User talk:CMcQueeny/Archive 1

I thought I'd be easier to over some of my objections to this article here, as the featured article candidates page is already getting pretty long.

First things first - it'd be a really good idea to cut down the lead section. You might want to take a look at some of the other featured articles for some examples, but it should really only be two or three brief paragraphs summarising the whole article.

It's often hard to describe stylistic concerns, but I'll have a go. One thing is the use of casual language that doesn't really work (of course, simply, Something also must be said). Another is the use of absolutes (cannot) for things that perhaps aren't indisputably absolute. Then there's things like describing something as though it was by far the most significant or Sometimes this was seen as positive or There is a general acknowledgment that the situation should not continue as it is indefinitely - according to who? Things like Some observers see this as are weasel words.There's also very biased statements such as unreasonable and fanatic step. There's other cases that are less severe, but still probably should be changed such as in as there have been heretics and schismatics in even that venerable position. There's also times when it may well be accurate, but probably needs to explain things better - like with the mention of the "Triumph of Orthodoxy". To the uninformed reader, it's not clear whether this is a widespread belief or author bias, whereas if it was explained and attributed, this probably would not be the case.

Instead of linking to sub-articles in the form of A separate article is devoted to the topic of Eastern Orthodox Church organization., it's usually better to follow Summary style. There's also cases of writing that isn't exactly brilliant prose, such as in the first paragraph of the "history" section, that may be due for a copyedit, and prose that doesn't flow very well, such as ''This established missionary precedence for the Russian Orthodox Church in the Americas, and Eastern Orthodox Christians were under the omophor (Church authority and protection) of The Patriarch of Moscow. The Russian Orthodox Church was devastated by the Bolshevik Revolution.''

Please don't take offense at all this - it is a good, detailed article. However, our featured articles are the very best we have, both in their coverage of their content and their prose. I'm no religious scholar, so I can't critique much of the former (indeed, it's very informative), but there's a lot of little stylistic things that I'd like to see cleaned up before I support this for featured status. Ambi 03:21, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)