Talk:Bristol Harbour/Archive 1

Bristol collaboration / featured article
(Continued from a conversation on user_talk pages)

I was thinking maybe Bristol Harbour might make an interesting featured page one day. --Joe D 21:43, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree that it would be nice to have some top quality articles on local topics, though I must confess that I got some books out of the library with this intent a couple of months ago then didn't get anywhere.


 * I will give Bristol Harbour a good long hard look over the next few days and kick off some discussion on the talk page. I take it the scope of the article is meant to be the Floating Harbour - i.e. from Totterdown to Hotwells, post-1803. If that is the case I think we should nevertheless make sure that the appropriate supporting information about the Cut, the Feeder, the docks pre-1800, Avonmouth, Portishead and Portbury and the railway lines and so on is all in place. Some of this will also feed back into the main article on Bristol, as the port was for so long inseparable from the town.


 * Have you read Derek Robinson's A Shocking History of Bristol? That has a chapter on some of the less glorious aspects of the way the port was run over the years. I have access to a few other books that may be useful, too. --rbrwr± 22:55, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid I haven't read any books about Bristol, I wrote this article from things I've picked up along the way and from googled websites. I have a pile of recomended reading for university at the moment, but I'm sure I could spend a couple of hours in the library next time I have an excess lunchtime (next Tuesday). --Joe D 23:23, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry, no help from me (in the nicest possible way). I'm too fixated on pics to do any text work from scratch although I often clean up articles. Obviously I could contribute pics to the new article - Adrian Pingstone 12:05, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

facts
The sand barge still used to come to the Sand Wharf in 1990; not 1981. I know this as a former resident of hotwells. I would change the date except I don't know when it finally stopped visiting.

Also, Wessex Water used to run another boat, (Glen Avon?) that used to run the other way, dumping sewage out to sea.

I may have photos of both of these, along with some of the flood in 1989/90, when a storm front pushed enough water up to flow over the outward gates and put some of the streets by the new cut underwater. --SteveLoughran 18:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Once bigger?
I have seen old photos where the harbor comes right into the center of bristol, So I asume it was downsized at one point, there seems to be no mention of this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.66.63.19 (talk) 22:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC).


 * Yes, the Harbour did at one time extend right into the city centre along the route of the River Froom (not mentioned in this article unless I missed it?) from the Bridgehead with its statue of Neptune (now relocated) under what then became the Centre Gardens, as far as Colston Avenue. It was covered during the 1890s (but not wholly completed until 1938). One of the Churches in Colston Avenue is St Mary's-on-the-Quay, which alludes to its former harbour connection. Andywebby (talk) 18:28, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

GA Review - still ongoing
I am currently undertaking a review of this article and should come to a conclusion about it in the next 24 hours --Fritzpoll 19:48, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

GA nomination – on hold [[Image:Symbol wait.svg|35px]]
Ok, there are a few problems with this article that need to be amended before this can be passed:

Lead This needs a bit of a copy-edit for grammatical errors and for general prose style. Examples of what is wrong would include (but isnot limited to) The 70 acres (0.28 km²) harbour was created... - do you mean "The harbour covers an area of 70 acres..."?

There are also neutrality problems, for example with an influx of interesting boats - who says they are interesting? This is not a neutral statement, and all such statements should be rewritten, removed or referenced throughout.

There are excessive commas in the following sentence: "Museum boats are permanently berthed in the harbour, including Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain, the first iron hulled, propeller driven ocean liner, a replica of the Matthew, in which John Cabot discovered, in the modern era, North America at what is now known as Newfoundland, and a steam tug, the Mayflower."

I would split this sentence into shorter sentences, and consider rewording things to avoid comma use. For the example above, "John Cabot became the first person to land at Newfoundland..." makes more sense than implying that North America was somehow lost and then rediscovered in the modern era.

These suggestions apply uniformly to any other examples in the lead or article, and need correcting.

References in the lead should also be included where needed - consult WP:LEAD for more information.

History Wordiness is a problem here. Take as an example the two sentences "The size of the lock caused problems when the SS Great Britain was launched. Jessop's 45-foot lock could not accommodate Brunel's 48-foot beam SS Great Britain.". This repeats information previously given (adding redundancy) and is not succinct enough. Again, a copyedit of this section would be helpful to remove redundancy, and excessive comma use.

Statements such as the above should also be referenced - while referencing is generally ok here, some further citations for challengable ideas would be helpful, especially in a history section - for example the 2 unreferenced paragraphs towards the end of this section.

