Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bristol Bus Boycott, 1963/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 22:30, 27 January 2010.

Bristol Bus Boycott, 1963

 * Nominator(s): Jezhotwells (talk) 13:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that it meets the FAC requirements. It recently passed GA status and was considered to be of high standard by the reviewer. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Comments -
 * The Samuel ref isn't used in the footnotes, it should be listed in a "further reading" section or ommitted entirely.
 * Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:22, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Samuel is used for note #3. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Too many FACs this morning, obviously! Ealdgyth - Talk 19:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. Alt text done; thanks. Alt text is present (thanks), but it has problems. It contains several phrases that cannot be verified by a non-expert who is looking only at the images, and need to be reworded or removed as per WP:ALT and WP:ALT. Problematic phrases include "Audley Evans, Paul Stephenson and Owen Henry", "Bristol Bus", "from 1963", "the" (in "supporting the boycott"), "Bristol University Wills". The phrases "Black and white image" and "Image is in black and white" are WP:ALT . Overall, please redo the alt text to capture the gist of the image's visual appearance; alt text is not supposed to be a caption (see WP:ALT). Eubulides (talk) 08:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have re-written both sets of alt text. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:28, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it looks good now. Eubulides (talk) 03:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Dabs; please check the disambiguation links identified in the toolbox. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ooops, I thought I had done that, but must have lost the edit - fixed now. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:41, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments from Maralia Some prose/MOS issues:
 * "The Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963, arose from the refusal of the Bristol Omnibus Company to employ Black or Asian bus crews in Bristol, UK and area." - Two issues: no reason for the first comma; and "in Bristol, UK and area" does not parse.
 * The lead uses "Bristol, UK" while the infobox uses "Bristol, England".
 * The infobox caption should not use an apostrophe in "1960's".
 * The second paragraph of the lead consists of a single sentence, needs grammar work ("and which made" does not parse here); and contains a confusing fullstop inside a quotation.
 * Bristol Evening Post, Western Daily Press, and Daily Herald should be italicized, as the names of publications.
 * "Andrew Hake, curate of the Bristol Industrial Mission recalled that" - "curate of the...Mission" is a non-restricted appositive, which must be set off by commas before and after the clause.
 * "Four young West Indian men, Roy Hackett, Owen Henry, Audley Evans and Prince Brown formed an action group" - Ditto previous comment.
 * "When reporters questioned the bus company about the boycott, the general manager, Ian Patey, "said today the company's policy "" - It appears here that you are quoting a source which paraphrases what he said—yet you introduce the quote as though Ian Patey is being directly quoted.
 * "Ron Nethercott, South West Regional Secretary of the union launched an attack" - Ditto previous comment about apposition.
 * "and Harold Wilson, then Labour Leader of the Opposition spoke out" - Appositive.
 * "On 17 September, a Sikh, Raghbir Singh became Bristol's first non white bus conductor." - Another appositive.
 * The 'See also' link to racism could easily be incorporated into the article text.
 * In the citations, page ranges need to use endashes rather than hyphens.
 * The Dresser source and the last external link are PDFs and should be noted as such.
 * Attention is needed to punctuation around quotations; unless you are quoting a complete sentence, the ending punctuation should be outside the closing quote mark.
 * I think taht i have addressed the issues above. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I also get the feeling that this article isn't quite complete. The chronology of events is not well represented. The infobox lists a start date of "April 30, 1963" (which incidentally should be changed to follow the date format used elsewhere throughout), but this date is not cited, nor is it even mentioned in the article text (the 'Boycott' section says that the activists decided on a boycott, and announced the boycott, but no date is given for either event). Further, the lead describes the boycott as having lasted "sixty days until the company backed down and overturned the colour bar"—but the article text says "on 28 August 1963, the colour bar was lifted". As presented, this doesn't compute.

On the comprehensiveness end of things, and related to the chronology issue: while many reactions to the boycott are described, I'm not seeing a description of the boycott itself. How many people boycotted the buses? Were there marches and picketers and protests and such (only the Bristol University students' march is mentioned)? How closely was this reported in the media? Was there sufficient participation that the company was financially affected? I find myself failing to grasp the scope here. Nonetheless, an interesting article, and I hope to see it fleshed out a bit. Maralia (talk) 23:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your helpful comments. I am working on your suggestions now. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I hope that the article now better answers these questions. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Comment: I noticed that the Race Relations Act 1968 is wikilinked but the Race Relations Act 1965 isn't & wondered if there was a particular reason for this? &mdash; Rod talk 21:09, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I have now wiki-linked that. The stub article did not exist until today. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Should "May Day" be linked to either International Workers' Day or Labour Day ?&mdash; Rod talk 21:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, missed that one. I have wiki-linked to International Workers' Day. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.