, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The link isn't vandalism, but it is spam - a link to a wildlife shop. The problem with the burial records is that the page you mention isn't a link to burial records, it's a copy of the burial records. But is it an accurate copy, or completely invented? Who knows. So that one fails on on the criteria of reliable sources and wikipedia is not a directory. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I removed it, because no attempt was made to justify its inclusion, and I gave some detailed advice to the person who added it if they wished to re-include it. I did press the wrong button on twinkle when I deleted it, and so it got counted as vandalism, but I agree with Malleus that in the form it was added, it was linkspam, whose reliability is not known and no justification was offered for its inclusion. (So calling it vandalism is an error, for which I apologise.)  DDStretch  (talk) 23:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to get some boundaries of what would be acceptable - for example I understand that Middlewich Heritage Society are re-doing this work in a more complete fashion (I looked at the ukwilduk records yesterday and there's 30 years missing in some cases). From what's been said I presume that that would be an acceptable link when complete? Salinae (talk) 11:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The link has been added again by the anonymous IP user without any other comment. I would remove it as linkspam, but perhaps others should take the initiative now?  DDStretch  (talk) 12:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 12:47, 30 April 2008 (UTC)