Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Caversham, New Zealand/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 promoted by Karanacs 21:05, 19 May 2009 [1].

Caversham, New Zealand[edit]

Nominator(s): Grutness...wha? 02:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it is an excellent example of a Wikipedia article, on a topic area not much covered by current FAs (an urban area in New Zealand), and one with some notable and unique features - among them a notable international sports venue and a unique historical academic survey. I feel a little reticent about describing it as "excellent" given that I have been the primary author on it, but hope that it isn't simply hubris on my part: two months ago, this was simply a redirect to Suburbs of Dunedin; today it is a 46k article (larger than many articles on entire New Zealand cities) - well written (I believe), thoroughly referenced (again, I believe), extensively augmented by pictures, templates, and map, and... well, just the sort of thing that an FA candidate should be. The article has undergone a peer review, and - in a talk page message with the leading reviewer (user:Finetooth) after that, he indicated that he thought that - with extra referencing - it was close to FA standard. There is now considerably more referencing than there was at that time. Grutness...wha? 02:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I highly recommend to check out the shortened footnote format and apply that style to the references in this article. Sasata (talk) 03:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Sigh. I had quite a few of them in that format, but it was suggested to me that the long form was better. To be honest, a lot of the footnoting protocols seem very convoluted (there are places where WP:CIT directly contradicts itself, which isn't helpful, either) - but that's by the by. Given that I've now had two piece of advice stating the opposite to each other, if you don't mind I'll wait to hear what others think about it one way or the other. If others also say the short form is better, then the short form it is. Grutness...wha? 06:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Finetooth dealt with it, so it's in short-format now. Grutness...wha? 02:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to see the reference format change! I'm leaning towards support, but wanted to first mention some minor issues I found with a reread:

The article looks like FA quality to me, so I will now Support Sasata (talk) 22:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • The lede is currently 5 paragraphs, including a short one of 3 sentences, and that finicky MOS states "As a general guideline, the lead should be no longer than four paragraphs." Might it be possible to incorporate that short paragraph into the others?
  • "known locally simply as "The Glen""
  • "It is occasionally simply referred to as "Hillside","
  • "It is occasionally simply referred to as "Hillside", after the house of the city's founding father Captain William Cargill which was located here,[7] overlooking "The Flat", as the plain stretching across to the Pacific coast was (and is still) locally known." Try reading this out loud and see if you agree that the sentence seems run-on.
  • "...who was largely responsible for the joining of the Kai Tahu and Kati Mamoe iwi." Passive voice, change "the joining of" to "joining"
  • "...the school was later a boys' home, and is now an adult training centre." What's an adult training center? Adult education?
  • "...including one species of Peripatus (velvet worm) believed to be endemic to the Dunedin area." If the worm is found in other areas (eg. Costa Rica), shouldn't it rather be called indigenous than endemic? (Also, as a genus name, it should be italicized)
  • "The multidisciplinary nature of the study has allowed for information of subjects ranging from urban planning to gender studies." Not sure what is meant by the phrase "allowed for information". The phrase "has allowed for" is then repeated in the next sentence.
  • "A small handful of shops..." Rather colloquial... how about just "A few"
  • "Other sporting associations with the suburb..." with -> within ?
  • "The workshops cover a total of 8 hectares..."
  • "Opened in 1883, the ground has a capacity of 35,000," I would use venue instead of ground, but this may just be a British English terminology, in which case never mind. Also, specify 35,000 people.
  • "...this church has a severe Classical style" is "severe" the best adjective to use?
  • "This building, which was constructed in 1893,"
  • "Architect Edmund Anscombe was a Caversham resident,[80]" comma->period
I've changed most of these, though there's a few where the changes would not be useful:
  • An adult training centre is an adult training centre. That's the only term I've ever heard used for one, and that's what its website refers to it as. I've linked it to adult education, though that's not identical.
  • as explained below, this species of Peripatus is only found in the Dunedin area. It isn't found as far away as Christchurch, let alone Costa Rica. The genus may be found there, this particular species ain't.
