Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Federation of Stoke-on-Trent/archive1

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

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 03:26, 27 May 2011 [1].

Federation of Stoke-on-Trent[edit]

Federation of Stoke-on-Trent (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): NtheP (talk) 18:35, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it meets the criteria. It has paased a GA review and has been peer reviewed and copyedited. I beleive that political historys like this subject are an under represented topic area on Wikipedia and this is my first attempt to redress this imbalance. NtheP (talk) 18:35, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • That map is quite hard to decipher even at full scale, never mind in the reduced size. Is there any way to make it clearer, bigger, or to highlight the relevant towns?
  • "county plan" or "County plan"? "federation" or "Federation"? Be consistent between captions and article text

Images licensing appears unproblematic. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:22, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Addressed the capitalisation. Regarding the map is this any better? NtheP (talk) 08:28, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, although it seems to disprove the "roughly in a north-south line" caption. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:56, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Swapped. Amended to "roughly in a north west to south east line" NtheP (talk) 13:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sources comments:

  • "Explanatory notes" are part of the text, and should not consist of uncited material
  • Short citations should be given by author or editor, not by the work's title (e.g. refs 1 to 7)
  • Links to parliamentary debates in Lords and Commons were not working when I checked
  • Newspaper references (18, 20, 21, 22 etc ) should give titles and page numbers
  • Ref 65 is incompletely formatted.

Otherwise refs and sources look OK. Brianboulton (talk) 20:27, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. After a second trip to the museum to look at the newspapers I think these are all addressed. I thought modern sub-editors were bad but some of these headlines are less than snappy! Hansard Millbank is down for me too, I keep getting 503 reported. NtheP (talk) 16:17, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hansard Millbank back on-line. NtheP (talk) 20:04, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk)

  • I'm starting through the article now, I'll give you my thoughts as I stumble across them. I don't think the name of the article is right, because most readers, and especially those who only see the page title, will assume there's something called a "Federation of Stoke-on-Trent", when you're actually talking about the history of the creation of the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent (and that's too many words, so that wouldn't work as a title either). Since you lowercased it, I'm assuming there's insufficient support for the title as a proper noun; you're saying that there's support for the word "federation" to describe this process. If so, IMO it doesn't matter whether most sources use "federation" for this formation process or not, if the readers don't understand the title by itself; it's not like you can add a footnote to the title and clear it up. Creation of Stoke-on-Trent or Federation of the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent might work; in the latter case, the lowercasing would clue in the reader that you're talking about a process rather than a thing. - Dank (push to talk) 20:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Federation of the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent works for me. As to whether its Federation or federation is an interesting one. If we put the unwritten The in front of the title as it's a singular event then proper noun and capitalisation is justified and certainly Bennett always capitalises it in The Old Wives Tale as do some of the newspaper headlines. Then again federation unqualied by of S-o-T is a common noun. Jenkins which is the primary reference to this process uses federation as does the original proposal in 1902. So its six of one and half a dozen of the other - as long as there is consistency in the article does it matter? As a side issue although the term federation was used throughout the proceedings and locally, in Stoke, is referred to as Federation, technically it wasn't a Federation but an amalgamation, but to call this article Amalgamation of the county borough of Stoke on Trent would fly against WP:COMMONNAME.
  • "The federation of Stoke-on-Trent refers to the events leading to ...": Since it's a descriptive title per WP:LEAD, the first bit shouldn't be bolded ... and LEAD says that the title "doesn't have to appear verbatim"; practice has generally been not to make it verbatim. If you're willing to change the title, let's massage the first sentence after that. - Dank (push to talk) 23:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • More than happy to revisit, no thoughts at the moment at what might be an improvement.
  • "Issues again arose over the financial settlement and discussions continued during the progress of the Federation Bill through Parliament.": "Issues arose" is a warning sign of imprecise language. Probably either more or less information would be better.
    • "Issues arose..." replace with "Again there was disagreement" ?
  • "Passed as law in December 1908, the act came into force on 31 March 1910.": "as law" might be redundant.
    • Agreed
  • "The idea of federation was never universally popular; disagreements between boroughs and heated debate in the town halls were common throughout the period.": Which period? Also, when you can't work a one-sentence paragraph into any other paragraph, it's sometimes better to drop it. - Dank (push to talk) 01:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think you're right, I've spent a lot of time wondering how to expand this sentence into a paragraph and on reflection your line is the better one.
  • I'll stop at the end of the lead section. Hope that was helpful. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 02:14, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Very helpful, thanks. Would welcome further discussion based on some of the above e.g. reworking the first sentence. NtheP (talk) 18:02, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm vaguely comfortable with BritEng, but not with copyediting articles that are about 20th century British government; it's just a matter of time before I demonstrate that there are things I don't know that every 5-year-old Brit knows. Hopefully someone else will jump in. - Dank (push to talk) 18:21, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Fair enough. How about turning the first sentence round to read "In 1910 the six Potteries towns of Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Fenton and Longton were amalgamated into the single county borough of Stoke-on-Trent, the events leading to this amalgamation are known as the federation of Stoke-on-Trent."? NtheP (talk) 22:28, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Holy shit. I can't believe this article has been at FAC for an entire month with only three reviews. Here are some comments on the article's prose:

