User talk:Richard Nevell
New article I moved to mainspace today. If you are interested, have a look.Tiamut (talk) 07:39, 19 December 2025 (UTC)
- @Tiamut: Nice work, it's a clear and detailed account of the artefact type. It looks well rounded enough to go through the Good Article process of you're interested after it goes through DYK. Richard Nevell (talk) 21:13, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
- Thank you for taking the time to review it and make corrections. It is currently in line for WP:DYK spot. And I am rather overstretched working on too many other articles at once. But maybe I will pursue that once I free up some headspace. Cheers! Hope you had a fruitful holiday. Tiamut (talk) 21:17, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
Bodiam etc
Hi Richard, thanks for message, Bodiam now looking v.g. - well done. Happy New Year (from a Lewknor descendant). Thank goodness I haven't got to pay the inheritance tax... Eebahgum (talk) 01:38, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
- @Eebahgum: I've been tinkering round the edges really. Maybe the article could do with a bit of tightening up. I was pleased to see your correction! Happy New Year (belatedly!) Richard Nevell (talk) 00:53, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
Can you advise please?
Hello again, Richard - I was wondering if you might be so kind as to look at the edit history of the article I worked on about Sir John Denham (poet), as some heavy editing there in the past two days (at this diff in Wikipedia) has removed some 30,000 characters of meticulously referenced material, and has reverted the article back to a primitive state. My first thought was "vandalism", but I am always hesitant to "push" my own work if someone else takes objection to it, and it is quite possible that I over-egged Sir John in various ways. I never want to provoke, if it can be avoided. On the other hand, a massive amount of verified encyclopedic content has been cut out wholesale by this editor, in a way that I feel is surely contrary to acceptable Wikipedia behaviour, particularly since the whole edit summary is "terrible prose", and there was no prior discussion. I am only asking that you might kindly glance at the situation and offer me an opinion. Please express yourself freely if you think my information or prose etc was no good. Or else redirect me to some one else who could advise? Thanks, Eebahgum (talk) 10:00, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
- Hello Eebahgum. Starting from the abstract, I would expect a strong reason to remove that much text and efforts to follow WP:PRESERVE.
- In the interest of providing a timely response I've read the lead and first section of the article before and after the recent truncation, and am working on the assumption that the style will be similar in the rest of the article. The headline in my opinion is that the prose could be reigned in a little to be closer to Wikipedia's house style, but calling it "terrible" is over the top.
- It's clear that the extended version had a lot more information on Denham himself. It's interesting stuff too, and I would have thought worth keeping.
- I think there are two approaches that would be helpful: reducing the level of detail a bit and making sure the tone is right. For example, while it makes sense to include some information on Denham's parents I wonder if the information on the rebuilding of the Manor House might be a bit off-topic for this article – especially as it took place before his birth. Perhaps the link becomes clearer later in the article but that stood out to me. When it comes to tone, it's not so much that the text promotes a particular view but that judgements are best as quotes.
- This production, intelligently argued and peppered with Latin lines from classical authors, seems fully sincere despite a certain bravado, and was published long afterwards (1651) for the common good, supposedly without Denham's knowledge.
- The text I've bolded is a value judgement. Without commenting on whether it's true (especially as I've not read the work) it's a tricky thing to have in Wikipedia's own voice. A good way to deal with that would be with a quote, so we can say in whose judgement the essay was intelligently argued, but in this case the only reference is to the essay itself.
- Some more wikilinks would provide some helpful context – not masses. Those that stand out are ship money and rake, which I assume that people familiar with the period may know but readers new to the period may not.
- As a way forward, I think it's reasonable to restore the text and discuss stuff on the talk page. It's in line with the bold, revert, discuss cycle which though not policy is widely understood. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:21, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
- Thankyou, very much, for your thoughtful and carefully considered reply and its helpful suggestions. Part of the difficulty of following them is that a certain amount of rollback would be necessary to take the first step, and involves procedures which I don't understand. Secondly, it would require a fairly immediate and intensive amount of re-editing and dialogue which are at the moment beyond my capabilities. I don't want to take any "tit-for-tat" action or give that impression so I may simply have to let the article go, even though a lot of care went into finding the verifying references and links to published sources. Still, they are always there in the diff for those who want them. I wish now I hadn't left that hostage to fortune with the jeu d'esprit about his "Intellectuals"! (Even so, it's in the shorter OED.) I think I need a wikibreak. But thankyou again, it was most kind of you to respond. Every good wish, Eebahgum (talk) 20:19, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
DYK for Stephen Linard
On 22 February 2026, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Stephen Linard, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Stephen Linard designed clothes for David Bowie and Boy George? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Stephen Linard. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Stephen Linard), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to nominate it.