This cryptic species has piqued my interest. Reference 13 (The Forest Reserve Document Plan) claims "The reserve provides a moist forest habitat for a new genus and species of invertebrate (Onychophora) apparently endemic to Dunedin City. This forest extends beyond the reserve boundaries, as does the invertebrate habitat. The reserve contains an unusually high density of the invertebrate." Unfortunately, it neglects to actually name the genus/species in question, and does not give a source for these statements, so is not really a good reference to use (IMO). Reference 14 (New England Entomologist 1996, 19:51) is also somewhat vague: describing one of "five distinct groups of viviparous New Zealand onychophorans", it goes on to say "Morphological examination suggests that a new genus exists in the Leith Valley and Caversham regions of Dunedin", then corroborates this statement with unpublished data. A bit more digging: [this] site has a photo (but doesn't give a name, just mentions that its ovoviviparous).
Ah, this paper probably has the answer. Unfortunately, I don't have web access to it, so I'll just post the relevant part from the abstract:

Trewick, S. A. (1999). Molecular diversity of Dunedin peripatus (Onychophora: Peripatopsidae). NZ J. Zool. 26:381–393. "The application of allozyme electrophoresis to New Zealand peripatus that were thought to belong to a single widespread species (Peripatoides novaezealandiae) has revealed several undetected species, including a taxon specific to Dunedin (southern South Island, New Zealand). However, almost nothing is known about the geographic range and variability of this species, nor indeed whether it comprises one or more cryptic taxa. ... Two principal groups with a boundary on the east coast of New Zealand near the mouth of the Taieri River can be defined, and these are denoted "Dunedin" and "Catlins" peripatus. There is a third, possibly distinct lineage at Piano Flat. A rearrangement of the mitochondrial genome, relating to the position of the tLEU ma gene, was detected in these and other New Zealand peripatus and may be present in all Onychophora." I'll let you decide how to use that info (or not) in the article. Sasata (talk) 22:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's a bit more on this creature in my reply to Gadfium further down this page. It's a recent discovery, and there are two schools of thought - either it's a subspecies of the NZ-only p. novaezealandiae or it's a distinct species onl,y so far found around Dunedin. Either way, it's endemic. The New Zealand Etym. link I provided has more information. Grutness...wha? 00:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Other sporting associations with the suburb..." "within?" - Definitely not! "Within' would be incorrect grammar, at least in NZ (you associate one thing with another, not within it). In any case, as pointed out, these connections are not all within the suburb - the football club, though named for Caversham (and therefore associated with it) is not located within the suburb.
Sorry, was reading "sporting association" like "sporting organizations", rather than the meaning you intended. Sasata (talk) 22:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, okay - that makes perfect sense. I've changed the word "associations" to "links", which is clearer. Grutness...wha? 00:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Ground" would definitely be the local usage in this sentence rather than venue.
Other than these quibbles, though, all the suggested changes have been made. Grutness...wha? 21:00, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I like what I've read though the section on Notable people needs some meat to expand as to why the people notable, like I did with Grimmett just adding Wisden cricketer of the year 1931, who is Architect Edmund Anscombe I know its linked but a link one or two of his works would just explain for a passing reader, I also reworded the open sentence to improve the flow which I originally found difficult to read. Visually the string of images down the right side especially with the common theme of street scenes is distracting, maybe reduce the number or even add a persons image in the notable people to break it up, consider if the building images can be linked to Anscombe or Thomson just to tie them in beyond decorations Gnangarra 11:15, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've expanded the notable people section to include more information, and added a photo of Grimmett and one of one of Anscombe's more notable buildings. Hopefully that will be enough to override the problem with the photos. Sadly none of the Caversham pictures are of buildings by Anscombe, or it would have been easier to tie one in as you suggested, but in most cases the pictures do relate directly to the text. It is beginning to get overloaded with images, though - if necessary losing one of the church pictures or the view down Caversham Valley Road would seem reasonable. Grutness...wha? 01:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
