Wikipedia:Peer review/Hawaii House Bill 444/archive1

Hawaii House Bill 444
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I hope to nominate this at WP:FAC in the near future.

Thanks, obento  musubi  01:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the article slowly morphs into a version of Recognition of same-sex unions in Hawaii. One could think about a up-merger. Hekerui (talk) 11:35, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The article needs some work from the primary contributors (mainly myself) and have the scope figured out before coming close to FA status, so please don't bother. Hekerui (talk) 17:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is interesting, stable, neutral, and broad in coverage. The images look good. however, the explanation of the Baehr cases could be more complete and clear, and I have quite a few suggestions about prose and style.


 * The images need alt text, which is meant for readers who can't see the images. WP:ALT has details, and you can see examples of alt text in the articles at WP:FAC. Suitable alt text is now a requirement for FA.


 * I'd suggest shortening the head "Content of the bill" to "Content" to avoid repeating the main words of the article title and changing subhead 2.2, "2009 bill", to "2009 proposal" or something similar. I'd also suggest removing "The" from the head, "The Baehr cases (1991–1996)". Wikipedia generally uses a telegraphic style without "the", "a", or "an" as the first word of a head.

Content of the bill
 * "To be eligible for a civil union, the bill outlines that 1)... ". - Suggestion: "The bill suggested that to be eligible for a civil union 1)...". The existing sentence order suggests that the bill itself might be eligible for a civil union. Also, sticking to past tense would probably be better than switching from past "proposed" to present "outlines" to past "enumerated".
 * "Section 1, § —9 of House Bill 444" - Would it be more clear to readers if "§ —9" were replaced by "paragraph 9" or "subsection 9" or something of the sort?
 * "In addition, House Bill 444 would have repealed a statute that declared "private solemnization [is] not unlawful." - The Manual of Style advises against wikilinking anything inside a direct quote since the link is not part of the quote.

Baehr cases
 * In the majority opinion delivered by Judge Steven Levinson, he presents a twofold argument: 1) that marriage is not a fundamental right, and is not included in the right to privacy, but that 2) denying same-sex couples from marriage would be a breach of equal protection." - Suggestion: "The majority opinion, delivered by Judge Steven Levinson, presented a twofold argument that: 1) marriage is not a fundamental right and is not included in the right to privacy, but 2) denying same-sex couples the right to marry is a breach of equal protection."
 * "[n]o person shall ... be denied the equal protection of the laws, nor be denied the enjoyment of the person's civil rights or be discriminated against in the exercise thereof because of race, religion, sex, or ancestry." - Is the italicized portion of this italicized in the original?
 * "In the dissenting opinion, Judge Walter Meheula Heen states that he agrees... " - Past tense (stated, agreed, disagreed)?
 * "Judge Kevin Chang delivered the opinion of the Court yet again" - Delete "yet again" since this is the first mention of Chang?
 * "asserting that, in order to limit one's rights" - Suggestion: "limit someone's rights". "One" has a self-referential feel.
 * "According to Judge Chang, the defendant was unable to prove that there was compelling interest behind his motives to limit the rights of others... ". - It might be helpful to explain who Baehr was and who Lewin and Miike were. It's not entirely clear which these are private individuals or whether one or more of them represents the State of Hawaii or some part of its government. I found myself wondering how Miike was in a position to deny marriage to same-sex couples.

2009 bill
 * "It passed the Hawaii House Judiciary Committee on February 5, 2009, with 12 members voting in favor and none opposed[3] and was approved by the Hawaii House of Representatives in February 12, 2009, with 33 members voting in favor and 17 opposed,[1] one vote fewer than the two-thirds vote needed to override a veto by the Republican Governor Linda Lingle,[7] who did not indicate whether she considered a veto." - Too many clauses. I'd consider breaking this into two sentences.
 * "A hearing by the Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations (JGO) was held at the State Capitol on February 24, 2009,[1] with the outcome of three senators supporting the bill and three opposed;[1] the bill was therefore not passed out of committee." - "With" doesn't make a very good conjunction. Suggestion: "The Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations (JGO) held a hearing at the State Capitol on February 24, 2009,[1] during which three senators supported the bill and three opposed it;[1] the bill was therefore not passed out of committee."

Reactions
 * "U.S. Representative Neil Abercrombie supported the bill, stating "it is shameful that while they must give their equal share to the government, the government will not give them equal protection" about gay and lesbian citizens of Hawaii." - A bit awkward. Perhaps "U.S. Representative Neil Abercrombie supported the bill, saying of gay and lesbian citizens of Hawaii, "it is shameful that while they must give their equal share to the government, the government will not give them equal protection".
 * "A letter later sent to senators in support of the H.B. 444 by community groups, including the Local 5 union, the Hawaii NAACP, the Hawaii State Democratic Women's Caucus, and the Japanese American Citizens League." - Missing word or words? This is not a complete sentence as it stands.


 * Overlinking: Hooser, Alona, Abercrombie, Lingle and others are linked multiple times. Once is probably enough, though perhaps two is OK if in different sections of the article. Linking common words like "education" is unnecessary and adds a kind of blue clutter. I don't think I'd link fairly self-evident terms like "Hawaii House of Representatives" more than once in the whole article.


 * The same people that are linked multiple times are referred to multiple times by their full names. Usually only the last name is needed after the first use.

References
 * Newspaper names like  Honolulu Star-Bulletin should be in italics.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 21:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments from
 * You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
 * Newspapers titles in the references should be in italics. If you're using cite news, use the work field for the title of the paper, and the publisher field for the name of the actual company that publishes the paper
 * What makes http://www.bidstrup.com/ a reliable source for court decisions? Also, it should be listed as the publisher of the website.
 * Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 14:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)