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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/2009/Failed

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

Dennis Gorski

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Nominator(s): TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)


I am nominating this article for A-Class review because. It just passed at WP:GAC and the reviewer thinks it need some attention with regard to flow.TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:01, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick Comment The article is very well written in my humble opinion, however, the only fault i can find is of the lack of photos, especially one of the subject himself. If you can find one, that would be great. I have a feeling that if you want to go for FAC that this may be a hindrance. ṜedMarkViolinistDrop me a line 19:39, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would love to add a photo of the subject, but am unable to find one. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated in this regard.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: Not really a subject I've got much knowledge of, so I am focusing more on technical points and mainly around the military career section:
    • there are no dabs, alt text is present, however, the tools had some complaints about the links, but none of them were dead (no action required);
    • there is some overlinking of terms which you will need to cut back on, e.g. in the Military career section the term Vietnam War is linked twice;
    • citations # 5 and 7 should be consolidated as they are the same (Will the Real Dennis Gorski Please Stand Up")
    • the images (as mentioned above, and apologies for continuing the pain with this one) are probably not the best. I think the Dept of Navy image in the Military career section does more harm than good. I suggest removing it as it serves to highlight the lack of appropriate images more than anything. Stands to reason that if you could get one, an image of Gorski while serving would be best (perhaps he has a PR person, or maybe you could write to him, just a suggestion);
    • the military career section is a bit light and leaves the reader wondering what happened. Why did his career come to an end? I take it that he'd served his IMPS or ROSO or whatever it was called back then? This could be spelled out in a single sentence.
      • I am a non-military guy. What do these acronyms mean? Basically, the article is well-cited. So you may be able to point to something in an original secondary source and say Can you include more detail about subject X, which is mentioned in ref #Y. I don't know how to find any more content regarding his military career without direction from you guys.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:24, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sorry for the FLAs (four letter acronyms...). IMPS stands for Initial Minimum Period of Service and ROSO for Return of Service Obligation. Basically (while not the same) they simply refer to the length of time a serviceman or woman is required to serve before seeking discharge (notwithstanding extenuating circumstances). To be honest one doesn't have the time to pour through all the sources on this, but what you are looking for is something that actually states when and if possible why Gorski left the military. I'm assuming that he probably joined with a two year obligation and this was completed, hence he left, but it should really be stated. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • the first sentence in the Military career section discusses the subject's motivations. As this is a BLP you need to be careful doing this, so is it possible to include a citation beside this sentence (even if it is the same as citation # 8, it just covers you to include it directly beside such a point)? I think ultimately it would be great if you could get a direct quote for this, if possible.
    • did Gorski act as a platoon commander, or was he actually the platoon commander? In the military these words mean specific things, i.e a sergeant (who is usually not a platoon commander, but sometimes is, but that is an aside point...) might "act" in the role in the absence of a lieutenant, but the lieutenant serves as the platoon commander, or is "appointed" to the role. This, of course, is a professional nitpick for which I hope you'll forgive me...
    • what unit did Gorski serve in while in Vietnam? You mention a battalion headquarters, but what battalion, do you know?
      • Suggest removing the bit about serving in the infantry, because it seems to me like this line is just journalist hyperbole (the Warner article). What they are saying is that while he served in a motor transport battalion, during Tet the situation got so bad they were used as infantry, however, it is not the same as serving in the infantry which is in itself a different corps or branch of the service. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • how or why did he earn his promotions? He went from second lieutenant to captain in two or three years, that would be considered "accelerated" in today's military (but maybe not in a larger, wartime Army)
      • I am sourcing from general newspaper clippings as opposed to military sources. I don't have any further detail.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes, its difficult and in this case I can't really offer any solutions unfortunately. The sources, in my opinion, are the root of the problem as I see it for the military career section. As you say, they are newspaper clippings, and in my experience such sources do not cover subjects in the detail that a book might. They also sometimes have a tendancy to gloss over things in favour of sensationalising things, thus sometimes giving the wrong or slightly incorrect impressions about things. In regards to where you could go to improve the sourcing for the military section, I don't really know. In Australia we have the National Archives that often allows online access to military service records, which can help fill in the gaps. Also there is the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online, however, I'm not sure if there is anything like these two sources in the US, though. Perhaps someone from your neck of the woods can help with this question. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • (outdent) Okay, I've struck the comments that you've fixed. I still believe that you need to remove the bit about Gorski serving in the infantry as I don't believe it is correct. As I stated above it seems like the journalist who wrote that was just being flippant in their terminology. Also some of the wording in the military career section is a bit unclear, for example "stationed at United States Marine Corps Gia Le battalion headquarters near Da Nang" is not correct as it implies that it was the Gia Le battalion whose headquarters he was stationed at (i.e. implying that was the name of the unit). From what I can see the sources are saying his battalion was headquartered at Gia Le (whatever battalion that was as they don't identify it), but this is different from how it is currently worded. Although I feel that the article is well written and MOS compliant, I do not feel that I can really support it for A class in a Mil hist A Class Review. To be honest, I don't really think it is within the project's scope as the subject of the article is not really notable for his military career, but rather his political career. This shows in the depth of the military career section and is, in my opinion at least, the reason why the sources don't go into much detail on it and are in many regards infuriatingly indistinct on many points that a mil hist biography should contain. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:23, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, that is it. Good luck with improving the article. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 10:23, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your assistance.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support.
  • "As of February 1990, he and Mary Jo with whom he had been married for 15 years had 5 children ranging in age from 1 to 7 with the oldest two adopted." Please rephrase this to make it more clear when he married her, and the children's ages. More recent information than 1990 would be nice too.
This is the only remaining problem - a picture would be nice, but if there aren't any available there's nothing that can be done. – Joe N 01:36, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Even a google image search comes up empty.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • No problems with the dab links or the alt text.
    • There are a disturbing number of websites flagged as suspicious, please check and advise.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Lebaudy Patrie

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Nominator(s): Ryan4314 (talk)


Greetings, I am not the author of this article (TraceyR is), already essentially passed an A-class review at WP:Aviation here. Ryan4314 (talk) 19:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support: there are no dab links, external links all check out and alt text is present. I'm not an expert on the subject, though, so can't really say much about the content, although it seems complete to me. I couldn't find anything that needed tweaking MOS-wise either, but I might be wrong. — AustralianRupert (talk) 05:56, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. More citations could be added in the Steering and propulsion, June-November 1907, and Final Flight sections. Also, watch image sandwiching in Steering and Propulsion/Gondola sections. – Joe N 22:32, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:
    • In the section Keel and Gondola, why was it common for their to have been two pilots/engineers/passengers?
      This may need to be reworded. It is intended to mean that most accounts mention these numbers of people being on board; no specific reasons were given to my knowledge.
    • In the same section, you have the line "...a 'siren' speaking trumpet, carrier pigeons, iron pins, ropes for anchoring the airship, a reserve supply of fuel and water, and a fire extinguisher." Why the siren speaking trumpet, carrier pigeons, and iron pins?
      I haven't seen reasons given for these inventory items, but I imaging that (1) the siren was for air-to-ground communication during take-off and landing (2) carrier pigeons were for reporting results of reconnaissance, e.g. troop movements etc in pre-wireless days and/or for reporting the airship's position if it were forced to land somewhere unexpected (3) iron pins were probably used for mooring when landing off-base. I'll have a search for generic info but I haven't seen anything along these lines yet.
    • In the steering and propulsion section, you mention the engine but give no indication of the miles per gallon the engine gets. I grant this may not be known, but I am curious about it since it would provide an idea of how far one fuel up could take the airship.
      I can expand this somewhat. One account (in "Auto" magazine, 1907) reports that on one trip of 150 miles only 140L of fuel were used (which was less than 50% of the supply on board). Another source (Vivian's History of Aeronautics) mentions a range of 280 miles, so there is a minor discrepancy between the two sources. I'm not aware of any figures available for mpg (which would depend on other factors such as wind direction etc.)
    • See if you can integrate the information in the See Also section into the article itself rather than have such a section in the article.
      I have a look at this soon. Thanks for the comments.
  • Otherwise it looks good. Well Done! TomStar81 (Talk) 17:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Italian battleship Roma (1940)

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Nominator(s): —Ed (talk • majestic titan)


Roma served during the Second World War. She participated in no missions during the war, but was hit twice during Allied bomber raids. Fifteen months after she was commissioned, she was blown up by two German Fritz X bombs. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 04:21, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments This is a good article, but it feels incomplete and doesn't go into detail on any topics other than her loss.
    • I'm a bit concerned about sourcing:
      • Almost all material is sourced to 'Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II'. While this is an excellent reference, it's not enough by itself. There are specialist works on the Italian Navy which should provide further details on the ship and histories of the naval war in the Med which cover her demise.
      • A Midshipman's War: A Young Man in the Mediterranean Naval War 1941–1943 written by what appears to be a British or Canadian author (who was apparently a very junior officer during the war) seems a curious reference for an article on an Italian battleship. What makes this a reliable source on the ship?
    • The article is a bit brief, even allowing for the ship's short and inglorious career. This may be due to its reliance on a single source.
    • The opening para's prose is choppy and doesn't flow well
    • Warships aren't normally 'deployed' - they either 'sortie' or 'sail' (eg, instead of "Roma was deployed as the flagship of Admiral Carlo Bergamini" you could say "Roma sailed as the flagship...")
    • "When combined with a lack of capable vessels to escort the capital ships, the combat potential of the Italian Navy was vitually non-existant." seems a bit of an over-statement given the continued operations of Italian destroyers, small craft and submarines.
    • "B-17 aircraft fitted with 908 kg (2,000 lb) armor-piercing bombs were able to damage the stationary battleships with two bombs each." is awkward - "The two battleships were each hit by two 908 kg (2,000 lb) armor-piercing bombs dropped by B-17s during a raid on 5 June", perhaps?
    • Did the ship complete a program of shakedown cruisers and working up exercises before entering service, or was sufficient fuel not available? - at present its unclear if she was ever a fully effective unit.
    • "However, an attack upon Italia on Roma at 1537" do you mean "Italia or Roma"?
    • "Roma was hit on the same side somewhere between frames 100 and 108" and "another Fritz X slammed into the starboard side of the Romas deck, between frames 123 and 136" - these descriptions are a bit meaningless in isolation given that readers don't know where these locations were on the ship.
    • Do we know anything about how the German airmen felt about attacking their former Ally's ships?
    • Is there any reason why the excellent 3D images of the ship at Wikicommons haven't been used in the article? Without doing any checking, their copyright status seems OK (assuming good faith on behalf of the editor who signed them and uploaded them as their own work). Nick-D (talk) 11:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Nick, many thanks for the thorough review. I understand the points about a single source and will be attempting to address them. A Midshipman's War is only used to source the ships (the accompanying cruisers), but the specialized Italian Navy work I am hoping to obtain should (I hope) allow me to replace it. According to all the sources I have seen, both reliable and unreliable, the ship did literally nothing but shuttle between naval bases a couple times before the final fateful mission, but that doesn't mean this can't be expanded more... Great point about the frames; I didn't even think about it because G&D has a nice diagram showing where they hit. The 3D images were uploaded by a user who hasn't edited there or on any project since, which made me slightly suspicious... —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 07:22, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Sorry Ed but this seems to be another "McArticle" in pursuit of the goals for OMT. I'm really quite surprised that you would submit this in the condition it is in. Furthermore, with only 34 edits to the article how can you possibly believe the article is complete? Why did you avoid the GA process? Nick pointed out far too many issues that I agree should be addressed and I don't believe there is time to solve them all within a reasonable period in order to meet A-class. I don't believe there should be a mad rush to complete articles for a project goal. Please use your library resources. I recently discovered that MelCat has several thousand books in electronic form and there are many naval related titles. Please look for them. --Brad (talk) 03:53, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Don't be sorry, both you and Nick have many valid points. It's comments like these that make me glad I come through these reviews!
    • I honestly thought that the article wasn't bad, but I was most certainly wrong. I worked at length in my userspace, so I didn't have many edits in writing it. I didn't go to GA because it's a waste of a month's time. :) I didn't think that this would require a lengthy article due to the ship's inactivity, but I will attempt to address all of the concerns after I get home for Christmas break (requesting inter-library loan to come to my college would be useless when I am leaving in less than a week). —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 07:22, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment from nominator - withdraw - I didn't think that the reliance on G&D was such a problem, but it obviously is. :-) Also, all of the other points raised are quite relevant. Thank you everyone; my replies are interspersed above. As I will not be able to even think about addressing many of these serious concerns for ~2 weeks, I will withdraw this. Regards, —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 07:22, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Not promoted. –Juliancolton | Talk 02:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Yarmouk

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Nominator(s): الله أكبرMohammad Adil


I am nominating this article for A-Class review because... I just nominated it for the FA class article and there some body advised me to list this article first for the A class military history article, so here it is. الله أكبرMohammad Adil 22:26, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – sorry, but there are just too many issues with the article at present, such as:

  • Dates should be singular, and not use such things as "st", "nd", "rd" or "th".
  • Endashes (–) are required between date ranges used in the article in place of general dashes (-). Same with page ranges used in citations.
  • Subheadings should not begin with "The".
  • Images should not be aligned to the left directly under a level three subheading.
  • Images require alt text.
  • As YellowMonkey points out, there are large sections of unreferenced text and image issues.

Please do not be discouraged by all of this, however, and continue to work on the article. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 06:49, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have tried to resolve all the issues mentioned above, check the article now.

الله أكبرMohammad Adil 15:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • The citations are looking much better! Couple more things: current ref 81 ("al-Waqidi, p.148.") needs to be formatted with {{harvnb}} (and is it in the bibliography?), and current ref 100 ("Ibid., p. 17,") should not use ibid. I've struck my oppose over citations, and I hope you can address the prose-related opposes. Good luck! Regards, —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It is badly in need of a copy-edit. Many phrases don't make much sense, are unclear, or are gramatically incorrect. Please request one at one of the copy-editing request boards and have that done thoroughly. – Joe N 19:10, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • @user:the_ed17, i have fixed the references tht u pointed out.

@user:Joe_N, i have made request for the copy-edits lets see when they respond. الله أكبرMohammad Adil 10:48, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • opps my bad... just fixed it. and as for copy-edit, User:Unflavoured have did it.

الله أكبرMohammad Adil 10:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Battle of Delville Wood

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Nominator(s): Farawayman (talk)


I am nominating this article for A-Class review because (a.) I think it fully covers the main actions of the WWI Battle of Delville Wood, (b.) It contains detailed maps defining how the battle progressed, (c.) It contains a full oob for both Allied and German forces, (d.) It has undergone peer review and all recommendations have been incorporated into the article and (e.) lastly, according to my own evaluation, it meets the factual and style pre-requisites for an A Class article.

Also, with Remembrance Day approaching on 11 November, Delville Wood is highly representative of the losses and suffering experienced by both sides - for which this day is remembered. Depending on the opinion of the reviewers / editors, it could be considered for FAC for that date. Farawayman (talk) 10:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
    • Dabs/external links check out; alt text is present
    • What makes these site reliable?
      • http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/
      • http://en.allexperts.com/
        • Action taken: I used this reference because I was looking for a citation to support the statement that four VC's had been awarded during the battle. I concur on the questionable reliability issue. In have thus removed the above link and used the UK National Archive VC Register, including four separate references - a unique one for each recipient. Farawayman (talk) 16:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/iron_cross/ironcrossmain.htm
        • Action Taken: I concur that this website could be considred to be of doubtful reliability. I have found similar data in Thomas, Nigel (2004). The German Army in World War I (3) 1917-1918 (Men at Arms Series, 1st ed.). Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1 84176 567 8 (Pg. 43) and have replaced the website citation with this reference. Farawayman (talk) 09:45, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Should there be a page number for refs like "Sheldon (2005) Appendix 4"?
    • Is the bold print in the "References" section necessary?
      • Action taken: The bold font is system generated by using the "Volume" field in the Cite template. I agree that it looks messy. I have changed it by removing the information from the volume field and adding it into the title. Farawayman (talk) 05:21, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

—Ed (talk • contribs) 04:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Ed for the very valid comments and recommendations. Rgds. Farawayman (talk) 11:43, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your prompt action. Great work on the article. —Ed (talk • contribs) 23:19, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, based on http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/history-wfa/44-history-wfa.html I'm inclined to regard WFA as reliable. However, I notice a contradiciton between our article, and the OOB they give. At one piont a Lt-Gen Campbell is given as GOC XV Corps, according to the WFA, XV Corps was commanded first by Lieutenant General H.S. Home and then Lieutenant General J.P. du Cane. The only Campbell mentioned is D G M Campbell of 21st Division (a fascinating bloke incidentally, one day I'll get round to finishing the article I've got languishing in user space). David Underdown (talk) 09:31, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Action taken: On pg 323 Liddell Hart speaks of 7th and 21st Div of XV Corps who were to cover the left. He lists the commanders...of the Divisions! I recorded the Div commander's name (21 Div) and not the Corps Commander. Careless mistake on my part! Article corrected. On this one, the WFA is actually incorrect (maybe a typo) - it was Lt-Gen Henry S. Horne not Home! Liddell Hart (1970) re-confirms Horne on pg 317, The UK Official History (Miles 1938) confirms on pg. 5 as does Hart (2006) pg. 175. Well spotted and thanks. Farawayman (talk) 17:31, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: I believe this article meets A class standard. One issue I see is the use of endashes where normal hyphens should be used. I've fixed some, but there are more I believe. This shouldn't prevent A class, but I think it would be an issue at FA (albeit seemingly minor). If someone else can take a look and try to fix, that would be great as it is a bit laborious, so I didn't get through all of them. Anyway, good work on the article. — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:37, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
  • Please consider adding captions to all images, at least the title of the images themselves. I recommend submitting them to WP:Graphic Lab for cleanup and contrast enhancement. If nobody is biting User:Durova is the best at historical image reconstructions, she will at least be able to point you to someone else good and if she thinks they are good enough material you may have found some Featured Pics.
  • The excellent maps (I would niggle that they should be SVG, but they are so good) of the engagement lose their impact in that they are too small to be visible from the main article, but the description of the images is not complete enough to figure things out. I recommend fixing both problems. Good image descriptions are really, really good.
    • Action Taken 1: Map sizes increased and re-arranged to make map content more visible and adjacent to appropriate text. — Farawayman (talk) 20:54, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Action Taken 2: I think that by placing the map next to the text relating to that day's actions (the maps were all grouped together in one map gallery) makes them more understandable, as the map and text are now together. I will add more map details if required, but I want to try to steer away from adding narrative type text into the maps. — Farawayman (talk) 21:01, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "On the Western Front, units were normally considered to be incapable of combat if their casualty levels had reached 30% and they were withdrawn once this level had been attained. The South African Brigade suffered 85% losses amongst officers and 80% amongst other ranks, equating to a total loss rate of 80.4%"[51]" This is the most interesting fact on the page, yet it is the fourth last sentence of the article. I recommend making it somewhat more visible. In contrast, there is an inordinate amount of coverage to the exaggeration of casualties. Is this especially interesting or important that it deserves mention in the intro, or is it a soapbox issue? Dhatfield (talk) 01:10, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Action Taken: Having re-read the sections concerned, I agree! Issue of controversy of losses has been removed from the lead and replaced by facts relating 80% losses having been sustained. Section regarding casualty argument "toned down" as well. Farawayman (talk) 21:18, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment.
  • Needs a copy-edit. While the majority of the article is mostly OK, it could all use some looking at by someone else and the Losses section is in particular need of help.
  • You mention the South African casualties in the lead but then completely ignore them in the article except to discuss how many possible casualties there actually were. Please elaborate in the body on the effect on South Africa and other South African troops in the war.
  • Also, you mention the memorial in the lead and have an infobox for it at the end, but no textual coverage. The evolution of the battlefield and construction of the memorial need to be discussed.
    • Action Taken: There is a page dedicated to the memorial and cemetery here. I have thus removed the memorial infobox and added a "see also" link as well as a link in the lead text to the appropriate page. Farawayman (talk) 22:33, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Joe N 21:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. A nice article! Just a few comments:
  • There is quite of a bit of extra italicization that doesn't make sense to me. "Meat-grinder" in the Backgorund section, German regiments throughout, Happy Valley in the Relief section etc.
  • Break in and initial occupation section, "holding the wood was going to be extremely difficult!" The exclamation point feels a little unencyclopedic and elementary-school-report to me.
  • First attempt at clearing the wood section. The text is sandwiched between the map and the image, which is strongly discouraged, and the image is covering up some of the text in my browser view.
  • In the lead, the losses of the South Africans are played as a huge deal - that they continued fighting with 80% losses, etc. However, in the losses section, it seems to be downplayed by saying it is often overstated, and the 80% mark is never mentioned. First, the lead shouldn't contain information that is not included in the body, and second, the two sections seem to be at odds with one another.
  • The See also section is generally its own section, coming before the References and notes section. Also, the three middle links are external links, and should have their own section, after the References and notes section, and the links should be linked through the titles, not as bare links in the in-line notes section.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unsuccessful. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

World War I

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Nominator(s): LeadSongDog come howl


I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it has been substantially improved since its last review. It seems appropriate to work to improve it for November 11. LeadSongDog come howl 05:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments - First, I assume that you mean for 11 November of next year because there is no way that you could get this up to Featured in time for this year.
    • There are no dab links that need to be fixed.
    • There are several dead links according to the link checker tool.
    • Images need ALT text per WP:ALT
    • There are still several fact tags in the article that need to be rectified. -MBK004 05:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
This needs a lot of work done to it to even reach A-Class.
Firstly, citation needed tags scattered throughout the article need to be fixed.
Lede is far too small
Opening Hostilities section far too small and uncited, the same for much of the Early Stages section.
And the Southern Theatres section
And the Eastn Front, which still has a tag
And New States section
In fact, let's just say most of the article is either uncited or undercited and also needs a great deal of expansion.
Beware of any kind of of pro-Western Front bias.