support the articles promotion .... <thoughts only> Looking at the photo choices with the lookout point sumit image I'd replace with File:DunedinfromLookoutPt.jpg which is in the transportation section, ah ok just noticed all the photos you have provided are hosted here suggest that they be on Wikimedia Commons then you can have a lot more photographs etc in a {{Commons category}} link. I'd also drop the statehighway 1 image, along with lisburn house and with the economy section I'd drop the town centre/hillside road and move the ropewalk there. </thoughts only> Photo choices are difficult because everyone sees things differently I'd still support promotion of the article anyway. I'm presuming the place is close to home for you given the number of and location choices for photographs, if thats the case then maybe some different compositional images are possible where by you can combine subjects like having a street view with multiple churches in it or the town centre and a church. There is one church I think is an important image(not in there) and thats the South Dunedin Wesley Methodist Church since its under threat of demolition, from personal experience I'm kicking myself for not photographing a historical house(already fire damaged) near here before they commenced developement near it as the buildings were severly damage by the earth works with two of the main walls and three of the sheds in the complex collapsing, once a building is gone its gone theres no way to photograph it. In short decide how many photographs are really necessary for the article, then decide what you want to have photos of. There's 15 photographs in the article excluding the map, 1 for the notsble people(Grimmette rather than the dunedin building) I suggest reducing the number by about 4-6 thats leaves the article with 8-10 photos enough to break the text up but not enough to crowd the image. Gnangarra 02:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've reduced the number of images by three, taking out the Anscombe building, the SH1 one and one of the churches, and swapping the Lookout Point ones at the top and bottom of the article. I think the Lisburn House one is quite important - it really is Caversham's best-known building. That leaves 12 photos and the map, which is hopefully not so many as to be disruptive. Yes, I'm a local (I live 2.5 km away in St Clair) - problem is we're in the middle of some pretty lousy early winter weather, so getting good looking photos of anywhere at the moment might be a problem. I take your point about the threatened church, though. Also, it would be difficult to get photos which show several of the things together (the Baptist Church and school gate, maybe, but that would be about it). Grutness...wha? 06:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. As to the short vs long footnote issue, I've noted that most city/state/region/country articles use the long format. I slightly prefer the short but it's a matter of taste, either is correct (as long as you're consistent). You can even combine the two into one, give the long form for the first instance of a book, then a shortened for for all subsequent refs (as long as you give page numbers, it's good). Ealdgyth - Talk 17:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would have thought that VicDir was a reliable enough source, but if not, I shall hunt down another. As to the trains.wellington reference, all the necessary info cited there is also in the following (Otago Witness) reference, so it can refer to both quite happily. As far as I can tell, other editors have fixed up the italics problem. As for Caversham FC, the *&^%*s have revamped their website in the last month and the history section has now gone. I'll have to find another reference... Grutness...wha? 01:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've found a reference that works pretty nearly as well for the Caversham football club. That only leaves the VicDir one to replace... I'll deal with that later when I have a bit more time. Grutness...wha? 01:30, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Realised the AA atlas works just as well as the VicDir source, so used that reference again. Grutness...wha? 02:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Hyland one's fixed, too. They didn't make it easy to find the name - I had to work backwards from the authors. The two authors are the leading members of the Old Caversham Rail Tunnel Preservation Group, and they are the publishers of the site. Grutness...wha? 01:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Caversham Primary School, located at the corner of South Road and Surrey Street." Is this a case of part of a sentence being inadvertently deleted? Dabomb87 (talk) 01:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More a case of this bit being left behind when some copyediting was done - I've reworded that paragraph so that this is no longer a sentence fragment. Grutness...wha? 02:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: I think this article is generally excellent and is very close to meeting the criteria, and I'm leaning toward support. However, the lead needs to be expanded to become a true summary of the whole article, and I have some other small concerns. In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I reviewed this article twice before, once on 19 March 2009 and again on 18 April 2009. The second review was not done as part of the formal peer-review process but appears here: Talk:Caversham, New Zealand#Second peer review. User:Grutness has improved the article considerably since then, and these new suggestions are about things that I did not see or did not think to mention on either of the first two sweeps.

  • Lead: The existing lead is awfully thin. I would suggest adding at least a brief mention of governance, demographics, education, the economy, landmarks, and notable people.
  • Caversham Project: I'd consider merging the whole section into a single paragraph. The two one-sentence orphans look a little odd to me.
  • Governance: "Its current MP is Clare Curran (Labour)." - Suggestion: Its MP as of 2009 is Clare Curran (Labour).
  • Demographics: "The left-leaning politics of the area is still reflected to some extent in local political views (the Dunedin South electorate, of which Caversham is a part, tends to return New Zealand Labour Party Members of Parliament and support this and other left-of-centre parties)." - Since the parenthetical words form a complete sentence, I think the punctuation should look like this: "The left-leaning politics of the area is still reflected to some extent in local political views. (The Dunedin South electorate, of which Caversham is a part, tends to return New Zealand Labour Party Members of Parliament and support this and other left-of-centre parties.)"
