Wikipedia:Peer review/Accurate News and Information Act/archive1

Accurate News and Information Act

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I'm looking to bring this to WP:FAC before too terribly long, and I'd like whatever feedback I can get before that. All comments are welcome, but I'm specifically wondering about the article's scope and the weight it assigns things: it's about the Act, but there's much more material about the context surrounding the Act than there is about the Act itself. There's only so much you can say about an Act that never received royal assent, but I'm still wondering if this could be handled better. Steve Smith (talk) 18:49, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is fascinating and very well-done. I think the background material is essential rather than excessive, and I don't think you should pare it down. I note a few nit-picky things below, but otherwise it seems ready for FAC.

Lead

• "Even the American media... " - Maybe "U.S." instead of "American"? I'm not sure that "American" is understood globally to mean "U.S."

Before the 1935 election

• "The boycott was successful to the extent that it drove at least one newspaper out of business." - Which one?
• Usually blockquotes are of at least four lines on a computer screen. This one is only three on my screen. It might work better embedded in the text inside quotation marks.
• "So frustrated were the Social Crediters with the newspapers' hostility in the run-up to the election, that in 1934 they founded their own, the Alberta Social Credit Chronicle, printed by the Albertan, to spread its side of the story." - "their side" rather than "its side"?

Post-election

• "The other newspapers criticized him for using what was nominally a gospel program... " - Wikilink gospel?
• "with the Accurate News and Information Act figuring prominently on its order paper" - Wikilink order paper or briefly explain it in parentheses since the Order Paper article doesn't mention Canada even though it probably should?

The Act

• To avoid "The" to begin a section head and to avoid repeating "Act", a main word of the article title, maybe "Legislation" would be better.
• "The second round included a drastic new tax on banks and the Accurate News and Information Act." - Since the tax didn't apply to the Act, it might be more clear to flip this sentence, thus: "The second round included the Accurate News and Information Act and a drastic new tax on banks."
• "Non-compliance would result in fines of up to $1,000 per day, and prohibitions on the publishing of the offending newspaper, of stories by offending writers, or of information emanating from offending sources." - Tighten to "Non-compliance would result in fines of up to $1,000 per day and would prohibit offending newspapers from publishing stories by offending writers or information from offending sources"?
• "Lieutenant-Governor John C. Bowen, mindful of the federal government's disallowance of the Social Credit Board's earlier legislation, reserved royal assent of the Act and its companions until their legality could be tested at the Supreme Court of Canada, the first use of the power of reservation in Alberta history." - A bit too complex. Suggestion: "Lieutenant-Governor John C. Bowen, mindful of the federal government's disallowance of the Social Credit Board's earlier legislation, reserved royal assent of the Act and its companions until their legality could be tested at the Supreme Court of Canada. Bowen's ruling was the first use of the power of reservation in Alberta history."
• "along with the others submitted to it for evaluation, was ultra vires the Alberta government" - Perhaps include the translation, "beyond the powers of" in parentheses right after the Latin?
• "the first time it honoured a non-American newspaper" - "non-U.S." or "newspaper outside the U.S."?
• "95 other newspapers... " - Spell out ninety-five to avoid starting a sentence with digits?

I hope these comments and 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) 20:04, 20 November 2009 (UTC)