This peer review discussion has been closed.
This article has just been expanded using several sources and the editors are wondering where to go next to get to FA status.
Thanks, Wrad ( talk) 21:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I just read the article for the first time, and I am impressed. I will start with a couple of trivial points that I couldn't fix myself.
At times I found the density of Welsh words distressing, because I have no idea how to pronounce them. I checked that Welsh (language) isn't even linked, although that alone probably wouldn't really solve the problem. Perhaps there is no solution.
But most importantly, this article is way too long. I am not an expert, but I have read some little bits of the Arthurian literature, some of them in Old French and Middle English, so I could be expected to have some patience. Yet because of the sheer mass of detail I had to force myself to keep reading. I think this article would be much better if it was reduced to about half its present size. It would be a shame to lose the details altogether, but the topic is so important that a couple more sub-articles shouldn't hurt. -- Hans Adler ( talk) 12:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Or perhaps many of the details could go to Arthurian legend. King Arthur and Arthurian legend could each have a section that summarises the other and presents the other as "main article" for the section. In this way it should be possible to tell two stories that support each other. -- Hans Adler ( talk) 20:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
If I were reviewing this for FAC/FAR/FARC or GAR, I'd read the body of the text first and then the lead. However, for peer review, I decided to read the lead first and add some initial comments without reading the rest of the article. So beware that I might raise completely different kinds of WP:LEAD issues after having read the rest. In praise of the lead, it is conveys a lot of information to the reader in an ideal format of three medium-sized (easy to digest) paragraphs. But I guess you don't want to hear the praise, but the criticism and constructive (I hope) suggestions! And there's a lot that I don't like! However, please remember that this is peer review and many of my suggestions will be wrong. Please don't automatically fix every issue I raise.
General comments. You'd be able to say a lot more in the same number of words if you didn't use so many adjectives: fabled, prominent, considerable, international, fierce, scarce, scattered, legendary, comprehensive, key, modern (2nd time), associated, numerous, magical, pivotal. Some of these adjectives are needed, but not all of them. There are also other redundant words and phrases, which I will detail below, but I suggest also reading this advice on eliminating redundancy.
The lead should be written in an encyclopedic tone, and one of my rules of thumb is "show, don't tell"; adjectives tend to tell rather than show. This is related to neutral point of view. Now I am sure that the article has a neutral point of view, but try to imagine a reader coming to the article with the reasonable attitude "there has to be some historical truth behind the legend". They would be discouraged from reading the article, and hence learning more about the historical evidence and debate, by the very first paragraph. This first paragraph is also bad style from another point of view: it starts to deconstruct the position that the legend might have been based on (an) historical figure(s) without actually presenting (constructing) that position first.
First sentence. This is supposed to define the subject of the article. It doesn't do this very well.
Rest of the lead. I hope these issues help more generally.
Geometry guy 20:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
You've done a nice job, but I expect the lead now needs a copyedit as it has become a bit choppy (lots of short sentences). This is partly because I like short sentences and you have followed my suggestions :-). Shortly after writing my review of the lead, I did read the rest of the article, and my immediate reaction was "OMG, this is LONG!" It was 105K at the time. You have done remarkable work shortening it to 70K through summary style and so on. Nevertheless, my thought at the time was that the lead needed expansion, and although I haven't reread the article, this may still be true. So, now that the lead has been trimmed of redundancy, is there more genuine information about the article/subject that can be added to it? I think this needs to be asked before embarking on any copyediting. Geometry guy 19:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Admission: I have contributed a lot of content to this article in its earlier versions, so I probably have some unexamined biased on this subject.
I hope these brief notes help you. (I'd write more, but my time for Wikipedia has been greatly reduced in the last few months, & what time I can offer is stolen from the time I need to devote to my daughter.) BTW, If you have questions about sources for some of the facts & opinions for this article, I do have immediate access to a number of the important books, both primary & secondary sources. -- llywrch ( talk) 05:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Since the comments so far are not being addressed, perhaps because Hrothgar hasn't edited since April, I may try to address some myself, hopefully with the help of the FA team, who have this article on their list. With work, I'm confident it's a surefire FA.
The good news is that, in my opinion, this is a remarkable article. I spent some time today checking the information in Ashe, Barber, Alcock, and Pryor, and it all pans out admirably. I must congratulate Hrothgar for the patient research and thorough detail this article contains. It really is a treasure.
The bad news is that, in my opinion, the article is much too long (over 105 kb: it took me far too long too read) and badly needs cutting down.
With such a detailed treatment, it would be a shame to cut a detail here, a sentence there, because this would lead to imbalance of detail. I therefore propose that the two sections: "Aspects of the legend" (containing the subsections "Weapons", "Family", and "Messianic return") and "Cultural and political influence" be entirely placed on other pages. The information is actually very valuable, and a mention of the main points can be left on this page, but it seems to me to be so detailed and particular as to be "main article" material (by which I mean "related article" material). Some of the listiness of "Modern legend" might also be moved, and the section tightened up, perhaps as the destination for elements of the "Cultural and political influence" section. These changes would shorten the page without seriously weakening it as an encyclopedia article, in my opinion.
qp10qp ( talk) 21:16, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reviews so far everyone! Wrad ( talk) 21:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Comments from Ealdgyth ( talk · contribs)
This peer review discussion has been closed.
