User:Topo122/Listed buildings

The issue
Most WikiProjects I’ve come across do not appear to meet the classic definition of a project – because of their scale they are not realistically achievable (or not by the usual mechanisms available to Wikipedia); and they are open-ended, having no defined output by which the project can be judged complete, and closed down. They would be better described as ‘common areas of interest’.

As an experiment, I’ve tried to define a realistic project, dealing with a limited set of Wikipedia articles to achieve a target that can be judged to have been achieved.

Proposed project
Notability (geographic features) guidelines suggest ‘Buildings, including private residences and commercial developments, may be notable as a result of their historic, social, economic, or architectural importance, but they require significant coverage by reliable, third-party sources to establish notability’.

Grade I listed buildings in England are, by definition, of exceptional architectural and historic interest; they are covered by their entry on the National Heritage List for England (NHLE), and are usually covered in The Buildings of England – both ‘reliable, third-party sources’.

Grade I listed buildings therefore meet the notability criteria for buildings and should each be the subject of a separate Wikipedia article.

In December 2019 I reviewed the current state of articles about the 18 Grade I listed buildings in Mid Sussex District. Five of the buildings lacked a separate article; four of them were not covered by Wikipedia in any way.

A realistically achievable project would therefore be to:


 * Create the five missing articles about the Grade I listed buildings in Mid Sussex District.
 * Bringing all 18 articles up to at least good article (GA) status. (It will be interesting to see if the process for designating an article as a good article works.)
 * Ensure there is a link to the articles in the article about the civil parish, town or village in which the building is located, with a summary sentence or paragraph.

Methodology
I've developed a way of working to deliver this project, in steps (though I’m not tackling them sequentially):


 * Step 1. Check there is actually a page for each civil parish in Mid Sussex. The only missing page is Worth, which needs to be created by splitting Worth, West Sussex into Worth Village, Crawley, and Worth, Mid Sussex (for the civil parish). Note: there are no Garde I listed buildings in Worth civil parish.
 * Step 2. Add sections on Listed Buildings and Scheduled Monuments to each civil parish page – for an example, see Fulking, where I've placed these sections under the main section on 'Landmarks', to follow the guidance in WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements.
 * Step 3. Add a paragraph with a brief description of all Grade I listed building to the civil parish page.  See for example Pyecombe.
 * Step 4. Create pages for 'missing' Grade I buildings. St Peter's Church, Twineham is the first, but needs to be expanded.  The remaining 'missing' pages are Stone Hall (list no. 1286412), St Mary's Church, Balcombe (list no 1286412), Church of The Holy Trinity, Poynings (list no. 1285135) and Saint Margaret's Convent, East Grinstead (list no. 1248986) - see table below.
 * Step 5. Review articles on Grade I buildings that already have their own page against 'Good Article' criteria, and edit if necessary.
 * Step 6. Propose articles for 'Good Article' status.

Progress
The table below is intended to log the project’s progress.

See also Grade I listed buildings in West Sussex.

Activities

 * Section on St Mary's Church to the article on Balcombe
 * Section on Holy Trinity Church added to the article on Poynings
 * Section on the Church of the Transfiguration added to the article on Pycombe
 * New article on St Peter's Church, Twineham created - only a stub at this stage.