Talk:Gordonstoun/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Matthewedwards : Chat  22:32, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I'll be reviewing this article against the Good article criteria. I have already checked it against the "quick fail criteria", and it passes that, so I will be back soon with a complete review. All the best, Matthewedwards : Chat  22:32, 1 April 2010 (UTC)


 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * Prose is generally okay, alhough there are sentences that would benefit from being recast. I noticed few MOS issues also:
 * There's no need to WP:OVERLINK common terms such as "Scottish"
 * If it's at all possible, try not to link three consecutive words as in co-educational independent boarding school, as it makes the linked words appear to point to one article
 * "150 acre" needs to be Converted into metric units for international readers
 * Can "day students" be wikilinked to an article. I'm not sure if people unfamiliar with the boarding school system will get the phrase
 * "With the number of teaching staff exceeding 100 there is an extremely low pupil to teacher ratio." -- compared to what?
 * "... the other houses having been built..." -- "having been" is a bit clunky. I suggest going with "were" or "have been"
 * The first and third paragraphs of the lead consist of one sentence. They should be merged with the other ones somehow.
 * Write out "UK" in full on its first use
 * Perhaps Wikilink "Prince Philip of Greece" or "The Duke of Edinburgh"
 * "there were 135 boys attending." ---> "135 boys were attending."
 * "The school managed though" can this be recast? It's a bit informal, since the school didn't manage anything
 * "more focus could be put into improving the facilities" --> "more focus was put into improving the facilities"
 * "Major changes since then include: the founding of Round Square in 1966, an international community of schools sharing Hahn's educational ideals, the school officially becoming co-educational in 1972, and the moving of Aberlour House, Gordonstoun's preparatory school, from Speyside to a purpose built junior school on campus in 2004." --- It's hard to see what's what here. Make use of semi-colons: "Major changes since then include: the founding of Round Square in 1966, an international community of schools sharing Hahn's educational ideals; the school officially becoming co-educational in 1972; and the moving of Aberlour House, Gordonstoun's preparatory school, from Speyside to a purpose built junior school on campus in 2004."
 * "Nowadays", is innapropriate WP:TONE. When is "Nowadays"? Why not Since xxx, or As of xxx?
 * "In the academic year 07/08 the school was providing financial support for 163 students" -- see the WP:MOS for how to write date ranges
 * "In order to make this easier the school is now a registered charity- Scottish charity number SC037867." is an incomplete sentence. Make sure you follow WP:DASH WRT dashes and hyphens
 * I stopped looking at prose from this point as other issues became prominent.
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * What sources are there appear to be in check, and I'll WP:AGF on the offline book source; however, the article relies on too many Primary sources instead of secondary. References need proper attributions, including author where available (if not, no need to say "uncredited"), date of the article, access date, and publisher. Date format should be dd mmmmm yyyy as in "10 April 2010" or the ISO 8601 standard yyyy-mm-dd, not dd-mm-yyyy
 * "It is therefore appropriate that the school's motto should be "Plus est en vous" (More is in you)." is wording. We are not here to state what is appropriate and what is not. It borders on WP:OR/WP:NPOV/WP:SYNTH.
 * Same for the "possibly undeserved" in "The school formerly had a (possibly undeserved) reputation for harsh conditions". Also relating to prose, the two sentences are unsuitable WP:TONE for an encyclopedic entry.
 * Many sentences are unsourced:
 * "Physical education and challenging outdoor activities are still taken in high regard at the school but full supervision and safety is paramount."
 * Too much of the article is unsourced. Good article criteria says an article requires "references to all sources of information", and that "in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged". Five sources cover the four paragraphs in the History section, and are only used once. What about the rest of the sentences?
 * "Physical education and challenging outdoor activities are still taken in high regard at the school but full supervision and safety is paramount." says who?
 * No references for the four pillars -- why not?
 * "Gordonstoun also tries to help as many underprivileged students attend as possible. This is achieved through a series of grants, trusts and funds from which the school can draw upon in order to support students who are unable to pay the full fees." says who?
 * "In the academic year 07/08 the school was providing financial support for 163 students"... we're in the academic year 2009-2010 now. Any updated statistics to replace this old information?
 * The final paragraph of the Ethos section, which begins "The school also has a reputation for not placing an over-emphasis on testing and league tables" is entirely unsourced. Since you're saying the school has a reputation, it's important that that sentence is sourced, otherwise we don't know who it has a reputation with.
 * Aberlour House section is completely unsourced.
 * References such as [16] should be placed immediately after punctuation, not after word spaces
 * Performing Arts section is unsourced, Activities section is unsourced. This part of the article reads more like an advert for the school or a school prospectus
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * The main article link of Aberlour House points to the article about the town/village, and is not a main article about the school; it should be removed.
 * The paragraph that begins, "By the end of the 1940s the school achieved its primary target of 250 pupils", indicates that at some point the school relocated back to Scotland. When did this happen?
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * the "It is therefore appropriate that the school's motto should be "Plus est en vous" (More is in you)." and "The school formerly had a (possibly undeserved) reputation" sentences are putting a positive spin on the school
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * good
 * 1) 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):
 * Is there an image of the school that can be used in the Infobox?
 * File:K Hahn.jpg states that it is "licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0", but who licensed this? Only the photographer or owner can do this, and the source of the image doesn't state who that is. It should be used with a FUR, and not simply stating "free use requested". Until this is fixed, I'm removing the image from the article and nominating it for deletion at Commons.
 * Attribution for File:G House from the South Lawn on an Autumn Afternoon.jpg looks fine.
 * 1) Overall:
 * The article needs a lot of work to make it meet the GA criteria. I'll put it on hold for seven days for editors to address the concerns raised. All the best, Matthewedwards : Chat  18:38, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Pass/Fail:


