Talk:Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act/GA1

GA Review

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I am in the process of reviewing this article. The review will be conducted based on the last revision before this comment. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 07:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Review

Thank you for nominating this article for good article review. I have assessed it against the six good article criteria, and commented in detail below:

1. Writing:

(a) Prose

The prose of the article is satisfactory and sections of the Act have been well-paraphrased.

(b) Manual of style

The lead section is too long-winding and contains irrelevant matter. While the first paragraph is fine, the second needs to be made more precise (instead of explaining every minute detail of the process) while the third could be done away with altogether and moved into the body of the article - it is not necessary for the lead to summarise each and every aspect of the statute.
There are too many long quotations in the History section which make it extremely cumbersome to read. Paraphrasing or retaining only the most essential elements of the quotes could be considered. In particular, the quote by Edgeworth Beresford David is repetitive and could be done away with.
Excessive bullet-pointing, such as in the sub-sections on "Supplies" and "Subversive documents", could be replaced with semi-colons and integrated into a paragraph to improve readability.
The layout of the article has the following issues:

The section on "Amendments" in the infobox could be filled in to indicate the numerous extensions that the bill has undergone.
The numerous services enumerated in the First Schedule (under the section on Illegal strikes and lock-outs in essential services) could be omitted with a cited reference made only to the most important or prominent ones. An external link to the Schedule could be added under "References".

2. Sourcing:

(a) References

The bare act is mentioned in both the References as well as the Further reading sections (in two different formats) - one of them could be removed.
Overall, the article relies largely on the Act itself, besides a couple of case laws. Addition of a few commentaries on the topic would make the article more wholesome in its coverage, apart from being more reliable and backed by authority.
Some of the web references lack access dates. This could pose a problem while trying to access archived versions of the webpages. It is suggested that access dates be provided for all web references.

(b) In-line citations

External links to Singapore statutes (Environmental Public Health Act etc.) need to be replaced by inline citations.
Formatting of inline citations is generally satisfactory.

(c) Original research

The following sentences need to be referenced by citations :

According to the Government, the Act is only used as a last resort when a serious crime has been committed and a court prosecution is not possible because witnesses are unwilling or afraid to testify in court.
The Act is used largely in cases relating to secret societies, drug trafficking and loansharking.
As detention under the CLTPA does not put a detainee in jeopardy of possible trial and punishment for an alleged offence, the detention is, in this narrow sense, not a criminal cause or matter.
The first paragraph of the sub-section on "Admission of statements in evidence".
The statement by the Senior Minister on the effect of the amendment on the DNA database etc.

3. Broadness:

(a) Topic coverage

Essential aspects of the Act have been covered by the article.
Criticism of the Act does not seem to have been adequately covered in the article. With an existence of over fifty years, I'm sure there must have been opposition to and criticism of the Act, particularly since some of its provisions pertaining to arrest and detention are rather drastic in nature.

(b) Focus

The focus of the article should be less on a theoretical description of the bare act, and more on its application and third party reactions (see also section above). The article links to the act itself, so there's really no need to reproduce it in such detail. I would suggest a rewrite on these lines in addition to the other points mentioned above.

4. Neutrality:

The article maintains NPOV throughout and represents viewpoints fairly and without bias.

5. Stability:

The article is stable with no recent edit wars or content disputes.

6. Images:

(a) Copyright status

All images are tagged with their copyright status.

(b) Relevance and captioning

The article contains a few irrelevant images:

The image in the infobox is of no relevance to the article. Likewise, the image of a prison cell does not add any value to the article and could be removed.
The image of the striking workers is not from Singapore and as a result, its relevance to the article is doubtful.

Image captions should be brief - the image in the "Supplies" sub-section has a long-winded caption which could be reworded.

As a result of the above, I am unfortunately compelled to fail the article since in my opinion, it requires a lot of rewriting and restructuring, with a change in focus, which could take some time to be addressed thoroughly. I would suggest you carry out more research about application of the Act and its criticisms, and incorporate these aspects into the article.

If you believe that I have applied the fail criteria inappropriately, or have any other concerns about the conduct of this review, you can list it on the Good article reassessment page for discussion by other GA reviewers. Alternatively you may wish to address the issues raised above and then renominate the article on the Good article nominations page. Please also feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 11:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to review the article. I'm sorry you think the article deserves an immediate fail, but will look into your suggestions and perhaps renominate the article at a later stage. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:04, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]