I think that will do for now. Frankly, I'm surprised this didn't go up for peer review first, then GA; there's no way this will be A-Class any time soon. Skinny87 (talk) 07:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • - Thank you, that's very helpful. The path to recovery for a FFA was not exactly obvious to me. I suppose I should have asked first, but I was feeling Bold. Should I withdraw the request, or let it stand?
No, let it stand. I apologize if I came across as particularly critical.
No apology needed.
    • - I've added the above to the todo list and we can get on with it. In previous reviews the article was criticized for being overcited, so in many cases the practice has been (rightly or wrongly) to rely on the use of {{main}} to support unchallenged statements.
There's only putting citations at the end of paragraphs or a few sentences, and then there's having entire sections uncited; the latter should always be avoided, with at least one citation per paragraph. Considering the varied source material for the subject, I'd be surprised if that were the minimum.
That seems a measurable objective, at least for controversial areas. For simple facts (e.g. dates and places) we may leave it to the {{main}} articles.
    • - You comment that most of the article needs a great deal of expansion, but the article is already very long. Would you care to suggest content forks in order to keep this article's length acceptable while expanding?
I don't think length should be a major consideration; given the bredth the article has to cover, even as a summary, it will obviously be one of the longer articles on en.wikipedia.
    • - The English-language literature has a pronounced Western Front bias for obvious demographic reasons. Our readership is typically more interested in the Western Front for the same reasons. Should we ignore this in pursuit of WP:WORLDWIDE?
In my opinion, definitely the latter; the other theatres and areas shouldn't be neglected and all should be represented as equally as possible.
That's my inclination too, but it will be a large undertaking.
I honestly don't know. I think we might just have to find editors who can at least translate important other language sources, or at the very least use english-language sources covering non-Western areas. Skinny87 (talk) 19:09, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Guess I'll try some project noticeboards then. I just hope we can get it to happen without too much strife between editors from places still fighting the propaganda war today. We've had some unpleasant go-rounds in the past between editors: Serbs vs Bosnians, Turks vs Armenians, etc, usually citing (and believing) their side's domestically published references. Many of these are not registered on en: so they show up as ip editors here. Needing their input precludes semiprotection when things get heated. Ah, well, such is a wikipedian's life.LeadSongDog come howl 20:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm feeling this is not ready. It will need to be excellent even as a Class-A, since it's such an exposed topic. But please, proceed with the work. Just a few niggles:
    • Ref list needs auditing. First thing I checked was Ref 12, Fromkin ... err ... there are two Fromkin items. And gee, I hope that guy is authoritative, because the claim that military expenditure rose by 50% needs to be explained in a little detail, since there could be so many different variables.
    • Interruptors: spaced en dashes or unspaced em dashes? Both are used.
  • The images need boosting in size, each scrutinised on the basis of quality (res, etc), height, caption length, relationship to surrounding text and images, and critically, internal detail. The Br. Grand Fleet looks like a bad case of skin rash and pimples. Austrian troops: the relevance, the detail, is impossible to make out. The corpses: amazing pic, and hugely dramatic. Bigger, please. Initial actions: please see the MoS on text sandwiching! Please note the change in WP:IUP on image sizes, which has loosened up about forced size increases. Experiment with 230–250px? Note that default thumbnail will increase from 180 to 220 next week, probably.Tony (talk) 09:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC) PS And yes, a bit more from the non-Allied perspective would be good. It would make this article special on the Internet. Tony (talk) 10:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Tony, thats good actionable input. Will dupe to ToDo list.LeadSongDog come howl 02:24, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the encouragement and the reminder. Unfortunately Climie has just gone on wikibreak until January. Citing "everything" strikes me as an unusually high standard. Can you tell me where is this stated? Thanks, LeadSongDog come howl 15:14, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
From the requirements, "all claims are verifiable against reputable sources..." It is necessary to have an inline citation for all material. For an article of this size and scope, that would mean having a lot. Generally, at least one citation at the end of each paragraph covering the information in that paragraph, as well as one after controversial or extremely specific information, or where you switch sources, is necessary. For my review of this article, expect to wait a few days, I try to read through the entire article before I comment and that will take me quite a while. – Joe N 01:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Climie aka "Cam" started it here, but it's nowhere near complete. I believe that he was intentionally writing it short as well. If you are truly in love with World War I, perhaps you could take up the mantle, rent some of the books he used, and expand it on his sandbox page? I'd help you if you wanted, though my time would be limited by other commitments. —Ed (talk • contribs) 02:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, more help is always welcome, large or small. LeadSongDog come howl 06:17, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments. Expect this to expand over the next few days as I look at it in more detail.
  • Please move some images to the left, for balance.
  • The lead and infobox should either be not cited at all, in which case all points should be expanded upon and cited in the text, or completely cited, not half-cited as they are now.
  • I've tried to do some stuff with it, but there are many places where images cause the section edit tags to bunch or be misplaced. Please fix these.
  • "The U-boats had sunk almost 5,000 Allied ships, at a cost of 178 submarines.[47]" Please provide some context for this, i.e. "By the war's end..." or something.
  • The following sections are in need of better citation:
  • Confusion Among the Central Powers
  • Serbian Campaign
  • German Forces in Belgium and France (This section also needs some changes; a decent part of it is on the Eastern Front, but this is not covered in the See Also link or Section title).
  • Trench Warfare begins, first paragraph
  • Naval War
As I said, expect all of these comments to grow. – Joe N 20:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks you for the input.
If you're aware of good, balanced English-language sources on the Balkan and Middle-eastern fronts, that would be a big help. Most of the articles on these campaigns have only a few non-English souces that are of limited use to us.
I regard image bunching as a mediawiki bug that doesn't merit individual article attention. Sooner or later, the software will get fixed. If someone else wants to put their time into temporary workarounds, they're welcome to do so. LeadSongDog come howl 06:17, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Normally I'd agree, but this is a very heavily viewed article and if it is going to be one of our highest-rated articles it needs to be perfect. It really looks unprofessional to see what looks like errors in the code and bunched, useless section edit links. – Joe N 21:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mmm, OK. What I was going to do isn't going to work. Basically, general comments: every paragraph needs at least one citation at the end which covers all the information in it. If it relies on multiple sources, please cite each. Please get a very thorough copy-edit at one of the CE request places, to fix various incidences of bad grammar and unclear or ambiguous sentences. – Joe N 21:13, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. There is quite a bit that needs to be done to get this article to A-class, although a good start has been made. Here are a few ideas:
  • The article needs more references. There are multiple sections that have no or very few references, and that include facts, statistics, or potentially controversial information.
  • There are two citation needed banners from 2008 - please see that these are taken care of and removed. No A-class article should have cleanup banners.
  • See also, main article and further information templates should be at the beginning of relevant sections, not the end.
  • Many of the web refernces in the article need publishers, some also need access dates and other relevant information.
  • Ref #41 (Coast Guard in the North Atlantic War) deadlinks.
  • Ref #143 (Letter) deadlinks.
  • Ref #156 (Die miserable Versorgung...) needs to note its language, as well as being properly formatted.
  • What makes ref #46 (Greek American Operational Group OSS, Part 3 (continued)) a reliable reference?
  • What makes ref #49 (On This Day - 23 November 1915) a reliable reference? Specifically, the site itself says "it is not recommended that this site be used for academic reference purposes..." Also refs 55, 56, 66, 67, 102 to this same website.
  • Ref #68 says "Meyer 2007, pp. 169-". Is there supposed to be a second page number to end the range?
  • What makes ref #97 (The Meuse-Argonne Offensive: Overview) reliable?
  • What makes ref #190 (The Lost Generation - myth and reality) reliable?
  • Some of the split references are linked to their corresponding bibliographic entry, while others aren't. Please standardize this.
  • Please repair the dab link, here.
  • Please make sure there are non-breaking spaces -   - between numbers and their units of measurement.
  • Please standardize spelling to either British or American. For example, there is "armour" (British) and "realize" (American), as well as both spellings of defence/defense. The link here may help.
  • Images need alt text, see WP:ALT.
  • There are a lot of short paragraphs (one or two sentences) and short sections (one short paragraph) that should be expanded or combined. Probably the latter in most cases, considering the length of the article already.
  • I hope the comments above help in your quest for A-class and ultimately FA, before next November. This is a huge undertaking - thank you for doing so! Dana boomer (talk) 23:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you, Dana. I think I've now corrected many of your points, esp the weak refs, dablink, and BrEng, though there is still much to do on additional inline harvnb cites. Work continues.LeadSongDog come howl 18:40, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've struck the issues above that have been completed. There are still issues with BrEng/AmEng usage, I added a link that may help with this. I've also added a couple more things that I noticed to the end of the list. Thank you for your work so far! Dana boomer (talk) 19:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • The script was new to me, and surprisingly useful, but it also seems to hit a lot of false positives. I'm only seeing the reported AmEng, contractions, and dateth used in quotations and in citation template parameters (particularly |title=). The high rate of false positives rather obscures the real work to be done. I just left a note at User_talk:Gary_King#Peer_reviewer_script, who seems to be the current maintainer afaict. LeadSongDog come howl 21:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – sorry, but this still requires significant work:

  • As stated above, referencing is a major issue. The "War in the Balkans" section, for example, only contains a single cite, and others are even more bare.
  • Alt text is required on all images.
  • A few more of the images should be re-aligned to the left, in order to give greater visual appeal.
  • There is quite a bit of whitespace between paragraphs in some sections due to the inclusion of several images.
  • The ranks of commanders/generals should be clarified.
  • The AIF was the Australian Imperial Force; no "s" on force.
  • Endashes should replace general dashes for use in date ranges in the prose, and page ranges used in citations.
  • All web sources require access dates.

It will take a lot of work to get this article up to standard. However, I would encourage you to keep up the excellent work, it will all be worth it in the end and it would be excellent to have such an article up to a high standard. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 00:37, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Armed Forces of Liberia

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Nominator(s): Buckshot06(prof)

Prior A-class review: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Armed Forces of Liberia/archive1

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because much has been incorporated and changed based on the recommendations of the previous A-Class review, and I'd like to see whether it's ready for A-class. Buckshot06(prof) 06:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Comments This is greatly improved from the last version submitted for an ACR (which was pretty good) and is very close to A class status. The article is very well written and is amazingly detailed - fantastic work. My suggestions for improvements are:
  • Support: I'm happy to support this for A-class. I believe it meets the criteria and the issues that were listed in the last ACR, plus the interim review on the talk page have been addressed. (One area that might be improved, but I feel has no baring on A class, is that a couple more images could be inserted—assuming that they are available, which could be a big assumption—to break up some of the larger paragraphs). Anyway, well done. — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:20, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Prose needs work.

  • I've recast the opening two sentences, which were repetitive, so that the text starts by reaching more into the topic, as it were. See if you like it. I've reversed a couple of sentences to try to make it flow better, too.

Here are random points at the top, which suggest an independent copy-edit is due. The prose is not too bad, but now would be a good time to spruce it.

  • Please avoid linking common entities such as "United States".
  • 1989–2003 with pauses: is this for the "First", "Second" or both LCWars?
  • Remove "also", since the "two infantry battalions" are not planned (the planned bit is slightly vague for the lead, isn't it? The extraordinary fact of a Nigerian Army officer's leadership is in the infobox but is unexplained in the lead.)
  • Cape Mesurado was a major settlement in the early 19th century? It kind of comes out of the blue.
  • The MoS says to use double quotes for "words as words" (able-bodied); and for quotations ... is this a quotation from ref. 2? You could get away without the quotes at all, probably. Needs an audit throughout for this.
  • "500 strong"—most American writers would hyphenate it. "highest-ranking" is after the noun, so less likely to be hyphenated—in fact, it wouldn't be here.
  • Under the command. Rule of thumb: when there's an "of" to the right put a "the" to the left.
  • "about" five is odd. Better to sweep the uncertainty under the carpet with "some five".
  • Is it in AmEng or BrEng? "reorganiSe".
  • Conscription is forced.
  • Comma after "interior".
  • "units often lived off the areas that they were pacifying, as a form of communal punishment"—I can see how some people might not see the neutrality in this statement. And it assumes that only one tribe occupied such an area. Perhaps "pacifying" is the problem; also, I hadn't understood there was a need to pacify. Can that role/need be explained first?

Tiny tiny images. The default size will be boosted from 180 to 220 in a few days' time, but even so, I'd force to 240 or 250.

  • "towards the end of the war" might be better.
  • Where's the numeral / spell out boundary? MoS suggests nine/10.
  • "high-status force: it was"
  • Ref list needs a check through for formatting and consistency. There's a reverse date format I see, there's p. and pages. etc.

It's not hugely below Class-A standard, but does need a lift. Tony (talk) 12:50, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tony for your comments. I hope my changes have reflected your concerns. One question - where should I insert 'towards the end of the war?' Thanks Buckshot06(prof) 21:39, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Must have rubbed part of that comment out in the editing: "U.S. forces also established a officer candidate school during the later part of the war,"—the timing is just a little vague; would rather "from [year] onwards", if the sources tell you.
The source unfortunately does not - just the later part of the war. Buckshot06(prof) 23:33, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One thing I forgot to say was that the unusual (unique?) relationship between Liberia and the US might be touched on somewhere, whether in the lead or a section. It explains why the presence of the US (training, funding, etc) has had a historical basis—even a linguistic one, since Liberia is the only African country north of Zimbabwe that has a sizeable proportion of native English-speakers.
I've increased the image sizes to 240px. Adjust please if you don't like. Tony (talk) 07:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC) PS Ref list still needs cleaning up. Tony (talk) 07:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Still badly structured. The history section starts with one large unstructured amount of information that hardly explains the purpose of the Liberian forces for suppressing the natives and does not mention how they handled uprisings and how frequent that was. You must totally rework the structure. If you want a history section make it a short summary with larger subsections.

Lots of non-essential information like listing non-noteable commanders. Compare this to US Army. They don't list every general there.

The draft BIO#MIL, under discussion at WT:MILHIST, specifically includes service heads as being notable. The reason why they're on this page, instead of possibly being elsewhere, is that the US Army has literally hundreds of articles devoted to it. The entire Liberian armed forces has one, this page - thus they're listed here. I don't believe this particular object is substantive. Buckshot06(prof) 20:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are too many quotes that could be reworded make part of the text. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
  • "the agent of the settlements directed the mobilisation of all "able-bodied males into a militia and declared martial law." You open a quote but don't finish, presumably it ends after militia, but please put the endquote in where it belongs.
  • Please try to find some more images to add. There are large blocks of text which are not broken up at all.
  • "Yet Taylor forced ECOMOG to leave Liberia by the end of 1998." Awkward, and please fix the fact tag.
  • Please be consistent with using commas in four-digit numbers: either 4,000 or 2000, not both in the same paragraph.
Better than last time, but still some issues. – Joe N 01:36, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • One dab link, one dead link ([1]); alt text is present.
    • The citation style varies from citation to citation. For example, current ref 4 has "Harrison Akingbade, "U.S. Liberian relations during World War II," Phylon, Vol. XLVI, No.1, 1985, p.25", while ref 6 has "John Keegan, "World Armies" page 435, ISBN 0-333-17236-1.", to ref 35, which has "Charles Hartung, 'Peacekeeping in Liberia: ECOMOG and the Struggle for Order,' Liberian Studies Journal, Volume XXX, No.2, 2005". Or you could look at ref 51 ("United Nations Mission in Liberia. "[History http://unmil.org/1content.asp?ccat=history&zdoc=1]". Retrieved October 3, 2009.") and compare it to ref 52 (""[Liberia: US Hires Private Company to Train 4,000 strong military http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2005/02/mil-050215-irin01.htm]". IRINNEWS.org. Tuesday, February 15, 2005. Retrieved April 25, 2009.
    • Ref 14 ("Samukai, 2004") has no page number
    • Why is "Ellis, Stephen (2001). The Mask of Anarchy. London: Hurst and Company. ISBN 1-85065-417-4." not in the bibliography?
    • Ref 41 is a bare link
    • Ref 45 ("Liberia: New army chief named". 19.") needs more information
    • Ref 54 ("allAfrica.com: Liberia: New AFL Recruits Go Into Training (Page 1 of 1)") needs more information
    • Ref 60 is " Lieutenant Colonel Wyatt, chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation, 11 January 2008. See also http://www.analystliberia.com/4_experts_in_for_angel_autopsy_jan14_08.html and Lt Col Wyatt's blog, Monrovia Daily Monitor". Many problems: is there a link to the actual reference? Either way, we need more information. Second, there is a bare link. Third, a blog?
    • There are more problems, but I don't have the time for a 100% check. Once you finish working on these I'll go through the citations again. Regards, —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments theed17. The dablink issue is covered in the previous A-Class review; it leads to the redirect Military of Liberia, which Kirill says cannot be fixed without messing with a master template, which is apparently not worth it. I'm annoyed about the Coast Guard link - I thought I inserted it about two weeks ago, but apparently they've reorganised their website. I should have inserted all the alt text required, I believe. Some of your others I need to work thorugh, but some are reasonably simple: Samukai 2004 is a web-published article with (one) page. I'll insert Ellis into the biography. Cheers and thanks for your comments Buckshot06 (talk) 08:11, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

John Kourkouas

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Nominator(s): Constantine ✍


I am nominating this article on one of Byzantium's greatest generals for A-Class review because I feel its is complete and fulfills the relevant criteria. I eventually intend to give it a shot for FA, so the more thorough the review, the better. Thanks in advance to everyone for their time. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 21:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Prose review This is generally good, but would benefit from a general copyedit. To give a few examples from the lead:
    • "also found as..." I understand what you're saying, but perhaps something like "also spelt Kurkuas or Curcuas"? The variation isn't mentioned again, so it might be worth sourcing the various spellings to justify using one in preference to the others (maybe in a footnote?) It would be interesting, for example, to know which is the latinised version etc.
    • "several notable generals for Byzantium" How about "several notable Byzantine generals"?
    • Repetition: "one of the imperial bodyguard"; "one of the chief supporters"
    • "facilitating his rise to the throne" The sentence structure is ambiguous; it could be read as referring to either Kourkouas or Romanos I Lekapenos.
    • Related to the previous point, heavy use of "he" throughout the lead, but especially para 2, can be confusing. You need to be clear who you're referring to when more than one person is mentioned.
    • "For the first time since the tide of the Muslim conquests ebbed off, the Byzantines advanced in depth into Muslim territory and expanded the imperial border." How about something like "Having been much reduced by the Muslim conquests of several centuries earlier, by the 920s Byzantium had grown strong enough for Romanos Lekapenos to take an expansionist view of his eastern borders."? I think you also need to mention in the next sentence that Kourkouas led the armies that made those conquests.
There are similar instances elsewhere in the article - nothing an independent copyedit can't solve :) It's a fascinating article - well done, and thank you for submitting it for review. EyeSerenetalk 09:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Much appreciated. I alrwady went through and made some copyedits, but I'll ask for a more thorough review. Constantine ✍ 08:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I've made some changes to the prose, but it could use looking-over by someone better at it than I. One thing I am concerned about is that it tends to read more like a chronology of Byzantine military history in that time period and theater than as a biography of him personally, but I suppose, given the age of the subject, we should consider ourselves lucky that more hasn't been lost in the last millennium. – Joe N 00:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Unfortunately, it is as you say. If we were to report the bare and essential facts about Kourkouas, the article would be a dictionary entry the size of the lead. Since his name however is inextricably linked with his 20-odd years of campaigns in the East, it seems only right to include them here. Constantine ✍ 08:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Comments First, fascinating article, and nicely done. It's a real problem to construct articles pre-1400 or so because of the paucity of material. You've done a nice job pulling this together. That said, there are many prose issues here. Just in the first section alone (early life and the first submission) I've identified confusing or awkward sentences/paragraphs. In some cases, the importance is "lost in translation" but in most of these cases, you've used very complicated verb constructions because you've placed your subject in the position of the object (direct or indirect) (and reverse), which requires you to construct convoluted verb strings. Try simplifying this throughout. I've offered some possibilities below: see what you think, and then carry on with the rest of the article. You've got the same problems throughout. Modifying these will strengthen the readability of your prose. Also, I made a minor tweak in the first paragraph.

Prose
  • clarity. "Little is known about John's early life. At some point during Empress Zoe Karbonopsina's regency for her infant son Constantine VII {years}, he was appointed as droungarios of the Vigla regiment. From this post, he assisted Ramanos Lekapenos consolidation of his position are regent over Constantine VII, and later Lekapenos' ascent to the post of senior emperor in 919–920. As a reward, in ca. 923, Lekapenos promoted John Kourkouas to the supreme post of domestikos of the Scholai of the East, in effect commander-in-chief of the imperial armies in the East. According to the chronicler (?) Theophanes Continuatus, he held this post continuously 22 years and seven months." (How remarkable was this?)
  • Confusing. His brother, Theophilos Kourkouas replaced Boelas as strategos of Chaldia and, as a competent soldier in command of this northernmost sector of the eastern frontier, he gave valuable assistance to his brother's campaigns.
  • Awkward. In the East, For several centuries following the Muslim conquests in (when), constant raids and counter-raids characterized the Byzantine–Arab conflict in the East. These occurred along a relatively static border roughly defined by the line of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus Mountains. Until the 860s, the Byzantines had generally been on the defensive against superior Muslim armies. Only after from their victory in the battle of Lalakaon in 863 onwards had the Byzantines been able to gradually taken the initiative (and gain some ground. did they literally gain ground? as in territory?) In this they also took advantage of The strength of the Abbasid Caliphate, under Al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932) progressively decayed; local dynasties emerged in the distant provinces, such as Iberia, which weakened the centralized grip of the empire. The peace concluded in 927 with Bulgaria after the death of the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon further strengthened the Byzantine position in the East, allowing the Empire's attention and resources to be shifted eastwards.
from the Greek...
  • we need English equivalents of the Greek, or at least some kind of short explanation. If you look at the German articles, the ranks, etc., appear in English, with the German equivalents in parens, of they appear with the German link, but piped to English. I have to think there are more English speakers who also speak German than English speakers who also speak Greek, not to mention Ancient Greek. If there is no contemporary or direct translation, than an interpretation of what the position is will help. Certainly, we all understand the idea of a regency, and certainly it wasn't called regency in Greek. It sounds like a domestikos functioned somewhat like a commander in chief of a noble family's force. A droungarios was more or less a divisional-level command? These need better explanations, otherwise it makes no sense.

Do these comments make sense to you? Can you see what could be done? Let me know. Auntieruth55 (talk) 20:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes indeed, the comments are very useful. Thanks a lot. Give me a couple of days to go through the article, and hopefully the editors I have contacted for a copyedit will also get involved in time. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 22:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

MUCH better. :) still needs some attention at the following kinds of examples: Clarify pronouns--for example:

  • From this post he played a role, first in the consolidation of Romanos Lekapenos' position as regent over Constantine VII, and eventually his ascent to the post of senior emperor in 919–920. Whose ascent to the post of senior emperor? Romanos Lekapenos? or Constantine VII?

Translations of Greek--for example:

  • His brother, Theophilos Kourkouas, replaced Boelas as strategos of Chaldia and in charge of this northernmost sector of the eastern frontier. His brother, Theophilos Kourkouas, replaced Boelas as army leader, or strategos, of Chaldia and in charge of this northernmost sector of the eastern frontier.

Unclear meanings--for example:

  • At the same time, the Abbasid Caliphate progressively decayed... The Caliphate decayed? Or its power? At the same time (or concurrently), the authority of the Abbasid Caliphate decayed (diminished). At the same time, the Abbasid Caliphate undermined its own authority by....; at the same time, corruption and vice undermined the military and cultural authority of the Abbasid Caliphate ...
  • under Al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932) the Caliphate was in disarray, facing revolts and a weakening of its hold on the more distant provinces, where local dynasties emerged.]  ?? Finally, under Al Mutqtadir (r. 908-932) the Caliphate lost its hold on such distant provinces as ...(examples?) As the Abbasid Caliphate's central hold on Byzantium declined, ...

I made a few minor tweaks. this is looking much better. Auntieruth55 (talk) 22:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, suggestions taken care of, see article talk page. Constantine ✍ 22:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
okay, I did look at the article...These were examples of problems, but not the only problems. Auntieruth55 (talk) 23:49, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I realise that :) I'll go through it again later today... Constantine ✍ 00:53, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Constantine, I went through again, and did a copy edit. Please read it carefully to make sure I did not change facts (just presentation). I haven't read your sources, and I am completely unfamiliar with this period, so I tried only to clean up the prose, not to change any of the meaning. Auntieruth55 (talk) 23:22, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I checked your edits, they are well done. Where the meaning got distorted I changed it myself. Thanks again for improving the prose! 11:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

maps There eventually could be a more specific use of maps. The present map shows some of the areas where the battles occurred, but it would be more helpful if these were actually marked and some of the extraneous cities erased. Also there are a lot of maps in commons on Byzantineempire, and perhaps it would be useful if one of these could be included to show generally what the empire included, and what K.'s expansionist policy actually meant. Auntieruth55 (talk) 23:42, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments - three dabs need attention, external links look good, only one image has alt text (not an A-class requirement though), and sources look mostly good (couple comments below).
      • I have in mind to make a map, but it is very difficult to find accurate information on the borders of the time, especially in the Caucasus. It will have to wait until I gather sufficient source material, and find the time to do it. Constantine ✍ 06:52, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • What is "E. Weber"?
    • Can we have locations for the books?
    • By using "Kazhdan (1991)," in the references, it makes it look like he is the author. Perhaps you could change it too "Kazhdan ed. (1991),"? (that's what I do, at least. Feel free to ignore this if you disagree though :) Cheers, —Ed (talk • contribs) 23:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • "E. Weber" is the publisher. I added location for him, the rest are university publications, so a locations is not really necessary. As for Kazhdan, the fact he is an editor is marked in the "sources" section, but he also is the author of the entries on the Kourkouas family and John Kourkouas himself. Constantine ✍ 06:52, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Nikita Khrushchev

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Nominator(s): Wehwalt (talk)


