Talk:Revenue stamps of Malta/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: No Great Shaker (talk · contribs) 17:34, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Starting review

@Xwejnusgozo: Hello, I will review this article. I have submitted Bury F.C. for review and I agree that I should review two other articles myself to help with the backlog. I hope to commence the review shortly. Thank you. No Great Shaker (talk) 17:34, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

The article was created in February 2012 and is now 14.8kb after less than 100 edits. Wikipedia:Good_article_criteria#Immediate_failures is inapplicable here and a full review can proceed. No Great Shaker (talk) 20:15, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Comments

The article is certainly well written. It has good, readable English and only a handful of minor edits have been needed to correct spelling and grammar.

I have already questioned the pound denomination abbreviation as £ or Lm, never £m. In any case, should usage of abbreviations be consistent throughout? There are now eight £ and two Lm so perhaps those two should be changed to £? Please confirm.

The intro has two paragraphs, which is fine for 15kb, and it seems to summarise the overall content very well. The article complies with the standard layout given at the MOS page. There is no need for any hatnotes, it is non-fiction, there are no awesomes and there is no need for any embedded lists.

Breadth of coverage is sufficient and the article uses a summary style throughout, giving you all the information without delving into the depths of minor detail; and it stays within scope. I find it both informative and interesting.

Neutrality and stability are fine. The article is written objectively and, as the information is essentially factual, there are no controversies to be balanced. Where politics does arise, it is again handled objectively.

There are six relevant images of subject-matter stamps. As far as I can tell, they are all public domain and are certainly tagged as such. I cannot see any problem with any of them being depicted in the article. They are certainly fair use at the very least. The captions are all apt and explanatory.

I still need to look at the citations and consider verification throughout, although I can see no immediate issues. I'll come back when I've had time to do this. I hope that's okay. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 21:28, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

@No Great Shaker: Thanks for the review :) Regarding the pound issue, for the pre-decimal era (until 1972), Malta used the Pound sterling and the £ sign was used. From the adoption of the Maltese pound/lira in 1972, the £m (or £M) symbol was initially used, before being replaced in the 1980s with the Lm (or LM) symbol. For the article I used whatever was used on the stamps themselves. For example, the Airport Charge stamp issued in 1975 had a "£M" symbol, and the one issued in 1988 had a "LM" symbol (you can see images of the stamps in question here - first two stamps in the page). --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 11:12, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Citations

While the content has been extensively sourced, I have to say I'm uncomfortable with two of the sources used in the light of Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources. I think you need to fully demonstrate the reliability of both I.B RedGuy's Fine Stamps - The Revenue Stamp Specialist and Revenue Reverend because they are definitely self-published sources and, as such, are deprecated by WP site policy. I will place the review on hold for the time being so that this issue can be addressed. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 16:22, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

@No Great Shaker: Revenue Reverend is reliable - the website is the work of Andrew McClellan who is the secretary of the Revenue Society. Moreover every item listed in the website is illustrated, proving that each stamp actually exists. Nevertheless, I have added references from the Barefoot Catalogue, verifying most of the Revenue Reverend and I.B RedGuy citations. I was unable to add any further references to the "Entertainment tax" section since these are not covered in Barefoot and the only source about them that I know of is Revenue Reverend. I also changed the "Further reading" section. --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 21:42, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

@Xwejnusgozo: I'm entirely satisfied with your response and the additional source. I think, that sorted, it is a very good article indeed. Well written and informative with some very nice illustrations. I can happily pass it now as a good article. Well done. All the best. No Great Shaker (talk) 12:14, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@No Great Shaker: Thank you! :) Xwejnusgozo (talk) 00:11, 11 March 2019 (UTC)