Talk:Durham University/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Chidgk1 (talk · contribs) 13:11, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello. I see a lot of hard work has been put into this article.

1) In the lead "It was one of the first universities to commence tuition in England for more than 600 years ...." might be confusing for a non-Brit and seems to be avoiding naming and linking to the unis of O.. and C....

2) Consider shortening the history section by moving some less important details to the main article. For example I guess Stockton bar details seemed important in 2005 but could be relegated now.

3) Update the people numbers and financial numbers in the infobox if figures available and consider rounding to the nearest million pounds.

4) Pics - replace Palatine Centre pic with a better one e.g. closer. I see a couple of nice long pics in Duke University.

5) Academic profile - update "admissions" and "widening access" and (except in the table) remove older figures unless making a significant comparison.

6) Sport - update and also I am confused by the word "being" in the sentence about the British Olympic passport.

7) Ref 38 about Stockton seems to be a broken link.

8) Further reading - not sure whether the publications which are specifically about colleges should be only in those articles or also here - what do you think?

9) I think "The Modern University" sounds a bit strange as a heading which does not go to the present but I cannot think of a better one - maybe you can. Or perhaps it should be up to the present with "21st century" as a subhead.

10) Please could you check the minor edits I made today are correct and also have a look at the sentences I have marked that I did not completely understand.

11) Campus - I wonder if a plan or link to a plan might be useful.

12) You might get some ideas from the featured education articles, for example removing some more details into existing subarticles (e.g. some alumni) and summarising more (difficult I know), and compacting more figures into boxes.

13) Not all the tools in the "GA toolbox" on the top right of this page are working properly from here. I am not sure if some are faulty or if it is due to the block of Wikipedia in Turkey so maybe you could try them and see if they detect any major problems.

If I don't contribute for over a week feel free to chase me and then if I don't respond either I am ill or the techies here in Turkey have tightened their censorship, in which case you would have to find a replacement reviewer. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:11, 8 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've updated the sentence in 1, and also added the names of the other institutions sometimes called the third oldest university in England for the same reason. I'll take a look at 2. Robminchin (talk) 20:02, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I've removed the dead link from 7) and also updated the Sport section. For 5) I'm having trouble finding newer sources and info for admissions data Leonstojka (talk) 00:15, 11 October 2018 (UTC)


 * OK obviously if the new data is not out yet that's fine. But do you think that putting some more figures in boxes would make things both easier to update in future and more readable. For example there are an awful lot of numbers in the text of the "rankings and reputations" section which makes it a bit boring to read - I see you have one box already in that section but maybe some of those numbers would also be better in boxes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chidgk1 (talk • contribs) 12:19, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

OK that's all the suggestions I can think of at the moment - please can you let me know when you have done the ones you think worthwhile so I can have a final read through and hopefully then classify this article as "good". Please ignore the automatic text above which says you have seven days - take as long as you want.


 * Thanks for taking on the review . I will go through progress on each point.

I will try and keep this up to date as I work on the article, other editors also feel free to update this. Aloneinthewild (talk) 22:24, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Lead-  ✅
 * 2) History - Robminichin is working on this and it is already shorter. I think we should see if there is any recent news we should include, I notice the article doesn't mention the Ogden Centre. ✅
 * 3) I think the financial figures are current, and for student figures we rely on the government HESA figures being released. Probably staff figures can be updated. ✅ 2015/16 figures are latest
 * 4) It would be nice to replace this particular image, however there isn't an free alternative currently.  There are also some more images from commons we could include. ✅ (images generally improved)
 * 5) Academic profile - Still to do, probably worth checking the Durham Grant still works in the same way as described
 * 6) Sport - ✅
 * 7) Further reading - I will move the college specific publications to the college pages, unless they are used in the article. ✅
 * 8) I couldn't think of a better title either, your suggestion may work.
 * 9) Your edits looked fine, I cleared up a few issues. I notice there are still some more to do.✅
 * 10) Campus - A campus map or plan would be useful. I will look at other university articles and see what they have done
 * 11) Summary style - point taken
 * 12) The copyvio checker only comes back with a possible violation here. I think this is from a quote in the article. Disambig links is clear, External links - I fixed any that were dead. ✅
 * 1) The copyvio checker only comes back with a possible violation here. I think this is from a quote in the article. Disambig links is clear, External links - I fixed any that were dead. ✅


 * Yes I can see you are improving it. I think the info about the future, e.g. Mt Oswald, could be taken out of "history" as it deserves its own section, but I didn't change it myself as you would know better than me what it should be titled and if any more info can be added.

I know you have the "civic engagement" section but I wonder if there is more to say about the current relationship between the city and the uni, e.g. as the city is so small how does it view/deal with the uni? Chidgk1 (talk) 14:47, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Have now updated the history section to include Ogden. Will look into finding a bit more to say about city/university relationship. --Leonstojka (talk) 16:34, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Now added a bit about town and gown relations --Leonstojka (talk) 21:48, 6 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Just wanted to say thanks to Chidgk1 for acting as reviewer, Leonstojka of taking the step of nominating and Robminchin for his work on the article Aloneinthewild (talk) 20:51, 19 November 2018 (UTC)