I am nominating this article for A-Class review because... The Ed17 was kind enough to suggest I list it here, as there are several military episodes in Khrushchev's career, to say nothing of the military crises during his premiership. This article is headed to FAC in due course, and I'd like it to have a severe test before I subject such an important article to FAC.Wehwalt (talk) 18:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments - You wanted a "severe test", so I'll give you one. from the top
Infobox and Lead (Issues Resolved)
      • Could the dates of his marriages be given?
      • The phrasing of the opening sentence of the lead is really awkward. Could it instead read something like Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 15, 1894 – September 11, 1971) was leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964. During this time, he served as both the First Secretary of the Communist Party (1953-1964) and Premier of the Soviet Union (1958-1964)
        • I split it into two sentences. I'm trying to keep the "led the Soviet Union" as an alternative to the standard "is/was" as the opening verb in the article, which I believe is overused. The other lede comments I've adopted without change.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Second Paragraph: After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of the aging Stalin's close advisers. "the aging" is not necessary. It should just be "as one of Stalin's close advisors"
      • His lengthy memoirs were smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970, leading to indignant Soviet denials that they were genuine. - The second half of the sentence just serves to clutter it up. It's not necessary, and should therefore be cut.
Early Years (Issues Resolved)
      • Khrushchev was born April 15, 1894[1] in Kalinovka, a small town of about 1,200 inhabitants,[2] in what is now Russia's Kursk Oblast, to poor peasants of Russian origin.[3] - This sentence is very difficult to read for some reason. Could it somehow be fixed?
      • Are the middle names really necessary? They mostly just serve to clutter up the paragraph and bog down the prose.
      • Sergei Khrushchev was a migrant worker: he was employed in a number of positions in the Donbas area of far eastern Ukraine, including work as a railwayman, labouring in a brick factory, and finally as a miner. - again, awkward phrasing. The colon should be a semicolon, and the comma after "far eastern Ukraine" should maybe be another semicolon
      • Young Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age, and was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village parochial school and part under Shevchenko's tutelage in Kalinovka's state school. - Get rid of "young"
      • Shevchenko was a freethinker who scandalized the villagers by not attending church, - are you sure "scandalized is the right word"?
      • You sometimes refer to him as "Krushchev", and sometimes as "Nikita". I'd suggest sticking to one or the other. If you stick to his last name, his father will have to be referred to mostly as "Sergei"
        • I generally refer to children in articles by their first name up to (at the latest) age 18. Note that I stop referring to him as Nikita once he is aged about that.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:08, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Fair enough.
      • With the abdication of the Tsar in 1917, the government in St. Petersburg had little influence over Ukraine. "The Tsar" should be "Tsar Nicholas II"
      • When the Germans invaded the Donbas, he fled to Kalinovka, and in late 1918 or early 1919 was mobilized into the Red Army as a political commissar.[16] - given that you've quoted his memoirs in other places, you should be able to pinpoint the date of his conscription a little better.
        • Khrushchev deals very little with his early life in his memoirs, there is very little pre 1922. Remember, his memoirs were dictated, not written. Both his main biographers are unsure exactly when he entered the Red Army.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Sounds reasonable.
      • In 1921, the civil war ended, and Khrushchev was demobilized and assigned as commissar to a labor brigade in the Donbas, where he lived in poor conditions as did his men.[19] "as did" should probably be "alongside"
      • The commissar returned for the funeral, and, loyal to his Bolshevik principles, refused to allow his wife's coffin to enter the local church. - no comma before the first "and"
I've made changes where no comment has been made, though the rephrase may differ slightly from the suggestion.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Local Official (Issues Resolved)
      • As a side note, is there a better title than "Apparatchik" for this whole section? What's the english equivalent?
      • No other issues with this section
Kaganovich protege (Issues Resolved)
      • within nine months Khrushchev arranged the ouster of his superior, Konstantin Moiseyenko.[29] - shouldn't it be "ousting" or perhaps "overthrow"?
      • Khrushchev attributed his rapid rise to his acquaintance with fellow Academy student Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin's wife who, Khrushechev maintained, spoke well of him to her husband. the constant commas make it very difficult to remember by the end what the original subject of the sentence was. Can this be rephrased somehow?
      • he superintended construction of the Moscow Metro, a hugely expensive undertaking, - "hugely" is unecessary
Early relationship with Stalin; involvement in purges (Issues Resolved)
      • Can a date be given for the block-quote about his support for the purges? It greatly affects the readers' opinion of him as to whether that was said at the beginning of the purges, or after 2/3rds of the Communist Party had been executed.
      • In his memoirs, Khrushchev noted that almost everyone who worked with him was arrested;[42] by Party protocol, Khrushchev was required to approve these arrests, and did little or nothing to save his friends and colleagues.[43] - the use of the semicolon should be replaced with a period; otherwise, the sentence is way too long.
      • In any event, only two weeks after receiving the Politboro order, Khrushchev was able to report to Stalin that 41,305 "criminal and kulak elements" had been arrested, of which 8,500, according to Khrushchev, deserved execution.[43] - same problem; way too long.
Great Patriotic War (Issues Resolved)
    • Great Patriotic War
      • Throughout this section (indeed, throughout most of the article) there are a lot of semicolons where there should be periods. I'd suggest going through and cleaning this up a bit.
      • It was the German Army - not the Nazis - that invaded Russia in Operation Barbarossa. The Nazis were a political party, not the army itself.
      • the Red Army was soon encircled by the Germans, and the Soviets suffered over 150,000 casualties, with about a half million taken prisoner. - this needs a direct citation. I know that the official number sits somewhere around 450,000 captured and
      • There's a disproportionate focus on 1941 and 1942. The events of 1943 are basically mentioned in passing. Could this be rectified?
        • I've added a bit more. It looks like Stalingrad and Kursk were the highlights that year, though. I could troll his memoirs for more, but I think we've hit the summary style highlights.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:04, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Alright. Fair enough. I've got several books on Stalingrad that mention him in more than passing, so I get what you mean.
Stalin's Final Years (Issues Resolved)
      • These sessions, which Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, and Nikolai Bulganin, who comprised Stalin's inner circle, attended, began with showings of cowboy movies favored by Stalin. - is there a citation for this?
      • Khrushchev also sought to implement his agro-town proposal, but when a lengthy speech by Khrushchev on the subject was published in Pravda in March 1951, Stalin disapproved of it and the periodical quickly published a note stating that Khrushchev's speech was merely a proposal, not policy. - way too long, again.
Struggle for control (Issues Resolved)
      • Beria was no reformer; his proposals were designed to vilify Stalin and pass the blame for his own crimes to the late leader, while improving his own reputation.[105] - this is a rather bold claim. Is there anyone backing this up other than Krushchev's Biographer?
      • Malenkhov, though sophisticated, came across as colorless; Khrushchev, on the other hand, presented as a down-to-earth activist prepared to take up any challenge.[34] - the phrasing here is rather awkward.
  • Superb work and fanatical research! Cam (Chat) 22:44, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I will have responses to this within a couple of days. Perhaps on the casualty figures it would be best if I went to other than a non-Khrushchev bio. I'll get to the rest I hope tomorrow.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:05, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi. Sourcing. "K blows top" wow... what a... marketing driven title. anyway

    Sourcing
    NIB (Not in bibliography): ^ Schwartz, Harry (1971-09-12), "We know now that he was a giant among men", The New York Times, retrieved 2009-09-25 (fee for article)
    NIB: ^ Shabad, Theodore (1970-11-24), "Izvestia likens 'memoirs' to forgeries", The New York Times, retrieved 2009-09-25 (fee for article)
    NIB: ^ "Text of speech on Stalin by Khrushchev as released by the State Department", The New York Times, 1956-05-06, retrieved 2009-08-23 (fee for article)
    NIB: ^ "Vast Riddle", The New York Times, 1953-03-10, retrieved 2009-08-23 (fee for article)
    NIB: ^ a b c Birch, Douglas (2008-08-02), "Khrushchev kin allege family honor slurred", USAToday, retrieved 2009-08-14
    NIB: ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Whitman, Alden (1971-09-12), "Khrushchev's human dimensions brought him to power and to his downfall", The New York Times, retrieved 2009-09-25 (fee for article)
    Sourcing shows a Full Text On Net bias. Sourcing shows a US source bias.
    Where are the scholarly journal articles? Where are the scholarly edited collections? This is a key failing in the article as written.
    WP:MILMOS#SOURCES not met. Wouldn't meet Featured Article 1c as it lacks a full survey of the highest quality sources available (no scholarly journal article search conducted).
    Other
    Tompson 1995 seems unable to carry the paragraph on Hungary 1956. Ordering problems here, Eastern European foreign policy section relates primarily to Khrushchev's early rule. This, "Meanwhile, Soviet leaders were debating whether to intervene to ensure communist rule, with Khrushchev favoring intervention." in particular does not represent the current research, or sadly mischaracterises a confusing situation, which is contained primarily in journal articles.
    Citations in general seem underweight compared to claims.
    Fifelfoo (talk) 23:47, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That's helpful. I'll see if I can find some journal articles. If you have suggestions, I'd be grateful if you'd leave them on mine or the article talk page. Is it your feeling that all news article used as citations should be in a bibliography?
    And Carlson's book is definitely popularly driven, but it seems accurate and well sourced. I have found no contradictions with other materials.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Popular works are fine when they are accurate and well sourced (and I didn't expect otherwise), I was just ridiculing his really really horrible marketing forced title, also... his publisher's LackOfSpaces and name triggers warnings; but I'm glad those warnings aren't worrisome. When you're relying on a newspaper article as heavily as you are with Whitman (1971) I really suspect you should add it to the bibliography. With articles which only receive a single citation, I would expect only the Newspaper to be in the bibliography. I'd recommend starting with google scholar, and trying to find review articles in history journals, these cover the debate amongst historians. Also check the publications of research institutes such as http://www.wilsoncenter.org/ (CWIHP)... Hoover are also good. Central European University should have someone. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:18, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll take some looks. I'll move the Schwartz article to biblio, it was a major feature article the day after death (no doubt in the can and waiting for K to finally conk).--Wehwalt (talk) 00:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I found a better google book source on Budapest here. I'm still looking on scholarly journal articles.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Fursenko, already in the biblio, has some excellent material on Budapest and is 2006 published. I'll look for anything more recent, but I think we are doing OK here.
    • Oppose. Without really doing much more than skimming this, I can tell you right away that significant work is needed on sourcing. Too few of the many available sources are used, and the result is a more or less one-dimensional picture of someone with many dimensions. I imagine that you do not read Russian, which causes some difficulties with the research, but there are many English language sources you have neglected. Certain sections are also woefully underdeveloped. In particular, I would suggest.
      1. More attention to the Cuban Missile Crisis (Carribean Crisis) as this was surely one of the most significant moments of his life. An incredible number of words have been written on the crisis, so I suggest either Michael Dobbs's One Minute to Midnight or Mark White's Missiles in Cuba as they provide reasonable biographical perspectives. Michael Beschloss's The Crisis Years is also an excellent study with important insights.
      2. More attention is needed to contemporary primary sources to provide flavor; the use of memoirs is a poor substitute for things written at the time. I would direct your attention to the recently released collection of the Kennedy-Krushchev letters.
      3. Other sources that you simply must consult: Mayday: Eisenhower Krushchev and the U-2 Affair. Krushchev: A Career, while Crankshaw may not be the most recent scholar, his work is highly influential. Any of the various collections of his speeches should also be consulted.
      4. Finally, although it is a somewhat more controversial technique of biography, I think you will find that the consultation of contemporary newspaper accounts and his newspaper obituaries will add another dimension to the portrayal.
      5. Also, the prose needs significant work. Sentences like "The agreement that the United States would not invade Cuba has been adhered to." are just absolutely awful.
    — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.214.112 (talk • contribs) 12:57, 13 October 2009
    The thing is, this is not an article about the Cuban missile crisis. This is a summary-style article about Khrushchev. I feel the need to be very cautious about overstressing certain aspects of Khrushchev's career (U-2, cuban crisis) when dedicated articles are available. Note that the treatment of the Missile Crisis in the Khrushchev article is longer than the one in the Kennedy article! Contemporary newspaper articles about Khrushchev are useful, but I used few, because the papers knew little about what was going on. However, I will look at the sources you mention.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. This isn't a comprehensive biography of Krushchev, it is an encyclopedia article. :-) —Ed (talk • contribs) 13:25, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Summary style. That is the key here. The article is approaching 120K and I've been worried about length. The only things I intend to adopt from the IP are the "bit more flavor", perhaps a little more on Khrushchev's character mixed into things and a slight expansion on the missile crisis. Not more than 2 to 3 sentences though. Getting into the fine details of it must be left for the CMC article.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:26, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Getting to Fifelfoo's points, I've moved the Whitman article to the biblio. Since only one other article is used as many as three points, and that for a very small part of the article, I don't see the point in adding it to the biblio. I did run a seach at the Wilson Center and found nothing very interesting, and I looked at Google scholar as well. Given that the archives are long out there now, is there really much cutting edge scholarship on Khrushchev in terms of articles? I did not see anything that made me want to order it or buy access, and I've bought about 10 books on Khrushchev since I've started on the article.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      One other point, the Eastern European being mostly about Khrushchev's early years in power. Note that the discussion of the Berlin crises is under the US area. I imagined that this was the crucial area of the article for many readers and put as much as possible there.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments.

    I spot-checked and copy-edited "Donbas years". I'm confused about Party or party, but instinctively prefer the p unless it's clearly a title. Some of my changes will need your scrutiny; please revert them if they're wrong. I'd like to see an independent copy-edit of this, which would certainly be required before submitting to FAC, if that is the intention. However, it's already looking good.

    Just a few random things I noticed: tiny images? I've boosted a few. Please note the changes in the implied norm of default image sizes. Wondering about the "aftermath" image in terms of relevance and ? which city? in the caption. Mao pic looks over-exposed; any chance of fiddling with the commons file? No final period if just a sentence fragment, such as the UN. Even that pic could be a little larger. Soviet–US relations needs an en dash, not a hyphen. Couple of year ranges need similar fixing. You really want the dot at the end of each of the notes? They're not sentences. No big deal, though. Tony (talk) 10:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC) PS Likewise, you'd do everyone a favour by cropping the Commons file of the Ulbricht pic, which is weird in composition. Tony (talk) 10:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I'll work on these today. I guess it is OK to play with Bundesarchiv photos, so long as you don't crop out the text. I won't replace the original, though. I'll seek a ce at some point in this process, may wait until this wraps up unless it is the barrier against getting A class.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:03, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry for the delay. I'm finishing up on these. Yes, that his how I was told to do the notes and it would be too much of a pain to change them. I swapped for a different K/Ulbricht photo instead. It's Stalingrad of course, I've made that clear. Basically, with some of the images getting axed for copyright reasons, I went looking for the best Stalingrad image I could find, just to have something to break up the wall of text. I think all that is resolved, except the copyedit which I will have done as stated above.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support - great article, kind of forgot about the review though. Two minor comments on the NYT refs: I'd prefer a full date (i.e. 10 March 1953) becuase they are easier to read, and I don't believe that an access date is needed because the URL is stable. Also an image comment: perhaps freely licensed images could be found of Lazar Kaganovich, Boris Pasternak and/or a Soviet farm for the "Return to Ukraine", "Liberalization and the arts" and "Agricultural policy" sections? —Ed (talk • contribs) 21:33, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group

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    Nominator(s): Fifelfoo (talk)


    Prior nomination: here (downgrade discussion).

    Talk:Military_Assistance_Command,_Vietnam_-_Studies_and_Observations_Group/GA1 is the last review conducted of the article, a GA review.

    Being from outside of the project, I came across this article as a B; fixed the GA review elements, then decided to put it forward. The standard of this article is high, citations are to the point and support the narrative, the narrative is sufficient as a description of the organisational function of the group. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:21, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment - since you are not the primary contributor, RM Gillespie (talk · contribs) has 299 edits to the article as I write this, did you even attempt to ask him if you believe the article meets the criteria and be nominated here? If this were at FAC this would be speedily closed because of this fact. -MBK004 04:21, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    See that editor's wiki-fatigue at: Talk:Battle_of_Khe_Sanh#Time_to_try_FA_again.3F Fifelfoo (talk) 05:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I've printed out RMG's 15 As and this delisted one and am reading some books and working through and scribbling down refs to book pages, but some of the unsourced bits that people complained about before are still there. Also some of the refs only cover part of the preceding information, or just list a book without any specific page or chapter, and I'm still in the process of chasing it down. I haven't started reading about SOG or the bombing campaigns/logistics trails, mostly the less technical ones: Tet, Easter, 1975, Cambodian Civil war etc. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Also notethe previous GAC was an arbitrary driveby YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Oppose: Good effort, however, unfortunately I do not believe that this article at the moment meets A class standards. The main area it falls down in is citation. These are my comments:
      • External links are okay according to the link checker;
      • Images are missing alt text and need it per WP:ALT;
      • There are a couple of dab links that need fixing (Green Beret and KIA);
      • The following needs citations:
        • Last paragraph in Foundation section;
        • 2nd, 5th and 7th (last) paragraph in Gulf of Tonkin section;
        • Last paragraph in Shining Brass section (there is a citation at the start, but a large number of sentences after wards that give the impression they are uncited);
        • 5th, 6th and 8th paragraphs in Daniel Boone section;
        • 1st paragraph in Commando Hunt section
        • There is a citation needed tag that needs dealing with in the Third Indochina seciton.
        • 1st and last paragraphs in Withdrawal section need citations;
        • The MOH recipients list in the Recognition section needs citations, as does the last paragraph of that section.
      • There are a large number of hatnotes in the Withdrawal section which I feel impact on the article's style, is it possible to work these links into the text?

    I am unable to discuss content as it is not a field of which I have any knowledge. If these issues can be addressed and someone with more knowledge of content is prepared to voucher for the article, I could be convinced to change my vote. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 10:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment. While it mostly reads OK, it could use a copyedit for some jargon, especially in the last couple sections. Also, the sourcing must drastically be improved before it will meet the requirements. – Joe N 00:23, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • So this old warhorse is up for A-class again? Already had the pleasure (fleeting on wiki) of getting it an A-class. Then along came a bot that deleted the illus. that were clearly sourced as US govt. docs - reducing it to a B). I'm pretty much through with wiki and tired of constantly re-editing or revising what should make common sense to an informed reader (eg the "uncited text" in the 3rd Indochina War section). Leave the poor thing alone and leave it for readers who have a working knowledge of the material (they being the only ones that will bother reading it in the first place).RM Gillespie (talk) 23:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Armed Forces of Liberia

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    Not promoted --Eurocopter (talk) 08:04, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Nominator(s): Buckshot06(prof)


    I am nominating this article for A-Class review because a number of significant additions and changes have been made since the previous peer review, and I think it may be ready for A-Class. Buckshot06(prof) 09:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments

    • Dates should be delinked.
    • The lead could do with an expansion to a good two paragraphs or more.
    • There are quite large proportions of the article that appear to be without a cite; please reference these.
    Can you say where? Have looked, and appears well cited to me? Buckshot06(prof) 23:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Have add in quite a few cite needed tags. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 05:49, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks Abraham. Many of the tags you've put in are referenced by a cite attached to the end of the immediately previous sentence. Should I repeat the same cite in the immediately-after sentence? Buckshot06(prof) 08:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep, just re-add it or move it down. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:35, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "HQ at Baworobo (Barrobo District?), Maryland County." Umm, what's with the question mark, and district in brackets?
    It means I'm not sure where Baworobo is in Barrobo District, because Barrobo is the only wikipedia article available. I'll change this to a footnote. Buckshot06(prof) 23:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Alt text needs to be added to images. Alt text is a brief, but concise, description of what the actual images are of, and is added to the image markup through |alt=.
    • A number of the citations are not correctly formatted. Please remedy this; for web references I would recommend the use of Template:Cite web.
    • Internet references require full access dates.

    Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 10:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    AustralianRupert's comments:

    • dashes/hyphens should be consistent with WP:DASH;  Done
    Would someone mind adding in these for me? My keyboard cannot produce the WP-standard dash required.
    Done. I think I got them all. — AustralianRupert (talk) 03:44, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • images need alt text;  Done - one left (the coat of arms one, but I don't think alt text can be added to it, as I think it is a template)
    • there are a number of disambig links (Buchanan, Gio, Greenville, Harper, Lofa, Paynesville, Sinoe); also there is a circuitous link (Military of Liberia links back to this article);  Done
    Does anyone know how to change the template 'Military of Africa?' I don't. Buckshot06(prof) 08:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There is only one dab link left, and that is the one that points back from the template as mentioned above. I had a look, but I couldn't figure it out. Sorry. Anyone else? — AustralianRupert (talk) 03:52, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Kirill says that it is impossible to change without creating a new military template separate from {{Africa in topic|Military of}}. I think it's in the too-hard basket. Buckshot06(prof) 23:46, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with that assessment. I don't think it would be necessary to do all that just to get rid of the last dab link in the article. As such, (at least from my point of view) I think it should just be taken as given that you've fixed the dab links issue. — AustralianRupert (talk) 14:29, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Just a few quick ones. — AustralianRupert (talk) 10:37, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments This is an excellent article, and provides a remarkable level of detail on a topic for which there are few sources. I think that it needs a little bit more work for A-class status though:

    • Some material isn't covered by cites
    • The history section should include some coverage of the coast guard and air force during their previous existence - this could be done by moving some of the material from the 'organisation' section here
    • Why is the US investing in rebuilding Liberia's military? - does this reflect the historical ties between the countries, or are they concerned that Liberia needs a military to protect its independence (or both)?
    • Is any information on the AFL's current weaponry and other equipment available?
    I'll have a look. Buckshot06(prof) 08:39, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • While not relevant to A-class status, the red-links for the coast guard and air force in the lead really stand out. Could you create stubs for these?
    I understand your point Nick but I do not wish to create tiny stubs with the limited information I have at the moment. When I have more I'll get onto them. Buckshot06(prof) 08:39, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair enough. Nick-D (talk) 08:52, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Nick-D (talk) 11:08, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment
    • Watch overlinking, many terms are linked over and over very close to each other.
    • Please cover the citation needed tags.
    • I'd recommend asking for a formal copy-edit, there are some stylistic and flow places that could be improved.
    Good job getting this article this far, I'm sure it's much better than most comparable ones. – Joe N 00:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments
      • Six websites are reported suspicious, including three dead links. These need to be located and either resurrected, or if this is not possible, substituted/removed.
      • Your introduction needs expanding.
      • I see citation needed tags in the article body. These need to be addressed before A-class can be awarded.
      • The second paragraph of the Doe Regime section is a quote that really ought to be in block quote format.
      • On that note I see a lot of quotes in the article, considering its size I would suggest cutting down on some of this.
    • Good article, but not there yet. Keep up the good work though. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments
    • There are several citations missing.
    • The history section needs to be structured. It's too long to be read comfortably as a single section.
    • The structure of wealth and power in Liberia should be mentioned in detail because the armed forces maintained this order against the locals in several bloody engagements. That also leads to the traditional recruitment of friendly "warlike" tribes by colonial powers like the African Americans in Liberia or the European powers elsewhere on this continent.
    • The enumeration of military commanders doesn't make sense to me. None of them appear really noteable, even regarding Liberian standards. 0,56% in a popular election for Washington doesn't mean he's popular.
    • "This development dramatically changed the character of the military in Liberia, with consequences already well known.' (Samuel Doe was among this group.) Sawyer also comments that 'recruitment of such individuals for the military was part of Tolbert's efforts to replace aging, illiterate soldiers with younger, literate men who were capable of absorbing technical and professional training." Doesn't help me. I have little knowledge about the history of Liberia. Please explain why this step was fateful and what consequences it had.
    • Who the heck is Charles Taylor who launches this armed invasion in an area with tribes that aren't affiliated with him or his followers? Is he a disgruntled soldier forced into exile? Was he accompagnied by other disgruntled friends? How did he get an armed and organized force that was big enough to threaten the government?
    • Several times there are lists of non-noteable persons. Please remove them and focus on important persons.
    • The rebuilding of the forces needs to be better structured into subchapters. First of all write a brief summary why Taylor doesn't run the country anymore ("killed your mummy, killed your daddy, vote for me" seemed such a promising concept) and why it's full of UN troops (main suppliers and commanders should be mentioned, isn't Nigeria deeply involved?).
    • Then we have 100k people claiming to have been part of an armed force. That's a lot of people with guns and military knowledge. How were these numbers obtained and are the recruits part of that pool?
    • The section about organisation needs to be trimmed and cited. Your scope should be to state the current status without much war history. You may continue the history section with a civil war section that briefly outlines the war and how it affected the remnants of the armed forces. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:59, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    USS Massachusetts (BB-59)

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    Not promoted --Eurocopter (talk) 08:03, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Nominator(s): TomStar81 (Talk)


    I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I am looking for feedback on how the article can be improved ahead its FAC, whenever that may occur. This article is currently under the spotlight, hence the construction template. Any suggestions for improvement would be welcome. Note that as this is part of the spotlight effort I am one of only several people that have worked diligently on the article, so others may move to address the issues raised here. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comments
      • No problems reported with dismabig links. One external link reported as dead, please check and advise. Several images are missing alt text, please add this to the article's images forthwith. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments - just two quick things I noticed:
      • I have added three cite needed tags to segiments that require a reference in the article.
        • Got them cited now.
      • Endashes are required between date ranges used in the article, and page ranges used in citations.

    Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comments This is a good article, but needs work to reach A-class. Aside from the need to provide some extra citations, my comments are:
      • I'm rather uncomfortable about the extent to which DANFS and other USN websites have been used as sources. There's no shortage of books on the USN and its battleships in World War II which can be drawn on (the History of United States Naval Operations in World War II is an obvious starting point). These sources would also be helpful in expanding the article from its current relatively short (for an article on a BB!) state.
      • The para on Jean Bart doesn't seem necessary - this material (eg, that she was an incomplete but combat-capable ship) could be summarised in one sentence.
      • The 'Operational area of Massachusetts in 1943-44' map is a bit misleading given that the area highlighted is New Caledonia, not the ship's area of operations. As the map doesn't name any of the locations identified in the article it's not of much use - are better maps of the South Pacific available on Commons?
      • The small para on 1943 seems a bit short - can this be expanded?
      • Hollandia isn't 'an island' - it's a town in New Guinea
      • Was Massachusetts the centrepiece of the task group she operated in in 1944? - if not, labeling it as 'her' task group is a bit wrong
      • The coverage of Typhoon Cobra seems excessive, and doesn't mention Massachusetts - did she sustain any damage?
        • OK, I see that she's mentioned in the final sentence. Given that the Typhoon doesn't seem to have had a big impact on her, one or two sentences seem appropriate.
      • The phrase 'veterans and citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' is too flowery and vauge. How did they raise the money? - was it through donations, or did the state government pay (or both).
      • Why was equipment stored aboard the battleship?
      • Was she really a 'salvage yard'? 'Parts hulk' is probably the better term, and even that may be over-stating things.
      • How did she move to Boston in 1998 - I assume that she was towed, but this isn't specified
      • The statement that the ship is currently "mostly unaltered, adhering to her World War II era configuration" seems to clash with the previous statements that large amounts of equipment was stripped from her in the 1940s and 1980s
      • I don't think that you should say that she's one of 'only' eight US battleships to be preserved - this is a remarkable number given that every other World War II era battleship worldwide was either sunk or scrapped Nick-D (talk) 08:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Selected replies:
      • I've got a book in mind for the project, but so far have not been able to find it. More will be added sooner or later, more sooner than later I hope. Ed may be able to help, I will ask him.
      • On the matter of Jean Bart, her para in the article came about do to this. We can yank it if necessary, but if at all possible I would proefer to trim and incorporate.
      • Typhoon Cobra para mentions Massachusetts at the end; last line.
      • Equipment stored on the battleship - by this I assume you mean the stuff salvaged for the Iowa reactivation? If that be the case it was due to the similarity of the Iowa and SoDak classes.
      • A tug moved her to Boston - I have images to prove that. I am looking into tracking down a name or a company or something of that nature; give me a few days and I will get back to you on that.
      • Unaltered I take to mean when compared to the Iowa class, which were physically rebuilt several times when reactivated for duty.
      • Lose the only. Got it :) TomStar81 (Talk) 08:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments by doncram
      • Looks good...
      • I added the NRHP/NHL inventory/nomination document, and NHL summary webpage link, but have not reviewed those sources for whether there is additional useful material to add to this article.
        • Thanks.
      • As I've noted on another one or two BB articles, I find the claim that there are 8 battleships intended to be preserved as museum ships to be confusing / not worthy of discussion in an article about one of the museum ships, as here. It is again confusing to be listing 6 battleships, when 7 would be expected in a list of the others. The footnote clarification to convey that all 8 are donated but in fact there are only 7 which are museum ships, because the Iowa is whatever, detracts from this article, which should be about the Massachusetts.
        • The problem here though is that the article is supposed to touch on all aspects of the subject it covers, and this aspect comes under the museum ships header. Its not necessarily important to Massachusetts per say, but to the idea that there are other battleship museums in the United States this line is important. If consensus develops to remove the mention I will do so, but to me this then creates an absence of coverage for the article in the museum ship section. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:50, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • I just tried in this edit reducing the coverage in the main text (and eliminating one of two "Notes" in the Notes section of the article). I don't mind some mention, but it's all too salient, and there's no reason in this article to set up a mystery about why u list 6 six ships and then explain about a "missing" one. My edit changes to just a list of the 7. Mentioning the 7 still should perhaps be in a See also section, as it seems a bit like "advertising" for the seven other articles. Or could one link to a battleships article section that mentions them all, be used instead of 7 links? My edit was just one reducing suggestion, feel free to revert or edit as you wish. doncram (talk) 20:17, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • That works, although I would have waited for at least one more person to agree with you before changing anything. In my mind I adhere to a policy that one user's suggestions are good but if two or more users agree on the same points then its a must fix item. Just so you know, I would have gotten to it eventually had that been the case. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Conditional support
    • Please clarify that Charles Francis Adams was not the current Secretary of the Navy in 1941 in the Construction section.
    • "From 12–14 October, she protected forces hitting Formosa." Please rephrase to something more professional.
    • "this result in the removal of all the WWII era anti-aircraft guns" in the footnote is awkward.
    A few clarification and style issues, but nothing that can't be fixed and can block it from getting A-Class. – Joe N 00:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Looking over my comments again I realized one of them didn't make much sense, but I would like to know that the others will be fixed. – Joe N 21:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks Joe. I believe that I have addressed your concerns [2], though I may have introduced a new one with the addition of {{rs}}. Cheers, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 23:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Looks good to me. – Joe N 20:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments
      • Were the .50 cal guns mounted on the ship the standard M2 type? If so, it should be linked.
      • A total of nine full broadsides—all nine guns—and thirty—eight partial—varying between three and six guns—were fired, with five hitting Jean Bart. seems overly complex—I think there's a few too many mdashes in that sentence.
      • In reference to the Truk raid, the line That raid not only inflicted heavy damage on Japanese aircraft and naval forces, but also proved to be a stunning blow to enemy morale. probably needs a cite other than DANFS (specifically the morale bit).
      • Is Hollandia (currently known as Jayapura) necessary? The lead of that article explains in detail the name changes for anyone who clicks the link.
      • In reference to the typhoon, unexpectedly found themselves in a fight for their lives sounds a bit melodramatic when it's revealed that the ship only had one sailor injured and a couple of planes lost. I'd say either add a line about the ships that were sunk and men killed and say that Massachusetts fared better, or just cut the "fight for their lives" bit.
        • Ironic that you would mention the this because I was compelled to trim that section due to above comments. It originally read as follows: On 18 December 1944 the ships of Task Force 38 unexpectedly found themselves in a fight for their lives when Typhoon Cobra overtook the force– seven fleet and six light carriers, eight battleships, 15 cruisers, and about 50 destroyers –during their attempt to refuel at sea. At the time the ships were operating about 300 miles (500 km) east of Luzon in the Philippine Sea. The carriers had just completed three days of heavy raids against Japanese airfields, suppressing enemy aircraft during the American amphibious operations against Mindoro in the Philippines. The task force rendezvoused with Captain Jasper T. Acuff and his fueling group 17 December with the intention of refueling all ships in the task force and replacing lost aircraft. Although the sea had been growing rougher all day, the nearby cyclonic disturbance gave relatively little warning of its approach. Each of the aircraft carriers and the fleet flagship USS New Jersey (BB-62) had weathermen aboard; despite this, none of these individuals or staffs were able to give Third Fleet due warning of the impending typhoon. On 18 December, the small but violent typhoon overtook the Task Force while many of the ships were attempting to refuel. Many of the ships were caught near the center of the storm and buffeted by extreme seas and hurricane force winds. Three destroyers, Hull, Monaghan, and Spence, capsized and sank with nearly all hands, while a cruiser, five aircraft carriers, and three destroyers suffered serious damage. Approximately 790 officers and men were lost or killed, with another 80 injured. Fires occurred in three carriers when planes broke loose in their hangars and some 146 planes on various ships were lost or damaged beyond economical repair by fires, impact damage, or by being swept overboard. At the time of the Typhoon Massachusetts was sailing with the Third Fleet's Task Group 38.1 and reported one injured sailor and two planes lost as a result of the Typhoon. This was deemed to be too much information, so I was asked to trim it. TomStar81 (Talk) 15:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Here's my suggestion as to what should be there:
            • On 18 December 1944 the ships of Task Force 38 unexpectedly found themselves in a fight for their lives when Typhoon Cobra overtook the force—seven fleet and six light carriers, eight battleships, 15 cruisers, and about 50 destroyers—during their attempt to refuel at sea. At the time the ships were operating about 300 miles (500 km) east of Luzon in the Philippine Sea. Although the sea had been growing rougher throughout the 17th, the nearby cyclonic disturbance gave relatively little warning of its approach. Each of the aircraft carriers and the fleet flagship USS New Jersey (BB-62) had weathermen aboard; despite this, none of these individuals or staffs were able to give Third Fleet due warning of the impending typhoon. On 18 December, the small but violent typhoon overtook the Task Force while many of the ships were attempting to refuel. Many of the ships were caught near the center of the storm and buffeted by extreme seas and hurricane force winds. Three destroyers, Hull, Monaghan, and Spence, capsized and sank with nearly all hands lost, while a cruiser, five aircraft carriers, and three destroyers suffered serious damage. Approximately 790 officers and men were lost or killed, with another 80 injured. Fires occurred in three carriers when planes broke loose in their hangars and some 146 planes on various ships were lost or damaged beyond economical repair by fires, impact damage, or by being swept overboard. Massachusetts weathered the storm much better; she reported one injured sailor and two planes lost.
          • I've only trimmed a some of the less relevant information, but a good deal of it is, because the reader should have more context that what's there currently. Nick D, what do you think about my suggested version? Parsecboy (talk) 23:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think that it's still too long, especially in comparison to the coverage of most other events Massachusetts was involved with. The article is about the ship, so coverage of events she was involved with should be tailored in accordance with the events impact on her. I think that the article's current two sentences on this is fine, and I've just struck out my comment above now it's addressed. Nick-D (talk) 00:19, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
              • Parsec, would that paragraph be of use in Typhoon Cobra (1944)? —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 01:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                • @ Ed - It might be useful, if the relevant information can be parsed into the article. Of course we shouldn't just plop it in the middle or anything.
                • I think this issue illustrates a larger problem; the article needs a lot more detail than it currently has. As Nick points out below, it neglects the most important aspect of the ship's participation in Leyte Gulf. I think this article would be well served by additional sub-division and significant expansion of the service history. I would recommend, for instance, a "Battle of Leyte Gulf" section; the island hopping in the central Pacific can probably be all in one section, and maybe a "Operations off Japan" section at the end. This ship had a very active career during the war, yet it's just about half as long as the article for SMS Seydlitz, which only took part in a handful of fleet advances during its career. I'm not trying to force the way I write articles (i.e., the formatting choices I've made) on anybody, but I do think readers need more context in order to get a good picture of what was going on and when, especially for the parts of her career when she was primarily employed as fleet defense. Parsecboy (talk) 11:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • She spent most of April fighting off air attacks, while engaged In the operations at Okinawa, returning to the area in June, when she passed through the eye of a typhoon with 100 kn (120 mph; 190 km/h) winds on 5 June. is jumbled up and I can't tell exactly where to split the sentences. Also, was there any damage done to the ship/casualties from the typhoon?
    • Once these (and some of the other things pointed out above) are fixed, I'll be happy to support. Nice work everybody! Parsecboy (talk) 12:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose The references rely far too much on DANFS and Navy historical sources. I have brought this issue up before with some of the Iowa articles and find it hard to believe that there are not more book references that can be found to support battleships. I could understand an 80' yard patrol boat not having book sources but not for ships that were considered capital ships. While it's not a requirement, I don't think ship articles going for A Class or higher should have text from DANFS included. --Brad (talk) 22:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Tom, the book I'd recommend for this would be Garzke, William H.; Dulin, Robert O. (1976). Battleships: United States battleships in World War II. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0870210998. OCLC 2414211.. I've never seen it, but I have the other two in the series, and those are extremely detailed, both in design histories and ship careers. From what the others cover, I assume that it covers the two North Carolinas, the four South Dakotas, the six Iowas, and the five Montanas. I don't have access to it in a library at the moment, though that will change when I go to college (I would just need time to write, which may not happen); would you happen to have a copy in a library near you? (check using the OCLC link above) —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 23:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I spent most of Tuesday going to the libraries around town, and largely struck out for Massachusetts on both the micro and macro level. El Paso has too much of an army history to have a large navy collection; even the special collection departments were of no use (note that due to summer time scheduling and the ongoing construction for Tier 1 status I am unable to gain access to special collections at UTEP until next week at the earliest). I was expecting an oppose on the DANFS citation grounds, to which I counter that this is a RS as far as Wikipedia is concerned and the article is not exclusively reliant on the DANFS cites. As to Brad's comment on Battleships: there are a number of books out there that cover battleships, but we are talking about individual battleship histories. Their is a fundamental difference between the two; its like looking for books and the civil war and looking for books on cover operation conducted by Union troops from State X. The info is there, but the more specific the information required the less apt is to be readily available in the qualities needed. I want to make it clear that I do understand what you are saying and I do believe that we need to ween ourselves off of the internet for these ships, but that is only going to work if we have a readily available pool of alternative sources to go to, and at the moment I have no such pool here. Ed, UTEP does have that book, but its currently just beyond my grasp; I would need at least four more days to get to it, and even if I can get to it I start school Monday and would have to balance school with the work load in question. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • That sucks. I am about to go from balancing work, tennis and wiki to balancing college, work and wiki; school starts on Monday for me as well. I'm not sure if I will have the necessary time to make a trip to Marquette's library—it's not in my university's library, of course, making my car-less life difficult—and add the necessary information and citations. If I do, however, I'm sure you'll notice on your watchlist. ;-) —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 03:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • This article provides a good example of DANFS' limitations. DANFS coverage of the ship's role in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which has been incorporated into the article almost word for word is "While part of TG 38.3 she took part in the Battle for Leyte Gulf 22 to 27 October, during which planes from her group sank four Japanese carriers off Cape Engano". While factually correct, this doesn't mention the fact that the four carriers were a bait which the Japanese successfully used to lure the fast carrier force (including its escorting fast battleships) away from Leyte Gulf, enabling the main body of the Japanese fleet to come dangerously close to attacking the amphibious transports at Leyte. When this was realised Admiral Halsey was forced to turn his battleship force (including Massachusetts) south as they approached gun range of the Japanese carrier force, and dash for Leyte. As such, the key factor in Massachusetts' role in the battle wasn't that she supported carriers, but that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fact that this well-known and serious mistake has been left out of DANFS shows why it's not a sufficient source in isolation. Nick-D (talk) 03:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments
    • Please give time in civilian fashion. This is no report for the US Navy, but a wikipedia article for mostly civilians.
    • Why is the USS Massachussets firing after it disabled the main turret of Jean Bart? The French weren't really the enemy and this damage to docks and merchantships does it mean civilians were killed because some officers didn't realize they had knocked out the enemy? Also it's a massive waste of ammunition and the battleship was almost defenceless after this incident. Why such a wasteful use of resources far away from resupply?
    • Why is the battle with the French given in detail and the other engagements not?
    • What does mostly unaltered mean? She was pulled by a tug boat and used for spare parts so there must be equipment missing.


    • I think that there's a lot more detail on this ship that can profitably be presented about her service in the Pacific. I'd accept this level of detail if no other sources were available, but trawling through Rohwer's Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939-45 ought to quite profitable. Just be sure to get the third edition. Garzke and Duilin have been also suggested, but might I remind y'all that we're not generally limited to books in our local libraries. Inter-library Loan is normally free and you can usually get the book if it's anywhere in the US.
    • Two weeks later, she bombarded the industrial complex at Hamamatsu before she returned to blast Kamaishi on 9 August. Please replace "blast" with "shell" or something a little more professional sounding. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Battle off Texel

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    Not promoted --Eurocopter (talk) 08:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Nominator(s): XavierGreen (talk)


    I am nominating this article for A-Class review because i believe it fufills the requirements to pass an A class review, any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated XavierGreen (talk) 20:35, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment I am concerned about how reliable the Naval Review might be, given that the people in charge of it appear to be current UK Navy officers, and the fact that the UK were involved in this battle and the article was published only 2 years later, especially as sources that are 90 years old may have been debunked. In general, olden-day books from all countries tend to be very xenophobic compared to nowadays. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Although i am aware of the yellow journalism some older publications have inherantly i do not find the Naval Review to have such qualities. The Naval Review account of the battle is alike to all the others i have read of the action, including the few german accounts that are available and modern texts as well. The Naval Review was not intended to be a news publication, nor a history text, instead it mainly focuses on Naval tactics, so any Xenophobic propaganda would not be in the interest of the publication. If one takes a look at the other articles in the issue cited, it will become more apparent as there is criticism of both british and german actions alike. XavierGreen (talk) 06:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments
    • Good! Now for the rest:
      • Mind your italics; ship names and class name are always in italics. I think I got them all for you but a second pass to check wouldn't hurt.
      • Can we find a picture of a torpedo boat for the article? I have a rough idea of what they look like but a better picture would help the article alot, IMO.
    • Support TomStar81 (Talk) 03:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments
    • I am concerned about the writing style, it seems to be written informally and often changes ideas mid-paragraph and mentions topics, then switches to other ones before the original one is fully explained.
    Many of the events occuring in the battle happened concurrently, with the squadron spit into two divisions but ships moving back and forth between those divisions as needed. However i understand your concern and have attempted to smooth out some of the confusing parts. If you have any additional suggestions or ideas please feel free to leave them here or on the talk page. Thanks!

    XavierGreen (talk) 22:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • For example, several times the "remaining" vessels in the German flotilla are mentioned, but you make no mention of why this term is used.
    I added a footnote explaining this.XavierGreen (talk) 21:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Instead of saying that Undaunted gave orders, please say that Bob Smith, the squadron commander aboard the Undaunted, gave orders.
    FixedXavierGreen (talk) 22:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It's an interesting article, but it really needs a copy-edit before it's ready for A-Class. – Joe N 18:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments
    Nice article, but really needs a copyedit. I did a little, but I must say that your habit of putting the book citations right in the middle of the paragraphs makes it incredibly hard to copy-edit efficiently. The writing style is also rather informal.
    I copy edited the page, and fixed all spelling mistakes.XavierGreen (talk) 18:51, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments:

    I think too few information about the German side is given. This "battle" was more of a massacre (but no war crime). It's essentially missing why the Germans didn't surrender earlier. With torpedos gone and heavily outgunned would have been an appropriate moment. Still, they could also have let one ship go and escape. Why did the squadron fight? If you could provide more background on these issues I would be able to understand this event. Wandalstouring (talk) 13:14, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    As stated in the article, the Seventh Half flotilla attempted to flee, but the British vessels were faster and so the Germans had no choice but to fight. When the Germans split up, the British simply split their forces with each half engaging each german division. The boats all went down fighting since they could not flee. XavierGreen (talk) 20:49, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That doesn't answer why the Germans didn't surrender. The war ended with a revolt of the German navy because the soldiers considered they were sent on a suicide mission. That's exactly what fighting in this context meant. So again, why didn't the Germans surrender? Wandalstouring (talk) 17:23, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The mutiney occured late in the war on capital ships after the navy's moral had dropped signifigantly, and even during the mutiney most of the capital ships remained loyal. Early in the war many German officers often decided to fight to the end instead of surrendering. At the Battle of the Falklands German vessels refused to surrender and fought until destroyed even though some of the vessels were asked to surrender. At the Battle of Mas a Tierra the German commander decided to fight and then scuttle when he could fight no more rather than surrender. At the Battle of Noordhinder Bank the squadron commander decided to fight to the end when cornered, dying and losing both his boats in the process. Similarly at the Battle of Rio de Oro the commander fought when cornered, scuttled, than took up a defensive position on the beach with his remaining sailors. To surrender fully funcional warships to the enemy provides them with weaponry to be used against your own forces. At Texel, 30 sailors did indeed surrender (all but one were plucked from the water), and S 115 was briefly captured but it was a bridgeless burning hulk with only one German (who surrendered) to be found onboard and so was sunk by the British as it was of no use as a prize in its condition when taken. Virtually no surface warships (except for some auxiliaries) were captured by either side during world war one, intead ships were sunk and destroyed. No major naval action fought in world war one saw a surface warship captured, so Texel fits the pattern and is no exception. XavierGreen (talk) 01:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Well researched, but please incorporate it into the article because you explicitly state that despite the odds the Germans didn't strike colours. It helps the reader to understand the nature of naval combat. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:46, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thinking about it, it shouldn't be too difficult to leave a military vessel and have it sinking(like at Scapa Flow) or blowing up since it's full of explosives, so the argument that all surrendered equipment falls into enemy hands is questionable. At least in WWII tanks and at least one u-boat did surrender and in modern German tanks there's a mechanism for self-destruction. I also read about French ships surrendering to the British in the Age of Sail, so this fighting to death without a chance to harm the enemy seems more like an episode in naval combat and needs to be highlighted with whatever means seem appropriate. Wandalstouring (talk) 10:02, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Tanks and submarines often did surrender in world war one as well. The age of sail focused on capturing vessels rather than destroying them, but after the Battle of Tsushima naval ships rarely surrendered. All major modern fleet engagements after Tsushima have been without captures Heligoland Bight, Jutland, Midway, Leyte Gulf, Praying Mantis all lack them. Another problem would have occured on two of the boats if they wanted to strike colours, would be that their officers were dead and bridges blown away, leaving no one to order the colours to be struck, and likely no colours to strike down. But i will put your first suggestion in the text.XavierGreen (talk) 16:46, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Questions:
      • What's the source for the number of German casualties in the infobox? Erich Gröner's German Warships 1815-1945 gives a total figure of 218 dead; 55 from S-115, 64 dead from S-117, 52 dead from S-118, and 47 from S-119.
      • I don't know if the source for the German torpedo boats is correct; Gröner indicates that these boats were only armed with three of the 5 cm SK L/40 guns; later versions of the type had increased armament, but he makes no mention of the older boats of the class having been retrofitted with the more powerful guns. Parsecboy (talk) 01:33, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for your input! You are most likely correct. I could not find exact casualty figures, but found a source that cited the number of crew and number captured i took the number of dead from those numbers. Is there any copy of German Warships 1815-1945 online? Id like to cite it for this article if i could. Casualty figures for often forgotten battles such as this are quite hard to come by. There is also very little information regarding WW1 German destroyers on the web, most of the material i have found deals with the later torpedoboat classes, and the reconfigured armements of older ships like you referred to. I would imagine due to the early date of this battle that these boats were armed with the older weapons, since nearly all sources i have read state they were extremely inferior in armament (german gunfire did almost no damage to the british vessels). XavierGreen (talk) 20:58, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    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.

    Article promoted Nick-D (talk) 11:21, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    45th Infantry Division (United States)

    edit

    First nomination
    Second nomination

    Nominator(s): —Ed!(talk)

    This article failed two ACRs in 2009 and 2010 due primarily to issues with sourcing, when I was a much younger editor. Since then, I have completely reformatted the sources, eliminated almost all of the online refs, rewritten most of the prose, diversified references and basically redone the whole thing with my greater WP experience. It's ready for round three. —Ed!(talk) 21:30, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment The initial 'Origins' paragraph does not cover the 45th Division at all, and needs to be removed; maybe broken up between the State ARNGs, but certainly doesn't belong here. Also same thing for the first four-line paragraph on the Korean War: it doesn't talk about this division. If I may be honest, this is is a bit of a weak consistent thread in your writing: you don't stick to the unit/formation you're actually writing about. Buckshot06 (talk) 09:58, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I heartily disagree. It had been your comments in the past two ACRs that the article lacked context and needed more from unit histories. All of the unit resources I consulted, including what was suggested to me, point strongly to the division's origins as state militias with a lot of detail. Lineage-wise, the division draws at least some of its ancestry from the militia units which saw activations in so many 19th Century conflicts. As to the second part, it goes to explain the unpreparedness of the U.S. Army in general for the Korean conflict and why a National Guard unit was drawn in to begin with. As with many of my articles, I think this adds clarity without forcing the reader to find contect by clicking elsewhere. —Ed!(talk) 16:23, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Per below, I've parsed down this paragraph and merged it into the following one. —Ed!(talk) 17:19, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sorry to say, but this misses the point. This is an article on the Division; not the constituent regiments, or the State ARNGs. The history of the division begins only on 19 October 1920, after the first section. The material in the first 'origins' section simply does not belong here; it belongs in other articles. What we need here is a sketch about division level formations and maybe the expansion of the U.S. Army and the reasons why more division level formations were created. As it is this article simply replicates material that should be in the State ARNG or regimental pages. More space should be freed up to discuss the unique historical circumstances dealing with *this* level of the chain of command, at the division level, not the lower level regiments and other units. Whether you agree or disagree, is this objection clear? Have I made myself clear in what I am saying? Kind regards and congrats on all the other progress you've made with this article; I don't want to tangle my objections to the way this is at the moment with my personal regard for all the work you've done here. Buckshot06 (talk) 14:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd also want to see an expansion of the 1953-68 section; apart from the bare facts of the ROAD reorganisation, you've actually said very little. Historical regimental continuity? Mobilisation assignments? Training exercises? OK ARNG/other state ARNG political fights? None of this is reflected here. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:03, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I've been looking around for a few days and haven't found any Cold War-era resources about the division, or the Oklahoma National Guard. I could add in some things about the National Guard challenges overall in that era, but this would go back to your first point. —Ed!(talk) 16:23, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Seems trips to the archives will be required. Have you at least contacted the OK ARNG history office to check whether there are additional easily available resources? Buckshot06 (talk) 14:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Took another look around and contacted them. There is nothing in terms of reliable sources on that era that I could find to add. —Ed!(talk) 11:36, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support Comments: I've done some copyediting on this this evening. These are my comments:
      • "federally recognized" --> I wonder if this needs explaining, perhaps in a footnote?
      • is this right? "In August 1940, the 45th Infantry Division took part in the Louisiana Maneuvers, the largest peacetime exercises in U.S. military history". The Wiki article for the Louisiana Maneuvers states that it was in 1941.
      • "The 82nd paratroopers, conducting the first combat jump of the war". Do you mean "their first combat jump"?
      • this might need to be reworded: "German forces pushed back, the division advanced, its main objective was to capture airfields at..."
      • this seems a little awkward: "forts Kaiser Wilhelm II designed" (was it one or more forts, and was it/were they named "Kaiser Wilhelm II"?)
      • inconsistent capitalisation: Active duty v. active duty
      • "antiaircraft" --> should this be "anti-aircraft"?
      • not sure about this: "Some of the victims apparently had only died hours before the 45th Division entered the camp and lay where they had died in states of decomposition that overwhelmed the soldiers' senses". (My issue is with the word "decomposition". If the victims died only hours before the unit arrived, I don't think decomposition would have started).
      • inconsistent: "U.S. " and "US";
      • I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but in places the prose seemed to lack flow and seemed more like just a collection of facts. For instance the last part of the second paragraph of the Sicily section. I've had a go at trying to fix this, but I don't think that I was wholely successful. Would you mind making a run through and seeing what you can do? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:12, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yeah, I've been having problems trying to get the level of detail right in some areas, while keeping the statistics still a prominent part of the narrative since they're the best documented details. Is there anywhere else in the article that stands out to you? —Ed!(talk) 20:19, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Your changes look good. Cheers. I've taken another run through and made a few more tweaks. Please check that you are happy with my changes. I have the following additional comments:
      • repetition: "On 19 October 1920, the Oklahoma State militia was organized as the 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma Army National Guard, and organized with troops from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.[11] The division was organized" (a number of "organized") - perhaps one can be reworded?
      • "After this, division was allocated to drive towards Messina, being ordered by Patton to cover the distance as quickly as possible..." and then "On 1 August, the division was withdrawn..." (Did they make it to Messina before being withdrawn?)
      • "The 40th Infantry Division of the California Army National Guard would soon be deployed to Korea as well." This seemed just tacked on, so I had a go at working it into the paragraph. I'm not sure if I was completely successful, though. Would you mind taking a look ? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:41, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • "as part of Secretary Robert McNamara's downsizing of the Guard"... this appears in the lead, but not in the body (specifically the mention of McNamara);
      • "the 45th Infantry Brigade which inherited the division's lineage and honors, the 45th Field Artillery Group (today's 45th Fires Brigade) and the 90th Troop Command, were activated..." this appears in the lead, but not in the body of the article (specifically the arty, troop command, etc). AustralianRupert (talk) 00:32, 7 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose - I see the following problems (all of which can be corrected):
    1. I concur with Buckshot06 - the initial paragraph does not deal with the division.
    1. Reduced the paragraph and merged it into the next one. —Ed!(talk) 17:19, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    1. The last paragraph of Origins needs clarification. Both the 157th and 158th regiments were never part of the 36th ID, but the wording of the paragraph leads one to believe that they were.
    1. Done. —Ed!(talk) 17:19, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Other than those two problems, the rest of the article is great. Much better than before. GregJackP Boomer! 03:30, 7 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Support

