Wikipedia:Peer review/Shoe polish/archive1

Shoe polish

I started this article a few months back, pretty much just after I started using wikipedia, and was shocked by the lack of an article about shoe / boot polish. I've gone back to it from time to time, trying to make it as awesome as possible, but I'm all out of ideas now, and would appreciate some other viewpoints. How could the article be made more awesome? Proto t c 21:47, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In some south african countries they produce wooden figurines as "authentic" local crafts to sell to tourists. As ebony is becoming costly, however, they often resort to using shoe polish as a stain to darken the sculpted wood. It also gives the wood product a nice polished finish. — RJH 15:57, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, more useful trivia. I know some wikipedians frown on trivia in an FAC, but I doubt this will ever be a featured article, just as good as it can be. Thanks RJH. Also thanks to MattKingston for comments on the shoe polish talk page. Proto t c 08:45, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Great article, should be more like this. Might get featured... Japanese toilet did! --PopUpPirate 13:35, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
A nice article, but the sections are woefully small.

remove the bold text in the article. Just Boot/shoe polish should be bolded.
Expand the lead by another para
Start with the chemistry section first, rename [Chem] to =Manufacture= and include the manufacturing process here. The dangers can also be added here.
follow with history section, try and increase the length by 50%-75%. Remove sub headings
Trivia section can be merged somewhere else.
Remove the home made section ingredients. This should be added in wikibooks:. (recipies do not come under an encyclopedia)
Now the section on how shoe polish is applied can be added. Expand. Suggestion: There are a lot of home remidies such as the use of alcohol, potatoes etc. to get that perfect shine. Include this. The tone should read like an encyclopedia, not a help magazine BTW.
Brands should be expanded to cover all continents. Brazil, Agentina, Russia, Spain, Egypt, Japan. Try and get info on all these countries. It is currently too commonwealth centered.
The image has a dubious copyright status.
Please add your references.

If you reach this stage, I'll try and reward you by uploading a pic of the shoeshine boys in the railway station. :). Just ping me for that. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:19, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Nichalp. Useful help and motivation! I'll copy your post to the talk page of shoe polish so I can refer back to it easily; hope that's ok. One problem is that I don't know what transwiki-ing to Wikibooks entails. Is there a page that can help me out with this? Proto t c 12:02, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This statement in the article is confusing, "An essential ingredient in shoe polish is a thickener; without this, the polish would be over-viscous, making using it difficult." It seems contradictory that a 'thickener' would make a substance less viscous. ike9898 17:02, August 22, 2005 (UTC)