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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Werner Hartenstein/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 15:52, 25 April 2012 [1].

Werner Hartenstein

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Werner Hartenstein (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Triggered by the BBC mini series "The Sinking of the Laconia" I started investigating the life of Werner Hartenstein. I believe to have come very close to making this article featured. Please help me improve the article further. Thanks MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Consistency review of sources

--Eisfbnore talk 14:16, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think you'll find the problem with the "cite book" is that no author fields have been filled in. If you put in the first/last fields that you have used in the others, or even "|author=Anon." then the year will go to the right place. Simon Burchell (talk) 19:28, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

I think "was involved in the Laconia incident" is too vague. I would prefer the sentence to explain what he did in the Laconia incident. DrKiernan (talk) 08:50, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

done MisterBee1966 (talk) 12:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per discussions at WT:MHC#Werner Hartenstein and WT:FAC#Copyediting question. MisterBee is one of our top contributors at Milhist and I very much enjoy his articles, and I'm a Germanophile myself, but I can't support. The preponderance of German words and difficult concepts for the general reader goes beyond anything I've seen in printed English-language encyclopedias (on any subject) and goes beyond what the best style guides recommend. If you'd like to keep the article the way it is, MisterBee, I have no problem with that ... I don't make usually make the calls at A-class, and Wikipedia is a big place, with room for many viewpoints and many kinds of articles. But not at FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 12:18, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No problem but I would like a bit more guidance from the reviewers. Do you suggest to replace Reichsmarine and Kriegsmarine with German Navy even though the affiliation was with two different types of government? Do you want me to remove humanistische Staatsgymnasium even though highschool reflects a different school system. MisterBee1966 (talk) 15:26, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's much better now, thanks, striking my oppose. I'm going to do some tweaking before I support. - Dank (push to talk) 03:19, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support My vote is for the German. It provides a much better account, and promotes a better, more detailed understanding of the subject. "High school" would not be a proper translation, and not only would information be lost, but misunderstandings might be introduced. Ideally, humanistische Staatsgymnasium would have its own article. I would support the argument for a general article on World War II; but realistically, is a general reader likely to be seeking information on a specific U-Boat captain? I would argue that the reader will be of a more specialised kind, and pitching the article a a higher level is quite appropriate. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:59, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

More later.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:09, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note -- Before this wraps up we'd better have a spotcheck of sources for accuracy and avoidance of close paraphrasing. If any of the above reviewers would like to perform this task, pls do so, otherwise will list request at WT:FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:11, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comments:
  • Generally, this article appears to be written in British English. However, it uses the word "ton". I always thought "tonne" was the British spelling (for the unit as opposed to "a ton of homework").
  • "Hartenstein was born in Plauen in the Vogtland of the Kingdom of Saxony on 27 February 1908" makes it sound like Saxony was independent country at the time. I would suggest adding something to the effect that it was part of the German Empire.
  • I'm not really comfortable with the translation notes. I feel like you should be certain enough that you're translating those terms correctly not to need those notes. Also, in many cases (Korvettenkapitän, Wehrmachtsbericht, e.g.) you've included both the German term and the English translation in the text. I would suggest eliminating the notes by either including both terms in the text or just using the English term.
  • This is an ongoing debate and every reviewer seems to have a different opinion on this topic. I am very certain that the translation is correct. Some reviewers advise against adding too much German into the flow of the text and others focus on semantic correctness of the translations. The format I chose here has been accepted on the Ernst Lindemann article as well as on some of German ship articles of WWI. MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:59, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "At the outbreak of World War II, Hartenstein continued to command torpedo boats." The article doesn't really say he'd been commanding them before. Or does being first watch officer mean that one is the commander?

