Wikipedia:Peer review/Canadian Heraldic Authority/archive2

Canadian Heraldic Authority

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I plan on taking this article to FAC sometime in the next few months, with an aim to having it appear on the Main Page on 4 June (23rd anniversary of its creation). I'm aware that some of the refs are currently dead links; please don't concern yourselves with that. I know where the updated links are and will be fixing them.

At this time I am more concerned about:

Clarity of prose
Adequate coverage of the subject
Is anything overly detailed?
Is anything important missing from the article?

Thanks, →ROUX ₪ 19:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this interesting article - I think it has some serious issues and need lots of work before it would be ready for FAC. Here are some suggestions for improvement.

Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches
I have some concerns about close paraphrasing. I checked the first three sourced statements of the History section. The first sentence is a pretty close paraphrase and needs to be rewritten:

This article: Before the creation of the Canadian Heraldic Authority, Canadians wishing to obtain a legally granted coat of arms had to apply to one of the two heraldic offices in the United Kingdom: either the College of Arms in London, or if of Scottish descent, to the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh.[2]

Original: It should be noted that until the Authority was established, a Canadian wishing a grant of arms had to petition either the College of Arms in London or - if of Scots descent - the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh.

The second sourced statement is better, and the third is to the first ref, which does not work (not one of the four dead ones the EL checker finds) so I could not check it. The fourth statement is to a book and seems OK, but please check everything carefully before FAC and make sure nothing is too close to the original.
The lead is not really a true summary of the article and does not follow WP:LEAD. The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. As such, nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself - however the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland in The Republic of Ireland seems to only be in the lead.
My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way - the History section (for one) does not seem to be in the lead, nor are the Heralds of Arms or the honorary heralds or the blazon.
The abbreviation CHA should be introduced in the first sentence of the lead
Another statement that seems to only be in the lead is well-known for its innovative designs, many incorporating First Nations symbolism. Who says they are well known for this? The words innovative and design appear only here. I assumed this would be referenced to some sort of external sources, like newspaper or magazine articles, but there are no newspaper articles and only one magazine article that I could see. I note that a Google books search finds a fair number of books that at least mention the CHA
I would try to get more refs that are from independent third-party reliable sources. Google news did not turn up anything, but I find it hard to belive that the CHA has never been profiled or mentioned in a news article - if nothing else when it was established
The Blazon needs a ref - I did not see one at least
Please make sure the article follows WP:ITALIC in its use of bold font - why are Heralds Emeritus and Heralds Extraordinary in bold, for example
I doubt that two uses of File:Coat of arms of the CHA.jpg in this article meets the minimal use criterion of WP:NFCC
Could a free image of Rideau Hall be used in the article? Are there free images of any of the heralds?
The article has a fair number of short (one or two sentence) paragraphs that should either be combined with others or perhaps expanded to improve flow.
Any idea how many people have gotten arms through this office since it opened? How many in a year? Any famous people use it (Celine Dion or Wayne Gretzky?)
Any criticisms of the CHA?
Any idea of the budget? Staff numbers (or is all the staff listed)?
Do the See also all meet WP:See also - usually for links not otherwise mentioned in the article

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]