    Origin

    Stating that discussion of the early militia in the original four states is not discussion of the division, is to me like stating that discussion of hydrogen and oxygen is not discussion of water. National Guard units are usually not the product of a start from scratch, but rather are usually the product of the combination, recombination, or elimination of existing elements. In this case, the territorial volunteer militia units are the direct antecedents of the regiments that would be combined to form the division--litterally the division's origin. I cannot conceive of an origin description that leaves them out. As is, only the militia of Oklahoma is directly mentioned, which in a discussion of today's brigade might be appropriate, as a discussion of the division this is an unwarranted lack of ballance.RTO Trainer (talk) 21:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I agree on this, though the editors above will need convincing. —Ed!(talk) 21:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Alright, what about a compromise, much more focused on the division itself; 'the initial regiments of the 45th Div were the Xth, Yth, Zth, and Ath Field Artillery. The Xth traces its origin to.., the Yth,traces its origin to.. the Zth... the Ath traces its origin to... etc. Buckshot06 (talk) 14:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Accompanied by proper links to the antecedent unit pages that would work. RTO Trainer (talk) 20:05, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course; that's implied by my statement. If I have read your contributions history correctly, you personally have done a fantastic job on expanding the various OK ARNG regimental pages. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:46, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you. I love my Thunderbirds. I'm about to offer a big expansion of the Korean War section, an actual history for the 279th, and I just came into posession of a source for Cold War to 1982, reorgs, SAD, and politics. RTO Trainer (talk) 00:56, 27 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    1950 Reorganization

    Currently, the article states: "During this time the division was also reorganized and as a part of this process the 157th Infantry was removed from the division's order of battle and replaced with the 279th Infantry Regiment.[89]" The cite is Varhola's Fire and Ice, history of the Korean War. Either Varhola has this wrong, or the reference has been misunderstood (I don't have a copy of this book to check). The reorganization that replaced the 157th with the 279th occurred in 1946. This is supported by the Lineage and Honors of each regiment, reproduced on the respective regiments' pages: 157th & 279th. In addition there is no reorganization listed in the 45th Brigade's lineage and honors in 1950.RTO Trainer (talk) 21:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I'll look for a source and fix this. —Ed!(talk) 21:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Found a reference and fixed. —Ed!(talk) 11:40, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Federalized

    Perhaps the answer to this is a new article, or a new section on the National Guard of the United States page that can be referred to--would be useful to others. The Guard is unique in it's many duty statuses. RTO Trainer (talk) 21:22, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    I would also agree an article on federalizing national guard units into federal service would be helpful. I'm personally not knowledgeable in the sources that would make a good article for this. —Ed!(talk) 21:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    See if this seems useful to you: National Guard Active Duty Character. Suggestions for a better title would be welcome.RTO Trainer (talk) 02:26, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I've created Federalization of the National Guard to that section. It should be used every time federalized National Guard units are mentioned. —Ed!(talk) 11:15, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Italy Curent statement: "One of the first National Guard units activated for the war, the 45th fought in the 1943 Italian Campaign, seeing intense fighting during the invasion of Sicily and subsequent attack on Salerno." Fighting in Italy covered 4 official campaigns. Perhaps the plural should be used in the article.RTO Trainer (talk) 23:47, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    FWIW, Italian Campaign (World War II) says: "The Italian Campaign of World War II was the name of Allied operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to the end of the war in Europe." - Dank (push to talk) 23:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Then that needs a citation. To the best of my knowledge, that's not true. And I can produce citations for the official list of named campaigns.RTO Trainer (talk) 01:07, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the way it's worded now should fix the problem. —Ed!(talk) 15:11, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, the US Army divides the fighting in Italy into six campaigns: Sicily, Naples-Foggia, Anzio, Rome-Arno, Northern Apennines, and Po Valley. The 45th only fought in the first four. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:29, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment. I spent a while working on just the first two paragraphs, see if that works for you. - Dank (push to talk) 20:58, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    Much improved, thank you for your help. —Ed!(talk) 21:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments
      • No dab links [4] (no action required).
      • External links all check out [5] (no action required).
      • Some of the images lack Alt Text so you might consider adding it for consistency [6] (suggestion only - not an ACR criteria).
      • The Citation Check Tool reveals no errors with reference consolidation (no action required).
      • Most of the images are PD or licenced and seem appropriate for article.
      • Language here seems a little off (to me at least): "...the 45th Infantry Division accrued over 25,000 battle casualties...", perhaps consider "...the 45th Infantry Division sustained' over 25,000 battle casualties..." ("accrued" doesn't sound right, almost sounds like its a desirable statistic)(suggestion only).
      • "These militias would eventually organize into most of the National Guard units which would make up the 45th Infantry Division...", consider instead: "These militias eventually organized into most of the National Guard units which later made up the 45th Infantry Division..." (suggestion only)
      • Is there a missing word here: "...and would earn combat participation credit during the Meuse-Argonne campaign..."? Specifically should it be: "...and would earn a combat participation credit during the Meuse-Argonne campaign..."?
      • "In 1937, the division's troops were once again called up to help manage a locust plague affecting Colorado..." had they been called up previously to manage a locust plague? Perhaps you mean something like: "In 1937, the division's troops were once again called up, this time to help manage a locust plague affecting Colorado..."?
      • Is there a missing word here: "The division had great difficulty moving across the rivers and through mountainous terrain, and the advance was slow...", consider: "The division had great difficulty moving across the rivers and through the mountainous terrain, and the advance was slow..."
      • "Allied forces conducted a frontal assault on the Gustav Line stronghold at Monte Cassino, and VI Corps was assigned Operation Shingle, detached from the Army Group to land behind enemy lines at Anzio." When?
      • "The 45th Infantry Division was mostly stuck in its place...", or should it be: "The 45th Infantry Division was mostly stuck in place..."? (suggestion only)
      • Missing word here: "but these plans were scrubbed before the division could depart due to the surrender of Japan, V-J Day...", consider "but these plans were scrubbed before the division could depart due to the surrender of Japan on V-J Day."
      • Redundant language here: "...these divisions were equipped with antiquated weaponry and they suffered from a shortage of anti-armor weapons...", consider instead: "...these divisions were equipped with antiquated weaponry and suffered from a shortage of anti-armor weapons..." (minor point - suggestion only)
      • Missing word here: "Following its arrival, the division moved to the front line replace the 1st Cavalry Division...", consider: "Following its arrival, the division moved to the front line to replace the 1st Cavalry Division..."
      • This could be reworded: "...individual unit commanders made great pains to integrate...", consider "...individual unit commanders went to great lengths to integrate..." (suggestion only)
      • These sentences need to linked somehow with the language you use, because their proximity implies a relationship but the way they are written doesn't make it clear: "In the spring, the division launched Operation Counter, an effort to establish 11 patrol bases around Old Baldy Hill. The division defended the hill against a series of Chinese assaults from the Chinese 38th Army." This could be as simple as: "In the spring, the division launched Operation Counter, which was an effort to establish 11 patrol bases around Old Baldy Hill. The division then defended the hill against a series of Chinese assaults from the Chinese 38th Army."
      • This is repetitive: "...but most of the division was held back to hold a defensive line against the Chinese...", perhaps consider rewording?
      • This lacks context: "The ensuing Battle of Hill Eerie was one of a series of larger attacks by Chinese and North Korean forces which produced heavier fighting than the previous year had seen." Why? I assume it was because the Chinese were looking to gain political advantage at the Armistace talks or was there another reason?
      • Overall, this article is looking good to me but there a few issues with prose that need to be cleaned up / discussed.
      • Also have Buckshot's concerns been fully addressed (I can see changes have been made but are they sufficient)? I'm no expert on US Army units so I'm really not qualified to say either way. Anotherclown (talk) 23:44, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Not promoted. EyeSerenetalk 08:31, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Louis H. Carpenter

    edit
    Nominator(s): Kumioko (talk), Jrcrin001 (talk


    A Medal of Honor recipient article. This just passed GA today, and I think it's ready for A-class. I appreciate any and all comments that help me improve the article towards an eventual FAC. Thanks in advance. --Kumioko (talk) 17:49, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Strong Oppose
      • Due to a technical glitch I will be unable to check the disambig links in the article until August 10. Two external links are reported as supicious, please check and advise. No problems reported with alt text in the article.   Done
      • I am concerned about the second paragraph in the Battle of Fairfield section; its all in quotations, with no lead in or explanation of who is doing the talking. At the absolute minimum the paragraph should be a block quote, and in a best case scenario should either be reworded or removed from the article altogether if the information did not come from a public domain source.   Done Reworded.
      • The second paragraph of Later Civil War section needs some attention, the flow is awkward and the number of campaigns leads me to wonder if we could scrap the mentions of the individual battles for the sake of clarity.   Done Trimmed, is this adequate?
      • In the section "Indian campaigns in Kansas and Colorado, September–October 1868" there are paragraphs with unexplained jargon, the view of the story seemingly switches from one point to another with no real warning. For example, the fifth paragrpah of the section has no names; we do not know who doing the defensive positioning. Is it Carpenter, is it the major, is it htere troops, or the is it the Indians?   Done Reworded.
      • In the second paragraph on the section " Continued service — Forts & Command" I once again find quotation marks for nearly all the provided text. This should be in block quote, and it should be reworded if its coming from a copyrighted source.   Done Reworded.
      • The last paragraph in this section has no citation, it needs to be cited to reliable source or removed from the article.   Done Cite given.
      • The second paragraph of the "Later career — Spanish-American War" section has no reliable source and will need to be cited to one or removed. Additionally, the quotations lead me to believe that this is another paragraph copied whole from an external source, which means it should be in block quotations.   Done Cite given.
      • In the "awards and honors" section neither the "military awards" section or the "Medal of honor citation" section have inline citations, these section need to be cited to reliable sources or removed from the article.
      • I have NPOV concerns, lines like "Brave warriors" and "demonstrated for all to see how professional and effective the 'Buffalo Soldiers' were" seem to pushing an agenda. Can this be toned down any? Or is that not an option?  ' Done Toned down and redone.
      • You have commas and semicolons in places where they should not be. A comma should only appear after the words "and", "or", & "but". A semi colon should appear only if it is followed by a word like "however", or when it links a sentence fragment to small to stand on its own as a sentence. I recommend getting a thorough copyedit before going past this point.   Done   Not done Partly completed.
    This use of commas is true of British rules of english I believe. The use of commas after and is rarely necessary in the US version of english because the and acts as the link in place of the comma in most cases. Commas are also required where a natural pause is required so for example if I said something like "Wikipedia uses different rules of English, (pause for effect)some for US rules and some for British." I need a comma as a nature pause in the sentence. --Kumioko (talk) 18:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments, leaning oppose - I would have to agree with Tom that there are quite a few issues with this article. Just a few initial comments I would like to see addressed—in addition to Tom's—before I fully read the prose:

    • Internet references require access dates.   Done
    • Emdashes should be unspaced.   Done
    • Under the "Honors and awards" section, the "Military awards" subheading is redundant and should probably be removed.
    This is consistent with other good MOH articles and good military leader articles. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    In the articles I have seen this done, and assume why it would be done, would be for those senior military commanders who have dozens of awards, including several foreign or civilian awards, meaning that it would be separating the differing honours. However, as Carpenter only received military decorations, and did not possess dozens of awards as far as I am aware, the additional "Military awards" subheading is quite redundant as it is not separating anything. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 09:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The image of Samuel Carpenter creates some unpleasant sandwiching of text with the infobox and, as I do not believe it is vital to understanding the article or context, Ithink it can be removed.   Done
    • Is there any real reason for the addition of the "Military promotions" section? All of this information should be covered in the prose, and it comes off as image cruft to me.
    It can be removed but I think this is a good visual representation of his ranks for those that are not familiar with them. I have also seen several GA+ articles with this so I know that there is precedent. Does anyone else have an opinion abou this section? --Kumioko (talk) 23:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    As mentioned above, this is consistent with other good MOH articles and good military leader articles. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I have only ever seen such sections in very senior United States military personnel bios, but I do not think I have ever spotted one in a higher rated article (GA+). However, youse already know what I think on this, so I will leave it up to youse and others to decide. :) Abraham, B.S. (talk) 09:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comments
    • Please remove the medal of honor image from the infobox. It can go in the section that describes how it was won.
    On this one I wanted to comment that the precedent has been set that MOH recipients have the Medal of Honor image in the infobox. When I have previously submitted MOH recipients for GA or better I was told repeatedly that the image should be in the infobox. --Kumioko (talk) 23:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed, it is needed. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This surprises me because of how awkward it looks, but I suppose it must stay for consistency. – Joe N 23:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • What does "until about 1886 he served on the western frontier" mean? Was he transferred in 1886, or do sources not say?
    Reworded. He was transfered in 1887 back East.   Done
    • "And as horse soldiers, they had a difficult time during the first year of the war." Awkward, rephrase please.
      Done
    • In some places, links are introduced awkwardly. I've done some work, please make sure there are no more places.
    Please recheck, I think you got most if not all of them. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • If he served in the Peninsular Campaign, why isn't in in the infobox as one of the campaigns he was involved in?
    Info box redone. Hard to choose which of the 16 major campaigns and some 166 odd battles. Net result is an effort not to list any but the total of campaigns and battles. Is this acceptable? Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "who with 400 troopers dismounted his men in a field and an orchard" I seriously doubt he was riding on top of his men, please rephrase to avoid confusion.   Done That was a funny error that should have been caught more quickly. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please avoid using (CSA) to disambiguate in the text. It makes it flow awkwardly, and if the prose is written in such a way that these are necessary it probably should be redone.   Done (CSA) removed and minor adjustments done.
    • Again, if he served in the Second Battle of Winchester, why isn't that on the list in the infobox?
    It is not necessary to list every battle or award that the person has, just a few of the highlights. --Kumioko (talk) 23:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    See above regarding info box. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • It seems that you mention his service in many campaigns in the Civil War, but the infobox implies that he was only around for a few months in 1862. Even if you don't list every single minor engagement, it'd be nice if there was more than there is now. – Joe N 23:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I can certainly add in a few more but since he particpated in I think 166 different battles I don't want to list them all. --Kumioko (talk) 02:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course not. Adding in just a few more, or maybe a mention of his involvement in the Indian Wars would be plenty. – Joe N 02:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    See above regarding info box. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Infobox looks good now. – Joe N 00:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please go into more detail about his service later in the Civil War. You mention all the campaigns he was in, but have a very minimal description of his roles in them.   Done Section added with his role with Sheridan. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    "At best these raid diverted Confederate forces required to deal with them.[14]" Awkward, and seems unclear - you're describing the Yellow Tavern, which you previously say was successful, and then seem to suddenly switch to an overall description of the cavalry raids with little transition. – Joe N 00:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)   Done End of para reworded.[reply]
    • Watch image sandwiching in the Buffalo Soldiers section.   Done Picture moved.
    • There are many places where it is unprofessionally written, please request a copy-edit for it.
    If this is the case please be specific of the places you think it is poorly written, this article has already gone through a peer review, a GA review and now an A class review so please be more specific. --Kumioko (talk) 23:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Rather than there being one or two specific instances, there are many problems throughout the article that would take an infinite amount to list here, including short, one or two sentence paragraphs. – Joe N 23:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok that helps I will read through and address the short paragrphs, is there anything else that you can see from a broad spectrum that needs to be addressed? --Kumioko (talk) 02:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That's the main problem. Once those are all gone it will still need some polishing for FA, but it will be much closer than it is currently. – Joe N 02:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please specify the Native American tribe they were fighting at the Battle of Beecher Island.   Done
    Good, but please reference it.   Done
    • Please go into detail about why he received his Medal of Honor.   Done Two sections that start with "Indian campaigns in Kansas and Colorado" detail what happened. I also added a comment at the end of the second section about the MOH and a back ref to these sections in the MOH section. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • " Only three dead warriors made it to within fifty yards of the wagons." If they were dead, how could they approach the wagons? Please rephrase to avoid awkwardness.   Done See above.
    • In some places it mentions relatively obscure people, things, and events, without links or explanations as the the background, most notably "the capture and escort of Satank, Santana, and Big Tree", the "Victorio Campaign in 1879–80" and the "Chinati Mountains". This can confuse readers, please clear it up.
    Working on it. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Expansion of sections with detail, links and refs completed. This has been cleared up.   Done
    Much better section, one fragment I noticed though: "Troop D of the 10th Cavalry who were hidden out of sight when these warriors came to Sherman."   Done
    The arrest paragraph reworded. Jrcrin001 (talk) 02:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "there are no known children." Reads awkwardly, what about just "he never married or had children" unless there is reason to expect that there might be extramarital children, in which case that should be discussed.   Done ... and he never married or had children. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Watch multiple linking - brevet, at least, it linked many times.   Done Removed several, but left one of two because of the separation from top to bottom. Is this okay? Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, much better. – Joe N 00:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Overall it really needs a lot of work before it will be ready for A-Class – Joe N 23:51, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It is getting better. I have asked a few better, in American English, to look at the article. My living abroad in Brtish NATO schools when I was younger, continues to bugger me. Jrcrin001 (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Much better. Once a copy-edit is complete and a few other remaining problems are dealt with it may be ready for A-Class. – Joe N 00:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Now awaiting copy-edit review. Jrcrin001 (talk) 02:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Some copy-edit work completed. English words to American, grammar, tense and some prose corrected. I still have the request for copy-edit up, but not much else being noted. When you have a chance, please re-check. Jrcrin001 (talk) 17:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    Copy-edit completed as requested through the copy-edit process.   Done Please advise what else is needed for A-Class. Jrcrin001 (talk) 05:34, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    • Second Review
    • "The May 1864 Battle of Yellow Tavern was the first of four major so called strategic raids (the others being Trevilian in June 1864, Wilson-Kautz in late June, and First Deep Bottom in July 1864) and the thirteen major cavalry engagements of the Overland Campaign, only the Battle of Yellow Tavern can be considered a clear Union victory." Rather confusing, please rewrite.   Done
    • Please fix image sandwiching in the 10th Calvary regiment section.   Done
    • "This took place on the morning of August 6, 1867 and completed in the afternoon of August 7." This is confusing, please make it plain that (presumably) it was a two day operation.   Done
    • "they found Forsyth’s command out of rations and forced to survive on decaying horse flesh, of which, not one animal survived." Awkward, rephrase please.  Done
    • "Seeking a more defensive closer to Beaver Creek," Noun, please?   Done
    • You say that both defenses of the Wichita were the first battles in the Red River War, please correct this.   Done It was the second fight ... Jrcrin001 (talk) 07:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "This was the high desert of far West Texas where he was in search of Victorio and other Apaches." Reads awkwardly, that whole paragraph could use some tiding.   Done
    • Image sandwiching in the Later Career section.  Done
    • Much, much better, but still needs some work. – Joe N 15:47, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    "... but still needs some work." Please detail and I will work on it. I am trying! Jrcrin001 (talk) 07:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Arrow (missile)

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    Nominator(s): Flayer (talk)


    I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I think I gathered and pushed into the article maybe every piece of valuable verifiable information referable to the subject. Hopefully, it is enough. If not, maybe it would be at least a Good Article. Flayer (talk) 21:17, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comments
      • One image needs to have alt text added. One external link is reported as suspicious, please check and advise. Four dismabig links need to be located and if at all possible fixed.
      • The article desperately needs a good copyedit, the prose and word flow are awkward in places, unneeded quotes and commas are all over place, and we have bold text in the article body which IMO is unneeded.
      • We seem to have an excessive amount of quotes in the article; while these are good for insight purposes one or two at most should be more than adequate for the article. I recommend trimming the quotes from there templates and either outright removing them or integrating there major points into the article body.
      • The production section has no citations for the list of components manufactured by other major contractors. I would like to see citations for this information.
      • There is no mention of what compelled Israel to build the system. You do mention a signing of an understanding between the United States and Israel to develop the system, but unto my experience most of these projects do not get started without some sort of hard learned lesson. For example, HMMWVs in the US did not start sporting enclosed casings for the gunner until after the 2003 Iraq War, when the military determined after multiple IED attacks that the gunner was too vulnerable without the enclosure. I'm willing to bet that a similar experience either with enemy missiles or enemy aircraft helped compel Israel to develop the arrow system. See if you can find anything along these lines.
    • The article's got potential, but its not A-class material yet. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose This is a good article, but it's not A-class yet. My suggestions for how to get it there are:
      • I agree with all Tom's suggestions, and particularly that it needs a copyedit
      • The article paints a largely favorable view of the system - have there been any arguments that it's not effective or not the best use of Israel's defence budget like there have been for the US system?
      • I'd suggest that all the quotes be removed, particularly as they're from people associated with the missile or military officers in allied countries, and hence aren't providing an independent view. Nick-D (talk) 07:26, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Object Far too much of this article depends on the press releases/websites of the agencies building this missile, and as it very important and sensitive, these cannot present a centrist view. Secondly there is one reference to Wikipedia. The quotes, while attributed are quite unremarkable (of the pre-prepared type) and are just from speeches/press conferences after an unveiling etc, and are not important/iconic enough to be highlighted like that. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 00:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Indian Air Force

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    Nominator(s): Sumanch (talk)


    I am nominating this article for A-Class review because —

    • this article is already a B-class article and I believe exceeds GA requirements
    • this article is consistently referenced with an appropriate citation style, and all claims are verifiable against reputable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations
    • article is comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and focused on the Indian Air Force; it neglects no major facts or details
    • the article has an appropriate structure of hierarchical headings, including a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections, and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents
    • the article is written in concise and articulate English; its prose is clear, is in line with style guidelines, and does not require substantial copy-editing to be fully MoS-compliant
    • the article contains supporting visual materials, such as images or diagrams with succinct captions, and other media, where appropriate.

    Sumanch (talk) 01:36, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment(s)
      • Five websites are reported as suspicious, including at least two computer confirmed dead links. Please check and advise. Two disambig links need to be located and if at all possible fixed.
    * Deadlinks — I went through the article. Looks like I am missing them. I will appreciate if you can list them.
    * Suspicious links — I thought only 3 of them were (Bharat Rakshak, GlobalSecurity and domain-B). Can you please give the other two. I will address issues with each citations individually. Let me know if that will work.
    * Checklinker says that Tejas_LCA_test-fires_its_first_missile and India_may_test_futuristic_jets_by_2015 are dead. Both are highlighted in red, which implies a dead link, but the tool occasionally misreports linksif you need a subsrpition or something of that nature to get to the link in question. At any rate, both need to be checked; if they are dead, they will need to be recalled, fixed, updated, or removed. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 01:46, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    * Disambiguous(?) links — I think I completely missed what you meant by that. Sumanch (talk) 02:56, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Looks like, them are fixed. Sumanch (talk) 04:34, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    disambig links fixed. --Redtigerxyz Talk 05:03, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Third paragraph of the history section, second to last sentence: "During the war, the RIAF did not engage Pakistan Air Force in air-to-air combat; however, provided effective transport and close air support to the Indian troops.[14]" I think it would be better worded as "During the war, the RIAF did not engage Pakistan Air Force in air-to-air combat; however, it did provide effective transport and close air support to the Indian troops.[14]"
    Done Sumanch (talk) 07:57, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Do you really need the table in the command and structure section? It looks great, but as the article is already big I wonder if you may be able to get by without it.
    Fixed — Used a template instead of the table. Sumanch (talk) 03:02, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The above comments also apply to the officers section and airmen section.
    These two templates and the template for Command & struct are necessary. These provide valuable info about the IAF. Now, for the size issue, using template instead of a table actually helps reducing the size because the article size is based on the characters in the article. These templates are contributing less than 50 KB in this article. The citations are one of the biggest reasons that this article is this big. Sumanch (talk) 03:17, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Consider alternating your images more, a lot seem to be aligned to the right.
    I think this is sufficient. Sumanch (talk) 12:08, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Can we get away with the removal of the weapons section? I understand why its there, but to me it seems a little redundant since what the planes can carry should be noted on the planes articles.
    Done. However, I feel that a list of surface-to-air missiles should be mentioned. --Nosedown (talk) 07:43, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Eliminate the gallery section. If you have a link to the commons then adding a gallery is a waste of resources, any image here should be there as well.
    Agree — Eliminated Sumanch (talk) 07:51, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • See if you can trim the see also section by removing those article already linked from the main text.
    I left 5; deleted rest. Sumanch (talk) 12:01, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Consider removing the video links in the external links section. Those links are not doing anything to the article, and may be used against you at FAC should you elect to go there.
    I agree — Removed. Sumanch (talk) 02:32, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • One more thing that I did not notice until just now: It seems like a lot of the expansion and future development points are written in bullet form. That doesn't really bother me, but at FAC you may catch some heat for it since that appears to be more of a list than part of the article. I would recommend looking into a rewrite of the section to turn the bullet points into paragraphs of there own to address this. It may or may not be a problem at FAC, but as a coordinator I feel obliged to point out any trouble you may hove on the horizon so you can better prepare for it.
    • Outstanding article. Its nice to here about an air force other than the USAF, but I would like to see the above points addressed before penning an opinion on the article. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 02:13, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose This article has serious undue weight problems, especially with the extreme weight on the future development section. Massive undue weight on crystal-balling. It reads more like an techonology advertisement or an article about a military hardware parade than a neutral article about the air force of a country.
      • Article needs a copyedit. "The" is missing in many places. The English is broken
      • Almost every big army, govt service bureaucracy often has a lot of inefficiency problems. Are they absent in the IAF? Corruption is generally quite prevalent in India. Is it absent in the armed forces? Political interference? From reading this article it would appear that the IAF is the best in the world and has no problems at all.
      • Nothing about strengths and weaknesses of IAF; studies into the capabilities and strategic challenges facing India and how the IAF fits into the scheme of India's needs
      • Budget??
      • US English should not be used

    YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 13:20, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Done — If I missed anything, let me know.Sumanch (talk) 22:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Firstly, the article does mention several problems facing the IAF - delayed development of the LCA and the high crash rate of MiG-21. Secondly, unlike the Army and the Navy, the Air Force has so far not faced any major corruption scandal. Thirdly, a section discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the IAF is highly un-encyclopedic. An encyclopedia needs to be as objective as possible, especially when it comes to articles on various branches of the military. Fourthly, the government of India only publishes a combined defense budget for all branches of the Indian Armed Forces. No individual data detailing the budget of the IAF is released. And lastly, excessive information on the future procurement of the IAF will be skimmed down. Thanks for your suggestions --Nosedown (talk) 05:45, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I went through the future section and observed that apart from a few sub-sections, most were to the point and precise. It would be better if you could specifically point your concerns rather than calling it "techonology [sic] advertisement". --Nosedown (talk) 06:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment
    • It badly needs a copy-edit. In many places it is written very badly and needs a thorough going-over by a good copy-editor.
    • "the Indian forces had successfully liberated Kargil from Pakistani forces and Islamist militants." I seriously doubt the Pakistanis would say that, can you please make sure everything is NPOV?
    Can you provide the rationale for the validity of such dispute?
    Is there any evidence that this claim is misleading?

