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Climate section
I think that the climate section is flawed and lets down the otherwise high quality of the article. A lot of this is text lifted from another website and relates in general to the South West of England region rather than specifically to the Mendip Hills. I suggest that any weather data that cannot be directly attributable to the Mendip Hills should be removed. As for the claim that snow falls on 8-15 days per year, I cannot remember there being more than 8 days of snowfall in the whole of the past 5 years that I have lived in the Mendips. --
Cheesy Mike16:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)reply
Thanks for this. When I have done previous articles in the area (eg
Chew Valley), users from other parts of the world requested something about climate which gives an indication of tropical v temperate v whatever & therefore I used the bit adapted from the Met Office, SW England, as referenced in the article. Do you think we should 1) remove the whole section, 2) take out the bit about snow 3) soem other edit ?—
Rodtalk13:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)reply
I think it's fair enough to leave the section in, but it probably could do with some editing: maybe split it into 2 paras? I've made a couple of minor changes:
the link to convective clouds was a bit baffling (the physics of convection): changed to cumulus.
I was about to add a link to the Mendip Gliding Club, but then noticed that it had previously been delinked. I can see why; but this has had the unfortunate consequence of removing any link to gliding—which is a pity, given that other sports such as
caving,
climbing,
abseiling and
hillwalking are all linked.
As it happens
Gliding is a FA & well worth reading. I wonder whether you could link to it by changing the current wording to something like the following:
There is a
gliding club at Halesland Airfield near
Priddy.
Incidentally, the MGC website has rather a nice aerial view of the Cheddar Reservoir: perhaps it could be included.
I just added a link to Mendip Gliding Club in the external links section. Also added links to other activity organisations mentioned in the article. MGC image of Cheddar Reservoir is almost certainly copyright so can't be used here. If you know the author maybe you can encourage it to be posted on Wikimedia Commons! --
Cheesy Mike13:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)reply
A few comments
Just a few comments on what is in general an excellent article. I could have made these points on the FAC page, I suppose, but it feels more appropriate to do so here.
General Why so many en-dashes, where hyphens would do?
Climate As I mentioned before, this would benefit from being shortened. I would suggest a separate paragraph for rainfall & reservoirs.
Ecology Adding the scientific names of rabbits & sheep is verging on the pedantic. All the other plants & animals are fine.
History "When William Wilberforce saw the poor conditions of the locals when he visited Cheddar". Clumsy: rephrase. "Throughout history settlement on the Mendip Hills appears to fall into two types." A little awkward, I feel: maybe rephrase?
Mendips in the arts The link to Amazon in the Le Carré footnote doesn't work.
PS Arts "Thomas Hardy ... and many of his publications make reference to ...". "books refer to" would be preferable to the John Majorish "publications make reference to". --
NigelG (or Ndsg) |
Talk10:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)reply
Response Thanks for the comments, a few answers 1) en-dashes - I went through & changed these for numbers following a previous comment & obviously got carried away. I've removed some. 2) Climate - I've split into 2 paras but not sure what to remove to shorten. 3) Latin names - this is advised by our ecology experts for consistency and rabbits & sheep may be unknown in some parts of the world ! 4) History - I've rephrased these - hope they are better? 5 Arts - I've fixed the amazon link. Thanks again. —
Rodtalk11:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)reply
Much improved! 2) Leave it as it is, unless a met expert can suggest any improvements. 3) Latin names: fair comment—I was being a bit parochial there. 4) Reads much better now, don't you agree? 5) Hardy again: "many of his books"? You've cited one poem. I don't know his works well enough to judge; but as it stands that "many" is a
weasel word.
Climate again: a quick look at the Bristol Water website suggests that the correct name in the 1840s & 1850s was the Bristol Waterworks Company. I suggest using that name followed by "(now Bristol Water)". HTH --
NigelG (or Ndsg) |
Talk15:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)reply
Response - 5) I've changed many to several as it is more than 1 but I don't want to list them. Climate - water co changed. —
Rodtalk17:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)reply
Fine. Oh, those rabbits again ... If you are going to give the scientific name, give the species, not the order (which includes hares, among other things). I presume we're dealing with the European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). --
NigelG (or Ndsg) |
Talk17:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)reply
Sounds like the 6th in a series of novels by
John Updike.
Wind turbine This para could do with a minor rewrite. The 2nd sentence threw me at first, because it sounds as if the local groups etc supported the proposal. I suggest:
The proposal was rejected by Mendip District Council, which enjoyed the support of a range of (representing a coalition of??) local groups and organisations, on the grounds that the environmental impact on the edge of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (or just AONB???) far(??) outweighed the nominal amount of electricity which would be generated.
Shouldn't this entire para perhaps go under Government and politics rather than History?
