Talk:External cardinal

Refs after punctuation

I may consider reviewing this at GA, but please: could all references be placed after punctuation. The Manual of Style should have been consulted long before refs were placed wrongly (or some FAs could have been looked at). MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 22:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Done CarlosPn (talk) 13:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Great, that was quick. I'll keep to my word once my other GAN reviews are finished. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 15:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:External cardinal/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Quick-fail criteria

The article does not meet the criteria for quick-fail, you will be glad to know. The GA review can properly begin now.

Overview

GA review (see here for criteria)

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An informative read, with generally good material. It will need a bit of refining though, and I would like that to be the purpose of this GA review.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   It is well-written, however some of the prose is questionable in places. See

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   Great bibliography. There are some places where I would include citations, but I will add those recommendations shortly

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Currently no issues from a glance, though I may come across some in the in-depth review.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   The second image does not have an adequate title (currently DSC 0058). You will probably need to correct this yourself, or contact someone who can.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

In-depth review

The main issue I have is that this is written as if everyone is familiar with all of the religious terms and organisations etc. A great amount of wikilinks need to be established and the article needs to be made a more pleasant read for casual readers.

• Your bibliography needs to be listed alphabetically.
• An image at the top right would be good.

Lead:

• Not liking the "Title - lead text". How about: "The external cardinal is a term used..."?
• You've linked some specialist vocabulary, but I would consider widening your scope. I was not familiar with "see" and wouldn't have been with "historiography" if I hadn't recently looked it up.
• The lead doesn't adequately sum up the article. I aim for one paragraph per header (I think 2-3 paragraphs would be appropriate here).
• Excellent expansion to the lead, however the lead cannot contain information not included in the rest of the text. I don't see the second paragraph appearing anywhere in the text.

History of the "external" cardinalate in the Middle Ages, Origins and development:

• Firstly, does the title need to be so long? Secondly why is external enclosed in "s? My preference would be: History. The two sub-headers are fine (although external is again put in quotation marks.
• Issues with linking and specialist terms, too numerous to mention at the moment, but some idea:
  • liturgy
  • Roman Curia
  • deacon
  • College of Cardinals
  • legatine
  • Roman Curia
  • cardinalate
  • Investiture Controversy
  • All mentioned titles and people (even a Pope is not linked)
  • Places (Montecassino)
  • episcopate
  • suburbician
• "At the end of 12th century ca. 15% of the members of the College of Cardinals were "external" cardinals" This should be incorporated into another pargraph or expanded, it looks bad on its own.

"Titulature of the "external" cardinals and their engagement in the papal government":

• Another uncomfortably long title. Preferably "Titulature and engagement in papal government".
• Titulature needs wikilinking.
• "in the documents". What documents?
• Again a great number of other technical terms, see list above for an idea.
• "even if limited number of evidence does not allow to fully highlight this question". Clumsy, consider "even if limited evidence does not fully highlight this question".
• "Among the signatories of the papal privileges appear abbots Desiderius of Montecassino, Mainardo of Pomposa, Giovanni of Subiaco...". Can some names be removed? Many of these will need to be wikilinked (and in such state there would be a sea of blue), so I would consider only including the most important.

Final comment

There is nothing that jumps out at me beyond this. The list seems to be excellent on its own, so no faults there. The prose is generally good, although some sentences appear clumsy, but can be sorted with little effort. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 16:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that all points mentioned above have been done. Please note if something still requires corrections CarlosPn (talk) 11:05, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes they may have been. One more issue: can you make sure that all the information from the new (second) paragraph of the lead is included in the main text. A lead cannot contain information that is not later expanded upon. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:16, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

They are included in the first two paragraphs of the section <<origins and developmnet>> and in tha last paragraph of the section <<End of the medieval "external" cardinalate>> CarlosPn (talk) 19:53, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, just checking. I've carried out a number of small copyediting checks on the article and can find no further glaring issues to be resolved. So I pass this article.

Final verdict: pass

MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 16:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)