Wikipedia:Peer review/1972 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts robbery/archive1

1972 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts robbery

I've listed this article for peer review because it's another one I've worked on for a while that I see as potential GA material and I'd like feedback before making that nomination.

Thanks, Daniel Case (talk) 15:09, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

misc notes

- why all the citations in the lead? Especially the multiple ones together. They're not verboten but they're also not strictly necessary, and this doesn't seem like such a wildly controversial topic where it would be. In any case even if you prefer them I think the four on the first sentence is a bit much

- I think the lead image is a poor choice but that may be personal preference. I think a better one would be, ideally, an image of the building in question at as close of a time to the heist as you can get it. If not oh well, I just think the image is misleading

- you should cite, somewhere, the list of paintings stolen. As is I can't see where you got this info from

- some of the language is odd and could benefit from a copyedit "One lead has not been so easy for Lacoursière to dismiss.", stuff like that, weirdly informal, reads more like a book than an encyclopedia article, and that isn't the only instance

- lot of sources to the blog. Who is the author? Are they a reliable source? Is it actually *published* by ARCA? PARAKANYAA (talk) 10:52, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Sorry to have taken such a long time to be able to get back to you on these things:

• The cites in the lead were because I had submitted it to DYK and a number of the hooks were mentioned in the lede. They can certainly be removed, and I will be.
• I do see your point about the image. At the time I put it there I thought it was one of the stolen paintings. I'm not sure about the building as a replacement; maybe if we can get a better image of one of the other paintings that was actually stolen (it happened so long ago that there are not many digital copies, if any) we could use it instead. Unlike the Gardner, the MMFA has avoided highlighting the void left by the stolen work.
• Will do. It's one the sources used later in that section.
• You're right; that's a little too flourish-y. Will see what else I can smooth out.
• Cathy Sezgin, the blog's author, wrote the ARCA journal article on the theft and is cited elsewhere as an authority on it. I think therefore under WP:SPS she is "an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" and thus we can use her blog posts as a source.

Daniel Case (talk) 06:36, 1 February 2025 (UTC)