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This review is transcluded from Talk:Blackdown Hills/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Starting review. Pyrotec (talk) 14:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good so far. Quite a few red-line locations; and the in-line citations sparse in some sub-sections.Pyrotec (talk) 14:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article is substantially compliant but there are a few areas needing attention, mostly the need for citations. Points needing attention are:

• History section: what appears to be an unfinished sentence regarding Annales Cambriae.

• Geography section. No reference to support statement referring to water extraction from the Otter valley.

• Climate section. Mostly unreferenced, however ref 11 is a "home page" and its sub-pages could provide referencing for possibly all the statements made in these two paragraphs.

• Geology: both references 5 & 6 are long, could page numbers be provided?
• Ecology, first sentence is unreferenced, but possibly ref 6, which appears later, also supports the first sentence.

• History. Middle ages iron working at Hemyock unreferenced. Chain of Elizabethan beacons unreferenced. Ditto wool and yarn production at Cold Harbour; Robert Polhill Bevan; and RAF bases (but I can fix this one tonight).

• Government and Politics: no ref for AONB, but this is covered elsewhere so the ref can be reused.

Overall a good article.Pyrotec (talk) 16:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm uncertain that this article is correct in generally considering the Blackdown Hills to be plural, as in "The Blackdown Hills are a sparsely populated area". The lead tells us that it is the name of a range of hills, which would surely make it singular?

• This sentence doesn't make sense: "River valleys cut into the landscape which together support an extensive range of wildlife leading to the designation of 16 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs)."

• Points of the compass are not given consistently: "unique in south west England .."; "The predominant wind direction is from the south-west."

• It should be consistently "Iron Age", not "iron age".

--Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 17:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response to comments. Thank you both for your comments which have helped to improve the article. I believe all issues raised above have been dealt with except the singular v plural concern. Looking at Quantock Hills which is already a GA and a close neighbour with similar characteristics, the range of hills is described in the plural - but I am willing to bow to expertise on which is correct. Please let me know of any further areas which you feel need improvement.— Rod ^talk 20:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations and thanks for all your hard work. I've now assessed the article as GA class. Pyrotec (talk) 18:43, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We've covered roads, presumably we can say that there aren't any other forms of transport, like railways or canals, passing through?Pyrotec (talk) 16:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of/can't find any evidence of others - apart from the airfield mentioned in the section above.— Rod ^talk 17:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've added the Grand Western Canal and the Reading to Plymouth Line, as a point of info, as they are both near to the M5 motorway. However, I've just discovered the Culm Valley Light Railway, its not needed for the GAR, but it (or its remains) may lie within the AONB. Pyrotec (talk) 20:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are right it does cross the hills & should be included.— Rod ^talk 20:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Rocky Mountains, Mendip Hills, Chiltern Hills, Pennines, South Downs etc. are all referred to as plural in their respective articles. Cannot see why these should be different - despite what is said in the GA comments. --TimTay (talk) 20:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on how the "Blackdown Hills" is defined. Nothing to do with the Rocky Mountains or anywhere else. Blackdown Hills is defined as a range in the lead. Is there some doubt that "range" is singular? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They are hills which form a range, just as the Rocky Mountains are: "The Rocky Mountains ... are a broad mountain range ..." from its lead. The only case where I could imagine "The X Hills" or being treated as a singular entity is where it is the name of a local authority district, like "Tower Hamlets". PamD (talk) 23:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find the singular awkward. It's theoretically possible, but unusual. There's a little scope in English to emphasise the parts ("the crowd applaud") or the whole ("the crowd applauds"). I suspect that the plural is usual for these Hills. Tony (talk) 01:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Consider this snipit from the web:

3. Subject-verb Agreement
Subject-verb AGREEMENT or CONCORD relates to number
agreement (singular or plural) between the Subject
and the verb which follows it:  {{bquote|
...
 The government is considering the proposal
 The government are considering the proposal

Here, the form of the verb is not determined by the form of the Subject.
Instead, it is determined by how we interpret the Subject. In "the 
government is...", the Subject is interpreted as a unit, requiring
a singular form of the verb. In "the government are...", the Subject
is interpreted as having a plural meaning, since it relates to a 
collection of individual people. Accordingly, the verb has the plural
form are.

--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]