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Arthur Sifton

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
This article has just passed GA, and I'd like to bring it to FAC down the road. I'd appreciate reviews focusing on bringing the article in compliance with the featured article criteria, though of course all suggestions for improving the article are appreciated. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 21:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is an interesting article, and it seems comprehensive, stable, factually accurate, neutral, and generally well-written. I have some concerns about the prose density in places, but I don't think that the revisions I'm suggesting are very difficult or time-consuming. I also have a concern about the image licensing, as explained at the bottom of this list of suggestions. Overall, this article is quite good.

Lead

  • "and as a Minister" - Lowercase "minister".
  • "Conscription crisis of 1917" - Lowercase "conscription"?

Early life

  • "He was the older brother of Sir Clifford Sifton." - The title seems odd here since Clifford would not have been Sir Clifford as a boy.
  • "He attended various public schools" - Delete "various".
  • "culminating with a boys school" - boys' school?
  • "environment that was both religious and political" - Delete "both".
  • "worked for a time in the office of the city solicitor" - Delete "for a time".

Early political career

  • "his sought after position" - "sought-after position"
  • "Arthur declined the position on the basis" - Delete "the position" since that's made clear in the preceding sentence.

Career as a jurist

  • "Ratio decidendi" - Lowercase
  • "His rulings were generally practically-based" - Suggestion: "generally practical"
  • "a three member commission" - "three-member commission"
  • "and mine operators (his colleagues were mining executive Lewis Stockett and miners' union executive William Haysom). - Suggestion: "and mine operators. His colleagues were mining executive Lewis Stockett and miners' union executive William Haysom.
  • "monthly pay (the mine operators objected to this last point on the basis that many miners did not report to work the day after payday, and it was thus desirable to keep paydays to a minimum)." - The parentheses are distracting if you use them often, and these don't seem necessary. Suggestion: terminal period after "monthly pay" and no parentheses around a sentence starting with "The mine operators... ".
  • "The commission's recommendations included that children under sixteen should not be permitted to work in mines, the posting of inspectors' reports, mandatory bath houses at mine sites, and improved ventilation inspection." The construction isn't parallel. Something like this might work: "The commission recommended that children under sixteen should not be allowed to work in mines, that inspectors should post their reports, that mine sites should have bath houses, and that ventilation inspection should be improved."
  • "The commission was silent on wages (except to say that these should not be fixed by legislation), the operation of company stores (a sore point among the miners), and the incorporation of mine unions (which was recommended by mines but opposed by the unions)." Suggestion: recast to avoid the parenthetical remarks.

Ascension and cabinet-building

  • "to accept Sifton as Premier[15] (even up until the last minute," - Suggestion: terminal period after

"Premier" and no parentheses around next sentence

  • "MLAs loyal to" - This should be spelled out as well as abbreviated on first use.
  • "To the consternation of the opposition Conservatives, Bulyea prorogued the legislation before this new government's strength could be tested by a vote of confidence; still, its acceptance by the Liberal caucus can be measured by the fact that only one member, Ezra Riley, resigned in protest (Riley objected to the exclusion from cabinet of insurgency leader W. H. Cushing; after his resignation he ran as an independent Liberal in the ensuing by-election, but was defeated by Sifton supporter Archibald J. McArthur)." - Much too complex. Suggestion: re-cast in shorter sentences with no parentheses or semicolons. Terminal periods are often better than semicolons for clarity.
  • The em dashes, semicolons, and parentheses all operate in the same way in this article. They make fairly simple sentences into complex sentences. I'll stop pointing these out below this point in the article, but I'd suggest going through from top to bottom to reduce this kind of artificial complexity. Mostly it's a matter of altering the punctuation to achieve smooth flow and high clarity.

Railway policy

  • "Alberta and Great Waterways Railway" - The name needs its abbreviation here so that A&GW makes sense by itself later in the article.
  • "of to what use the government would put the money" - Suggestion: "of how the government would use the money"
  • "of very similar makeup at endorsed" - "had endorsed"
  • "Despite calls from Clarke for the federal government" - Suggestion: I'd break this paragraph in two at whatever point seems appropriate on grounds that a nice side-effect of paragraph breaks is that it gives the reader a little ledge on which to rest before continuing. This is an especially useful rule of thumb in articles that are dense with detail, as this one is.

Natural resources

  • "had been made provinces in 1905, the federal government had retained control " - Suggestion: "became provinces in 1905, the federal government retained control"
  • The image of Sifton in this section should be moved to the left side of the page so that he looks into the page rather than out.
  • "who broke with Laurier on reciprocity" - "Broke" could be misunderstood as "parted" when what is meant is "sided with Laurier" or "agreed with Laurier".
  • "Borden stalled for some time" - Delete "some time".

Agricultural policy

  • "with the rise of the United Farmers of Alberta as a political force" - "United Farmers of Alberta (UFA)"
  • "a resolution was proposed in support of the college being instead located in southern Alberta" - Suggestion: "a resolution proposed putting the college in southern Alberta"
  • "ridings of provincial cabinet ministers" - "Ridings" should be linked or explained.
  • "Another of the UFA's policies called for the implementation of a single tax" - Delete "the implementation of".
  • "Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company, Limited" - needs abbreviation too on first use

Democratic and moral reform

  • "women actually wanted suffrage" - Suggestion: Link suffrage.

Image licenses

  • I have doubts about the licenses. Something in the public domain in Canada might not be in the public domain in the U.S. Before going to FAC, it would be good to make sure that each of these images is in the public domain in the U.S. because their official place of publication is in Florida. I think that the images that were first published before January 1, 1923, are safe, and could be tagged with PD-US and well as PD-Canada. However, in the case of a photo like the one in the infobox, which includes no link to the provincial archives, no author, and no publication date, fact checkers will not be able to say for certain whether it's a copyvio in the U.S. or not. My hunch is that it is not a copyvio and that if you can add a date and if that date is before January 1, 1923, and if you can provide a link for fact-checkers to use to look at the original source, and if you add a PD-US tag, this image would probably pass inspection. Otherwise, it might not. I hasten to add that I am not a copyright expert, and I don't find sorting these things out to be particularly easy.

I hope these 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) 21:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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