Talk:Bonville–Courtenay feud/GA2

GA Review
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Reviewer: Adam Cuerden (talk · contribs) 21:43, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

This article has all the elements of a strong, well-researched article there, but it needs some minor expansion to give context.

Background
You don't need to cite every source for authority; that's what footnotes are for. The quote from Mrs. Radford seems like a lot of setup to state a simple concept that, paraphrased and footnoted, would be easier to absorb, as it'd highlight the important point, instead of the sourcing.

"In 2003, Martin Cherry suggested that although the south west was indeed to a great degree lawless, this was not confined to just the more well known violence of Thomas, Earl of Devon, but was common throughout the century." - this needs context. Thomas has neither been mentioned or linked. The easiest way to resolve it is to move it to later in the article, after Thomas has been discussed at some length.

Also, see "Local politics" below; the structure is horribly mangled here by not putting relevant facts together.
 * I re-wrote it and mentioned Thomas previously, so on a par with Bonvile as beng leading players? O Fortuna!  ...Imperatrix mundi.  18:35, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Better. Probably not necessary to attribute the opinion unless it's not mainstream, though. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

National context
Given it says at the top "Wars of the Roses" as the main article, setting things up to make it clear it's not the more famous of the wars would be very helpful, indeed, necessary. Richard of York and Richard III need to be explicitly declared to be different people, e.g. ("Richard of York, who [was/would be] the father of [[Richard III]"). You're writing for a general audience, one who likely will know something about the later War of the Roses, but probably not the lead-in, and when the names are very similar between the incident being described and the more famous incident, clarity is vital.
 * Think I've provided more context- who York was, claims to throne etc? O Fortuna!  ...Imperatrix mundi.  18:37, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

'''Link to the biographies. Of everyone'''. They have articles; wikilinking is necessary.
 * Check. O Fortuna!  ...Imperatrix mundi.  18:37, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

The section from "However, more recently, Martin Cherry warned against seeing the feud"... to the start of the "Local politics" section should probably be covered in Wars of the Roses, not here. Scholarly disputes are important, but keep to the relevant ones. With rewrites, some of it might be useful for the abovementioned need to distinguish the incidents described from the main Wars of the Roses, but most of it should be cut and moved to the more appropriate article.
 * Right. The problem is: The Wars of the Roses is actually a pretty sloppy article, and with no mention of local feuds being a cause of the wars, there's no real place to put this material without a major rewite- and even then it'd probably be WP:UNDUE- and would defintely be so at the moment! -is my reading, anyway. O Fortuna!  ...Imperatrix mundi.  18:41, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Local politics
This text from the start of "Background", e.g. The rivalry between the Courtney family, who had been earls of Devon since 1335[2] and Sir William Bonville, 1st Baron Bonville in the south west was inextricably linked to the national political scene, but was also rooted in regional Devon society. is the key context for the first sentence here, but has been separated from it by scholarly disputes and a large section on National context. You need to either revise the order you present the material, or repeat the material. I'd suggest this article has structural flaws that can be readily be fixed by a more sensible arrangement. Facts that build on each other need, as much as possible, to go together.


 * "Devon was a marital cousin to the former" is ambiguous. I presume you mean Henry VI?

Well, enough specific details. The long story short is this needs a couple cycles of taking the preexisting good work, and polishing it up. Getting someone independent to do so is the best way; try asking at WP:MILHIST.

There's a lot of excellent research in here, but it's left down by poor structure, contextualizing, and excessive quotation and citing of authority. You can get away with - and, indeed are encouraged to do - some of these kind of things in scholarly articles, where the people reading probably know the background, so can smooth over any issues with what should be a coherent paragraph being interrupted by intervening information, and where the authorities mentioned are likely to be known by the very specialised readers. But Wikipedia is for a general audience, and thus, while it certainly has a lot of good points, at the moment, I'm leaning fail. I'll give it a bit of time to see if it can be improved on some reasonable timescale, as GA is so slow that it's only fair. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:43, 5 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Adam Cuerden, Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, I was wondering how much was left to do on the current review since the edits began in the New Year; I also notice that a new editor has been contributing to the article over the past few days.
 * One issue that was not raised during the original review is the lead section of the article. Per the GA criteria, to become a GA, the article must adhere to a few areas of the Manual of Style, one of which is MOS:LEAD. Among other points, an article of this length should consist of two or three paragraphs, and the lead should include information from all major sections of the article. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:52, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Correct on all points, . O Fortuna!  ...Imperatrix mundi.  01:59, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * My thought is it still needs work - though it' certainly improved - but has enough potential that it's probably worth more time, as it's being worked on. I should be ramping back up my Wikipedia use this week. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:13, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Closing comment
Two months later, there has been no action by the reviewer. This is the oldest extant GA nomination, so it is being put back into the pool of nominations needing a review in the hopes that a new reviewer will take this up. Best of luck to Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, who has been waiting for over nine months. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:19, 16 March 2017 (UTC)