    This is a referenced claim and if that reference does not satisfy a reader, I can provide more. I believe there are fringe groups who will dispute the validity of the claim but satisfying every fringe idea is beyond the scope of an encyclopedia. Sumanch (talk) 19:02, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    Overall it has promise, but it can't go anywhere until someone does a good, high-quality copy-edit to make the prose readable. – Joe N 17:06, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments I've given a copyedit to the article for prose (although use of spelt-out numbers vs. figures should be checked against MOS requirements) except for the Land Based Air Defence and Ongoing Expansion sections. The first of those sections is bullet points, which should be put into prose. The second also contains a number of bullet points and seems to be overkill for the overall length of the article. I wonder if in fact the details in the 'future' section should not be broken out into a separate article and a couple of brief paragraphs of prose used here instead. In addition I would've thought the items in the See Also section could be integrated into the main body. Generally I think this article can make it to A-Class but the above concerns need to be addressed. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:42, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: I've fixed the last disambig link and the consolidated the refs that were the same as per the ref checker tool. Should be no issues with disambig links and refs with the same content now. I had a look at the external link checker tool also and it seems (I'm new to the tool so might have it wrong) that the external links are all okay now. I have a concern about the stability of the article, e.g. it seems like an article that might get a lot of POV edits or 'drive-by' changes from anon users due to the subject and hence it might not meet the no 'edit wars' criteria for a GA (although this doesn't seem to be part of the A class criteria). However, I suppose if there are a few editors who are willing to keep an eye on the article, maybe that is okay. Just thinking out loud. — AustralianRupert (talk) 02:02, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose I'm not seeing any work at all on the article to address the points above, since its been more than two weeks I am officially opposing until such time as the work resumes. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 05:56, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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    History of the United Kingdom during World War I

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    Nominator(s): Jim Sweeney (talk) User talk:Jarry1250


    I am nominating this article for A-Class review because both User:Jarry1250 and myself have expanded the article by twenty times, its been through a peer review and we now believe its A class standard Jim Sweeney (talk) 11:49, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment
    • Ref's after punctuation.
    • Watch over-linking: many terms are linked several times or more throughout the article.
    • It needs a copy-edit. While I've done what I could, there are still places that need someone very good at copy-editing to clean up the prose; it sounds really unprofessional in many places now.

    The biggest issue is the prose. While I am going away for a couple weeks and may not be able to check in and change to support, if a copy edit is done by someone very good at it who can improve the prose and the other minor issues I mentioned above are fixed, I can be considered to be in support. – Joe N 15:42, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I agree in part about the prose; I don't think it's brilliant, but "really unprofessional in many places" seems a little harsh. (I would say that though, I wrote ~half of it.) I'll try to get someone less inherently biased to have a look over it, of course. I couldn't find any refs before punctuation, I'm afraid. Maybe someone fixed them before I looked. Likewise with overlinking, I've had a look and while the same article is linked more than once, I can't find any instances when it wouldn't be awkward to backtrack to find the link (in the lead, for example). I'll go work on the prose some more now. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 16:06, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Moved some refs after punctuation and a couple of over links, there is a Requests for copy-editing at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Logistics. Thanks for the review --Jim Sweeney (talk) 16:42, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Apologies if I sounded harsh above, just bad writing annoys me. Thanks for the ref's and links, as soon as the copyedit is done I'll be satisfied. – Joe N 01:33, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    No problem. I don't like bad prose myself, just - sometimes it's a compromise. Working on it. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 16:09, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, that'd be the one in the navbox at the bottom. I'll change it.
    I've changed it. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 21:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Its an educational website featuring on line biographies, primarily from the history of the USA and Britain the author is John Simkin (BA, MA, MPhil) a member of the European History E-Learning Project (E-Help), which aims to encourage and improve use of ICT and the internet in classrooms across the continent.
    While I'm not convinced that this is the best thing to be citing information to, it seems reliable. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 21:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Its a Distance Learning University and College Degree site, written by a singularly accountable author (Chris Trueman BA (Hons), MA).
    While I'm not convinced that this, too, is the best place to be getting your information, it seems reliable. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 21:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Instead of what you have in ref 14, why not just cite the treaty? Digital Survivor should simply be a convenience link.
    changed
    Blacksacademy is an educational database as Spartacus educational
    The major question is who wrote it. For more, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches.
      • Current ref 18 should be cited as if we were looking at the book; the Internet Archive is just a convenience link.
    fixed I think
    The Author is Professor Kent Sole, Department of Politcial Science,Georgia Southwestern State University, Americus, Georgia.
      • Refs 47–49 could be cited to just "Royal Navy" (note capital N there...)
    Changed
    It's a history site and has been accepted as reliable on featured articles see World War I ref 36 , 37 for example - Jim
    (a) World War I is not featured. (b) Saying that it is used in another article does not prove its reliability. For more, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 21:46, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I think http://www.historyofwar.org/about.html provides good evidence as to the reliability of the site - accountability of authors, etc. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 09:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    changed
    fixed
    changed ref
    changed book ref added
    now deleted above ref covers both
    removed ref - dont think its needs as there wiki links
      • There seems to be a lot of internet searching going on here. Perhaps the same effect, and much more reliable sources, could be found by visiting a library...? What I mean is, I can't believe that something like "German zeppelins bombed towns on the east coast, starting on 19 January 1915 with Great Yarmouth." cannot be found in a book. Yes, http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/snapshots/snapshot32/snapshot32.htm is technically reliable (hence no objection above), but this will have to be replaced prior to any FAC, as it now requires that claims be verifiable against high-quality reliable sources. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 04:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll no doubt re-reference the Zeppelin thing to Beckett (most things are in his book). 70% of citations refer to offline sources now (after Jim made some edits). I'm not sure what to make of the Learning Curve; for the benefit of anyone reading this not familiar with the site, it's run by the National Archives, the UK government's official archive (and a government department in fact). Their responsibility is maintaining the archives of more than a thousand years of heritage here in the UK. On the other hand, whilst they have access to a far greater number of primary sources than any singe person, they do not attribute their learning material to any one particular author, and do not state any editorial guidelines. So it's a toss up really. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 09:54, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not saying that it isn't reliable under WP:RS; I'm saying that it isn't a 'high-quality' citation. For more see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 21:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Naturally. Is there a list identifying the top band of reliable sources? Criteria for being "high-quality"? I'd be interested to read it; the only mentions in that informative Signpost article of "high-quality" were for referencing any contentious claims about living people with them, which to my mind gives a slightly different impression of what is required. Perhaps you ought reply on my talk page to avoid cluttering this review? Cheers, - Jarry1250 (t, c) 09:11, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments Some concerns, mostly from a MOS standpoint:

    • The article title uses "World War I", the infobox image caption uses "World War One", another image caption uses "WWI"...consistency, please.
    fixed
    • The lead contains a link to Masterman which, not surprisingly, is a set index page. I presume the intended target is Charles Masterman.
    fixed
    • Image captions need some cleanup: ending punctuation should not be used when the caption consists only of a nominal group, however extended it may be.
    • Quotations should not be italicized. Ship names should be italicized (HMS Audacious, RMS Olympic) as should publication names (The War Illustrated).
    fixed
    • I see both unspaced emdashes and spaced endashes; while these are both acceptable forms per MOS, please pick one for consistency within the article.
    • Nonbreaking spaces should be used between values and units of measure (1.4 million).
    • Capitalization needs some attention. Why do we have "Prime minister" even when used as a title, yet "World War I Recruiting poster", "Women and the Suffragette movement", "Ration books", etc? Other iffy uses: Government, Navy, Army.
    • Citation notes: Every citation needs a publisher. Time magazine and the Daily Telegraph should be italicized. One wonky date (12 May, 2002) needs a formatting fix. Citations 60 and 61 are malformed - what is this: Parliament? ("© UK Parliament"Hansard'.
    fixed
    • Quite a few publications listed in References are not cited anywhere (Bromley, HMSO, Morris, Murie, Pigou, The War Office). Have we lost some citations?
    Bromley, Morris, Murie and Pigou removed can only think left in by error as the article evolvd
    In general, this is in fairly good shape, but it would benefit from a copyedit. Maralia (talk) 04:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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    130th Engineer Brigade (United States)

    edit
    Failed --Eurocopter (talk) 13:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Nominator(s): Ed!(talk)


    I am nominating this article for A-Class review because is is a thorough GA and I have spent a lot of time improving it as much as possible. I think it is ready to be promoted. -Ed!(talk) 22:32, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Object the more recent events in the article are mostly sourced to a magazine affiliated with the subject of the article. Also, tha articles were written by officers in ccommand of this current brigade, and are therefore non-neutral primary sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 03:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The magazine is an Army publication. It happened to feature the 130th brigade in that issue, but it has no more affiliation with the brigade itself than any other DoD news outlet. As for the officers, they are just as reliable as the brigade homepage which is written by the same people and still considered a reliable source. -Ed!(talk) 12:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Respectfully, I couldn't disagree more. I don't find the articles to be columns or otherwise outright statements of opinion; I rather find them to be relatively streightforward reports on what the units did during their time in Iraq, standard magazine articles which are subject to the same copy editing and fact checking before publication. Moreover, I don't find the information sourced to the articles to be a part of any significant controversy and don't expect any of them to be contested; they merely are sourced because they give specific numbers and minor details which demand citations. Though I would agree that the commander of a unit is inherently biased as to what he will say, I also find that a commander will know better than anyone else the intricate details of a unit's mission. Since the information provided was so recent that it has yet to be published in any kind of history book, I find that mission reports from unit commanders are the only verifiable or valid sources available on the topic at this time. -Ed!(talk) 07:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support: I disagree with the above point, but I sort of have a vested interest in the notion that an officer is meant to be a man (or woman) of their word. Besides, such publications have to be vetted before going to print so one would assume that they are verified the same way that any civilian publication is. Regardless, I believe the article to be well referenced, comprehensive, structured, concise and illustrated, which are the five A class criteria. Well done. — AustralianRupert (talk) 07:21, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I agree that an article by the brigade's commanding officer isn't a great source as its obviously non-neutral (he's not about to critise the men and women under his command in print if he thinks that some things could have been done better and isn't an independent observer of the brigade's activities). I'd suggest that other sources be found for this material - are the US Army's two 'On Point' volumes on the war in Iraq of any use? - they were published by the Army, but were a relatively neutral (and very detailed) assessment of the Army's activities. Nick-D (talk) 00:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Unfortunately, the On Point articles do not help with the unit's second deployment. They were very helpful when addressing the first deployment, but the second one is what is at issue here since it is only sourced by unit commander reports, which I find to be the only available resource given how recently the events occured. -Ed!(talk) 07:31, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. Overall a good article, but I would like some images to be moved to the left for balance and for the above issue relating to sourcing be resolved before I support. – Joe N 00:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Mmm, I don't understand when you say you've resolved my concerns: looking at the article, the images are all still on the right and the sourcing issue does not appear to be fully resolved, Nick and YellowMonkey still seem to have concerns. While I am personally not too concerned, I do have some problems with having the primary source being written by a possibly biased author, and want to make sure all possible other options have been tried. – Joe N 18:22, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I have responded to the concerns of the above users; they just haven't come back to discuss them. I have been looking for other possible reliable sources on the issue of the second Iraq deployment, and find none that are non-US government concerning this brigade (if anyone else can find such a source I would be happy to integrate it into the article) I left messages on each of their talk pages seeking further input but they have not responded yet. As for the images, I have reordered them and moved two to the left, per your request. -Ed!(talk) 18:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments - I'm not going to support this article because I too worry about the usage of those sources; I don't think that anything negative would be printed in those, so you may be missing something. On to normal comments though: I see many repeated citations, i.e. Erijid oafoeungrfa danfeo.[4] Gjeio eoafin4g oan oigf.[4] Fiq toiyjo wjgtoir ewnof.[4] The last citation is able to cover the preceding ones. Otherwise, references look to be formatted correctly. Also, questions on images: can you add links to this and this image so that the license can be confirmed? Cheers, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 06:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    About the sources, I would direct you to the above discussion; Because the deployment was so recent and this brigade is not a combat unit, I have found no piblications or websites discussing it. About the references, which paragraphs do you see this as a problem? I have tried to provide a source after every sentence that seems to contain contestable information. And about the images, the caption on the image page already contains the links to their source, both of which come from the US Army home page. -Ed!(talk) 18:51, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I read the discussion and still have worries; there might be not enough sources to warrant rating this article as A-class then. :-/
    Second para of "Organization", first para of "Origins", etc.
    Oh, I see; the link is in the description. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 19:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I still disagree that the sources are unreliable but I leave it up to the reviewers. -Ed!(talk) 11:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Tentative Support I am not terribly concerned with the journal references, as I had to resort to similar means to cite a fairly sizable portion of the battleship Iowas history since here recommissioning in the 1980s I am fairly certain that while nothing negative would be said about your unit in such publications the actual facts presented are accurate and reliable. I would recommend that before moving any further up the assessment chain you go back and try to back up the journal/magazine sources with other sources confirming the information. Also, a check of the dab link tool reveals that you have 5 disambiguous links in the article, these need to be found and if at all possible fixed before promotion to A-class. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I found the five disambig links and corrected them. -Ed!(talk) 16:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Weak Oppose - This is a good article, and I'm willing to change my mind, but I'm not sure the reliance on a few biased sources (press release, article by the commander of the unit) for so many citations is a good idea. I'll monitor the discussion, but I think YellowMonkey is right. Also, Reference 5 and 7 have a lot of citations for a press release and a short article. Would you consider using Harvard Notation - that way the journal can be in the references section, and you can use a two column footnote section? Kirk (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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    K. Subrahmanyam

    edit
    Nominator(s): Jokester99 (talk)


    I am nominating this article for A-Class review because...of substantial work in updating a stub to a hopefully balanced encyclopedia-level entry, with extensive and reliable references. Article is also about a very significant player in Indian military and foreign policy history, especially with regard to his key status in Indian nuclear postures on the global stage Jokester99 (talk) 16:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)Jokester99, May 9, 2009[reply]

    Comment: There are several ambiguous links that need to be disambiguated: click on "disambig links" in the toolbox on the main review page to see them. — Bellhalla (talk) 18:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    •   Done Fixed all 'disambig' links. Thanks for the feedback, let me know if any more - Jokester99 (Jokester99) 10 May 2009
    • Let me see what can be done about the first two objections. What do you mean by incomplete reference? Any instances? Blogspot was referenced only because it was a senior Indian journalist's, who reproduced a published article of his. It's been replaced. I'm afraid I would question your referring to Rediff.com [7] as not RS. It is the leading online news source in India, been around awhile and seen as credible. Please elaborate. -Jokester99 (talk) 18:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)Jokester99, May 11, 2009[reply]
    • Oppose for now. The following are just a few points that need to be addressed before I initiate a line by line analysis:
      • The lead requires an expansion to a good two or three paragraphs briefly summarising the contents of the article.
      • Dates in the article should be delinked.
      • Citations should be placed after puncuation without a space.
      • The citations need to be formatted correctly. I suggest you use Template:Cite web.
      • "See also" sections should only include links that are relevant to the article, but are not previously linked to in the prose.
      • Images should not be aligned to the left if they are directly under a level three heading.
      • It is preferred that one-liner paragraphs are not present in an article, and if shorter paragraphs are combined.

    If these issues are adequately addressed, then I should be able to then complete a full review of the prose. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 05:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    • Comment. Yesterday I had prepared a really detailed review, but it got lost, so here's a briefer version of the main points.
    • It needs a copy-edit. There are many sentence fragments and awkward phrases.
    • Linking needs to be gone over. Many terms are overlinked, again and again in the same paragraph or section.
    • It has technical MOS issues, I especially noticed some problems with WP:DASH compliance.
    • All the above issues need to be fixed as well.
    My apologies for the brevity of this, I just can't bring myself to read over the entire article again. Linking and prose were the main problems I noticed. – Joe N 20:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose I haven't done a detailed review, but no article can pass for A (or even GA) with raw URLs in the references. I have provided a guide to solving this problem on the talk page.--Jackyd101 (talk) 22:31, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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    Midshipman

    edit
    Failed --Eurocopter (talk) 18:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Nominator(s): Kirk (talk)

    Midshipman is an important Naval rank, and this article recently passed its GA review. I think its close to A class, so I'm nominating this article for A-Class review. I appreciate your comments and suggestions. Kirk (talk) 03:57, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comments
    • html tags can be removed int eh sources, as they are default
    • Many publisher details are missing from the citations
    • Citations need to be placed immediately after a punctuation, with not space. At the moment, there are a lot that are spaced, sometimes before or after.
    • You have included badges for Portugal and Spain but have not included any text on the status of this rank in those countires. Why is this? YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The current status of those ranks, Guarda-marina, Aspirant, etc are Naval Cadets, which most dictionaries will translate to 'Midshipman'. I wasn't sure how significant that was or how to reference it. What is more interesting is those ranks have historical meanings which differ slightly from Midshipmen and I didn't encounter much in my research other than translating Spanish, Portuguese and French Wikipedia. Kirk (talk) 04:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • To clarify a point: the |format= component of {{cite web}} is meant for PDF files and the like; if none is specified, it is simply assumed that the web page is HTML.
    • Also, in addition to publishers, you need ISBN's where appropriate (i.e. books published prior to 1970 would not have one). —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 03:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the suggestions - I redid the references using templates, fixed the reference punctuation, removed the format=html components, added ISBN. Kirk (talk) 04:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments. 1) "in the navies of several English-speaking countries" - which ones? Or rather, whish ones it was not? It's not like there are that many they cannot be listed. 2) Needs more links per WP:BTW. In the lead, I spotted following terms that should be linked: sailing vessel, 17th century, 19th century, amidships, berth, lower deck, petty officer, Royal Navy, U.S. Navy, naval college, Royal Australian Navy, Royal New Zealand Navy. That's just the lead, the article needs many more ilinks in main body 3) The Midshipmen is also the name for sports teams fielded by the U.S. Naval Academy. - disambig note doesn't belong in the the lead 4) "Other Countries" - alphabetize section, and it should either be comprehensive, not present at all, or following some criteria. Currently it looks too much like a trivia section. 5) MOS issue - headings should not have the second and subsequent words capitalized. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 02:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The centuries should not be linked, IMO, per WP:OVERLINK. the_ed17 :  Chat  02:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I fixed 1) and 3). I can work on 2) and 5). Thank you for 4), which is similar to YellowMonkey's question. I can alphabetize the list, but I agree it needs something else - if you know of a template for this section, let me know. I'm a little stumped what else to do, so I appreciate additional comments. I also have some problems finding references for this information,for example, I can't find any reliable sources on Adelborst (Dutch). Kirk (talk) 18:05, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Fixed 5. Added a bunch more links for 2. Pondering #4. Kirk (talk) 20:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Updated page with information for other countries - please reassess. Thanks! Kirk (talk) 21:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment
    • "In 1794, this system was changed and a new rating was created called 'Volunteer Class 1', young gentlemen intended for the sea service provided they are not under the age of eleven years and were paid £6.[9]" Awkward, please rephrase, and six pounds per what?
    • Why are the Spanish and Portuguese translations near the beginning of the article, and then appear again with the translations in other languages?
    • Make sure refs are after punctuation, I've fixed some but there may be more.
    • The prose could use a bit of copy-editing work, especially in the Other Countries section.
    • Please move some images to the left for balance.
    Please resolve these issues before I support. – Joe N 23:42, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I requested a copy edit, moved some images to the left, eliminated the duplicate translation and fixed all the refs that weren't after punctuation. Good catch on Volunteer Class 1 - I'll figure that out and clean it up, (I blame British Military historian's writing style...) Kirk (talk) 16:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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    Lafayette Square, Buffalo

    edit
    Failed --Eurocopter (talk) 14:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Nominator(s): TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)


    I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it is an interesting town square with a notable focal American Civil War monument. I would like to find better sources for the article, but I have been unable to.TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Weak Support
    • "an arch by Henry Richardson at Niagara Square in front of Buffalo City Hall faded." How does an arch "fade"?
    • "In 1873, the square was named for American Revolutionary War veteran and French General Lafayette, who gave a speech at the square in 1825.[8]" and "In 1879, the name of the square was changed from Court House Park to Lafayette Square." These seem to be contradictory.
    • I think I have cleared that up.
    • The prose could use a copy-edit, for flow and style.
    • I'd also like to see Ed's issues above resolved.
    However, besides these, it is good and nearly ready for A-Class. – Joe N 14:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I have swapped out some more refs. I continue to believ that the plaque is a WP:RS, which just leaves us a few citations.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Support with some comments:
    • This image doesn't give the source where it came from in order to allow it to be checked to see if it's for real or not.
    • I'm not really sure what this sentence, from the 2nd paragraph of the History section means: "The courthouse was used as the place for the determination of justice for the American side of the Niagara River until it was abandoned on March 11, 1876."
    • What is "Buffalo Place, Inc"?
    • The Chris Andrle website doesn't appear to be a reliable source, instead just someone's private site.
    • Otherwise, looks good and appears to cover the subject well. Cla68 (talk) 06:38, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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    No. 410 Squadron RCAF

    edit

    I believe this article is of great quality and that it meets all prerequisites for A-Class. I have brought it up from a large paragraph and Stub class to where it is now. I have fixed a lot of the previous problems with it, and added much more content. TARTARUS talk 19:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    Comment - in the article, you have used Second World War, World War II and World War Two. PLease choose one and use that throughout. As this is a Canadian article, the former is probably the best as it is the typical British/Commonwealth usage. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 22:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Done so, my good sir. TARTARUS talk 00:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments Support This is a pretty good article, and I can tell a lot of work went into it. There are some minor prose issues/etc. that will need to be massaged a bit before I'll support.
      • In the lead section, it mentions the first combat sortie for the Squadron. A little more detail would be nice (i.e., where was it, what did the pilot do, etc. Maybe something along the lines of "When Currie flew his Defiant over the English Channel, searching for German bombers" or whatever it was). Also, is the plane he flew a Boulton Paul Defiant? If so, it should be linked.
        •   Done
      • Is there a date for the sighting by Curry and Rose of the V-2?
        •   Done
      • I'm not so fond of the wording in this line: "The squadron trains the most people a year". Perhaps something like "military personnel" or "pilots" instead of "people". It would also be helpful if some statistics could be provided (i.e., 75% of all CF-18 pilots received their training with the 410)
        •   Done
      • "and what pilots must endure to become fighter pilots." - "pilots" is a bit repetitive. Perhaps switch out the first one with either "trainees" or "airmen" or similar.
        •   Done
      • In the "D-Day" section, it notes that 18 of the 22 squadron's aircraft were available for operations. I'm assuming the other 4 were down due to periodic maintenance/etc., but can this be clarified?
        •   Done
      • "Thirty-one times No. 410's Mosquitoes brought down their opponent and damaged or destroyed three more" - the wording is a little vague (i.e., it could be construed that there were 31 separate engagements that may have involved more than one German plane)
        •   Done
      • The quote from Currie irt the V2 sighting needs to be cited (if it's not in the citation at the end of the paragraph)
        •   Done
      • "In the middle of the month of December, under dreadful weather conditions, the Germans launched a surprise offensive on the Ardennes, also using the Luftwaffe, which caught many squadrons off guard. " - this sentence is a bit too long. It should be split, and perhaps the role of the Luftwaffe should be explained a little more (i.e., the same weather restrictions that grounded Allied planes affected the Luftwaffe as well)
        •   Done
    • That's all I've got for now. I've got to run off to RL, but later on I'll review the rest of the article. Cheers! Parsecboy (talk) 16:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The rest:
      • "It was used as a trainer aircraft that was easy to use"" - repetitive and not really encyclopedic

