Talk:Local authorities swaps litigation

GA Review

Overall comment: I felt like I came away from reading the article with a good understanding of a complex topic, which is an achievement worth celebrating. But I also felt like the article could have been better in many ways. I'm dumping my notes here, in hopes that it helps make the article better. As context, I'm a practicing US attorney in a different field, with two years of Latin.

This review is transcluded from Talk:Local authorities swaps litigation/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: LuisVilla (talk · contribs) 14:49, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Lead: Suggest simply saying "unlawful" in the lead, axing the awkward "beyond the powers", and explaining ultra vires in more detail elsewhere. Lead: Redundant use of "rapid evolution" of unjust enrichment law twice in two sentences. Kill one of them. 1.1: The first sentence, and the parenthetical in the first sentence, are almost entirely redundant to each other. 1.1: I might re-link to "interest rate swaps" here; the link is more useful to the reader here than in the lead? 1.2: For non-British readers, what is an LBC? Also suggest linking Hammersmith and Fulham. 1.3: Any way to add useful context as to what the Audit Commission is? Who is it responsible to? What is it part of? Why would a reader expect auditors to report to an Audit Commission? 1.3: "in a complicated arrangement"... can we shed some useful light on that? 1.3: Why is Mr. Hazell named, but the Audit Commission's team member is not (except to note their gender)? Why isn't the Council's chief executive named? Similar inconsistency later re Tony Child. 1.3, 3rd p: Who is Duncan Campbell Smith? Why do we care what they think? In the quote, the "Commission's Management Papers": is this the Audit Commission? Some other commission? 1.3, 4th p: Surely the finding that 137 councils were involved is worth more detail and explanation than the blow-by-blow of Hammersmith? How did they get involved? Who decided that their transactions were measured and commensurate? (Note also that their transactions were surely plural...) 2: When did the Audit Commission and Hammersmith seek these opinions? 2: On what grounds were these opinions based? 2: Again, why the inconsistency in who gets named and who doesn't? 2.1: Why was it ultra vires? Because the court didn't like it, or...? What pre-existing limitation justified this conclusion? (Here might also be a good place to actually link to ultra vires, and perhaps explain in a parenthetical what it means in this context.) 2.2: An American lawyer under similar circumstances would probably note the name of the Court first, and the judges second, rather than the other way around, since it immediately gives some context (what level of court is this?) that cannot be gleaned from the name. (This is done more usefully in 2.3.) 2.2: First sentence might be a good place for an Oxford comma, especially since Stephen Brown is the only person whose first name is given. 2.2: We note here that the relevant law is "arcane" - again, might be good to buttress the earlier law latin with an explanation of why the banks found this "arcane". 2.4: Which banks? All of them? 3: Not sure why 3 and 4 are separate? I would suggest combining. 4: Is there not even an estimate of the number of writs? Surely whoever estimated 150-200 were contested also estimated the overall number? 4: "but of all... many of them". I would rewrite to "Many of the writs were settled quickly. Only 150-200 were contested." 4: Which Commercial Court? Link? 4: In the US we would not capitalize Presiding, but if that's local practice rather than a typo obviously I'd defer. 4: "the law was designed"... ultra vires was designed? That would be news to Blackstone :) Or did you mean the Local Government Act? Or the overall schema of UK law? In either case, please clarify. Ditto for "it" in "it succeeded". 5: "The problem was compounded by the fact that the law relating to recouping payments made under void contracts is called the law of restitution. And at this point in English legal history, the law of restitution was still a relatively niche subject." I would rewrite to: "The law relating to recouping payments made under void contracts, called the law of restitution, was a relatively niche subject. This compounded the problem." Or something similar. No need to write "law of restitution" twice. (It's also unclear what this was compounded with - the number of parties? The general slog of high-stakes litigation? ... ?) 5: Do you have a secondary source saying that these textbook were groundbreaking? That the professors involved were "striving to bring greater awareness"? Their own textbooks are not a great source for that. 5: "Some concern" by who? The banks? The authorities? 6: Were these cases related to the six cases mentioned in "Aftermath"? (Should Aftermath be merged into this section?) 6.1: "if they could trace the money in equity"... is this the same "tracing" mentioned earlier? 6.4: At least a brief summary of the defense?
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Lead: uses "enormous" when there is an objective number in the next sentence. I'd rely on the number instead of the more subjective "enormous" (which is uninformative even though not formally a "word to watch") 1.3, second paragraph: this is very... dramatic writing? "it would get worse". Not very encyclopedic. 1.3, second p: "frantic" per who? One per day is a lot when compared to...? 6.3: carefully reasoned? Says who?
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	Many areas lack citations/references. Some sections lacking citations that I recorded in my notes on the review: 1.1: Almost completely uncited. 1.2: Second paragraph is uncited, and makes very strong claims. What subsequent reports are being referred to? 2.2: Ideally this would cite to a secondary source, rather than the case itself. But I realize that's not always possible. 2.4: "wanted to take credit for striking a blow against financial capitalism" is... strong? citation? ideally a quote? (Really, whole section is undercited.) 4. Who may compare it favorably to the Orange County bankruptcy? If anyone other than Duncan Campbell Smith has done so, say that, else say "Duncan Campbell Smith compared it favorably". (He's hardly an unbiased observer, but I'm not inclined to get into the quality of the citations yet given the other issues here.) 5. This cites a case for the proposition that it is the leading case in the area. Secondary source to justify that claim? 6. If the citation is from half-way through the course of the cases, is it still a good citation? Why not cite to the book that actually was written, or better yet a review/commentary on that book? 6.1 No citation for any of this?
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.	I'm concerned that there is a lot of citation to primary sources, which makes it hard to know if this is original research (especially if one doesn't have the books that are cited). So leaving this as ? for now.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Looks good on this count.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Overall, despite concerns mentioned above, does an admirable job addressing a complex topic at a useful/interesting level of coverage.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Per previous.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	With only a few (possible?) exceptions noted above.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	As one would expect of a fellow attorney :)
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	In paragraph 2: What is this picture of? Why is it relevant? (I have a *guess*, because I'm a lawyer who took a course in English legal history, but most readers do not...)
	7. Overall assessment.	Excellent start, but in my opinion still needs a lot of work for GA.