Avoid one sentence paragraphs in articles. (no, this isn't hypocritical :) )

Later sections

Copyedit these - there are substantial errors - for example, commas are now not being used enough "By the 1830s," for example, requires a comma after the decade. There are also missing closed-brackets. Further referencing in these sections would also make it easier to pass.

Summary

I've not failed this, since I think it meets the criteria for quantity of content for a good article, but the prose is significantly lacking, and further references are needed to get this up to scratch. It is therefore "on hold" and will remain so for 5 days. I'll then review it again and decide whether or not to pass or fail it. Any questions, please put them on my talk page. --Fritzpoll 17:11, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Addition: can you wikilink the first reference to grade listing to listed building for clarity - the article is shaping up, and is nearly there - you need to clean up that last section after the gallery, and finish up, then I'll be happy, probably --Fritzpoll 22:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Question Thanks for all your comments - I'm just slightly confused about "section after the gallery" - do you mean refs & ext links?&mdash; Rod talk 08:10, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Nope - my mistake - I meant the section entitled Development of the harbourside --Fritzpoll 09:23, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Development of the harbourside & The harbour today
Do people think the two sections "Development of the harbourside" & "The harbour today" should be combined and possibly be placed after the history sections?&mdash; Rod talk 18:27, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * In short NO. "The harbour today" should be a short summary of what it says on the can, i.e. what the visitor will see today, and it is essentially a continuation of the Introduction. The "Development of the harbourside", as you hint above, is a continuation of the history section: it could be split between 20th development and 21st century development (although this subsection does not yet exist). I must admit that I split the history section into subsections; and I'm intending to add more about St Augustine's Reach, there was a question above about the harbour shrinking in the Centre, but it will be a couple of days or so before I get round to it.Pyrotec 20:16, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * P.S. There is a lot of new paragraphs going in, which is good in one way; but if it is not referenced then that could damage the GA assessment. So I don't want to discourage new material, but I would strongly urge that it is justified by providing a verifiable source reference.20:25, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response. It just seems to come out of order as I've been adding to (& copyediting) the history sections. How about sortening it (by combing short paras & making it the third para of the intro? The underfall yeard & warehouses are also 19th century so I'd like to move those sections (& rearrange the map & some of the pics) - what do you think? I've also been referencing everything I'm adding&mdash; Rod talk 20:28, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Rodw. I broke the original Introduction into Introduction and "The Harbour Today" as that appeared to meet the requirements of WP:LEAD, so my suggestion would be to leave the Harbour Today fairly similar to how it is. I'm happy for "The Development of the Harbourside" to be moved into history. Move the underfall yard & warehouses if you wish; but there is a logic to (Introduction), Today, History, Architecture/Listed buildings (although the latter is not indexed as such). Copying-pasting moves are relatively easy, so I'm not too worried if we don't get the locations right the first time round. The new stuff I noticed was America, Cabot, Iceland and Brunel and it seemed to be somewhat under-referenced. I added a Brunel reference, but I don't have very much on his harbour-building efforts. Pyrotec 21:05, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

GA Nomination: Result: Still on Hold
I've noticed a lot of corrections to this article, and the article is certainly in better shape than earlier. However, I have just re-reviewed this, and there are still some copy-edit issues that I would like to see addressed before passing.

Lead
 * This still has some anomalous grammar and structure. For example, the capitalisation and italisation of "Floating Harbour" - I'm not sure the capitals are required, unless there is a reason that I can't see.
 * Removed per discussion with Rodw --Fritzpoll 20:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * ✅Erroneous/confusing semi-colon: "The first 1 mile (1.6 km) of the harbour is the artificial feeder canal; while the River Avon follows its original route." - What?? :) Not clear what this is trying to say!
 * ✅Clarification required "Between Temple Meads and Hotwells, at a distance never more than 0.65 miles (1 km) south of the harbour, the River Avon was redirected through the artificial 'New Cut." - what is the new cut? italicisation and extra apostropher required?  Capitalisation needed?
 * ✅"Along side Bristol Temple Meads railway station, the harbour rejoins the original route of the River Avon and meanders through, Bristol city centre, Canon's Marsh and Hotwells, where it rejoins the River Avon and flows into the Avon Gorge." - alongside is only a single word. How many times can you rejoin something?  I think fewer commas would make things clearer.  Also, not an expert, but how can a harbour meander?  I thought only a river/stream could do that.  WIlling to accept fault here though.