    • Cryptic, thanks for the comments
  • "refers to the events leading to the 1910 amalgamation of the six Potteries towns" What is a Potteries town?
    • they're what the rest of the sentence described - a group of towns amalgamated into one larger town. The Potteries is a nickname for an area of England. I didn't link to The Potteries as this is a redirect to Stoke-on-Trent which is itself linked later in the sentence.
      • I think in this case it makes sense to link to the redirect, as it's possible that someone may write an article about the subject. Even if that doesn't happen, such a link is helpful in that it clarifies that "Potteries" is an area rather than an industry. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:30, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • linked
  • "this was the first union of its type and the only such event to take place until the latter part of the twentieth century." An exact date or even a decade would be more helpful than "the latter part of the twentieth century."
    • Decade inserted.
  • "the proposal was revised to one of uniting the six towns into one county borough." I like the following wording better: "the proposal was revised to suggest uniting the six towns into one county borough instead."
    • Aren't "proposal" and "suggest" a tautology?
      • I believe you're confusing the concepts of synonymy and tautology, but even so, I don't see why the use of synonyms is a bad thing here. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:30, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Not totally convinced but it's a minor point.
  • "the Hanley Market Act (53 Geo. 3 c.cxv)" Eh? I don't know what this notation means. At first glance, I thought a narcoleptic editor had just bashed their head against the keyboard and, upon waking, clicked "Save" without checking their work.
    • UK reference to the Act of Parliament. Same as, for example, National Security Act of 1947 (Pub. L. No. 235, 80 Cong., 61 Stat. 496, 50 U.S.C. ch.15) is the citation in the US. I suppose the first example of this referencing could be linked to Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom#Historical records?
  • "when a meeting in Hanley mooted" What does "mooted" mean?
  • "Apart from the establishment of the boards of commissioners in Hanley and Burslem, nothing further happened until the 1830s" Well now, I'm sure plenty of things happened in that time—just nothing that was relevant to the subject at hand.
    • Isn't is implicit that it's talking about the subject at hand? If you think it need to be more explicit then Ok but personally I think that is overkill.
      • How about replacing "nothing further happened" with "no further changes occurred"? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:30, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Agreed
  • There is a section titled County plan of 1888, which has a hatnote linking to Local Government Act 1888, and which mentions the Local Government Bill. Are these all names for the same thing, or are they different things?
    • The County Plan was the name given to a proposal to unite the six towns, that proposal was put forward to the UK Parliament as part of the Local Government Bill. When the bill was passed as a law it was called the Local Government Act 1888. The same nomenclature of bill -> Act is the same in the US, I believe.
  • "to set a higher general rate to be paid by the ratepayers of that town." Is "rate" the same thing as "tax" in this context?
    • Rates are a specific form of taxation based on property value. The term is linked in the lead section.
  • "Burslem council then withdraw from the scheme to be followed shortly afterwards by Stoke." I assume "withdraw" is supposed to be "withdrew"...?
    • yes, thanks.
  • "Faced by such strength of feeling," Um. What? I read this several times, always hoping that the words would magically transform into other words that didn't sound so bizarre. Sadly, the transformation never happened, and I grew very sad. What on Earth does this mean?
    • I'm not sure what there is to understand, "strength of feeling" isn't a uncommon English phrase. How would you describe deciding on a course of action when you are being opposed by a group with strongly held opposing opinions?
      • "Faced with such strong opposition" would be my first choice. In my 21 years of life as a native American English speaker, I have never heard the phrase "strength of feeling" used. I suspect that either I am a rock-dwelling nematode or the phrase is chiefly British.

--Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:07, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

        • It's probably a British thing. "faced by strong opposition" I can go with. NtheP (talk) 10:15, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article ends with a series of one- and two-sentence paragraphs. Can these be merged?
    • To some extent merged.
  • As a whole, the article seems to be entirely dedicated to describing the events that led up to the federation. Surely if this were an event of any consequence whatsoever, there would be some material written about it after the fact, yes? Somewhere there must exist some historical discussion of the positive or negative outcomes of the merger.
    • Interesting question but I'm not sure of it's relevance. That federation took place is historical fact as is the fact it was the first occurrance of its type. Whether it was a good idea or not isn't related to the event itself. By comparison there are a number of articles on Wikipedia about the history and government of New York City, none of them discuss whether consolidation in 1898 was a good thing or not, just that it happened and what has happened in NYC since. Perhaps there is room for expansion in Stoke-on-Trent#History or a new article on the History of Stoke-on-Trent since 1910 but I don't think this article is the place for it. NtheP (talk) 21:26, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This particular subject is just about as far away from the continent of things that I find interesting as is possible without venturing closer again. But, if you find these comments helpful, I may finish reviewing the article in a day or two. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:17, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the interest, I'd welcome more comments especially it's it's being viewed by someone with a vastly different perspective than mine. I do my best to write from a global aspect but inevitably being British is going to creep through. NtheP (talk) 16:39, 20 May 2011 (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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