Talk:History of Hertfordshire


 * At the peer review, I was advised this article "should pass" a GAN. Let's see if the reviewer agrees!— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  22:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Comments
I'm part of WP:HERTS and have no experience of this sort of article at FA, so I don't think I'm the best person to give the prose itself a balanced, objective look. For that reason I don't want to be the first person to post on the peer review, for fear that someone better suited will see these comments and decide not to review. Nonetheless, here are a few things I've picked up on my wikitravels that should help:
 * There are a lot of one and two sentence paragraphs. While these are in some cases okay, the one sentence paragraphs on individual people from the same period should where possible be consolidated into a larger one. Even if the people are in no way connected, in most cases it would still be appropriate.
 * Possibly worth mentioning Arthur Balfour- MP for Hertford for 12 years and later a British Prime Minister among other things.
 * In the 21st century section, is unnecessary.
 * For maps, alt text should not name "England" or "Hertfordshire". In List of Parliamentary constituencies in Hertfordshire, I gave a map very similar to the first one the following alt text: "A small county slightly to the south and east of the centre of the country, completely bounded by other counties", with the caption "The county of Hertfordshire in relation to England." This is a bit wordy, but think of alt text as a substitute for what you can see, and a caption as an explanation of what the picture actually is.

I think the content needed for an FA is probably all there. The weight given to the various parts of its history is excellent, and the referencing is also very good. The main things that should be scrutinised are the MoS, and the grammar and tense of the prose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WFCforLife (talk • contribs)
 * Thanks for those comments. I've made some adjustments, and will make more.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  00:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments
I liked it. Rare is an article which is not only well documented but also interesting.

I'm a stickler for comma use, so I went ahead and fixed three small errant commas in the article.

As to content, I would raise only two points. At note 64, you say something like this: "There was an attempt to assassinate the king." Rather than saying "There was . . .," I think a better phrasing would be to use the actor as the subject and an action verb. That is, "A group of landowners attempted to kill the king." Is it known who was behind the attempt?

Second, I see that some other people have commented about one-sentence paragraphs. I wonder if a correction of that did not produce the paragraph at note 71. that paragraph begins with the topic sentence saying that brewing was becoming popular in the area. Then, the whole rest of the paragraph has to do with witch trials. Were those things linked in some way? Perhaps cut the first sentence free again and add a follow up line about the volumes of beer that were being brewed or something.

I hope these comments are not too pedantic. I'm new to peer reviewing anything. Also, I am totally in the dark about formatting for notes, so I've not even attempted to weigh in on those. ProfReader (talk) 16:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your attention. This article generally follows Fowler's for style, and accepts his views on the Oxford comma along with a semicolon to indicate a slightly longer pause (see also WP:ENGVAR). Personally I prefer shorter paragraphs, with one topic per paragraph, and I would much prefer to de-merge several of the paragraphs in the article.  So many editors think otherwise, though, that I see little alternative but to tolerate the several mixed and run-on paragraphs.  :\— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  16:42, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Okie dokie. But, the errant commas weren't Oxford (serial) commas. A serial comma (which is optional) precedes a conjunction linking items in a series of three or more. For example, I bought eggs, bacon and cheese. The problems that I changed were not that. They were examples of simple sentences with dual verbs. For example: John ran and played. There is no comma before the word "and" in that sentence. You only use a comma there if it is a compound sentence; that is, you use a comma only if you have two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction. For example: John ran, and he played.

Comet
The "and about ten percent of the aircraft workers in England worked in Hertfordshire in the 1960s" fact for the post-war section seems unremarkable. How about replacing this with mention of the de Havilland Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner and a proud part of Hatfield's history. Colin°Talk 20:04, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a good idea. I don't personally have access to a source that discusses the aircraft's relationship with Hatfield, or I'd do it.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  20:10, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This should do. BTW: your web/news citations should have more details, such as author(s), publisher/work, date (of publication). Colin°Talk 20:58, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Colin. It's nice to come up for air and talk about content rather than presentation.  :)  I'll add that.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  21:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Lead paragraph
Per WP:LEAD (see "Links" section):
 * Use as few links as possible before and in the bolded title. Thereafter, words used in a title may be linked to provide more detail:
 * Arugam Bay is a bay situated on the Indian Ocean in the dry zone of Sri Lanka's southeast coast.

Ground Zero | t 01:32, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

King's Weir image
Hi. Just had a look at this article. The image of Kings Weir is wrong. It is in fact is located in Essex close to the county boundary with Hertfordshire at Wormley, Herts on the The River Lee Navigation. I intend to remove the image from the article. If that is OK. (Northmetpit (talk) 09:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)).
 * Oops, you might be right! Replacing it with a different image.— S Marshall  T/C 13:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

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