Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/USA PATRIOT Act, Title III, Subtitle A

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[edit] USA PATRIOT Act, Title III, Subtitle A

Self-nom More USA PATRIOT Act goodness. As it turns out, I am now documenting possibly the driest, and lengthiest, title of the Act. The umbrella article is still very much a work in progress, but I have finished documenting Title III, Subtitle A. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Oppose Too many subdivisions and I don't think many people would want to read the every single clause. It also doesn't tell what the Patriot Act is in a nutshell. EKN 15:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)EKN
    • Ummm... the second part is not actionable as the article is not about the entire USA PATRIOT Act. The first part, IMO, is also not actionable because this is a detailed breakdown of part of the PATRIOT Act. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Object - The lead is not a summary of the article, in that the lead talks about being passed by congress, that it's a response to 9/11, how it's organized, and then a summary of the text. The article, however, contains nothing BUT a summary of the text. Additionally, the lead needs to be expanded to three paragraphs. The article is also a little long, and you might want to consider splitting it up a bit for summary style's sake, but I'm not going to push on this point too much yet- it depends how the article looks after it has been properly expanded. Similarly, it'd be nice to have some images, but I can understand how that might be difficult for an article on a dry topic. On the other hand, if you do expand the article in the ways it needs to be expanded as I mentioned above, there could be opportunity for images-- news images of congress debating, for instance, or 9/11 photos, or things like that. It may be possible to get images depicting things in the text of the act itself? Have any court cases made the news because of the things described in these sections? Fieari 16:00, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
    • OK, I can work on some of these things. Allow me to address each in turn:
    1. The lead needs to give a very brief one liner about the main PATRIOT Act. This is what I have done for the featured article Detailed breakdown of the USA PATRIOT Act, Title II. I can rename it if you would like. The fact that this is a summary of the text is signficant because that is the purpose of the article: to explain the act in plainer language. I'd like to point out that it is more than just a summary, however. At least one of the sections also summarises a report that was done by the U.S. Treasury Dept. Did you read this?
    2. It's not really too long. 40KB is not that bad - there are longer articles like Windows 2000. And of course, this article was already split from USA PATRIOT Act, Title III.
      • Just want to comment that comparing it to longer articles does not justify its length. Some topics require longer articles but it doesn't mean that any 40kb article is an appropriate length. Worldtraveller 21:42, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
    3. Why does the lead need to be expanded into 3 sections?
    4. You state that "if you do expand the article in the ways it needs to be expanded as I mentioned above". You haven't mentioned how it could be expanded at all! I'm all ears if you could tell me however.
    5. Images? Almost impossible for such a specific topic.
    6. Court cases... good point. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
      • OK, had a look for court cases. The problem is that Title III modified so many different things. However, I did do a search on FindLaw and I can't find any cases that are relevant. - Ta bu shi da yu 17:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Sorry. By "how it should be expanded" I mean that everything that is in the lead section, should be detailed further in the body of the article. There shouldn't be anything in the lead that isn't also in the article itself, with more detail. At the very least, the article body should have an "Introduction" heading that details the things mentioned in the lead with a bit more detail.
    • The reason the lead needs to be expanded to three paragraphs is due to the MoS, which all FAs should follow. See: WP:LEAD. Basically, the larger the article, the larger the lead.
    • 40kb isn't too bad, true, but with expansion, it might get a bit unmanagable. The key however isn't flat size, but how things are organized. If it can't be split further, it can't be split further, and that's fine. I'm just saying to keep an eye out for places that could conceivably be split. I'm not objecting on this point however, so don't worry too much about it.
    • Fieari 16:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Unless the MoS has changed since I've been at Wikipedia, I don't believe that the lead will need to be expanded unduly. However, Wikipedia:Lead section as always states that this is a guideline. The text is neatly summarised in the last paragraph of the lead section - any more expansion IMO is not necessary. However, you may see some areas that you may think needs expansion in the lead. If that is the case, please tell me and I'll get to work. - Ta bu shi da yu 17:00, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. All I can say to Ta Bu Shi Da Yu is that I am glad someone is doing it, someone needs to say what is in the PATRIOT ACT, and I'm glad it's not me because it looks really boring. I can't tell if its patriotism or obsession, but whatever, it is, its awesome. Keep up the good work. RyanGerbil10 13:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
    Obsession (can't be patriotism, I don't live in the U.S.). Thanks for the positive feedback! - Ta bu shi da yu 14:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Object - sorry, I know that you spent a lot of work on this but I feel that it isn't compelling, even brilliant prose; I got very bored very quickly. Additionally, section titles shouldn't be more than 1 line long (I feel that this is very ugly, especially in the TOC). Also, the lack of secondary sources is giving me pause for thought. --Celestianpower háblame 22:45, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
    • The subject is inherently boring, so there isn't anything I can do about that. The secondary sources: if you could point me to some that specifically address Subtitle A, I would appreciate it! - Ta bu shi da yu 11:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Just to make things clear. I don't believe your first criticism (the "boring"ness of the article) is inactionable. Your second, on the other hand, is actionable. Whether the last can be fixed is another issue - I'm not sure these sources exist. --Oldak Quill 09:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
        • That doesn't really make anything clearer. What in particular is it about this article that is boring? I have some writing skill, if you could point out how you would like it to be changed then I'll do my best! - Ta bu shi da yu 10:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Secondary sources do exist in law review and practitioner journal articles. But trust me, they're likely to be even more boring than the Act itself.Amcfreely 05:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
          • That's not the point - they can be boring as anything, they're only there to back up what's said in the text. See WP:RS. --Celestianpower háblame 15:04, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. This seems good, nice level of detail and seemingly thorough referencing. Accuracy and detail are what really matter, and whether something is interesting to read is secondary; besides, the subject is by its nature rather dry. If you want the information, this article appears well suited to providing it. Everyking 08:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: as per RyanGerbil10 and Everyking Chuck 03:54, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, looks very nice Tuf-Kat 06:57, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment One of the benefits of this article is that it could explain the law in plainer language. By and large it succeeds, but look out for sentences like "An official or employee of the government who acts corruptly — as well as the person who induces the corrupt act — by being influenced for any official act, who is influenced to allow or collude with any fraudulent act, or who is induced to take or not take some action which is in violation of the person's official duties will be fined by an amount that is not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the bribe in question". Tuf-Kat 06:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per nom and Everyking Amcfreely 05:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Support say what you want about Ta bu shi da yu's esoteric interests (and most objectors do) but the article is superbly written. Great work. savidan(talk) (e@) 01:52, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Fundamentally object - I originally left this point as a comment further up but on reflection I feel it's actually a major objection: I do not think a detailed breakdown of an act is actually something an encyclopaedia should contain. I think a very different sort of article should be at this title, explaining how the act arose, the implications of it, results of it, opinions of it, but a clause by clause breakdown of it actually isn't even encyclopaedic, no matter how well it might be written. Worldtraveller 20:01, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
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