The harbour today
 * ✅"The Bristol Packet offer regular harbour tours with commentaries; also river cruises up the River Avon to Conham, Hanham and Bath and downstream to Avonmouth." - again, the semi-colon reduces clarity. It looks like the second clause is a disjointed/incomplete sentence.  Please reword to clarify.
 * ✅I have made corrections to the structure (not content) of this section to clarify it according to my requirements. Please check these, both to make sure you approve, and to see what kind of change I anticipate in your copyediting.

History of Bristol Docks
 * ✅"The River Avon, like the River Severn, has heavy tides of about 30 ft (9 m) between high and low, being easily navigable at high-tide but reduced to a muddy channel at low tide in which ships would often run aground in the Avon Gorge." - the "in the Avon Gorge" makes this sentence unclear - is the gorge part of the river...or not...not sure - please reword to be clear.
 * "Shipshape and Bristol fashion" - lowercase s please
 * ✅"As early as 1420 vessels from Bristol were regularly traveling to Iceland and it is speculated that sailors from Bristol had made landfall in the Americas before Christopher Columbus or John Cabot." "," after 1420, and if it is speculated, where? Reference please, or remove speculation.
 * ✅"It is known that Cabot arrived in Bristol in 1494 or 1495..." - which one? reference?
 * ✅"He proposed a scheme to the king, Henry VII. He proposed to reach Asia...He estimated that this would be shorter and quicker than Columbus' southerly route." -assuming these proposals are the same, can they be put into one sentence?
 * ✅"The merchants of Bristol, under the guise of the Society of Merchant Venturers agreed to support his scheme, as they had sponsored probes into the north Atlantic from the early 1480s, looking for possible trading opportunities." - commas are all wrong. I think you want one after 'venturers'. Does "as" mean "because" or "in the same way as" - please clarify, and adjust the commas to get the sentence right.
 * ✅"By 1670 the city had 6,000 tons of shipping, one half of which was employed in the importation of tobacco, and in the late 17th and early 18th century played a major role in the slave trade." - Propose "By 1670 the city had 6,000 tons of shipping, of which half was used for importing tobacco. By the late 17th and early 18th century, this shipping was also playing a significant role in the slave trade."

Construction of the floating harbour 19th century improvements underfall yard warehouses
 * ✅"In the 18th Century Liverpool grew, developing docks in competition with Bristol for the tobacco trade." - comma after century, which should be lowercase. Suggest you expand the sentence slightly to make the meaning clearer.  I presume you mean "In the 18th century, the docks in Liverpool grew larger and so increased competition with Bristol for the tobacco trade".  This might also require a reference.
 * ✅"poor quality" - seems subjective - clarify or provide reference.
 * ✅"They were some of the largest ships to have been built at the time;[1] and ironically hastened the decline of the city docks by proving the feasibility of large ships." - is the semi-colon necessary?
 * ✅"Jessop's 45 ft (13.7 m)" - second occurrence. Redundant, remove and reword sentence appropriately
 * ✅"The SS Great Britain was moored in the Floating Harbour until December 1844 before proceeding into Cumberland Basin; with coping stones and lock gate platforms removed from the Junction Lock." - what? semi-colon again being used oddly to link two sentences that don't flow into each other.  remove semicolon and rewrite sentence for clarity
 * ✅"The harbour cost more than anticipated and high rates were levied to repay loans, countering any effect the new harbour had at drawing companies back from Liverpool." - how much? Please reference. By "countering any effect", do you mean "reducing any benefit"?
 * ✅"In 1848 the city council bought the docks company to force down the rates and employed Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who had already built the Bristol Harbour Railway (a branch of his Great Western Railway) to make improvements, including new lock gates, a dredger and a sluice gates designed to reduce siltation." - commas here obscure clarity. The way they are used here implies that Brunel built the railway to make improvements. Does the railway have to be mentioned here, or at all?  If so, fine, but be careful with punctuation.
 * ✅"float the entire river" - what does this mean? Please clarify/expand, or provide suitable wikilinks
 * ✅"The damming of the river to make the harbour had created new land where the docks maintenance facility was established and remains today." - propose "The docks maintenance facility was established on the land exposed by the damming of the river to construct the harbour and remains sited at this location to the present day."
 * ✅"Several old buildings, dating from the 1880s, remain at Underfall Yard" - remove commas here
 * ✅"brick Bonds" - what are these?

Regeneration of the harbourside
 * ✅ sort out the semi-colon usage here again.
 * ✅Are Bristol City Council really "commercial partners"?
 * ✅First paragraph includes a lot of facts, but no references - reference the numbers, and the fact that private investors are constructing studio apartments.

