Wikipedia:Peer review/Merit badge collecting (BSA)/archive1

Merit badge collecting
I'm submitting my article for peer review because this is a subject I deeply care about. I'd simply like it to be as good as it can be and I'd appreciate any constructive feedback. I hope to have it submitted as a featured article later. Rlevse 14:01, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * 3rd sentence: All known Scouting organizations around the world issue merit badges. This is definitively wrong. A great number of the European Scout associations don't issue such badges, e.g. in Germany or in France. --jergen


 * Thank you. I'll change that.  What do they do that might be the equivalent of merit badges?  Thanks for the feedback. Rlevse 00:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Please see my talk page. --jergen

It might be worth including something about Pathfinders, who are similar to scouts, who have what they call "honours" which are the same as Merit badges. MyNameIsNotBob 03:43, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * When including the Pathfinders please mention also the Royal Rangers. --jergen 09:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for all your inputs. While I'll likely talk more about non-American Scouting and non-BSA, I don't want to go too far into it as it'll drift away from the topic of the article. Thanks everyone.

a few notes:
 * 1) title of article should be lowercase
 * 2) section titles should be lowercase
 * 3) put it through Peer review
 * 4) the names of merit badges should be capitalized, but not prepositions, articles or conjunctions in the name (e.g. First Aid to Animals, not First Aid To Animals)
 * 5) A lot of lists and bullet points that should maybe be prose
 * 6) Not all of it has an encyclopedic tome. This is an encyclopedia article about merit badge collecting, and not a guide to collecting merit badges
 * 7) Was that really the only reference used in the article? having only one reference is not ideal

Tuf-Kat 06:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the input, TUF-KAT. I've acted on your suggestions and also fixed a lot of typos (it was a long day yesterday--it took me about 8 hour to compose the draft). The MBs are not photos per se--I scanned them on my scanner.  As for the references, I moved one web link to refs.  The book I listed is the only book I know dedicated to MBs.  The others are general Scouting memorabilia guides. The book I listed is THE BIBLE on this subject.  Its author recrimps my MBs for me. Thanks again. Rlevse 13:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Consider resizing the images: there are quite a few, and this can load rather slowly on some connections.
 * This is rather in depth for an encyclopedia article. With some expansion, it would make a great WikiBook; perhaps as a guide to scouting memorabilia and collecting.
 * Who originated the classification scheme? Perhaps this should be credited.
 * Add the ISBN for the field guide.
 * Perhaps note spoof badges such as Snoring MB.

--Gadget850 01:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * MB and MBs does not flow well: how about simply badges?
 * The first line of each bullet list actually has a double bullet: I don't think this was intentional was it? A ** is actually a sub-bullet, but there must be a single bullet  above it.  If you want to indent, use a : (not sure why you would want that though).

--Gadget850 14:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The book does not appear to have an ISBN number. Rlevse 00:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Scout memorabilia collecting
Consider the idea of perhaps creating a broader 'Scouting memorabilia collecting' article as well. Many of us (myself included) collect the older merit badges, and other nations' as well, but this is a fraction of the vaster Scout memorabilia out there. Chris 00:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC) I have now gone ahead and created a larger article, I borrowed a lot of your great structure, you did a really good job, I hope that is okay. I acknowledged you in the summary. Chris 22:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

This article notes that merit badge collecting occurs outside the Boy Scouts of America, but doesn't discuss it. Therefore, this article title is vague. I suggesting moving to Merit badge collecting in the Boy Scouts of America or something, and either making a stub here on "merit badge collecting" in general, or redirecting this to an article like Kintetsubuffalo recommended (I was thinking Scouting paraphernalia collecting, but whatever...). Tuf-Kat 05:53, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd prefer to leave it to BSA merit badges, so I've added (BSA) to the title. ALso, expanding it to all Scouting memorablia would make it way too big for Wiki article--it'd be more of a Wiki book in such a case. Rlevse 18:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I tried the photos as GIF and PNG. They're smallest with JPG format, so that's what I made them back in the beginning. Rlevse 18:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

ps-went throught my collection, Japan and Spain also do or did at one time issue merit badges. Chris 21:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Chris. Rlevse 00:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Initial changes made
I've made the suggested changes from about 6 people for the peer review (well 98% of the suggestions anyway). The article really looks good. If you have more suggestions, please put them here or on the article's talk page. Rlevse 00:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Rlevse 13:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

FYI, I've renamed the article Merit badge collecting (BSA), which I almost did in the first place-;) Rlevse 16:53, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I've made the suggested changes (well 98% of them anyway). The article really looks good. If you have more suggestions, please put them here or on the article's talk page. Rlevse 00:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)