Talk:Battle for No.3 Post/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Dana boomer (talk · contribs) 20:35, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi! I'll take this article for review, and should have comments up within the next day or so. Dana boomer (talk) 20:35, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   • Turkish forces, "battalion sized strong-points" What is meant by this? Is battalion describing a manpower-number or a geographic size in this case? If the latter, I've never heard battalion used in that sense before... -  Done Changed wording - infantry battalion strong-points
   • Turkish forces, "eighty-two fixed and 230 mobile artillery" Don't mix number styles in a sentence.  Done Changed to all numbers
   • Turkish forces, "with only one NCO in each company." Can we get a comparison for the non-military-expert readers? How many NCOs would there be in a typical ANZAC company?  Done added a note
   • Capture, "After sunrise at 03:30" Sunrise at 3:30 in the morning?  Done have taken the time out, left it at after sunrise
   • Defence, "The area in front of No.3 Post was dead ground to the defenders". I'm not sure what "dead ground" means here?  Done Changed wording to - was in a gully and out of sight to the defenders
   • Defence - Several times (four that I counted) in this section you say the Turkish "managed to" do one thing or another, making it sound like this was something that would not generally be expected to do, while at the same time you just state that the New Zealanders did something or other. So, instead of "a strong Turkish force which had managed to dig themselves in", just say "a strong Turkish force had dug in", which follows the sentence construction of the sentences about the New Zealanders. This is especially true given that the Turks appear to have had the geographical and manpower advantage in the immediate area, and so if anyone "managed" to do anything, it was the New Zealanders. -  Done reworded
   • Aftermath, Ian Hamilton is a dab link. -  Done

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   • What makes The Long Long Trail (refs 33 and 44) a reliable reference? -  Done It was the copy of the London Gazette - but have changed it to cite web London Gazette - note the normal gazzette template is degraded and no longer working.
   • Kinloch (used in citations) or Kinoch (used in bibliography)?  Done it Kinloch
   • I'm a little concerned at the preponderance of very old sources. If I counted correctly, 27 of the 47 unique citations are from books published pre-1930. Counting multiple occurrences, this proportion gets even higher. While old sources aren't necessarily bad, it is unusual to see them in such high proportion. Has there really been no further scholarship on this battle, no coverage in the huge bibliography of even post-1950s World War I material? Reply There has been nothing new about this battle, that I can find. Just the official histories of those involved. Possibly in the context of WWI this was a very minor engagement with hardly any casualties.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   • This article is written from a heavily New Zealand point of view. While there has obviously been some effort to include the Turkish side, it appears go little further than was reported in New Zealand sources. The Turkish troops are only identified to the division level, while NZ troops are identified to the squadron level, with individual commanders identified. Out of two Turkish-focused sources, one is used solely to discuss language in a footnote, and the other is used only in the background section. The other five book sources are all New Zealand sources, and three are official histories of the involved regiments. I'm not saying you need to official histories of the involved Turkish regiments, but something beyond a couple of surface sources used for footnotes and background would be nice. In the Aftermath section, we have specific information about where certain NZ commanders are buried, but only a vague estimate of the total number of Turkish casualties. Reply Thats a problem with all the articles on the Turkish front, almost nothing has been written from the Turkish side. Many of the official documents, war diaries etc were destroyed in the immediate post war revoloution. Also as I understand it another problem is all the remaining documents etc about the period were written in the Ottoman Turkish language and not modern Turkish. That being the case there is virtually no one, outside a few scholars, that can now read the Ottoman language.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   • This is questionable, given the heavy focus on New Zealand sources and specifics. Reply see above.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   • According to its description, not all of the men in File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S29571, Türkei, Dardanellen, MG-Stellung.jpg are Turkish, which is what the caption in the article implies. Perhaps "Turkish machine gunners with German officers at Gallipoli" as a caption?  Done changed wording.
   • I don't think the licensing on File:Wellington Mounted Rifles Gallipoli.jpg is correct. It should probably be a pre-1923 publication license, not a Creative Commons license. Reply The complete book is released under the Creative Commons license share alike 3.0 see here [1]

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Overall a nice article, but with a very heavy focus on NZ sources and specifics, while being extremely vague about Turkish forces and details. See above for details. Dana boomer (talk) 01:26, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Comment added a bit more, all I could find, on the formation of the Turkish division in that section. Also some more to the aftermath re Ataturk going on to become president of Turkey.

Thanks for doing the review, I have responded to all your points. Some done and some comments.Jim Sweeney (talk) 11:39, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

My apologies for taking a couple of days to get back to this, and thank you for your quick work on the article. Your additions to the article have helped to balance out the coverage a bit. I understand your points regarding sources, and it is unfortunate, but I suppose there is not much to be done. Maybe in all of the coverage leading up to the centenary more coverage will be released on the Turkish POV of Gallipoli - at least we can always hope :) At this point, the article looks to be in good shape, so I am passing the GAN. Nice work! Dana boomer (talk) 19:11, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, really appreciate you taking the time to do the review. Jim Sweeney (talk) 20:52, 15 January 2014 (UTC)