This article has just been expanded using several sources and the editors are wondering where to go next to get to FA status.
Thanks, Wrad ( talk) 21:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I just read the article for the first time, and I am impressed. I will start with a couple of trivial points that I couldn't fix myself.
At times I found the density of Welsh words distressing, because I have no idea how to pronounce them. I checked that Welsh (language) isn't even linked, although that alone probably wouldn't really solve the problem. Perhaps there is no solution.
But most importantly, this article is way too long. I am not an expert, but I have read some little bits of the Arthurian literature, some of them in Old French and Middle English, so I could be expected to have some patience. Yet because of the sheer mass of detail I had to force myself to keep reading. I think this article would be much better if it was reduced to about half its present size. It would be a shame to lose the details altogether, but the topic is so important that a couple more sub-articles shouldn't hurt. -- Hans Adler ( talk) 12:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Or perhaps many of the details could go to Arthurian legend. King Arthur and Arthurian legend could each have a section that summarises the other and presents the other as "main article" for the section. In this way it should be possible to tell two stories that support each other. -- Hans Adler ( talk) 20:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
If I were reviewing this for FAC/FAR/FARC or GAR, I'd read the body of the text first and then the lead. However, for peer review, I decided to read the lead first and add some initial comments without reading the rest of the article. So beware that I might raise completely different kinds of WP:LEAD issues after having read the rest. In praise of the lead, it is conveys a lot of information to the reader in an ideal format of three medium-sized (easy to digest) paragraphs. But I guess you don't want to hear the praise, but the criticism and constructive (I hope) suggestions! And there's a lot that I don't like! However, please remember that this is peer review and many of my suggestions will be wrong. Please don't automatically fix every issue I raise.
General comments. You'd be able to say a lot more in the same number of words if you didn't use so many adjectives: fabled, prominent, considerable, international, fierce, scarce, scattered, legendary, comprehensive, key, modern (2nd time), associated, numerous, magical, pivotal. Some of these adjectives are needed, but not all of them. There are also other redundant words and phrases, which I will detail below, but I suggest also reading this advice on eliminating redundancy.
The lead should be written in an encyclopedic tone, and one of my rules of thumb is "show, don't tell"; adjectives tend to tell rather than show. This is related to neutral point of view. Now I am sure that the article has a neutral point of view, but try to imagine a reader coming to the article with the reasonable attitude "there has to be some historical truth behind the legend". They would be discouraged from reading the article, and hence learning more about the historical evidence and debate, by the very first paragraph. This first paragraph is also bad style from another point of view: it starts to deconstruct the position that the legend might have been based on (an) historical figure(s) without actually presenting (constructing) that position first.
First sentence. This is supposed to define the subject of the article. It doesn't do this very well.
Rest of the lead. I hope these issues help more generally.
Geometry guy 20:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
You've done a nice job, but I expect the lead now needs a copyedit as it has become a bit choppy (lots of short sentences). This is partly because I like short sentences and you have followed my suggestions :-). Shortly after writing my review of the lead, I did read the rest of the article, and my immediate reaction was "OMG, this is LONG!" It was 105K at the time. You have done remarkable work shortening it to 70K through summary style and so on. Nevertheless, my thought at the time was that the lead needed expansion, and although I haven't reread the article, this may still be true. So, now that the lead has been trimmed of redundancy, is there more genuine information about the article/subject that can be added to it? I think this needs to be asked before embarking on any copyediting. Geometry guy 19:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Admission: I have contributed a lot of content to this article in its earlier versions, so I probably have some unexamined biased on this subject.
I hope these brief notes help you. (I'd write more, but my time for Wikipedia has been greatly reduced in the last few months, & what time I can offer is stolen from the time I need to devote to my daughter.) BTW, If you have questions about sources for some of the facts & opinions for this article, I do have immediate access to a number of the important books, both primary & secondary sources. -- llywrch ( talk) 05:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Since the comments so far are not being addressed, perhaps because Hrothgar hasn't edited since April, I may try to address some myself, hopefully with the help of the FA team, who have this article on their list. With work, I'm confident it's a surefire FA.
The good news is that, in my opinion, this is a remarkable article. I spent some time today checking the information in Ashe, Barber, Alcock, and Pryor, and it all pans out admirably. I must congratulate Hrothgar for the patient research and thorough detail this article contains. It really is a treasure.
The bad news is that, in my opinion, the article is much too long (over 105 kb: it took me far too long too read) and badly needs cutting down.
With such a detailed treatment, it would be a shame to cut a detail here, a sentence there, because this would lead to imbalance of detail. I therefore propose that the two sections: "Aspects of the legend" (containing the subsections "Weapons", "Family", and "Messianic return") and "Cultural and political influence" be entirely placed on other pages. The information is actually very valuable, and a mention of the main points can be left on this page, but it seems to me to be so detailed and particular as to be "main article" material (by which I mean "related article" material). Some of the listiness of "Modern legend" might also be moved, and the section tightened up, perhaps as the destination for elements of the "Cultural and political influence" section. These changes would shorten the page without seriously weakening it as an encyclopedia article, in my opinion.
qp10qp ( talk) 21:16, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reviews so far everyone! Wrad ( talk) 21:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Comments from Ealdgyth ( talk · contribs)