Talk:1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, 1860/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Canadian Paul (talk · contribs) 13:31, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing this article in the near future, hopefully later today. There don't seem to be any disambiguation links, external link issues, or any reason to quick-fail, so I should be good to go! Canadian Paul 13:31, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Excellent! Be as tough as you like: I'd like to have a shot at FAC with this in due course so the more things you can point to that need improvement now, the better (if that's not asking too much). It may interest you that Boden Professor of Sanskrit is currently being appraised at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Boden Professor of Sanskrit/archive1; I think I've applied The Rambling Man's suggestions here, but others may emerge before you finish this review (or, indeed, you may wish to comment there...). Thanks in anticipation, Bencherlite^Talk 14:21, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Damn, the one time a nominator gives me free reign to be nitpicky and it happens to be the best article I've reviewed since T206 Honus Wagner. I took a look at the professorships's FAC and, while I could never be as thorough as the great TRM, I'll give it a shot.

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

So obviously this meets (and far exceeds) the criteria for GA status, but here are some, arguably completely based on personal opinion, things that came up as I was reading.

1. Under "Background", first paragraph "An editorial in The Times" - it might be helpful here to add a quick descriptor here, even with the Wikilink (ie. An editorial in the British national newspaper The Times"
2. By the time I got to the "Candidates" section, I had forgotten when these men were seeking the chair (yeah, yeah, I know, it's in the title of the article). It may be helpful to add "in 1860" to "Although five men indicated their intent to seek the chair" to clarify that all these individuals were seeking the chair at that particular time (as opposed to say, something silly like five men contested it ever); although I probably would never recommend a change like that personally, it's certainly not beyond the type of request a FAC could ask.
3. Another completely subjective opinion, but under "Candidates", second paragraph, piping university press could arguably fall afoul of WP:EASTEREGG. Again, I'm not sure if there's a better way to address this, but thought I'd bring it up as not being beyond the reach of FAC.
4. Same paragraph, "He became Taylorian Professor of Modern European Languages", especially since the pipe has hidden the reference to Oxford University, it's not immediately obvious where this professorship is based.
5. Same paragraph, final sentence, personally I feel that a simple comma would be better than a colon in this instance, as I find the colon a bit jarring to the flow; even if what is there is technically correct, I would still use "[...]in 1858, which was 'an [...]", or even without the "which was" works as well and makes the flow of ideas more smooth.
6. Under "Rival Campaigns", second paragraph, "He claimed that his approach to Sanskrit scholarship" - should probably be "his own" to clarify the pronoun use.
7. Same paragraph, right at the end, "which dealt with texts no longer relevant to modern Hindus and study of which could therefore no longer..." Personally I think "which dealt with texts no longer relevant to modern Hindus and of which study could therefore no longer..." works better
8. If available, under the final paragraph of "Rival campaigns", it would be interesting to know how many helpers Müller had, since you mention an exact number for Williams. It would also be interesting to know what exactly Williams spent that much money on (again, if that information is available)
9. Make sure that all direct quotations have a citation immediately succeeding them, or at least at the end of the sentence. One that I noticed is in the first paragraph of "Supporters and newspapers": Both candidates claimed support from Wilson – "as if the principle of apostolic succession was involved in the appointment", says Chaudhuri.

Also, this isn't even a nitpick, since editors are free to choose whichever style they please in this regard, but there's a special place in hell for people who don't use the Oxford comma on articles about Oxford (and especially for those who use "However" at the beginning of a sentence), haha. Anyways, since the above are all nitpicky, subjective considerations, I'm going to go ahead and pass the article for GA status now. Congratulations and thank you for your excellent work! Good luck with FA (if you need it!). Canadian Paul 18:40, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

1. Done
2. Done
3. Reworded to avoid this point and the one below
4. As above
5. Done
6. Done
7. Reworded to avoid this
8. Haven't found these pieces of informationt but will bear it in mind
9. Oops! How did I miss that?! Added
10. Oxford commas added (to be fair, most of the quotes use it, I think, so it's consistent) and "However" removed from the start of one sentence - now it just remains in one of the block quotations from a long-dead professor!

Many thanks, Bencherlite^Talk 23:34, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Trains - unlikely route from Birkenhead

An express train that ran from Birkenhead to London via Liverpool and Manchester called additionally at Bletchley to allow onward connections to Oxford.

Please could somebody with a subscription verify this. At the time, there was no tunnel under the Mersey, and no means for a train to reach Liverpool from Birkenhead, other than by taking a long detour via Chester, Warrington and Earlestown. Trains from Liverpool to London did not run via Manchester until 1899 (and when they did, they did not run via Bletchley), and trains from Birkenhead to London have never run via Manchester. At the time, they ran Birkenhead - Chester - Crewe - Rugby - Bletchley - London Euston. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:18, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I think I understand better now. The paper says "the express train which leaves Birkenhead at 8.20am, Liverpool at 9am and Manchester at 9.20am will, on Friday, Dec 7, stop at Bletchley, to enable passengers from the north to reach Oxford at 3.10pm". It then gives times for Birkenhead, Chester, Liverpool, Manchester and Stockport in one column, and Warrington, Crewe, Stafford, Rugby and Bletchley in the other. So it's probably one train formed by various trains joining together en route. I'll reword this. Good spot! Bencherlite^Talk 08:44, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks. I would think that the three portions would combine at Crewe. Another pointer to there being separate portions is "Liverpool at 9am and Manchester at 9.20am" - even in this day and age, 20 minutes for the 32 miles from Liverpool to Manchester (average speed 96 mph) is highly optimistic. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:59, 7 August 2013 (UTC)