Summary It may seem odd that this list is so much more detailed than the previous one. But take heart - this is a good sign. It means that the structure is good enough for me to find the little pedantic faults that I've pointed out here. SOme references are still required, but not many. You have generally speaking done very well on this article, but in the interests of saving you some time, I decided to point out all the things that I would currently fail you on. I have until the end of the 30th May as the latest point I can finish the review (see the tag at the top of the page) - go through the list above and mark ✅ next to each item, and/or strike it through. That way it updates in my watchlist and I can review the article as soon as all the items are finished. Any questions - please post to my talk page --Fritzpoll 00:05, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Response Thanks for all your comments on this, I've addressed many as shown above, but still have a few queries:

Hope these edits are OK - others may wish to comment/edit as well.&mdash; Rod talk 15:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * "Floating Harbour" as this is an accepted name (see Google search) I think it should probably be capitalised.
 * Shipshape and Bristol fashion is a link to an article with that specific capitalisation.

GA Final Review - Result: Pass

 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
 * 1) It is stable.
 * 2) It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
 * a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
 * 1) Overall:
 * a Pass/Fail:
 * a Pass/Fail:

There has been a lot of work on this article in the past few days - you will notice a series of minor edits by me to correct some comma and semicolon usage, and to make one or two phrases clearer. I am pleased that my requests were met quickly, and I believe that the prose is now of GA standard. I also believe that the referencing has now improved sufficiently that there are no challengable statments that remain unreferenced. The POV of the article is also neutral, and I believe that a sufficiently wide range of information/views are expressed in an article of this type. The article is clearly focussed on its topic, and does not deviate off into unrelated topics. The images are all linked from the Commons, so I am satisfied that section 6 is passed.

I think the article could benefit from expansion on current usage of the docks, as well as a bit of expansion in some of the history sections, particularly those that are relatively short (e.g. 19th/20th century). These points should be addressed before considering attempting to advance the article further. I would also recommend seeking a Peer Review if you wish to improve the current content, as I believe neutral views from other editors would be helpful in deciding the direction.

Nonetheless, as a result of the above, I believe the article to be of GA Status. Congratulations :) --Fritzpoll 21:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

GA Sweeps
This article has been reviewed as part of WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The very thorough initial review has meant that this article still stands up well, although the prose could use a brush up in places. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, Jackyd101 (talk) 10:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that Bristol Marina is merged into this article as I see no way of improving the current article about the Marina. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:35, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems like a reasonable proposal to me.&mdash; Rod talk 19:12, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Can the current Bristol Marina be developed to do everything that we need a marina article to do? If so, then leave it as a separate article. Maybe there's not much to say about it, but if that's all it needs, then we can leave a small (but perfectly formed) article there and our job is done. No shame to small articles on simple subjects.


 * Bristol Harbour is big and complicated. There are rightly many separate articles on smaller sections of it, and no-one is suggesting that they are merged. There's a category for UK marinas that the smaller article sits neatly into, but the intersection would be a little lost if we placed the whole harbour in there. We've no major need to merge here and I don't believe we ought to. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:23, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As there is no consensus on this, and understanding Andy's points, I will withdraw the proposal. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Jez (do I remember your name from Usenet, years back?). It's nice to see at least one bit of Wikipedia where sensible conclusions can be agreed without acrimony! Andy Dingley (talk) 22:39, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Barrages
I have reverted the mistaken addition of the category barrages to this page. I removed it because its addition was so obviously a mistake. Bristol Floating Harbour, to give it its accurate name, is not a tidal barrage, like Cardiff Bay or the Rance estuary in Brittany. There has been talk, since Brunel's time, of putting a barrage at the mouth of the Avon, but it hasn't happened.

As I am sure that you know, there is some interest in building a Severn Barrage, but there is no tidal barrage in or near Bristol Floating Harbour. I have worked boats on that harbour since 1983 and I do know what I am talking about.

There is a weir across the river Avon at Netham and an underfall dam at Rownham, but neither serves any tidal barrage purpose. Cheers. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:55, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Naming
What do editors think about renaming this as Bristol Floating Harbour as this is the proper historic name. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Floating Harbour already redirects to this article & I doubt that many people would search for the full historic title rather than using Bristol or Floating Harbour. Therefore I would say there would be no advantage.&mdash; Rod talk 13:53, 5 December 2009 (UTC)