Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lord Chancellor/archive1

Lord Chancellor

 * Article is no longer a featured article.

Review commentary
Honestly, I find FA(R)C fairly inhospitable places, so I shall say what I mean to say and then likely leave the thing alone, apart from the odd response perhaps.

This article is somewhat the victim of circumstance (and sweeping constitutional change in the UK...) and is now rather out of date. Much was changed by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 which, although mentioned in the article somewhat vaguely a few times, is only really dealt with in a "current events" way in the Reform section. In fact, the effects of the Act are now being seen and it has long passed the parliamentary hurdles (with amendments). There are several other articles affected by these reforms and together with this one, they need a comprehensive seeing-to. It is short on references for much of what it says, and none of them are inlined to particular facts. None of them deal properly with an academic history of the office: the first is a text from 1868 which (I guess) documents the office holders rather than the detail of the office (it is hard to say from a single mention at the bottom) and the others mean to deal with the reforms which the article also has a go at. The sections which have long been tagged as needing attention do; the prose is not poor, but not crisp and the progress of the material is rather uneven. It also does not use 'summary style', although that particular method would be out of place in this article really (as it is in most). It seems that at present, and without significant re-working and inter-working, with other articles this no longer meets FAC standards. (As a side note, its FAC was cursory at best.) -Splash - tk 19:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * If it's a victim of circumstance, it further suffers because the uninformed will have no idea. Not knowing the Lord Chancellor from the broad side of a barn, I read it and it seemed just fine. The writing level is good (even a touch ornate) and it appears comprehensive. But if it's out of date as you say than it probably shouldn't have the star now. The refs are definitely a problem; there is a lot of very obscure dating in this that's just begging for in-line cites.


 * Did you, by any chance, contact the initial nominator? Marskell 12:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Tony 01:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Fails 2a. Here are random examples of why the whole article needs to be thoroughly copy-edited.
 * "and is, by convention, always a peer"—spot the redundant word. Is he, by convention, a man? If so, you might make that point somewhere, to justify the male pronouns.
 * "Some give the first Chancellor of England as Angmendus, in 605." Some what? Computers? Where's the reference?
 * Start of paragraph: "The Lord Chancellor's judicial duties also evolved through his role in the Curia Regis"—spot the redundant word.
 * Why are the simple, undated years blue?
 * "discharged the duties of the office until an appropriate replacement could be found." Spot the redundant word.


 * I would add that I don't think this "fails" 2a. To the extent I find the writing off it's due to phrasing more appropriate to book form. For instance, "A further historical instance may be mentioned:" Here "Further," is sufficient. And there's some sentences that sound like legalese: "with the exception of the Lord High Steward, which office, as aforementioned, has generally been vacant since the 15th century." Marskell 08:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Main FA criteria concerns are citations (2c) and whether the information is up-to-date (2b). Marskell 16:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Talk message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics. Sandy 22:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * |Here's what's been done thus far. Tony 23:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * For clarity, none of my mentioned issues have been dealt with, so my nomination to remove FA status stands. -Splash - tk 20:15, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove. Nothing happening on this one. Marskell 10:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove as per Marskell and my comments during the review. Tony 07:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Re content: did no-one notice User:Mhardcastle's edits on 16 July? -- ALoan (Talk) 19:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out. Mhardcastle has (I think) brought the article reasonably up to date. It does still lack any proper level of referencing though. -Splash - tk 00:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I left a more specific request for help at Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board. Sandy 00:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Looking again, yes, Mhardcastle did some good work. It's a shame about the citations because it's a good article. Unfortunately, per the consensus on 2C it should be removed. Marskell 10:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove as above. Tony 10:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove - most unfortunate, but without citations, we're asking Wiki readers to "take our word for it." Sandy 00:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove as above. No refrerences, unexciting prose. Harmonica Wolfowitz 20:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)