h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.h2g2.com/A492022
An article about Sandown Pier, Isle of Wight - my home town's pier.

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Hey! I'm impressed! Until now, I'd never given the history of piers any thought.

One or two things that did strike me while I was reading though:

The introduction seems rather long. Perhaps the fisrt two paragraphs could be used as the basis for a new entry about Sandown? Or use just these two as the intro, and put the next three under a heading like 'Building the pier'.

The third sentence of the fourth paragraph feels a little clumsy - too many occurences of 'Webster'. You could either drop the Webster after Thomas (it's Richards father, so it should be safe to assume they have the same surname) or after Richard (as you referred to him in the previous sentence).

The same sentence also feels a bit too long to take in all the information at once. Perhaps '...develop Sandown as a tourist resort. For instance he funded Sandown's waterworks, preventing sewage being dumped...'

Still on the same sentence, I would suggest a comma before 'out of his own pocket'. Without it, it reads as if his pocket is the source of pollution!

The sentence '...and the Sandown Prize Band, a brass band that played by the pier was considered to be among the best in the country, winning several trophies.' caused me a bit of confusion. What is it meant to be telling us? The band was considered to be among the best? Or that they won trophies? Perhaps it's just me not thinking clearly...

I like the mention of the doughnut stall!

Other than the things I've pointed out, it looks like a great entry - it should get picked fairly soon. If anyone notices it, that is...

J

Thanks for your input!
I've had a look at everything you've mentioned, and yep - all good points.
I've tried putting more information in footnotes to try and reduce the length of the sentences, yet keep the extra information available. So, does it work, do you think?

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Get's my vote. It's got to be picked soon.

Oh - none of the pictures load, not even if I try opening them in a new window.

I know the feeling...
First the H2G2 Towers say that Fotango are happy to host all pictures free, and yet when I uploaded them, do they ever work??? Nope! Oh well...

I'm happy as I went to the pier quite a lot over the holiday - went bowling, played on the Simpson's machine (well, you have to!) and they had the market on it and I bought a John Wyndham book....
I'll have to include the market in my article..

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Can I be completely honest without making you hate me?! Althought it was very good in an imformative way, to tell you the truth I only read the first half becasue I got bored! It failed to capture the imagination or transfix the reader (well, in my case anyway!) Sorry! I know that I couldn't do better, I know if I tryed to write on the subject it would be a lot worse but still, it could be made slightly more interseting!!

That's okay to say - I don't hate you.
Thanks for being honest.
It's always hard to decide, when writing for other people, whether you should write a short and jokey article or a longer and more accurate one. Whichever way you go, you're going to get people who prefer the other approach - and there's nothing wrong with that.

So, what would you suggest to make it more interesting to the reader?
I must admit I enjoy reading about factual things - but only if it is about places I know; the vast majority of h2g2ers won't know anything about Sandown Pier, so would be more likely to lose interest.

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Well, I've been there quite often, and found it a very interesting read...

If you start to be too jokey with History it detracts from the accuracy of the article... and doesn't really tell people much.
However your initial paragraph could contain the information in the last paragraph concerning what is actually there now... as this is what people looking at the page would be initially interested in, and then they would read about it's history...

That's a good point, that.

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A492022 is part of a h2g2 Project, so this thread should be moved out of Peer Review!

Yes, it's true.
I told Mark Moxon, but he hasn't done anything, alas.

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The Peer Review Spring Cleaning initiative (thread on MMs U13 space) seems to become a Summer Cleaning thingy...

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review Sin Bin' to 'Sandown Pier, Isle of Wight, UK'.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Sandown Pier, Isle of Wight, UK' to 'Sandown Pier, Isle of Wight, UK'.

Intended to go to Original, not Edited version.