  • "A large proportion of the suburb's houses are small, with 39% being either one- or two-bedroom dwellings." - I'd suggest revising this to eliminate the "with plus -ing" construction. Here's a possibility: "A large proportion of the suburb's houses, 39% of which have either one or two bedrooms, are small."
  • "In 1889, Mark Cohen had been a major figure behind the founding of New Zealand's first kindergarten." - "Was" instead of "had been"?
  • I'd suggest merging the two one-sentence orphan paragraphs at the end of this section.
  • Landmarks: "The most impressive private residence in Caversham is Lisburn House... " - The "most impressive" claim needs a source. Since the source for the next sentence says, "Lisburn House is one of the finest townhouses of the 1860s in New Zealand", you could tweak the "most impressive" sentence a bit and cite this same source.
  • "Unusual among Dunedin buildings, this church has a severe Classical style, with its brickwork augmented by pediments and square columns." - Wikilink pediments?
  • References: Some of the citations end with "retrieved on" and some with "Retrieved on". Capital "R" is standard.
  • The linked publication dates in the citations should be unlinked.
  • I agree with User:Sasata that a shortened footnote form would make the citations more cleanly readable. It would be no big deal to move the Alma Rutherford bibliographic data, for example, to a "Works cited" section and then to substitute "Rutherford, pp. X–Y" in place of the long refs. I'd be happy to make the changes myself if User:Grutness agrees. Finetooth (talk) 04:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for all that - I'll tackle these when I get time (hopefully this weekend. Some comments on each of your points:
  • Lead - agreed. Will tackle that.
  • √Caversham Project: I've reformatted it slightly, turning it into two paragraphs rather than the previous three. One paragraph is a little thin for a separate section.
  • √Governance - yup - should be "as of 2009". Done.
  • √Demographics - I've split it into two sentences - and removed the parentheses, which now seem redundant
  • √Housing - I've changed it to "Many residents of Caversham are still of relatively low socio-economic status when compared to those in surrounding hill suburbs. A 2007 Dunedin City Council report indicated that a high proportion (39%) of the suburb's houses were one- or two-bedroom dwellings."
  • Both "was" and "had been" work, with slightly different emphasis. I used "had been" since it referred t a time before the events mentioned in the previous sentence. I can change it to "was" if you prefer, though.
  • Lisburn House - will look for a reference, if not, combining the sentences seems reasonable.
  • √Pediments, yup. Done.
  • "Retrieved on..." is a mess because WP:CIT does them that way. There, the general idea seems to be that those following an article and publication name use ". Retrieved..." and those following an article name alone use ", retrieved..." If this is not the case, I'll tidy up the article, but I'd recommend that the templates at WP:CIT are similarly tidied.
I think I see what has happened. At the top of WP:CIT, you'll find an explanation of the various families of citation templates. They vary somewhat in the way they format elements, and they can't be mixed in the same article. The "cite" family uses full stops between elements and therefore a capital "R" at the beginning of the final element. You haven't used templates, but you still have to choose a format and stick with it. Finetooth (talk) 17:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Linked publication dates - again, this follows WP:CIT, which appears to be in need of a total overhaul.
Alas, some of the full dates in WP:CIT are autoformatted, as you say. I would delink them now, but I don't want to risk violating a temporary arbitration committee injunction against mass date delinking. However, you will not be violating the injunction by delinking the dates in the Caversham article. Finetooth (talk) 17:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've no objection to you changing the footnote style - one of the other editors of the article has also offered help with that - either of you could do the job probably molre effectively than me, so feel free to go for it (and thanks!)