Response I've accepted your wording & agree this explains the council & local groups positions better, however I think it is better in history as the govt & politics section is really about who controls what. Don'tapologise for the suggestions I think they are improving the article.—
Rodtalk16:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)reply
Geology & Coords
Geology If it's
Carboniferous Limestone, there's something wrong—or insufficiently explained—about the reference to "200 million years ago" (which is roughly Triassic/Jurassic). You'd better check this. It's not necessarily wrong, but the Carboniferous was roughly 360-300 Mya.
US geological usage divides the
Carboniferous into Mississipian & Pennsylvanian: I suggest you make it clear in which period the Mendips were formed (I'd tell you if I knew!).
The use of Mississipian and Pennsylvanian to describe Carboniferous Geology is an Americanizzim. Please use Early and Late Carboniferous.
62.254.237.15010:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC)reply
Not true. The International Geologic Time Scale uses Mississippian and Pennsylvanian as internationally accepted epoch subdivisions of the Carboniferous Period. In the United States, Mississippian and Pennsylvanian are commonly used as full-level geologic Periods, but this usage is officially discouraged by the International Commission on Stratigraphy. Cheers
Geologyguy13:22, 5 April 2007 (UTC)reply
I've made a couple of minor edits in this section, including a para break to separate the mining.
Coordinates (at the top of the page). I would think you could drop the seconds, which specify the location down to 100 ft or so! The nearest minute would do (down to 1 mile or so). I haven't used this template myself, but usually you can just omit any unnecessary parameters—in this case, the seconds of lat & long. --
NigelG (or Ndsg) |
Talk17:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)reply
Response I've removed seconds from the location coordinates but the issues on age of rocks is a bit beyond my knowledge - the 200mya figure is from Barrington, Nicholas; Stanton, William (1977). Mendip: The Complete Caves and a View of the Hills. Cheddar: Cheddar Valley Press.
ISBN0950145920. as cited. I will try to contact a geology expert but any further advice or edits appreciated.—
Rodtalk18:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)reply
I've left a request for help on
User talk:Geologyguy. He's been a major contributor to
Carboniferous, so should know what he's talking about. Let's monitor it & see.
Hello - thanks for asking! I added a paragraph that I hope elucidates the issue - basically, the rocks (Carboniferous Limestone) were laid down during Early Carboniferous time, and the uplift that created the mountains (that the Hills are, I assume, the remnant of) ocurred a bit later, around 300 million years ago. So it was not incorrect to refer to the mountains of 200 million years ago, but I added "200 to 300 million" to try to make it clearer. The mountains would have existed all that time - and still do, to the extent that the Hills are their remnants. I did a bit of research to check on these ages, but if some geologist comes along who is more specifically knowledgeable than I about this area, I hope they can improve it even more! It looks like you all have done a very nice job on the article. Hope this helps - any questions, let me know, and of course feel free to improve my expression of this. Cheers
Geologyguy01:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)reply
FA status
Featured article status. Woo hoo! Well done Rod for driving this. Lots of us have contributed over the past few months but it wouldn't have reached FA without your input and direction. --
Cheesy Mike08:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)reply
Have any of the peaks of the Mendip Hills been summited? If so, it might be useful, from a historical standpoint, to give the dates of the first ascents and the names of the intrepid apinists involved.
98.27.45.153 (
talk)
09:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)reply
Peaks is a rather grandiose word when applied to the Mendips. Mostly it is a plateau with very few peaks, all of which could be ascended by a granny in a wheelchair. First ascents, if they could even be determined, would be in pre-history. --
Simple Bob (
talk)
09:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)reply
Image
I'm bemused that such an uninteresting image has been chosen for the infobox. There is a vast range of images on
Geograph, such as
this one, which in my view would give a better perception of the area.
Ghmyrtle (
talk)
09:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)reply
When I worked on this for GA (2006) & FAC (2007) there weren't so many images available. I'd be happy for it to be changed.—
Rodtalk10:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)reply
I like Ghmyrtle's pic suggestion, but I can see some editors complaining that it focuses on the church. I looked around geograph and found several more:
[1],
[2],
[3],
[4],
[5],
[6],
[7],
[8]. I'll go ahead and start uploading these to commons; perhaps someone who has worked on this article would like to choose one, be bold, and switch to an image of the Mendip Hills that depicts ... hills? ;)
Wine Guy~Talk22:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)reply
Gallery
here. (Two more were already on commons
[9] and
[10].) I think I'll be bold and go ahead and pick one of these, but feel free to change or revert for whatever reason.
Wine Guy~Talk23:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)reply
After I changed the image originally, I realised that the Crook Peak photo would probably be better, in particular because it reveals the limestone which form the Mendips. I thought I should wait for some input though; I'll go ahead and swap images (again).
