Wikipedia:Featured article review/United States Constitution/archive1


 * 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 User:Marskell 15:00, 25 October 2008.

Review commentary

 * Notified: Meelar, Law Wikiproject, United States Wikiproject, United States History Wikiproject, US Congress Wikiproject.

I think its high time to do a Featured Article Review for the US Constitution. I think it's a good article, with great citations, but there are numerous issues that collectively question its FA status. Notably,


 * 1A (while succinct, the prose fails to engage the reader, or "flow" well)
 * 1B (it glosses over major subjects that should be included, such as the its history, or fails to appropriately integrate them into the article. It is too general an article for its own good)
 * 2B (its structure is halting, and thus difficult to read)
 * 2C (while a fairly lengthy selection of primary and secondary, it has only 14 inline citations or notes. There are many issues with quotation citations, and specific references etc. etc.)

Finally, this article was approved for FA status in 2004; fours years is a great length of time without a formal review. And, indeed, there have been incredibly improvements into what is acceptable for FA or not, what was good in 2004 is not necessarily so in 2008. A critical look will do much good for this article. Cheers! Zidel333 (talk) 15:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll have a look; there are certainly issues, particularly with citations - but this really needs to be a Featured Article. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 15:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not arguing that it should be Featured, I'm just contending that its currently not up to snuff. Certainly, there are other articles that should be FA as well but their importance should not be a factor in their qualifications. Cheers! Zidel333 (talk) 15:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm agreeing with you; My point was that, in my opinion, this one is worth some extra work to keep it Featured. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 18:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Once again, FA has ceased to amaze me. The section entitled "Unratified amendments" hasn't a single source to any of the statements. This along with other numerous statements which are unreferenced. I don't care how vital any article is, it never has to be a Featured Article. This should be treated no different to an article like Adolf Hitler, Ante Pavelic, Robert Prosinecki or any other random page. Either source the statements or be prepared for the article to be removed. Domiy (talk) 07:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Please stop trolling FARs. Of course editors should be prepared for the possibility of removal, but this is a long and deliberative process. Marskell (talk) 12:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not trolling at all. I'm just notifying the editor that no article must or has to be a Featured Article. I don't go by importance, I go by quality. It's no secret that other reviewers do actually go by importance, which is really diminishing but this is neither the time or the place for such a discussion. I'm just ensuring that the editor knows the possible outcome of this FAR, which is removal if the page does not cite additional references. How you call that 'trolling' amazes me. Let's not get into unnecessary flames here. Just stick to the topic. Domiy (talk) 01:26, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, Domiy; you are trolling FAR. Please stop.  This article was promoted 4 years ago, before inline citations were required and when standards were significantly lower. Even if it had been cited way back then, some articles deteriorate over time, so blaming the process is silly.  Stop WP:SOAPBOXing on FAR pages, because you only make them hard to read.  If you don't have specific comments to help improve an article, don't waste time and bandwidth of those who are here to work on improving FAs; those who do want to improve articles shouldn't have to read through pages of unhelpful ranting and verbiage.  And since the editor who brought the article to featured status four years ago has made only eight edits to Wikipedia in all of 2008, your rants to that editor to prepare for the article to be defeatured are going nowhere, in addition to being offensive and demeaning, since the article was featured quality for the standards in 2004 when it was promoted.  You can dig in to help cite the article, or wait for it to move to FARC and !vote to delist it.  Anything else is just wasting time.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 07:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sandy, I find your comments very unethical. So much for assuming good faith, which you are yet to demonstrate to my knowledge. I've made countless suggestions to many FAC and FARC articles. I don't need to stand here and "rant" to you. I think a quick list should do it...Scotland national football team, Gregory House, Absinthe, US Constitution, Germany womens national football team and Chelsea FC are just recent ones. They may come across as high standards and extreme, but nobody can argue that they do actually go by the FA criteria and, on top of being easily satisfied, have helped these pages regain FA status and gain constructive feedback. As I said before, you may indeed think that I am trolling because of the way I post my issues; excuse me from going away from the usual 'top notch' language and using a little bit of writing flare to get my point across. Assume Good Faith, and we're all good. Domiy (talk) 10:42, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments - I just noticed the little amount of references are a little...dodgy maybe? Not really formatted correctly, some format issues are visible in them and they don't all follow the same style. Additionally, References 6-12 all link right here to the same page. This is just a home page for the Charters Of Freedom. They deliver no specific information which back up the statements. Please link the appropriate references to the exact webpage where the information can be found. Domiy (talk) 01:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


 * One image problem Image:Scene Constitution.jpg is probably a painting by Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952), so doesn't qualify for PD-Art.
 * External links and See also should be trimmed. DrKiernan (talk) 12:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Some of those links might end up being worthwhile sources; I'll check them. I'll also tackle the See Also. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 18:23, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I was thinking of the references section; I've cut the External links by about half, many being redundant to other links or to Wikisource. Same with the See Also section; there's a list of similar documents, and I would think we have a "Major Legal Documents" template of some sort that would collect those. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 18:36, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), comprehensiveness (1b), and structure (2). Marskell (talk) 11:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Remove. Per criteria concerns and above comments by and . Cirt (talk) 11:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Strongly Remove still many issues present which are yet to be fixed up. Doesn't look like much of an attempt has been made. The reference consistency and display in this article is of very poor standards. Not only does it reference rarely, the few provided references lack data and appropriate placement (some website references still lead to a normal homepage, which doesn't lead to the exact backup of the information). Additionally, the layout is similarly not good standards at all. Domiy (talk) 11:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Remove, per criteria and comments above. -- MakE  shout! 21:42, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Remove per my own comments, and additional comments regarding referencing criteria. Zidel333 (talk) 04:36, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Remove 1c.  YellowMonkey  ( click here to choose Australia's next top model ) 05:03, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.