      Done

      • In the "Post War" section, RAAF and SAAF need to be linked
        •   Done
      • In the operational training section, it repeats "fighter pilot" twice in a sentence. Perhaps replace one with "cadets" or similar to avoid repetition.
        •   Done
      • I'm not sure the "Future" section really belongs in the article. It discusses an issue larger than the 410 Squadron, and is mostly speculation. I would suggest axing it, but if others disagree, that's fine.
        •   Done
      • "The first seven courses the squadron ran were six month full-squadron courses" - When?
        •   Done
    Everything looks good now, moving to support. Great work! Parsecboy (talk) 22:22, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Sorry, but this still doesn't meet the criteria. My comments against the criteria are:
      • A1: Fail: Not all material is cited, and [8], [9] and [10] don't seem to be reliable sources as they're all self-published websites
      • A2: Fail: The article goes into much too much detail on some topics (there's no need to name all the airmen involved in actions and doing so causes the narrative to frequently bog down and makes the article difficult to read), there's no coverage at all of the squadron's ground crew and the article is mainly limited to the high-points of the squadron's existence. I also don't think that the 'Aircraft' section is necessary as this is generic coverage of aircraft which are better described in their own articles. The repeated references to the squadron's first 'official' sortie are unclear - had there been 'unoffical' sorties before this? The coverage of the squadron's current badge seems out of place in the 'formation' section as it appears to have been adopted after the war.
      • A3: Pass, though the 'Post-Second World War' section seems to be much too short compared with the blow-by-blow coverage of WW2 and could perhaps be integrated with the 'Current' section.
      • A4: Fail: Generally OK, but the lead needs a comprehensive copy edit
      • A5: Pass, though it's a shame that there are no photos of 410 Squadron. Nick-D (talk) 04:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose
    • " The first official sortie occurred on the night of 4 June 1942, near RAF Drem, when the first twelve crews of the Beaufighter had been assessed and marked as qualified had gone up, but although this was just a familiarization flight, two scrambles occurred, but were uneventful." Maybe I'm being stupid, but that doesn't make much sense to me.
    • "In May 1942 these were removed from service to have the Bristol Beaufighters be introduced" Awkward.
    • "although there are other claims that the top-scoring night-fighter unit is actually No. 409 Squadron RCAF, on the basis that there were many victories quickly counted up during 1943." What is this supposed to mean, that some people think that 410 was overcredited in 1943? Please clarify.
    • "Although the Squadron moved three times in 1942, it was relocated four times in 1943 and later, five times in 1944." Why although, why would past moves prevent future moves?
    • "Since D-Day the Cougars had destroyed twelve enemy bombers. It was another five days before the squadron scored another kill." Makes absolutely no sense in context, a date would be nice?
    • "This was done using the Luftwaffe, which caught many squadrons off guard, as the conditions that affected them, would in turn affect the Luftwaffe" First of all, this is badly worded and awkward, second, it implies that the offensive was only aerial while in fact only part of it was.
    • Many possible links are not made. Please work on this per WP:BTW.
    • "Edinger was vectored to a Ju 87, which Edinger then fired upon." Who is Edinger and why do we care about a random shoot-down he made?
    • The Battle of the Bulge and the end of the war section has bad flow and does not go in chronological order, making it very confusing and hard to follow.
    • The table with their awards is confusing. None of the awards are linked, and the additional information section is awkward, unclear, and I believe that some of the links are misleading.
    • You say several times, including in the infobox, that it was active 1941-64, but you say that it was deactivated at the end of WWII and reactivated in 1946 later in the article...which is right?
    • Please move some images to the left for balace.
    Because of these and the other reasons detailed above, I am opposing until they are fully resolved. – Joe N 00:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Parts of the prose are very choppy, and I am therefore of the opinion that the article would greatly benifit from a copyedit. Additionally, one external link has been identified as suspicious. Please check the external link, and if nessicary remove it. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:04, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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    Lewis Gun

    edit
    Failed --Eurocopter (talk) 15:06, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Nominator(s): Commander Zulu (talk)


    The article has been significantly expanded, re-written, re-organised and comprehensively referenced. It is also a Core Topic Article as part of the Centenary Drive, and I think it's more than ready for A-class Review. Commander Zulu (talk) 06:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks for the heads-up; I've located two of the dab links and fixed them; the third seems to be the redirect from Lewis gun to Lewis Gun. Commander Zulu (talk) 09:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support - references look pretty good. :P —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 05:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose This is a solid article, but it needs further work:
      • I'm surprised that there's no discussion of the Lewis Gun's use by infantry units, and the vital role that the weapons played during World War I. This was the main, and by far most important use, of the weapon. This should include a discussion of how the gun was integrated into infantry squads, and the fire and movement tactics it allowed.
    I don't have any references discussing that, and we all know what happens when you put things which are known to be true but unreferenced into articles. ;) The article does mention the gun was popular because it could be produced quickly and carried by a single soldier, though. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The 'World War I' section states that the US Army 'unofficially' used the Lewis Gun - could you explain what this means? A brief comparison of the Lewis Gun and the BAR would be worth including
    The sentence stemmed from the fact that sources can't seem to agree on whether or not the US Army used the Lewis Gun. The US Marines did, and the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. (the forerunners of the USAF) used them too, but I have as many cites for "The US Army never used them" as I do for "The US Army finally started issuing them in 1917, but not officially because Lewis had pissed off the Ordnance Board", and given that the USMC and the Air Corps had them, it seems logical that Infantry units would have acquired some as well, given that the alternative was the Chauchat. As for the BAR, it really appeared too late in the war to be of any consequence and I don't think a comparison is appropriate in this article- they were designed for different things at different times. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The 'Aircraft Use' section doesn't explain why the gun was commonly used on aircraft - presumably it was because it was light-weight. I imagine that the use of magazines rather than belt ammunition was a limitation in aircraft - is this correct?
    Correct, and also because they were air-cooled and thus not subject to overheating. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The article doesn't explain why the Lewis Gun was phased out of service following World War I
    Replaced by the Bren Gun, basically, but again, I don't have a hard reference for that handy. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • There were no such things as 'ANZAC forces' in the Pacific during World War II - the Australian and NZ military commands were totally separate except for when Australian and NZ units served under US or British command. Could you please also provide more detail on how the guns were used? - I'm pretty certain that they were only used in secondary roles such as AA defences, and infantry units had sufficient Bren Guns (which were being mass-produced in Australia by 1941)
    I have a cite from Skennerton to the effect they were used in a front-line role by Australian troops. The ANZAC thing was just a shorthand, but I'm happy to change it if it will make things clearer. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The claim that the Lewis Gun was the RN's most successful light AA weapon of World War II is surprising- I would have thought that the 20mm cannon would have this honour
    Again, I have a contemporary cite (1943 Basic Manual of Small Arms) to the effect that the Lewis was the most effective AA gun the British (not just the Royal Navy) had. Surprised me, too, but there you go. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • In what roles did the Japanese use the Lewis Gun during World War II?
    Same as the British and US- Anti-Aircraft and LMG. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Similarly, in what roles did the French and US use the use the Lewis Gun in Indochina? (and why did they do so given that neither country's army made much use of the weapon even before it was obsolete)
    They didn't, and the article doesn't say they did. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Whoops, sorry - I misread that. Are there further details on Viet Minh/VC usage? (again, it seems likely that these were ex-Japanese weapons) Nick-D (talk) 02:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm afraid not. I could E-mail Ian Skennerton and ask him, but I'm not sure how I'd go about citing his reply here... Commander Zulu (talk) 02:24, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • If the Lewis Gun was used by 'forces operating against the United Nations in the Korean War' why aren't China or North Korea listed in the 'Users' section? More detail on this would be interesting if its available - were these ex-Japanese weapons?
    No details available; that's all I have (again, from Skennerton). Doesn't say who or in what capacity. We get back to the whole "No cites" or "Original Research" thing. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The para which begins with 'Total production of the Lewis Gun by BSA was over 145,000 units' seems to be two unrelated sentences stuck together.
      • The 'Influence on later designs' is much too short - sections of articles should have more than a single sentence. I'm surprised that this doesn't also discuss the Lewis Gun's influence on warfare and subsequent designs by validating the concept of light machine guns, and demonstrating that they were vital to infantry. Nick-D (talk) 23:49, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't have any references for that. We both know it's true, but unless someone has got a cite to that effect, it can't go in the article. I know, it annoys me too. Commander Zulu (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment
    • Image sandwich in the Aircraft use section.
    • I'd suggest removing the See Also section if you can find a place in the article to link to all of those things.
    Otherwise I couldn't find any new problems, but an withholding my support until the issues mentioned above are fully resolved. – Joe Nutter 01:20, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I've removed the "See Also" section, but I don't know how to resolve the "Image Sandwich" problem- both those pictures are absolutely necessary, but if you don't sandwich them, the format gets buggerised and you end up with lots of blank space between sections in the article. Anyone got any suggestions on re-arranging it so it all looks nice and keeps the images? Commander Zulu (talk) 00:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    {{fixbunching}}? —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 05:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments:
    • The intro should be expanded to two paragraphs.
    • You use "U.S." (with periods), but "UK" (without periods). Whichever you use should be consistent. I would suggest without periods.
    • You repeat information in the background and service sections about the US Army rejecting the gun.
    • Use of rank abbreviations ("Col.") is discouraged by the Manual of Style, if I remember right. I suggest using the full rank title the first time the person is mentioned, then just using the person's last name thereafter.
    • File:ChandlerKirtlandLewisGun.jpg doesn't have a source for the image. Cla68 (talk) 07:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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    Manifesto of the Sixteen

    edit
    Failed --Eurocopter (talk) 10:14, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Nominator(s): Skomorokh


    I am nominating this article for A-Class review because the editors have exhausted the known English-language sources on the topic, the article has passed a GA review, and I would like to know in particular if it satisfies the scope requirement of A-Class. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt at a comprehensive account of the subject ever published, so it is particularly important that it meets the highest standards. Any comments welcome. Skomorokh 01:41, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you. Skomorokh 22:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    This is an interesting suggestion; perhaps we could add a background section after the lead. Skomorokh 22:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It's you, not we. I'm not familiar enough with anarchism to write such a section, but I advise you to give a brief introduction into European anarchism at that time as the first section of the background. Then I can fully support your article for A-class. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Pardon, I've been meaning to respond and take part this assessment myself for a few days now. This is an excellent idea, but may be difficult to fulfill in the short-term, as giving any such summary a proper write up would require a good deal of immediate research and editing. Some very basic information would, at the least, include how old anarchist philosophy and movements were to each country, what tendencies were prevalent (this is especially important given that the legacy section notes the widening of fissures between groups), and who were major, active figures to each country, region, and movement. This information may be intuitive to some anarchists, but providing proper citations could take some legwork. --Cast (talk) 04:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Use the KISS principle. I know, it's difficult to write the most important basic facts with a few words, but that's needed in order to understand the article. You can renominate it anytime you've accomplished the goal. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. Skomorokh 22:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The lead is sufficiently shortened. Well done. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • References comments - (this version)
      • Page numbers are needed for refs 3, 4,and 17.
      • Can ref 19 use the {{harvnb}} template too?
      • A lot of your sources seem to come from POV publishers...AK Press (twice), AK Press/Kate Sharpley Library, Freedom Press (twice), Jewish Anarchist Federation and Black Rose Books.
      • FAC may require OCLC's and locations for all of your books (for locations, use worldcat.org/ISBN/isbnhere)
      • —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 01:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the comments. Refs 3, 4 and 17 are for single page URLs. I can't get ref 19 to work with {{harvnb}} (i.e. it does not link properly), perhaps because of the two authors. I am not aware of any of the named publishers having a pro- or anti- WWI stance and so do not consider them to have a POV in favour or against the Manifesto and its authors. As the manifesto was broadly unpopular amongst its chosen demographic, the weighting of sources from the period ought to be critical, and I feel this is achieved by including Goldman, Ghe, Nettlau and Berneri; and you won't find any more unimpeachable historians of anarchism than Paul Avrich and George Woodcock. I hadn't realised OCLCs were of use for works which already have ISBNs, but it can't hurt to add them and the locations. I think I used Ottobib to extract the data that is there, so hopefully worldcat will have more. Thanks again for the suggestions, very helpful! Skomorokh 01:58, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I fixed #19. :) You have to use "last2=___" and "first2=___" in {{cite book}}.
    Maybe POV was the wrong word. For example, I read the opening sentence of AK press ("AK Press is a collectively owned and operated independent publisher and book distributor that specialises in radical and anarchist literature.") to mean that it's books were POV, when it really just means that it publishes stuff related to anarchy etc. Sorry! Additional thought: you may want to change or remove the link to Black Rose Books....(look where it goes to?)
    As a wise editor told me: "worldcat is your friend." :) —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 07:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support, with a few comments.
    • "Fellow Russian anarchists, Goldsmith and Kropotkin clashed often on their opinions" Unclear and awkward, who clashes with whom?
    • Much of the Contents section is unsourced.
    • Can some images be moved to the left? It is rather unbalanced.
    These shouldn't be too big of a deal, and with them incorporated it will be A-Class worthy. – Joe Nutter 00:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I've clarified the Russian ambiguity (Goldsmith clashes with Kropotkin), and reworked the images so that they are evenly distributed. As for the Contents section, the interpretation is taken from the source cited in the first line (Woodcock), and some of the reporting is from the Manifesto itself. Appreciate the comments, Skomorokh 00:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    As the author of the "contents" section, I should point out that I did not include any on the basis that the source for the information was uncontroversial and instantly recognizable as the actual manifesto itself. This is akin to a movie or book summary on a respective artiacle, which also require no citations on Wikipedia for the very same reason. Citations would only be necessary if the work was large and complex, so as to assist tracking the information, but the Manifesto is only ten paragraphs in length, and can be read within minutes. I honestly don't feel it requires citation. --Cast (talk) 04:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, I can accept that. Looks good now, good luck at FAC. – Joe Nutter 01:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments:
    • The third paragraph in the Manifesto section about its publication needs a citation at the end.
    • Block quotes should only be used for quotes that are four lines in length or longer. Also, the first blocked quote needs a citation.
    • The first paragraph of the "Signatories and supporters" section appears to repeat information contained in the "Conception and publication" section.
    • Image File:Kropotkin2.jpg needs more detailed source info as well as a better explanation for why its copyright is expired. Same for File:Jean Grave.png and File:Christian-cornelissen.jpg.
    • The article concentrates on the reaction to the manifesto by other anarchists. As a result, it makes it appear that the anarchist reaction to the manifesto in Europe and the US was mainly naval gazing- criticizing each other's ideas and dedication to the cause, playing power games with each other, and arguing over what it truly meant to be an anarchist. Did the manifesto have any other impact besides making various anarchists argue with each other? How did the governments or general societies of Europe and the US react to it? Did they ignore it or embrace it? Did the German government comment on it? After World War I was over, were any later events influenced by the manifesto? What was the manifesto's impact on history and what is it's legacy? Cla68 (talk) 06:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    Not promoted - please nominate only when you have time to respond to issues with the article, ok? :-/ —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 02:22, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Battle of Marion

    edit

    Just passed a GA. I'd like to go for A and maybe FA soon. ṜedMarkViolinistDrop me a line 19:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments - Just a few points I noticed:

    • The following require a reference/citation:
      • "The heavily scaled-down Confederate forces consisted of approximately 1,500 men, under the overall command of Major-General John C. Breckinridge and Brigadier-General Basil Duke."
      • "both sides prepared to resume combat the following day."
      Done ṜedMarkViolinistDrop me a line 18:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Citation 10 and 24 are the same; please combine them.
      Done ṜedMarkViolinistDrop me a line 18:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Books listed in "References" should have their ISBN number included.

    Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 00:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Added most of them. ṜedMarkViolinistDrop me a line 18:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    And I've done three more. --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:50, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment

    • To be honest, it's a good article but it needs to be expanded before it can get to an A article. This is just my opinion.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bernstein2291 (talk • contribs)
    • Conditional Support
    • I've {{fixbunching}}'d some stuff and added a fact tag for you to cite.
    • "John C. Breckinridge—former Vice-President of the United States, and also candidate for U.S. President in 1860—the commander..." Rephrase this, maybe something like "John C. Breckinridge, the former Vice-President of the United States and Southern Democratic candidate for President in [[United States Presidential Election, 1860|the 1860 election]]."
    • "Most of the companies had been transferred to the Army of Northern Virginia to help in the defense of Richmond.[10]" This is confusing, does it mean most of Breckinridge's command had been transferred?
    • "who stopped just so they could fire a volley into the Union cavalry." Why would they stop "just" to shoot at the enemy? That is what is normally done in war, after all.
    • "After repelling a final charge," Does this mean another one after the charge just described, or the charge you just mentioned? Please clarify.
    • The map of Stoneman's advance and the picture of the hill sandwich on my laptop, please move one of them.
    • "Breckinridge ordered his field officers to inspect the troops and to report back with the condition of his troops." Saying troops too many times in a sentence, perhaps "Breckinridge ordered his field officers to inspect and report back on the condition of his troops."
    None of these should be difficult to fix, so please do so and it will, in my opinion, meet the criteria. – Joe Nutter 19:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support with few comments
    • It would be good if you could get rid of the fact tag placed in the infobox.
    • The Union forces consisted of about 4,500 men from a variety of different units, including several units which had participated in smaller-scale raids into Southwest Virginia earlier in the conflict. - this needs a ref.
    • On December 14, the Union regiments began to push Duke's cavalry back toward Abingdon, Virginia. The next day, Stoneman and his cavalry went into camp at Glade Spring, Virginia, which was approximately 13 miles (21 km) west of Marion. - needs ref.
    • Current ref. number 9 lacks accessdate and other additional information. --Eurocopter (talk) 20:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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    No. 410 Squadron RCAF

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    I believe this article is of great quality and that it meets all prerequisites for A-Class. I have brought it up from a large paragraph and Stub class to where it is now. TARTARUS talk 01:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments

    • I can understand (and even quite like) the inclusion of the "Decorations" section, but is the addition of seven award citations really necessary? Brief details of the awards yes, but seven citations just seems like overkill.
    • An endash (–) is required between date ranges used in the article and page ranges used in citations.
    • In the sake of consistancy, would it be possible to present the access dates used for the citations in the same format? Either in the style of: 2009-01-13 or 13 January 2009?

    Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 12:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Oppose This is a good article, but it needs some more work to reach A-class. My comments are:
      • I'm confused about when the squadron achieved its first kill - was this 6/7 Sept 1942 or 22 January 1943?
        • The first kill was on 6/7 Sept 1942, the first victory was on 22 January 1943.
          • Could you please explain what this distinction is in the article? It still seems to be the same thing to me.
            • Done
      • What's meant by "night readiness"?
        • The ability to fly at a moments notice at night time.
          • Please add this to the article.
            • Done
      • The claim that the squadron shot down '754' aircraft can't be right, and appears to be a result of a typo on the website to which it is sourced - it appears to actually be 75 and 3/4 victories.
        • Fixed this.
      • What did the squadron do between D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge and after the Battle of the Bulge - this section is only about two of the squadron's aces? Was it deployed to Europe, or did it remain in British bases?
      • It seems misleading to state that the squadron has been awarded multiple battle honours 'Since the beginning of World War II' given that the squadron wasn't formed until mid-1941 and none of the battle honours were awarded after 1945.
        •   Done
      • The 'Cold War and unification' section both repeats information in the earlier 'Post War' section and contradicts some of this information (eg, was the squadron reactivated in 1946 or 1948?)
        •   Done I hope I have clarified this.
      • How long has the squadron used its 'new name'?
        • Added this date.
        • I'd suggest that the wording be changed to 'the squadron was renamed' rather than 'The new name for No. 410 Squadron is'.
          • Complied with.
      • The 'Jetstream' section repeats material in the earlier 'Operational training' section and the tense is unclear - is the TV show currently filming, or has this been completed? The wording also reads like promotional material for the show.
        • I have tried to clarify, please tell me if there is more.
          • That's better, but there's still repetition ('selected to learn to fly one of the most advanced supersonic tactical fighter jets in the world: the $35 million CF-18 Hornet' is both redundant given that the article has already stated that this this is squadron's only role and questionable given that there are now much more modern aircraft than the CF-18 [F-22, Eurofighter, Rafale, etc]) and the use of 'Recently' is needlessly vague - why not state when the show was filmed and broadcast? Nick-D (talk) 07:04, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • Done better now, at least I think so...
      • I think that only the first paragraph in the section on the Squadron's current aircraft is needed. The other two paras are about operations the squadron played no part in and best belong in the CF-18 article.
        •   Done
      • Is anything known about the Squadron's future aircraft? - is the squadron expected to be one of the units to be reequipped with F-35s?
        • Unknown at this time.
      • The article only covers the high-points of the squadron's existence- have there been any low-points? (being equipped with Defiants has to count as a bad thing) Nick-D (talk) 07:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments
    • "The first official sortie occurred on 23 July 1941 when Pilot Officer Lucas was flying his Defiant V1183." This comes as a bit of a non-sequiter after the bit on Normandy to VE Day, perhaps it could be moved to before that, and could we have Lucas' first name?
    • Fixed the order, but I couldn't find P/O Lucas' first name.
    • "The first successful contact however occurred on 6/7 September 1942, Beaufighter II T3428 from RAF Scorton with P/O R.R. Ferguson and P/O D. Creed (navigator)." The whole last clause makes no sense.
    • Are you referring to the brackets (parentheses)?
    • No, before the comma you say the date that the contact occurred, then you say a type of aircraft, where it was from, and who was flying it. I assume that you mean to say that was the aircraft that made the contact, but it would be better rephrased to something like "The first successful contact, however, was made on the night of 6/7 September 1942, by a Beaufighter..."
    • The prose seems very choppy on some places. Please get it copy-edited.
    • Will do!
    • Tying in with the above, it seems to be a bit jargony in some places: Vector is used a lot with no explanation of the use of the term in aviation, and there are lots of others.
    • See above comment.
    • It seems to overfocus on the activities of a couple of aces, rather than the unit as a whole.
    • I am doing this right now.
    A couple issues here that I'd like to see resolved before I'll support. – Joe Nutter 00:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments Two websites are reported as suspicious, please locate and if necessary replace/remove the links. One disambig link needs to be located and if at all possible fixed. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm sorry Tom, but which websites are suspicious? Also, what disambig? TARTARUS talk 00:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • You should see a toolbox up near the top of the page on the right hand side, I left this here so that you could check the links and ensure that everything was and continues to function correctly. If you click the external links in that tool box and look for a colored line then you can see for yourself which external links need looking at. Disambig is short for disambigious links, you can find a button for that in the toolbox I left. "Disambig links" are links that point to general pages rather than specific pages, and lately have been grounds for opposition at FAC since they create more work for the readers. Best to find the disambig links now and ifx them so they redirect to the exact page you had in mind rather than a page that leaves readers wondering where you were trying to point them. Clicking the disambig links button in the toolbox will show you which terms you have linked in the article that go to disambig pages. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    • Comments:
      • You need to have a consistent date style in the article. In the prose, most dates are styled "day month year", though there are some that are "month day, year". In the references, the retrieval dates are mostly in the "YYYY-MM-DD", some with hyphens and some with en-dashes. (I'm not sure which (or whether) citation templates are used, but all have the capability to display "day month year" for dates of retrieval.) Whatever the style, it needs to be consistent throughout.
        • Done.
          • Actually it looks like some of the retrieval dates (access dates) are now in the format "DD-MM-YYYY" in addition to others that remain in the "YYYY-MM-DD" format, neither of which match the style used in the body of the article. Here are some examples from the version I'm looking at right now:
            • Example date format from prose: The first official sortie occurred on 23 July 1941 when Pilot Officer Lucas was flying his Defiant V1183.
            • Note 4: Retrieved on 15-12-2008.
            • Note 5: Retrieved on 2008-12-15.
          • — Bellhalla (talk) 04:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • (unindent) I think I got it this time in the format day, month, year. TARTARUS talk 04:56, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not sure how to get across my point more clearly, but in the current version Notes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 37 all have an all-numeric retrieval date of the format [day (in numerals]-[month (in numerals)]-[year (in numerals)] (note that all are separated by hyphens). This all-numeric style does not match with the date style used in the article, which is [date (in numerals)] [month (spelled out as a word)] [year (in numerals)] (note that all are separated by spaces). — Bellhalla (talk) 18:42, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Parts of the section "Squadron badge and motto" appear to be verbatim from the source. Is Canadian Forces material public domain or is it under copyright?
        • Sorry about that, I have fixed it.
      • The lead paragraph (a single sentence) should be combined with the following paragraph. After doing that, the lead should still be expanded by at least another paragraph. Given the amount of WWII coverage in the article, that service probably merits more than two sentences in the lead.
        • Expanded a bit.
      • MOS:IMAGE recommends against placing in image directly below a secondary heading, as is done in the "Postwar" section. (If the image is shifted to the right, the problem is eliminated.) Also, the images are mostly at the bottom of the article, leaving large expanses of unbroken text. While it's logical to have pictures of the aircraft next to the section where they are discussed, it could also be useful/interesting to have, say, the de Havilland Mosquito image in the WWII section.
        • I have added some images, but it is hard to follow MOS:IMAGE with the way the sections are setup.
          • The number of images is fine as is. It was the spacing of them that was off. (Take a look at another A-Class candidate Battle of Aachen to see an example of how images are spaced and staggered left and right down the page so as not to have large, unbroken blocks of text.) However, the image immediately under the "Postwar" heading still needs to be moved. Change the word "left" to "right" in the link and it will be fine. — Bellhalla (talk) 04:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The table in the section "Unit awards" should probably not be centered. It looks very strange on a wide-ish screen. Also, was there a particular reason for not using "class=wikitable" for the table? (Using that, instead of the formatting used, gives the table a look more consistent with most other tables on Wikipedia.)
        • Changed it.
      • Television show titles (as opposed to episode titles) should be in italics.
      • Per MOS:NUM, times of day should be expressed with a colon (Example from the article: At 0100 hours the first of four…). You probably also don't need the word hours after a 24-hour time. Also, per MOS:NUM, large numbers (five-digit and above) should have commas in them (Example from the article: …and accumulated 28150 hours of flight time.). Though commas are not necessary for four-digit numbers, in articles with lots of dates—like this one—they help to easily distinguish figures from years at a glance.
      • Lots of abbreviations not explained or linked: F/O, F/L, W/O, P/O, etc. (I assume these are ranks?) Can they not be spelled out?
      • In the paragraph beginning F/L Currie and F/O Rose were the first…, who are F/L Currie and F/O Rose? They don't appear to have been introduced earlier in the article.
    • Overall, the article needs a good copy-edit to help tighten up the prose. Right now there are sections where there is more of a colloquial tone rather than an encyclopedic one. — Bellhalla (talk) 21:32, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Wehrmacht forces for the Ardennes Offensive