 * I think I've seen to everything you've mentioned in section 1, I know you said that you stopped half way through so if anything else needs correcting just let me know. I'm going to do a complete overhall on the references and try and find secondary sources for most things. I understand some of it sounds like an advert with whole sections uncited, that happened mainly because I had to beef up the article quickly with out being able to find references for it all so that it could be used as a DYK, I know that's not an excuse but I'm going to try and rectify the whole thing. The problem with the kurt hahn image is unfortunate, I've sent an e-mail to the webmaster at kurt hahn's site to see if he can give me an image that's been placed into the public domain, but for now the article will survive without it. I know the article has serious NPOV problems, I went to this school so thats why it has this spin but I want it to be neutral, it's just me working on the article so far so I've not been able to get a second opinion until now. Anyway I'll be spending the week sorting out the references and trying to make it more neutral and hopefully then it will be good to go. Rudy 10:47, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll wait for you to get the rest of the article in check with regards to referencing, Bias, and everything else before I go back to looking at prose, as it should be easier to fix then. By the way, my old headmaster taught at Gordonstoun sometime in the early 90s, and would regale us with stories about Zara and Phillip. :) Matthewedwards : Chat  00:45, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Phew! I think that's most of it sorted. I know there are still primary sources for the references, some of info about how the houses are run and football statistics had to come from the school's website as it's the only place to get it from, but they now form a small amount of the total number of references and I've tried to keep opinion coming from secondary sources only so there's minimal bias. The prose might still be a bit iffy, just let me know and I'll sort it out. As for the images, I changed the license on the kurt hahn image and I've tried to contact about three different people for info on the copyright but no one has got back... I've added the school logo though and hopefully should get hold of a bunch of other pictures to add soon. Anyway I think the article looks ten times better now, thanks for the pointers, it was a great help. Rudy 01:17, 10 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to keep you updated, I got a message on my talk page from Dashbot to say that the File:K Hahn.jpg image will be kept if I add it back to the article... Not sure if this is a mistake by the bot though so remove the image again if you have to. Rudy 13:14, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It's an automatic bot notice. Copyrighted images are deleted after seven days if they are not used in any articles. The bot notifies the image uploader. Matthewedwards : Chat  22:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

At the moment there are still issues I can see with the article.
 * The Kahn image has been reinserted, as you say above, but it still needs a Fair Use Rationale.
 * References need to be placed after punctuation
 * The prose is still a little weak. Try to find a copyeditor to go over it with a fine toothcomb.
 * There are some WP:MOS issues such as overlinking on common words and terms such as "a kettle, microwave, fridge and toaster", "washing machine and dryer", country names, etc; Bold font when there shouldn't be
 * That purple box thing contrasts too much with the blue [show] link and the reference, so doesn't follow WP:COLOR or WP:ACCESS
 * Also with that purple box, dropdown boxes should not be used because of issues with readability, accessibility, printing, site mirroring, and display.

These are just some of the issues still outstanding. I have decided not to pass the nomination at this time, as I think it might be easier for you and other editors to work on the article without the pressure of a GAN deadline. I recommend also taking the article to WP:Peer review at least once before renominating at WP:GAN so that any outstanding issues can be ironed out beforehand. It's also a good way to get feedback on the article during the writing process, as sometimes other editors may come up with ideas for adding information to the article that you might have missed. If you disagree with my decision, I am open to you bringing your concerns up at WP:Good article reassessment. Good luck for the future with this article, Matthewedwards : Chat  22:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)