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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 12:25, 12 July 2009 [1].

Common scold

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Review commentary

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Notified:WikiProject Law

Yuck, what a mess:

  1. 1a. Clumsy prose with lots of sentences beginning with "the".
  2. 1b. Seems rather short. Some parts are barely a paragraph long.
  3. 1c. Very few sources. At least two {{fact}} tags, only 10 cites overall, large chunks of unreferenced-ness.

This has clearly slipped way, way, way below the FA guidelines, given that it was promoted in 2004. Notified User:Majorly, who pointed this article out on IRC, and WikiProject Law. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 01:56, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Um, did you all discuss simply reverting it to the version that passed FAR last time? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hardly any better. That revision still has almost all of the same problems, minus a couple red links. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 02:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Point them out, please ... this looks like an example of citation density counting ... common sense doesn't need to be cited, and some facts are cited inline. where is the clumsy prose, what needs citation, and "Seems rather short" is not a valid criticism for an FA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, half the sentences begin with "the". Mix it up a little. The "Current status of the law" section is hardly common-sense, doesn't-need-to-be-sourced type stuff. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 02:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
4u1e's comments
  • The article probably is almost completely covered by the references identified, although perhaps the citations could be tidied up to make this clearer. Some specific points:
    • Refs 1 and 5 are broken links.
    • There's a mix of inline and footnoted citations - ony one style should be used.
    • The interpretation of John Holt's remarks on the punishment may go beyond what the reference actually says.
    • The comment on Fye Bridge is not cited.
    • The last two paragraphs are not cited.
    • The quality of the references doesn't seem very high. All are acceptable, they just don't really look like a thorough cross section of the best scholarship available.
  • I have doubts as to the comprehensiveness of the article. For example:
    • There's almost nothing on the offence itself, most of the article is about the punishments and when the offence died out. What behaviour led to prosecution? Several cases are quoted, but there's nothing on what the accused actually did. It would also be interesting, if possible, to have some idea of when the offence originated.
    • Similarly, was this unique to the British legal system (and by descent, the American one)? If purely a British punishment, the difference to mainland Europe is striking and should be commented on.
    • I find it hard to believe that's there's not a vast scholarly literature on such a topic, but if there is, it's not reflected in the article. For example, there must have been much comment from a feminist perspective. (see Google Scholar for a start.)
  • The section 'Historical prosecutions' is quite confusing. What point is being made here? It reads like a fairly random list of historical occurences. Why are these the most notable instances? What do they tell us about the offence? The section may be trying to address the issue of when the practice died out, but I can't really tell.
  • Has anyone informed the relevant wikiproject and editors, by the way? Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 16:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, quality of sources, comprehensiveness, lead, inconsistent style. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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