Talk:Internal Security Act (Singapore)/GA1

GA Review

Latest comment: 10 years ago14 comments3 people in discussion

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Reviewer: ChrisGualtieri (talk · contribs) 18:49, 20 January 2014 (UTC) I will review this and I will throttle the pace by doing them all, as they are of similar structure and relevance to Singapore. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:49, 20 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

These refs need to be fixed before the review can continue. These being 404ed represent a verification problem.

This is a substantial issue. I'll place it on hold for now though. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:00, 7 March 2014 (UTC) Placing on hold. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:00, 7 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

I just noticed this. As regards the links to http://statutes.agc.gov.sg, how did you generate the links above? When I click on the hyperlinks in the article itself that connect to this website, I have no difficulty accessing the external links. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

The links in the article itself work for me too. --Hildanknight (talk) 18:46, 7 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

When I click them, it says "unexpected error" occurred. And the links come from the external link checker. Though I still cannot access them. And that includes the "http://160.96.186.106/ ones. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:04, 7 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Looks like a problem with the cache used by the external link checker. After regenerating the cache, the checker no longer flags the AGC links as broken. The 160.96.186.106 links are broken because the Singapore Parliament website has changed IP address. Simply replacing "160.96.186.106" with "sprs.parl.gov.sg" fixed them all. This leaves two broken Channel NewsAsia links, which are convenience links that can be removed if broken. --Hildanknight (talk) 14:02, 8 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for identifying the issue Hildanknight! The NewsAsia links might be in an archive site - some sites are pre-emptively grabbing references added to Wikipedia to preserve them. I think Archive.org does this and many are archived by Archive.is and Webcitation. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:46, 8 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Looking into possible archive links, but according to archive.org, the Channel NewsAsia website disallows crawlers (through robots.txt). Could you proceed with the rest of the review? --Hildanknight (talk) 11:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Moving right along to the content review. First up is flow. Bolded words could be reworked or removed to improve flow.

"...drill other people in these manners (whether or not this takes place at...
personal discretion 'as to whether the detainee should be...
President may exercise personal discretion as to whether release should be ordered
As a whole can you please check for each "as to whether"... there is a lot of them.
potential threats to national security may act in a covert manner which would... just awkward flow.
making decisions on limited information so as to prevent threats to - drop the bolded
prohibit absolutely or subject to conditions the printing, publication, sale - dropping the "s" seems best.
"Prisons Department" - is that really right? Not Prisons'?
Some of the notable provisions are described - nix the bold.

Again, a general copy edit for word choices and flow seem to be the best option here, I highlighted some of the more minor issues, but overall, the prose flows well and its not a major concern. Though please keep in line with MINREF and provide an inline citation after every quote. Seems to a be a bit of an issue with that in this article. Same with anything taken from the Legislative authority for enactment, ref the end of each paragraph if you could. The captions are too long in some cases and flip between using periods and not, some use two or three sentences. The image for "Tanjong Pagar railway station" is pretty dubious to include because it does not illustrate anything relevant to the the topic other than the location of an arrest that lead to a case that led to an acquittal. Way too many hops to be really helpful for the reader. Some original research seems to have slipped in with another statement in the caption, "The relevant provisions dealing with protected places in the two Acts are very similarly worded." Other fixes might come up, but please keep checking them through, because I doubt I found all issues. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:41, 14 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

As far as I can tell, "Prisons Department" is correct. The excessive redundacies show what happens when we try to emulate native writers of English! All instances of "as to whether" have been changed to "whether". I also removed "so as" (6) and "of the" (9). In addition, the image of the Tanjong Pagar railway station has been removed. Reviewing the inline citations and thinking how to deal with redundacy examples 1, 3, 5 and 7. --Hildanknight (talk) 04:50, 16 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

I have dealt with the remaining redundancy examples as follows:

1. (whether or not this takes place at a meeting organized for this purpose) simply removed.

3. Again, where the Minister disagrees with an advisory board's recommendation that a detainee be released, the President may exercise personal discretion as to whether release should be ordered. changed to If an advisory board recommends the release of a detainee and the Minister disagrees, the President may exercise personal discretion whether to order release.

5. may act in a covert manner which would prevent the collection of evidence that could secure a conviction changed to may act covertly, hindering the collection of evidence to secure a conviction

7. prohibit absolutely or subject to conditions the printing, publication, sale changed to prohibit (absolutely or conditionally) the printing, publication, sale

I presume you are a native speaker of English. Could you check whether I dealt with the redundancy correctly?

--Hildanknight (talk) 07:20, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

It's getting better for sure, but "the President may exercise personal discretion whether to order release." still sounds weird. "the President has personal discretion to order the release." is better then this "Whether to" matter. Whether is a bit of a problem, just as "but, however, and although may imply a relationship between two statements where none exists, perhaps inappropriately undermining the first or giving undue precedence to the credibility of the second."" - This is something that needs to be balanced and while the articles are well written, they seem more like a textbook lesson or a lecture to me. Not that knowing the subject so well is a problem, its just the tone that is a bit off-putting for many. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:51, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Removed original research from caption and the abovementioned "whether". Does this help make the article read less like "a textbook lesson or a lecture"? Are the first and third paragraphs of the "Prohibition of political or quasi-military organizations" sections examples of what you mean by non-compliance with the MINREF policy? --Hildanknight (talk) 14:32, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Its fine, I am a bit on the hardline. I'll pass this now. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:29, 28 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

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