Wikipedia:Featured article review/Parliament Acts/archive1

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[edit] Parliament Acts

[edit] Review commentary

Talk messages left at Morwen, UK notice board, Politics, and British Govt. Sandy 00:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Very short, very few references, only one of those an inline citation, inline links are rife, and it just generally seems not up to FA standards. Staxringold talkcontribs 00:47, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • All of that, mixed referenced style, external jumps, and should the title be Act or Acts? Sandy 00:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
    • I cleaned up refs and added ref tags. There are very few inline citations. Sandy 01:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • it could do with work on referencing: but "Very short"? i think its about the right length. Morwen - Talk 06:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • (i) There seem to be more references now (just turning the inline links to refs, I think). It would be nice to add Halsbury's Laws and Erskine May, I suppose. (ii) "Very short" is hardly an actionable complaint, as long as no major facts or details have been left out to create a lack of comprehensiveness. Indeed, WP:WIAFA requires featured articles are meant to be "of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail". What do you think is missing? (iii) A couple of the sections are rather short and could be merged. In what other ways does it "just generally seems not up to FA standards"? -- ALoan (Talk) 09:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Both the "Uses of the Act" and "Validity of the 1949 Act" sections have lists of information that need further explanation, and should not be in list form. Beyond that, the Enacting formula section is odd and either doesn't deserve it's own section or isn't nearly well-explained enough, and there's basically no information on said "Recent developments". Staxringold talkcontribs 13:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I cleaned up what few references where there, but the article is still not adequately cited. If there are questions, I could add some cite tags, but don't want to pepper the article. Sandy 13:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you both for your further comments. We will have to see what we can do to deal with your concerns.
Why is the list format unacceptable? It would be less clear to have a paragraph listing the items in continuous prose, rather than a list, and most of the items in the lists are explained briefly. Perhaps the explanations could be expanded a little, but I'm not sure how helpful it would be to have a longer and more detailed exegesis on the Welsh Church Act 1914, Home Rule Act 1914 or the other acts mentioned - the short summaries in the lists look reasonably adequate to me.
It may help to pepper the article with cite templates selectively, so we know what you think needs a specific reference. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I can see how the cite templates could be helpful, I'll go through when I've got a bit more time (heading to the gym pretty soon). As for list formats, I just tend to see lists as one of two things. Either loosely associated information not worthy of further explanation of importance (the violation of this "rule" of course being things like DVD release dates) or it's a list of information that deserves more explanation but isn't getting it because it's relegated to a list. Staxringold talkcontribs 17:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I really dislike adding cite tags when the entire article needs inline citations. Will do if needed, though. Sandy 18:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I feel the same way as Sandy - 1. c. needs addressing throughout the article. LuciferMorgan 20:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. Besides one inline citation added by Yomangani, there has been no movement on this article. Are any editors planning to work on it; if so, should we add specific ref tags? Sandy 14:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the reminder - sorry, I have been distracted by other things. Some "unreferenced" tags have been added to some sections, but more specific tags would help. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
      • I started from the bottom (hoping others will start from the top):
        • (Weasle words and one sentence section): In March 2006 it was reported that the Government is considering removing the ability of the Lords to delay legislation that arises as a result of manifesto commitments, and reducing their ability to delay other legislation to a period of 60 days.[7]
        • Next section up, Enacting formula, is another (basically) one-sentence section, poorly constructed with no citation.
        • (Validity of the 1949 Act):
          • (Weasle words): "doubts have been raised by legal academics" - no citations for any of these concerns or who these academics are.
          • The prose is frustrating: Tony should look at it, as he would be better able to explain what problem is making the prose so tortured.
          • Another citation needed: Following legal principles established when the United Kingdom granted legislative powers to assemblies in its colonies in the late 1700s
          • One-sentence paragraphs: The first legal challenge to the 1949 Act is believed to have been made during the first prosecution for war crimes under the War Crimes Act 1991, R. v. Serafinowicz, but this challenge was rejected, and no record of the legal arguments remains.[3]
          • No citations whatsoever: Support for this conclusion can be drawn from the parliamentary debates on the 1911 Act, in which an entrenchment clause was considered but rejected, the Government clearly displaying the intention to be able to make such amendments if necessary.[citation needed] However, the 2005 decision was made on other grounds, so the question of whether the Courts could refer to the 1949 Act's Parliamentary debates was not decided.[citation needed] The 1949 Act was also held to be primary legislation, but of an unusual sort, since the Courts can rule on whether the provisions of the 1911 Act were complied with.[citation needed] This analysis also applies to the other Acts passed under the Parliament Acts. It was also held that the 1911 Act clearly permits the Parliament Act procedure to be used for "any Public Bill", and this was sufficient to dispose of the argument that the 1911 Act could not be used to amend itself.[citation needed] Effectively, the Court took the view that the 1911 Act was a 'remodelling' of the constitution.[citation needed]
      • This is intended as a sample only of the work needed: the prose is difficult. Tony should have a look. Sandy 14:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment The title should be Parliament Acts, since the article covers both acts and "Parliament Act" doesn't really get a mention outside the context of the dated acts- can somebody move it? Yomanganitalk 00:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I moved the article, will now correct this page, correct on FA page, and in our citations list. Sandy 03:11, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are sufficiency and formatting of references (1c). Marskell 12:39, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Can somebody have a look through and see what still needs doing - I've added citations, and expanded and reworded some sections. In this case, I think the use of lists benefits the article rather than detracting from it, as otherwise it may seem dense and difficult due to the need to accurately represent the legal aspects which, in turn, restricts the vocabulary that can be used. Yomanganitalk 11:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: As a jurist (though not in Britain!) I can say that it is fine! Comprehensive, covers the history, the jurisprudence and the problems. My only concern is the lack of more academic citations, in order to have a more in depth analysis of the theoritical approaches. The only academician I saw mentioned was the one in note 15.--Yannismarou 18:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I've been busy on other articles and forgot to look back at this one - apart from the article mentioned above, I haven't been able to find any online primary sources for the claims that the 1949 Act was invalid, but since the rulings, proposed amendments and the article cited all refer to them, I considered them reliable secondary sources (anyway, I heard that retrospectively adding inline citations to previous FAs isn't necessary any more...boom, boom). Yomanganitalk 01:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
      • There are certainly academic sources, but not likely to be online for free. Let me see what I can do in the library. (I cannot promise to do it immediately, though.) -- ALoan (Talk) 10:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
        • Hood-Phillips' Constitutional and Administrative Law is likely to have something if you need a starting point. Yomanganitalk 11:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, provided all of the referencing issues are addressed. Tony 15:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, referencing looks good now. Sandy (Talk) 14:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)