Talk:Siege of Mantua (1799)

Source?

Pracically, the whole article is based on this source:

• (in Polish) Various authors, Obrona Mantui, Chwała Oręża Polskiego 14 (35), Rzeczpospolita, 23 October 2006 (publication contains a map). Online version

Can we find out anything about the scholarly credentials of any authors? Because the source is just a newspaper article published recently. Newspapers may be a good source for recent events, but the events from such a remote history should be covered by scholarly sources, if they took place. There has been enough time for those to be written. --Irpen 21:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

• Good newspapers, like Rzeczpospolita, also tend to hire out such articles to reliable historians or journalists specializing in historical articles. For example, most of this issue was written by historian Andrzej Nieuważny ([1]).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, if the author of the source is am accomplished historian whose credentials are independently established, I don't mind that this particular paper used as a source is from a newspaper (or even his personal web-site.) But just to avoid such confusion in the future, could you please add the author's name to the reference? That would solve the problem. --Irpen 21:24, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

B-class

For WP:POLAND per milhist asessment. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 17:50, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Siege of Mantua (1799)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: MathewTownsend (talk · contribs) 21:26, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

• I'll review this article. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:26, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

review

I've reviewed this article and made a few minor edits that you are free to change.[2] There is also a dead link marked that would be good if you could fix. Otherwise, the article clearly describes this particular siege.

GA review-see WP:WIAGA for criteria (and here for what they are not)

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   a. prose: clear and concise, respects copyright laws, correct spelling and grammar:

   b. complies with MoS for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   a. provides references to all sources in the section(s) dedicated to footnotes/citations according to the guide to layout:

   b. provides in-line citations from reliable sources where necessary:

   Assume good faith

   c. no original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   b. it remains focused and does not go into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Does it follow the neutral point of view policy.

   fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   no edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   a. images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   no images available

   b. images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   no images available

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Pass

Congratulations! MathewTownsend (talk) 22:59, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Siege of Mantua (1799)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: No consensus to delist. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:51, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

GA from 2012. Mainly doing this to get other people's opinions on this but I have two concerns. 1, this article almost entirely relies on one source for the entirety of the article. 2, The article doesn't feel too broad. There's no background section, just a prelude, and the section on the siege is incredibly small. Onegreatjoke (talk) 02:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

A large chunk of the book Napoleon in Italy: The Sieges of Mantua, 1796–1799 by Phillip R. Cuccia (published in 2014, 2 years after this GA review) seems to be entirely about this siege. The limited GBooks preview sadly does not include any pages from this portion. Curbon7 (talk) 03:17, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I am sure this could be expanded. But I think that despite a decade passing, it is well structured and referenced. FYI, The source I used was a popular history-level article, written by a historian (pl:Andrzej Nieuważny) for a historical addition to a reliable newspaper. I cannot find that exact article online anymore, but I found [3] and [4] (from the same newspaper, but paywalled - similar date and name, possibly the name and date was changed from print to online archivE?). I am not able to access the original print article if I still have it in my archive (different continent...). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Overreliance on one source has also caused broadness issues: several Google scholar results mention songs referencing the siege, which are not mentioned in the article. It is also very short and looks like it may not meet broadness about the siege itself without consulting more in-depth sources like Cuccia's book. The article is also not understandable to an audience that isn't already familiar with the Napoleonic wars and lacks information on how the siege fits into broader military developments. (t · c) buidhe 05:56, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Would you consider those criticisms to fall under "major aspects" or "comprehensiveness"? While comprehensiveness is needed for an FA, this isn't one: we shouldn't delist on breadth grounds unless we feel that major aspects of the subject have been omitted. Comprehensibility is another matter, but I think the GA standards only assess whether the prose itself is comprehensible as English (which I think it is), not whether the article gives enough contextual information for its information to be fully understood. I suppose what I'm saying is that there's a gulf between "this article could be better" and "this article should be delisted", and my sense is that we're currently in that gulf rather than over it. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 18:38, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Right. From my perspective (I wrote this well over a decade ago), this "looks" to short for modern GA standards, but is it too short to be kept? If I had access to good sources, I'd expand it; sadly, I don't have the time to work on this right this moment. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:48, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Major aspects. Especially, the absence of proper context means that it is difficult for someone to understand if they do not know much about the Napoleonic wars. (GAC#1a) (t · c) buidhe 01:46, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Context is there: "In April 1799, the Austrians placed a military blockade around Mantua as part of the War of the Second Coalition with the intent of withering the French by attrition. " _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:48, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't know if its fair to assume the reader knows that "Austrians"=Habsburg monarchy and what the war of the second coalition was about. Further, this is in the lead but not the body (MOS:LEAD, GAC#1b) and does not have a source (2b). If the book covers the siege extensively it would be possible to expand it 5-10x, which means there are likely major aspects that none of us know about because we can't access Cuccia's book. (t · c) buidhe 03:52, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll add it to the body. Problem solved. Expansion with Cuccia's book is a good idea for getting this to FA. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:59, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree, but a more urgent issue is that the source you added doesn't mention the siege of Mantua at all (either the first or second siege). How do I verify that there is no original research in how the two sources were combined in the new "background" section? It doesn't help that you haven't specified which content is supported by which source. (t · c) buidhe 01:59, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Which fact are you concerned about? That section provides a generic, few sentence long overview of the War of the Second Coalition, supported by the sources (partially based on the referenced part of the lead of War of the Second Coalition, and the rest on the old version of this article, which I AGF myself to have properly based back then on sourced cited). If you see any REDFLAG claims, I can look for more sources. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 23:59, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.