Status query

LuisVilla, Legis, where does this review stand now? LuisVilla appears to have finished the review on March 13, and Legis did a series of edits to the article on March 14. Is there more for the reviewer to do (the last edit summary was not clear on that point), or for the nominator to address? Thank you. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:31, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

BlueMoonset Legis: The edits made on the 14th address many of my stylistic concerns, but not most of my concerns about sourcing. That said, this was only my third(?) GA review, so I'd also be open to getting a second opinion if either of you think that would be appropriate. The article is quite good in a lot of dimensions, so I'd hate to see my inexperience be the cause of a bad outcome. —Luis (talk) 23:24, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

LuisVilla, if your sourcing concerns haven't been addressed, Legis should either do so or explain why it isn't appropriate. You could certainly request a second opinion if Legis disagrees with your assessment on the sources. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:49, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

BlueMoonset: Unfortunately Legis hasn't responded, so I don't know what he thinks of my feedback. Legis, if you're out there, let me know and we can request a second opinion or close this for now as appropriate. (To be clear, again, this is a really impressive article, and you've enriched us by writing it- just not GA :/ —Luis (talk) 15:38, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for not replying. I have just been snowed with work. I sort of acknolwedge the sourcing concerns - I think that those are easily addressed, but it is just going to take time for me to sit down and do it, and that is not likely to happen any time soon. I think rather that keep this open indefinitely, the better course is probably to fail it as a GA. When I can I'll come back and fix the sourcing (and other) problems, and then renominate at a later date. Thanks, and sorry. --Legis (talk - contribs) 16:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

• @Legis: @LuisVilla: – I will be closing this review on Friday, June 9. Please let me know if you decided to work on the suggested improvements and need more time. I'm willing to chip in as an additional reviewer. ComputerJA (☎ • ✎) 16:12, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

@ComputerJA: per Legis's comment on May 2 (which I missed at the time, sorry!) I went ahead and closed. —Luis (talk) 21:58, 8 June 2017 (UTC)