I've ticked the ones I've dealt with. As I said, I should have time to tackle the rest over the weekend, though sadly probably not until then. Grutness...wha? 05:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I re-arranged the citations along the lines suggested by User:Sasata. While I was doing that, I fixed the "R" problem and unlinked the linked dates except those that are parts of book or article titles. I'm striking the finished things to make it easier to see what's left to do. Finetooth (talk) 00:08, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for all that help. You're right that i was fooled by the layout of WP:CIT, though i still feel it could explain things a bit more clearly. I've fixed the two stray sentences in the education system that I failed to notice the mention of above, BTW, and changed the Cohen sentence to use a "was". That just leaves the lede and the Lisburn House comments to do at the weekend. Grutness...wha? 01:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've tweaked the Lisburn House information as you suggested, and also added in a little more info on it from another source. That just leaves the lede. Grutness...wha? 07:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
...and I've rewritten the lede, thoroughly extending it. I'm not totally happy with it (it feels a little too long but also very "bullet-pointy"), but it's far better than it was. Grutness...wha? 02:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Thank you for responding quickly to all of my suggestions, especially for re-working the lede. I believe the article meets all the criteria. If I ever visit Cavendish, I'll be sure to seek out the Lisburn House. Finetooth (talk) 01:44, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Any time - and thanks for all the help (Caversham, BTW ;) Grutness...wha? 02:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: The ref given for the Peripatus (velvet worm) only names the phylum and not the genus. Could you find a more specific reference please. Also, I'm a bit confused by it being called endemic, since the genus also exists in other places. Presumably the species is endemic to Dunedin.-gadfium 03:01, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love to be able to give you details of its species name, but the scientists can't agree themselves yet - but yes, it should read species, not genus. Some seem to claim it's a subspecies of peripatoides novaezealandiae, others say it's a completely separate species. It has only been found in Caversham and the Leith Valley, some 10 km to the north, and is definitely endemic to the Dunedin area. Unfortunately most of the on-line resources relating to it are abstracts only, so using them as references isn't perfect... but I'll see what I can find. Grutness...wha? 04:09, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Grutness...wha? 04:21, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks. Now support this article becoming featured.-gadfium 05:02, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One image concern as follows:

  • File:Clarrie Grimmett.JPG: this image is missing information by which its details (year taken, under which country's copyright laws) can be verified. Regardless, it appears that Getty Images claims copyright on it (which might be true).[2] Note: cricinfo's other photos are not recommended for use either (those by the Cricketer International would have to abide UK laws). Might I recommend you use File:Grimmett1937.jpg instead? It is verifiably PD-Australia and should be PD-US as well by virtue of non-publishing under US copyrights during 1923–77 and compliant with URAA. Jappalang (talk) 10:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other Images are verifiably licensed for free usage. Jappalang (talk) 10:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. That other picture was listed as PD when I added it to the article, honest guv... :) Grutness...wha? 12:09, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. In view of the discussion at [3], please add pronunciation info for "Caversham". (I'll help you with the IPA if you want.) +Angr 17:30, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Done, thanks to the article on Faversham :) Grutness...wha? 19:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, the problem is that Faversham doesn't use the style recommended at WP:IPA for English, which is to show /r/ sounds wherever rhotic speakers, and allow non-rhotic speakers to simply ignore them as necessary. Thus I'd use //ˈkævərʃəm//,/ˈkævərʃəm/, because rhotic speakers would have an /r/ sound in there. (Yes, I know New Zealand English is non-rhotic, but that doesn't mean New Zealnders are the only people to ever pronounce the name.) Also, showing the stress is a good idea; pronouncing dictionaries and encyclopedias pretty much always do that. +Angr 12:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I've changed it to your suggestion. Actually, in the far south of New Zealand there is a slight rhotic tendency due to the Scottish origins of many of the early settlers (it's called the "Southland burr" or "Southland R"). Less common as far north as Dunedin, but still acceptable. Grutness...wha? 23:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Great! I've removed the unnecessary slashes both in the article and here. (The tag {{IPA-en}} adds them automatically.) +Angr 10:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • Thanks for that - and for your help and suggestions in general. Grutness...wha? 10:28, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another comment. File:CavershamDnNZ.jpg seems pretty low-quality (JPEG is really disfavored for maps). Wouldn't it be better to use {{Location map New Zealand}}? +Angr 19:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unfortunately, no it wouldn't. {{Location map New Zealand}} wouldn't show its location within Dunedin, and all Dunedin suburbs use the same basic image as File:CavershamDnNZ.jpg. If you can find a better base image to use and can convert all the Dunedin suburb maps, fine - if not, it the alternative suggested would reduce both the amount of information and the uniformity of the Dunedin suburban article maps. As a compromise solution, I've created a new, larger, slightly clearer version of the file in png format - I hope that will be acceptable. Grutness...wha? 19:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, the png looks a bit better, and I can see that consistency is important. +Angr 12:41, 17 May 2009 (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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