Talk:Porlock Stone Circle/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 20:48, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

At first sight, this is an excellent article with few problems. A few comments from my first pass through.


 * "archaeologists speculate they were likely religious sites": do we really need to mark uncertainty twice ("speculate" and "likely")? "archaeologists speculate they were religious sites" is more concise and conveys the same meaning.
 * I have removed "likely". Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:06, 29 November 2017 (UTC)


 * "By 3000 BCE, the long barrows, causewayed enclosures, and cursuses which had predominated in the Early Neolithic had ceased being built": a little nitpicky, perhaps, but I wouldn't say that these monuments "ceased being built": it wasn't the monuments that changed behavious but the people! ("were no longer built", or if you prefer the active voice recast the sentence entirely as something like "the late Neolithic peoples of southern and eastern England ceased to build causeways, long barrows and cursuses, instead increasingly constructing circular monuments such as stone and wooden circles and earthen henges")
 * I've gone with "were no longer built" here. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:23, 29 November 2017 (UTC)


 * "The creation of these different monument types might explain why so few stone circles were apparently created here" - repetition of "creation[...] created"
 * I've changed "created" to "erected". Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:19, 29 November 2017 (UTC)


 * "Heritage managers therefore face a question as to whether they should remove the more recently-added stones or to accept these as part of the circle's on-going biography." this doesn't really seem to fit very well into the section on "Description". Would there be enough material to have a section on heritage/preservation? (For instance, the fact that it is a scheduled ancient monument can also go here...)
 * I've created a new sub-section to discuss these issues. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:31, 29 November 2017 (UTC)


 * "denuded cairn": what does this mean? I know what a cairn is, but have never heard of a denuded one - and cairn sheds no light. Googling reveals other uses of the term, but a definition is not apparent.
 * It refers to the fact that many of the stones in the cairn have been removed; I think "denuded" was the term used in the RS, so I followed that, but if you think a different term is preferable then I would be happy to change it. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:09, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I have added a definition in parentheses. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:54, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

I shall come back to this tomorrow and give it another comb through, but it looks like it should be relatively straightforward to bring this up to spec. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:48, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Looking around to see what else can be said on conservation/heritage management for Porlock, it looks like there might be some interesting things in this document. (In looking, I also found this paper by Gillings, which inter alia argues that the choice of small stones for prehistoric monuments on Exmoor was deliberate rather than being a consequence of local geology – possibly worth a mention!)
 * I'm not sure if there is anything in the Exmoor HER website that we could use in the article which we currently do not; the website uses many of the same sources as the Wikipedia article. Nevertheless, I have added the web link to the External links section. Regarding your second suggestion, the PDF appears to be a version of an article published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology; I will try to get access to the original, so that the pagination will be correct. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:29, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Also noticed that the link provided for Gray 1950 in the bibliography does not work for me: it returns a 404 error. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:54, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I've gone back and found a working link. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:10, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I've added a little more to the section on heritage management – it's already mentioned elsewhere in the article but is also relevant here, and I think bears repetition. With regards to the Gillings paper in the OJA, I can access the original paper here; if the link doesn't work for you email me and I will send you a copy. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:25, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
 * how are things going? do you want a copy of the Gillings article? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:44, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
 * - apologies for the delay! I had sourced the article a few days ago but hadn't read through it yet. I have now done so and contributed several additional sentences to the article on the basis of that article. Many thanks for suggesting it to me in the first place. Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:16, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, wonderful. To explicitly address the GA criteria: the prose is clear and concise; the article is well-sourced, and my spotchecks show no problems with close paraphrasing or factual accuracy; NPOV is observed; images are appropriate; and there is nothing major apparently missing from the article. The article clearly passes the GA criteria with flying colours.  Congratulations! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:31, 12 December 2017 (UTC)