Spotcheck: I'm willing to try to locate sources that will let me do a spotcheck, MisterB, although it means you'll have to answer some really dumb questions while I try to read the German. Please email me any links that might be useful. - Dank (push to talk) 12:34, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have a fluent command of Modern High German, so you needn't bother Mr. B with the silly questions—methinks there are only stupid answers, no stupid questions. You know where my talk page/email is. Eisfbnore (下さいて話し) 00:04, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per this, MisterBee is on holiday for a few weeks. I'll come back to this after he has a chance to respond to my email. - Dank (push to talk) 18:25, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • MisterBee and I have a question about what spotchecks are supposed to cover. For instance: "On 30 March 1941, command of Jaguar was given to Kapitänleutnant Friedrich-Karl Paul and Hartenstein transferred to the U-boat force, and on 4 September 1941 was given command of U-156, a Type IXC U-boat. For his service on torpedo boats, Hartenstein was awarded the German Cross in Gold on 2 February 1942.[5]" That ref covers only the information on Hartenstein, not Friedrich-Karl Paul, or what the German Cross in Gold was awarded for, or that U-156 was a Type IXC U-boat. The ref at the end of the paragraph doesn't cover those things either, but other refs in the paragraph may cover them. I don't have access to every source, so I can't check every ref. What's my job as a spotchecker here? Should I say approximately what I just said about what's covered by this ref, or should I ask the nominator which sources cover which material and report on that? - Dank (push to talk) 13:29, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi Dan, as we've discussed elsewhere, a citation (or group of citations one after the other) should generally cover everything up until that point, as far back as the previous citation or group of citations. Therefore in the example above, I'd expect FN5 to support everything in the quoted passage. If it doesn't, I'd expect us to add one or more citations to the end of that passage so all the info is verifiable. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:17, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, MisterBee is away now per his talk page, for a few weeks I think, and he didn't have time before his vacation to respond to my email, so I'll go ahead and post what I've got so far. The main thing I checked was the one significant English-language source, and there were what seem to be problems with most of the refs, someone correct me if I'm wrong:
  • Jones, p. 122:
  • "Ten months after his death a service of remembrance was held in Plauen ...": text
  • "ten months after his death a service of remembrance ... was held at Plauen.": source
  • "... was attended by his parents, his sisters and other members of the family, the [mayor's name], senior officials and councilors.": text
  • "... was attended by his parents, ... his sisters and other members of the family, by the [German for mayor], senior officials and councillors.": source
  • The name of the mayor doesn't appear in the ref
  • p. 110: "The people lined the streets as the whole crew marched from the railway station to the City Hall ...": text
  • "the people lined the streets as the whole [crew] marched to City Hall ...": source
  • p. 117: "south of Freetown": the source says southwest
  • "Capetown to Freetown": source doesn't say this
  • Otherwise checks out
  • p. 31-32: checks out

Comments:

  • "Gustav Julius Werner Hartenstein (27 February 1908 – 8 March 1943) was a corvette captain (or lieutenant commander) in the German Navy of the Third Reich during World War II who commanded the U-boat U-156." The ordering here is a little wonky, and there are a lot of details being crammed into this one sentence. How about this instead: "Gustav Julius Werner Hartenstein (27 February 1908 – 8 March 1943) commanded the U-boat U-156 in the German Navy of the Third Reich during World War II." and then his rank can be plopped into the second sentence.
  • "He is credited with the sinking of 20 ships for a total of 97,504 gross register tons (GRT)" Is this a statistic that is generally considered relevant or interesting for commanders or their vessels? I would have thought that total lives lost would be a much more telling statistic.
    • No! The role of the U-Boat captain is to sink ships, not kill crews. Whether the fungible merchant marine crew goes down with the ship or escapes on a raft provided by the U-Boat matters little to the war effort (although a lot to the crew). What is important is the cargo capacity that is lost, which represents weapons and supplies. Together, those 100,000 tons (= 283,000 m3) of cargo should be multiplied by the number of voyages lost (probably one per month in the Atlantic) to obtain a figure of the magnitude of the loss. To this should be added the cargo that went actually down with the ships. Every Allied campaign of the war depended on the ability of ships to haul the cargo required. The timing of campaigns, the length of the war itself were determined by the availability of shipping. Every U-Boat and convoy commander reckoned success or failure in terms of tons sunk or saved. And if every U-Boat commander had sunk as many ships as Hartenstein, Britain would have starved, the United States and Canada would have been isolated, and Germany would have won the war. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:51, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and with damaging three ships and a warship." Warship should be linked, though I don't know which article would be most appropriate.
  • "After torpedoing and sinking the RMS Laconia in September 1942, Hartenstein aborted an attempt to rescue the survivors in what became the "Laconia incident" after his U-boat came under attack by a B-24 Liberator bomber of the United States Army Air Forces." I think there a few too many details being crammed into this sentence, and yet at the same time it does not quite convey the significance of this event as it relates to German naval operations. I suggest splitting it into two sentences, perhaps something like this: "After torpedoing and sinking the RMS Laconia in September 1942, Hartenstein attempted to rescue the survivors but was forced to abort when his U-boat came under attack by a B-24 Liberator bomber of the United States Army Air Forces. The event became known as the "Laconia incident", and blah blah blah some other stuff."
  • There should absolutely not under any circumstances ever be a section with a single sentence in it. Ever. Either find a way to merge the "content" in In popular culture or delete it altogether.
  • I'm a bit puzzled by the Wehrmachtbericht reference section. Can you explain what its purpose is?

-- Cryptic C62 · Talk 22:31, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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