Wine Guy~Talk17:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)reply
By whom? Mendip is a government district. Mendips are hills. In the 30 years since I first moved to the area I have never heard anyone say "Let's go up onto Mendip", it is always the Mendips. --
Simple Bob (
talk)
09:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)reply
(
edit conflict) I see that someone has already made the change, but I must agree with Simple Bob and anon. I only lived there for 5 years, but the term used to refer to the hilly area is most definitely "the Mendips", as in "I was driving through the Mendips the other day." There is the Mendip District Council, and people occasionally refer to the Mendip Hills, but the hills were rarely if ever referred to as "Mendip".
Wine Guy~Talk10:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)reply
I live at the foot of the Mendips and agree the "s" on the end of the name is by far the commonest usage, but it's called Mendip Hills in official documents.—
Rodtalk10:25, 1 March 2010 (UTC)reply
Usage seems to be somewhat skewed by the popularity of the phrase "in Mendip" - Google gives 45,300 examples and the website of the District Council itself has quite a few, e.g. "housing in Mendip", "residents in Mendip"; but also "Mendip in Bloom" etc., etc.
Martinevans123 (
talk)
19:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)reply
The Watts book on the place-names of England gives the name as "Mendip Hills" and Somerset County Council describes them as
"Mendip Hills", so I suggest the article should stay where it is. As Rodw has explained, official documents seem to use "Mendip Hills".
Nev1 (
talk)
19:29, 4 March 2010 (UTC)reply
In IE 7 and 8 there is a huge white space under the geology header. Probably caused by the nav box. Any thoughts? (sarcastic "get a better browser" comments are not useful by the way - 60 odd percent of the world uses IE so whilst it may be rubbish that's not really the point).
86.147.182.85 (
talk)
21:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)reply
I couldn't find the Mills book, although I did find Watts, Victor (2004), The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
ISBN0-521-36209-1. The entry for Mendip Hills is on page 407 and agrees with what is attributed to Mills. As such, I suggest removing mention of mills from the article but retaining the information and simply using Watts insted of Mills.
Nev1 (
talk)
18:56, 4 March 2010 (UTC)reply
Ok, how do you want these references formatted? Are you going to have a separate bibliography section, do you use harvnb, or do you prefer it done by hand?
Nev1 (
talk)
20:10, 4 March 2010 (UTC)reply
Personally I just use cite web, cite book etc & duplicate if there are several references to the same book with different page nos - but have been trying to get my head around the complexities of harvnb as it is being used on
River Parrett which is nearly ready for FAC.—
Rodtalk20:50, 4 March 2010 (UTC)reply
"Between 1770 and 1813, 7,300 ha (18,039 acres) of land ...". Looks really awkward having those numbers run into one another like that.
Revised but now a number at the start of the sentence which I know some people don't like.
And I'm one of them, although I'm not so averse to starting a sentence with a conjunction, obviously. I've stuck the word "some" in to break it up, as in "some 7,300 ha ...". --
MalleusFatuorum23:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)reply
"More major roads often started as turnpikes ...". This is ambiguous in its context. Does it mean additional major roads, or roads that are more major than those already described?
Amended
"... and are found avoiding the highest areas." You don't just stumble across roads, as "found" implies.
Amended
Caving and cave diving
"The first cave dive was attempted at Swildon's Hole in 1934, and the first successful dive was achieved the following year at Wookey Hole Caves". The
cave diving article claims that the first successful dive took place in 1936, not 1935.
Oh dear, reading
Jack Sheppard that seems even further adrift.
My 1987 copy of Irwin, D. J. and Knibbs, A.J. Mendip Underground says this for Wookey Hole (p 197): "Until the 1930s, the only accesible areas of the cave were the first three chambers (the present main show cave) and the dry upper passages; following construction of the wier circa 1860 the Fourth and Fifth Chambers could be visited only by raft at times of low water level. The application of standard deep-sea diving techniques (bottom walking) produced the discovery of the Sixth and Seventh Chambers in 1935. Using then modern diving equipmenmt, the Eighth and Ninth Chambers were entered by swimming in 1947 and 1948 respectively."
Martinevans123 (
talk)
13:34, 10 March 2010 (UTC)reply
And for Swildons says this: " .. it was not until 1936 that J. Sheppard and G. Balcombe dived Sump 1. Balcombe also dived Sump 2 shortly after."
Martinevans123 (
talk)
13:40, 10 March 2010 (UTC)reply
I have sent an email to Martyn Farr (author of The Darkness Beckons: History and Development of Cave Diving) to ask if he can give any definitive answers.—
Rodtalk18:27, 10 March 2010 (UTC)reply
Books with more one author have the author names listed inconsistently, e.g., "Duff, K.L.; A.P. McKirdy and M.J. Harley". Should be consistently last name, first name.
Hope I've caught all of these.
That History Section
Do mast towers and micro-hydroelectric plants belong in the History section? This article needs a general edit, but as an American I'm not going to do it. I did capitalize the first letter of a sentence, but I'm too old to battle other editors over re-writes.