    edit

    More difficult article than I originally thought it was going to be. But I finished it. Thanks! JonCatalán(Talk) 21:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Patton123
    • Perhaps "Main article: Battle of the Bulge" should be replaced with "This is a sub-article to Battle of the Bulge". This is mentioned in the lead section guidelines and I think it would be a better template note than the {{tl|main}) template. You don't have to do this though.
    • The caption to the image of the M8 car reas "An American M8 armored scout car marches in front of the Arc de Triomphe at the "Liberation Day" parade in Paris". Armoured cars can't march lol..
    • The caption to the image of the men with the panzerfauses reads "German panzer grenadiers deployed in Western Germany". Isn't Panzergrenadiers one word or am I mistaken?
    • The "A profile image..." needs to be removed from the image of Friedrich August Freiherr. Readers can see that it is a profile image and just want to know who he was.
    • Apart from these minor issues the article is well referenced, well written and I support its promotion to A-class.--Pattont/c 22:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you! Fixed on all accounts. JonCatalán(Talk) 22:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Shimgray
    • The title is clumsy - "Wehrmacht forces in the Ardennes Offensive", or deployed for, or something would be better, perhaps?
    • I was quite surprised to read this and not find an order of battle - there is effectively one in the text, but a clear tabular one at the end might benefit the article. The one at Battle of the Bulge order of battle is probably a bit excessive, but maybe a table showing divisions assigned to the various corps, etc?
    Actually, I plan to make an order of battle on a separate article. I want to break up the one that already exists (move the existent one to "Allied order of batle") into two, and get both featured. That way we have a text article that focuses a lot more on deployment and the condition of those armies, and then the list. It also makes for a lot of featured content. In regards to the title, the main problem is the length of the title. Given the length constraints, the current one seems like the best option. I want to avoid "in" because they ended up fluctuating, so it would be a much more complex article (and one which would be covered already by the main article). JonCatalán(Talk) 22:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem with wanton linking, as you can see, is that many of those units lack articles. JonCatalán(Talk) 23:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I like to consider this a feature. :-) Redlinks aren't bad things, and it's a fairly safe bet that every WWII German division will end up having an article - it's best if we build the framework now. Shimgray | talk | 23:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Regarding the OOB, that's great; regarding the title, I'm still not convinced. Could we at least have "for the"? Shimgray | talk | 23:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I rather link them afterwards; redlinks can make or break a featured article candidate, sometimes. The problem is that these redlinks are glaring, increasing the chances of having people comment on them during a FAC. JonCatalán(Talk) 23:06, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I moved the article to incorporate "the". JonCatalán(Talk) 23:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Regretful oppose for now This is a fantastic concept for an article and I wanted to support it, but I don't think that it meets the criteria yet. My comments against the criteria are:
      • A1: Pass
      • A2: Fail: Pass
        • I think that the background section is too long and a bit unfocused. This should be a short summary of the degradation of the Germany Army during 1944 as a result of its defeats on all fronts rather than a fairly detailed account of the fighting on the western front. I was also suprised that this section only covers German losses on western front, when the German Army also suffered disastrous losses on the Eastern Front and significant losses in Italy which impacted on the size and quality of the forces available for this offensive.
        • Likewise, the demands of the other fronts were also obviously a constraint on the forces which could be spared for the Ardennes, and a high-level summary of this should be mentioned in the 'Wehrmacht dispositions' section.
        • I think that the article would also benefit from a section at the end which discusses the results of the campaign for the German Army - the high losses suffered and the destruction of the German mobile reserve during this offensive are often credited as having significantly shortened the war.
        • I agree that a summary order of battle (with a link to the longer OOB) would be great - it may be worth approaching User:Noclador and asking if he'll create an orbat graphic (the necessary data seems to be in the current OOB article)
      • A3: Pass, though the lead might be a bit too long
      • A4: Fail, I'm afraid. I found many of the paragraphs to be too long and there's too much repetition (for instance, 'Western Allies' is used three times in the first three sentences in the background section). The article's content is fantastic and the writing is generally good, but it needs a copy-edit. I agree with Shimgray's comment about the article's name.
      • A5: Pass Nick-D (talk) 03:44, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi, thanks for the review. I will respond to your comments one by one:
    1. The background section is long, but I feel that a summary of German casualties suffered throughout the campaign in Western Europe is essential to understand the situation the Wehrmacht was in on the even of the Ardennes offensive. Those casualty figures don't make much sense if the background of why they were suffered isn't provided. The second paragraph of the background, for example, deals with German casualties in August 1944, as opposed to explaining the Western Ally's advance. The third paragraph is essential, because it explains the Western Allies' halt in late September and August, and sets up the background for an explanation of the battles along the Siegfried Line. These in turn are completely necessary because it offers the reader a perspective on why the Ardennes Offensive was even possible; had Eisenhower, for example, allowed the Third Army to advance unrestricted and halted his other armies, the war might have ended very differently. German casualties accepted during this period are also very important, because this is the Wehrmacht which would have to be rebuilt. Without a detailed picture of the Wehrmacht during the previous months of fighting, one doesn't really get an accurate picture of how much work went into rebuilding it for the Battle of the Bulge.
    2. Casualties on the Eastern Front did play a large part, of course. On the other hand, deployments to the Eastern Front didn't as much as you'd think. 70% of production was going to the West, while many historians claim that the stripping of the Eastern Front from its tanks actually opened the Germans to disaster during the Soviet January offensive in 1945. The Italian Campaign, by this time, I think is largely irrelevant, given that the allies had landed in Southern France. The most relevant casualties were those suffered in the West, given that these would impact the units that participated in the Ardennes the most.
    3. An order of battle will come; I'm waiting for a book I bought, as my current books don't mention some divisions which were in some infantry corps (I guess the authors didn't believe they were notable enough for mentioning).
    4. If you could find a synonym for Western Allies, I could replace some with that.
    5. The only paragraph that I could see being too long is the first paragraph of the "mobilizations and movements" section. But the information in the paragraph is all relevant to a single topic, so I don't see how it would gain anything by breaking it up. Personally, I prefer longer paragraphs over choppier text, dividing over many paragraphs. It's how all my articles have been written.
    6. What I can see as a good addition would be the impact of the mobilization on the Eastern Front. I think that casualties taken during the campaign are irrelevant to the article, as this article doesn't deal with the Wehrmacht during the offensive, just prior to the offensive. The problem is finding enough information other than "the Germans stripped the Eastern Front of important units" to qualify for a new section.
    JonCatalán(Talk) 04:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I added what information I could gather on the impact of the forces mobilized for the Ardennes Offensive on the Eastern Front. JonCatalán(Talk) 05:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I split that paragraph up and I removed some instances of "Western Allies". I've also copyedited here and there, and I believe another editor from IRC will copyedit it a bit, as well. :) JonCatalán(Talk) 17:23, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry for not responding earlier. I've struck out the my comments which have been addressed, but I still think that the article needs a thorough copy-edit to meet the criteria for the reasons I noted above. While this article's content is fantastic, I find it difficult to read (my main comments are the long paragraphs and some awkward wording throughout the article). While not a reason to oppose, a high-level OOB in tabular form would be invaluable if a graphic isn't available - at present the article has lots of dense paragraphs with names of units, and it's a bit hard to see how they all fitted together. Nick-D (talk) 07:58, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Although I agree, this isn't a list; I'm waiting for a book by MacDonald to come through the mail. Once it arrives I can start a dedicated list for the German order of battle, and link it. In regards to copyediting, I have copyedited the lead and made the paragraphs a lot shorter (about 1kB worth of text out). I will give the rest of the text a copyedit later today. JonCatalán(Talk) 15:14, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    (od) I've copyedited throughout, although I will continue to look at it and improve the prose (to clarify it). But, I don't see how the paragraphs are too long. These paragraphs are no longer than those in any other article I've worked on (which have passed at FAC; compare to Operation Uranus). I will continue to look at the prose, though. JonCatalán(Talk) 03:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Support - I've followed the article from it's conception, and having looked over the changes made by Catalan in response to Nick, I can find no reason to oppose or anything major that needs addressing. Skinny87 (talk) 18:55, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. It could use a copy-edit, and I would recommend one before FAC, but otherwise I could find only one specific problem: You say that "five German army groups fielded Army Group Center and Army Group A;" yes this doesn't make any sense...Five Army Groups "field" two army groups? Otherwise it looks good. – Joe Nutter 14:51, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Ugh, yes, that was pretty confusing. I've clarified it; it should have been two out of five army groups. Thanks. JonCatalán(Talk) 16:23, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. I think the introduction needs a rewrite. In particular,
    1. The first sentence is rather clumsy and makes it sound like all of the troops that took part in the offensive were recruited just before the attack. Is this the case? Also, should the recruitment effort be mentioned before the offensive is even mentioned? Were the soldiers recruited for the offensive, or just to replace losses sustained during the Allied advances?
    2. "Rapid Allied advance had caused a supply problem". It took me a second to work out that this meant "a supply problem for the allies". Maybe this can be rewritten?
    3. "increased the call-up age range". From what? How many additional men did this make available? What percentage of soldiers in the offensive were veterans (and where had they served previously)?
    4. I'd like to see a comparision involving the number and types of Allied forces opposing them. What impact did the call-up have on industry?
    5. "oftentimes" - is this meant to be "sometimes" or "often"?
    6. " mobilized a force of no less than 1,400 armored fighting vehicles". What type/quality were these vehicles? Were the new troops trained in their operation, or were they operated by veterans?

    I've never done an A-class review, so please bear with me. This is a great article, and I'd like to see it promoted eventually. Will there be a corresponding article for Allied forces? Lawrencema (talk) 01:11, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks, my responses below:
    1. Yea, it was a hard first sentence to write, because the article's title is strange. Like the background states, manpower in the West by 1 September 1944 amounted to roughly ~200,000 to ~400,000, and then in late November and early December this was increased to ~1,000,000. It's safe to assume that the majority of the personnel which would take part in the offensive were new; very few of them may have been veterans (although, of course, there are always veterans). The introduction covers the article in order of the sections below it. The second paragraph isn't covering the offensive, per se, it's covering the armies earmarked for the offensive. The third paragraph explains how these armies were formed.
    2. I re-wrote it; hopefully that is clearer.
    3. That information is covered in the article itself; the lead is just supposed to summarize the article, not explain itself.
    4. I think a comparison should be reserved for the Battle of the Bulge article itself; that way the article can focus on a comparison, while this article goes into detail about the Werhmacht forces deployed for the battle. Battle of the Bulge is an article that I will work on in the near future (I'm waiting for sources to arrive to my house). And yes, there will be a similar article for Allied forces (albeit shorter, since there wasn't too much preparation going on).
    5. Changed to "often", although "oftentimes" is recognized as a word by Firefox.
    6. I wanted to write a section on the quality of German weapons, but the only information I really have is on armor and it's all indirect. My sources themselves don't really cover the quality that well. I didn't want to create a section just on German armor, because then I'd get complaints that I didn't cover their small-arms, et cetera (information I just don't have). Nevertheless, some of the tank models used are stated in the article itself, where the reader can click on the link and read about them separately.
    Again, thank you. JonCatalán(Talk) 05:28, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comments:
      • The caption of the lead photo doesn't really tie into the focus of the article. It's a relevant photo for the article for sure, but either the caption needs to be altered to tie in, or perhaps a different photo should lead. Also, several of the photo captions seem generic and not particularly tied to this article. For example, File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1975-102-14A, Panzer VI (Tiger II, Königstiger).jpg with the caption Tiger II tanks preparing to enter action. Maybe something like Tiger II tanks, like these pictured here, were used in the Ardennes Offensive by [insert Unit(s)].
      • Perhaps Hitler's official title (Chancellor?) should be used instead of the POV-ish "dictator"
      • Is "recruited" really the right word for how the Germans obtained Eastern Europeans for service? It sounds a bit euphemistic to me…
      • Is there a previous campaign that can be linked in the sentence Although Allied forces had been contained along the Siegfried Line, the campaign had been a disaster for the Wehrmacht.?
      • The portrait orientation photographs should have the "upright" tag added to keep them from dominating the page. Especially the portrait of von der Heydte. (Shudder.)
      • The sentence that begins On 2 September, General George S. Patton's Third Army requested … seems like it might fit in better after the next sentence, as an example of why the offensive slowed
      • Whose casualties are referred to in the sentence The Third Army's battle around Metz had cost an estimated 47,000 casualties.?
      • Too many close tos in the sentence by mid-October the two Allied divisions had lost close to 80% of their total combat strength, or roughly 4,500 men, while the Germans had lost close to 3,300.
      • In the sentence Although von der Heydte originally requested to instead use the entirety of the 6th Parachute Regiment…, I'm not sure the word instead does anything but split the infinitive, given that the reader knows that an alternative is presented by the word Although.
      • In the sentence In the little time available some men received basic jump training, although matters were complicated by the lack of transport aircraft (about 100 Junkers Ju 52). what is the parenthetical referring to? The number of aircraft needed, or the number available?
      • Assuming they are one and the same, the unit is referred to as both Battle Group von der Heydte and Kampfgruppe von der Heydte in the span of a few sentences. They should probably both be the English name, or, at the very least, the second should be italicized as a foreign phrase.
      • In the paragraph beginning Although Western Allied bomber missions had increased … there are several numbers immediately following years, like 1944 1,017. While not grammatically incorrect, they can cause confusion. I'd recommend recasting the sentences so as to keep the years and other figures separate.
      • In the following paragraph, the conversion 2,273,045,000 litres (500,000,000 imp gal) is presented. The liter quantity seems impossibly precise, compared to the corresponding Imperial gallon figure, and to the similar conversion given for Patton's fuel request given previously in he article. If (as I suspect) the Imperial gallon figure was the one given in the reference, the liter conversion needs to have a comparable level of precision, like 2.3 billion litres. The same goes for the other conversions in the same paragraph.
      • In the sentence In January 1945 the Wehrmacht was roughly 800,000 men short of complete strength, despite the reorganization of German units in order to take into consideration manpower losses; much if its strength was used for the Ardennes Offensive. should it read much of its strength… instead?
    • A very informative and well-researched article. — Bellhalla (talk) 19:41, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment from my understanding of MOS, ampersands are not to be used in "Smith & Jones" etc/. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 07:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Closed as not promoted by Woody (talk) 16:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    102nd Intelligence Wing

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    It has been improved to all suggestions in the previous reviews. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:07, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Overall, I think it is pretty good.... A few small suggestions:
    1. The pictures could be rearranged to place them in the appropriate places, and uniformly, rather than having them bunched together in the middle. A gallery may not be a bad idea IMO.
    2. Some of the language and paragraph organization needs to be tweaked, to improve readability, esp the lead section.
    3. A bit of reorganization in the midsection wouldn't hurt - there are far too many subsections. An idea that I can think of is to divide it into history/Origins, Operations (WW2, Cold war, 9/11) and present organization or status.
    4. A separate subsection explaining the organization and mandate and a small description of the units assigned would probably help. The units assigned could be brought into this section.
    5. Referencing seems good. A couple more offline and book refs might be good enough to get the page to FA status.

    I'd also suggest looking back into the previous reviews to see if anything has been missed out.... a couple of points such as the role and actions performed still seems a bit unclear, as is the designations scuh as 102d, etc.

    Good luck with this. PS, note that this is my first review, so don't take only my opinion. Cheers. Sniperz11@CS 07:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Buckshot06 The Cold War list of units needs clarification; not all of those were in France with the Wing! Also I've continued rolling the lists at the end into the text as per the previous A-class review; please feel free to suggest amendments on exactly how. Cheers and Happy New Year, Buckshot06(prof) 17:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Response: Please take a closer look - there are Fighter Interceptor Groups labelled with places like 'Atlantic City, NJ' under the France heading! Buckshot06(prof) 10:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Response-Although they were in other geographically separated places, the Mass ANG history site indicates that 75 planes were sent over and the first reference states that all groups were sent over. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I would agree, except that the sites on the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group from Texas make no mention of such a deployment. Can you double-check that the Texans did participate?

    Buckshot06(prof) 22:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Er, just checked. That was the 174th Tactical Fighter Group, not the 147th FIG. Buckshot06(prof) 22:58, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Binksternet

    Oppose A-Class status. Too many problems observed.

    • The lead has too many instances of the word 'also'.
    • The sentence "It is a parent unit of the 101st Intelligence Squadron" in the lead is bare naked and not revealing of what the relationship or importance is.
    • The hyphenated "no-one" is outdated.
    • The Origins and World War II/101st Squadron sections don't assist the reader in understanding how the 102d is derived from the 318th FG. In Both those sections should be deleted.
    • In the World War II/318th paragraph, tell the reader why the military would reactivate an old unit with a new number while retaining its lineage. Why does the 102d trace its roots to 1942 in the 318th? Why doesn't the history of the 102d start in 1946?
    • In the Cold War section, the first paragraph doesn't mention the 102d. Delete!
    • Tell the reader what Sweeney did with the 102d, not what he did before.
    • Berlin Blockade: did the 102d incur losses?
    • The link for TU-95 Bear should be Tupolev Tu-95 to avoid redirect.
    • Is there a photo of a 102d F-106 Delta Dart escorting a Tu-95 Bear? I know of several other photos that are not 102d aircraft, such as this one from 1986.

    I could probably find more problems than these if I continued my review but instead, I'll just say that I don't support this article for A-Class at this time. Binksternet (talk) 19:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • Commment-If you familiar with any air force unit page that is standardized in its style, you will understand how the page is set up. I don’t agree with the second suggestion because all units that are parent units per se of another unit usually have this sentence within them. The fourth suggestion is part of the grey area that ANG wing pages all have. Most of the writers are unsure if they should write in this portion, and all seem to have done it. Air Force wing pages will occasionally do this. For your fifth suggestion, I can write in how the Air force recognized unit lineage but I’m afraid that someone will tell me to remove it. If you’re for it, then I will write it. Otherwise I agree with your other suggestions and if we could discuss the ones I mentioned, I will be happy to do what can be agreed upon. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I would also like to say that I only found two uses of the world also within the lead. I'm assuming that our definitions are the same and this lead includes the first two paragraphs of the page. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, two instances of 'also' are two too much for me. I hate the word's common overuse in Wiki articles. :P However, putting "Additionally" and "in addition" in there instead is not the answer.
    I still feel that the lead section isn't written well enough for A-Class. The sentence "It is a parent unit of ..." absolutely doesn't flow--I would have it go in its own paragraph with an expansion of what the connection entails. "Defence" is not spelled in the American way. And why are F-15s mentioned in the lead when the wing flew a number of aircraft?
    Nice photo of the F-15 and the Bear. Is there a date for that? Binksternet (talk) 22:02, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment-I can fix the lead later and the spelling I can fix now. I couldn't find anything on the date of that intercept so i'm not gonna pursue because there was no information on the photo.Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:06, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I still don't think that the paragraphs that are purely about the 101st should be in this article. Binksternet (talk) 02:50, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I will remove it if I can find anyone else who agrees with you, but for now i'll just keep it there. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Sorry, but this still hasn't reached the A-class criteria. My comments against each of the criteria are:
      • A1: Referencing is generally good, but not all material is supported by a citation (the criteria requires that "all claims are verifiable against reputable sources"). For instance, even routine material like "Pilots flew their Curtiss O-11s to temporary fields on Cape Cod while ground crews followed in trucks. One of these fields became Cape Cod Airport." needs a cite, most of the 'Berlin Blockade' section is uncited, etc - everything needs to be covered by a citation.
      • A2: I'll give this a pass, though there seems to be a slight bias towards recent events
      • A3: Pass - the structure is good
      • A4: I'm afraid that this is the article's biggest problem. Much of the text is unclear (for instance "The wing continued its air defense mission after the fall of the Soviet Union. Examples of this include a 1992 deployment of eight pilots, five F-15 Eagles, and 48 maintenance and security personnel, for five days to Canadian Forces Base Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada" - only a single example is provided, and it's not clear how this deployment was an 'air defence mission' - I presume that the wing flew patrols from the base at Goose Bay, but this isn't specified), words are repeated and the use of military jargon is grating (eg, "During 1998 members both trained for and performed in real-world contingency assignments"). The article also suffers from weasel words (eg, "Many people who believe in a government conspiracy during the 9/11 attacks claim...", "There was talk among the members of the Massachusetts National Guard...") and use of the passive voice (eg, "Other escort missions involved the escorting of drug smuggling planes and the identifying of one mysterious ghost plane, which turned out later to be a weather balloon" - this could be written as - 'the wing also escorted drug smuggling planes [how frequently?] and intercepted a 'ghost plane' [when?], which was identified as a weather balloon').
      • A5: Pass, but I think that there are too many photos of F-15s - I'd keep the one with the F-15 and the Tu-95, the F-15 over New York City and the F-15 at the 2007 Cape Cod Airshow and remove the others. Nick-D (talk) 22:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment-I addressed all that you said and that I could find. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:06, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Those were only examples - there are still lots of instances of uncited text, unclear wording and weasel words (I don't think that your recent changes improved those two examples of weasel words at all - for example, the article should specify who believes that there was a conspiracy to stop the jets reaching New York (is it really everyone who believes that the Government is conspiring to cover up the attacks?) and which members of the ANG discussed converting the wing into an intelligence unit. Nick-D (talk) 00:45, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Honestly I'm relying on you to find it because i'm too nice when it comes to looking for things in articles, but I will fix what you just pointed out. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments from Lazulilasher Hi, and Happy New Year! This article is in good shape; I've got a number of comments that I hope you find helpful for future improvement.

    • The Lead: The article's lead does provide a decent introduction; however, I felt it slightly incomplete. Would you able to expand it just a bit? For instance, just a concise mention of what the 102nd did in Operation Northern Watch. Remember: the lead should be able to stand on its own as a brief summary of the topic; also, it should entice the reader to continue through the entire article.
    • Vaguaries: After World War I ended, there was a general interest in organizing aviation assets for the National Guard system What does general interest mean?
    • Again, and in November was ordered into active Federal service for intensive training...could we expand a bit on intensive training?
    • Minor copy editing issues: "With the formation of the US Air Force the Guard units suffered from neglect" Suggestion: suffered from neglect --> neglected
    • Question: and had little money for training is there a comparison? As in, how much was allocated to this Wing when compared to others?

    Well, that's all for now. Hope this helps. Lazulilasher (talk) 17:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I addressed everything except for the funds thing as I was unable to find anything on it and probably never will unless I contact the National Archives. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    Attention-Is this anyone's IP address:74.242.244.138? If it is please tell me, otherwise i'll cite them for a disruptive edit to the 102nd's page. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    There's no way of checking that without at CheckUser request, and that edit doesn't seem too bad. Nick-D (talk) 07:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


    • Comment
    • Can you expand a bit on them helping with the flight around the world, possibly providing some background for that?
    • Every paragraph needs a citation at the end. The entire Cold War section is almost uncited.
    • Watch double linking, i.e. you link to the 67th Fighter Wing twice in the same section. There may be other problems I missed.
    • You have a section on the Berlin Blockade, but that was in 1948. The section mentions 1961 at one point, I'm confused.
    • Sandwiched images in the Relocation to Otis section.
    • Again, unreferenced in the Post-Cold War section.
    • The whole 9/11 conspiracy theories section is bad. It's rather unprofessionally written, badly cited, and unclear about exactly who believes that.
    • Noble Eagle is unref'd at the end.
    • BRAC 2005 is unref'd.
    • The bit about the grounding of the F-15s needs explaining. Why, when, and for how long were they grounded?
    • The two images near that section sandwich on my laptop.
    • The New Mission section could use rewriting, it's rather unprofessional.
    • Better cite the lists of units, dates, etc.
    – Joe Nutter 21:29, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
    The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Operation Uranus

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    Procedural close as this article is now up at FAC at the same time Woody (talk) 00:08, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    I have been working on this article for the past four days (about to become five). It is currently under GA review, and I think it's more or less ready for A-class. I will copyedit here and there, but I don't think there is anything major impairing it from being promoted (there will obviously be things to change; but I am confident that these will be quick to fix). Thank you. JonCatalán(Talk) 23:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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