Talk:Loon Church/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Squeamish Ossifrage (talk · contribs) 19:12, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

This is an interesting historical structure from a under-represented area. Unfortunately, I don't think the article in its current state is ready for the Good Article process. I'm sorry that it sat in the queue for awhile only to have this disappointing outcome. Specific comments are below; I hope that this article can be improved and make its way back to GAC in due time.

1. A Good Article is well-written.

This desperately wants for a solid copy-editing (although the breadth of coverage issues should be resolved first). There are quite a few really awkward sentences, and some where I'm simply not sure exactly what was intended:

• I'm not going to single out all the grammar issues at this point. But there are quite a few. I suspect that English may not be your first language, and that's absolutely fine, but it does mean that you may wish to enlist the help of a copy editor with experience cleaning up these sorts of issues.
• "Loon is the mother parish of the parishes of Mocpoc, Catagbacan and Cabilao Island when it was canonical erected in 1961, 1988 and 1990 respectively." -I'm not quite sure what needs to be changed, but this is difficult to parse as it stands.
• "Despite being huge, the church forms a wide rectangular plan with an internal transept and a crossing surmounted by a quandrangular pyramid." -Why is there a contrast being drawn between size and floor plan? Also, huge isn't the ideal tone here.

3. A Good Article is broad in its coverage.

• This is a building (or at least a series of buildings) dating back to 1753. One of the basic objections I have to the article as it stands is that the history section is very scant, and glosses over quite a bit of historical context. The parish site was moved due to pirate raids? Does the project have an article that addresses this period of piracy, for example? I can't imagine there are very many churches that can say they had to relocate due to piracy! Likewise, the bit about forced labor in the construction seems like it warrants expansion.
• On the other hand, there's a lot of very detailed description about the layout of the building. Probably too much, in fact. It's simply not in the scope of a Wikipedia article about a historical building to know which door in the sacristy leads to the storage closet, for example. Furthermore, I suspect that the tense of most or all of this section needs adjusted, given that the building was destroyed in 2013.
• Is January 2014 the most recent news about reconstruction? Even if so, "currently" may not be the best way to discuss recent events, because it is not precise. See WP:AO for some ideas there.
• Content aside, I'd like to see broader sourcing, if possible. You lean pretty heavily on government publications and descriptions, and those are fine as sources for this listed site. But is there anything else to draw on for a broader picture, such as the works of historians, architects, art critics, or religious authors writing about the site and its history?

6. A Good Article is illustrated, if possible, by images.

• The big issue here, I think, is licensing (although I might choose one less image for this length of text; it's not ideal to push images down into the references). Most of these images are of art or architectural elements of the church (as would be expected). That means that the licensing must take into account the copyright of the original work, and the copyright of the derived work (the photograph we're displaying). I'm explicitly not an expert here, and you'll want to work with someone who is more familiar with the details of image licensing, but the image of Finding of Jesus in the Temple in particular needs to have the copyright status of the art itself documented. I can't find a date of death for Ray Francia immediately, nor can I determine when that work was first published, so I'm not certain whether either {{PD-art-US}} or {{PD-art-life-70}} would apply, or if you'll need a fair-use rationale instead. Again, though, you'll be best served by checking with the folks at WP:CQ to help you navigate the expectations of tagging.

I don't think there's anything that would prevent a GA-quality article here. But I do think that checking for more sources, squaring up the issues of balance, and running the whole thing through an image licensing check and a solid copy editing will take more time that the GA Review process is intended to accommodate. Good luck with the article improvements, and don't hesitate to reach out to me if I can be of some assistance. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:12, 6 January 2015 (UTC)