Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/2013/Failed

Failed

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

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Nomination withdrawn at nominator's request. Anotherclown (talk) 00:19, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Rudolf Berthold

Nominator(s): Georgejdorner

I am nominating this article for A-Class review on behalf of George per his edit here. George has worked extensively on this article in an effort to bring it up to A-class standard and is requesting a review to see if it up to scratch. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:32, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks to Rupert for his technical help,and many cheers for him.

I have quintupled the size of this article while working in information from the most recent biography of the subject. It is completely and reliably cited. I ruthlessly edited it before presentation. That included spinning off his victory list into a subsidiary article a la Manfred von Richthofen. I believe it is professionally written, and worthy of promotion. More than that, it is an amazing tale of martial courage and fiery patriotism, about a hero who successfully scored 16 of his 44 victories flying one-handed.Georgejdorner (talk) 02:09, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Question why don't you take the article to GA review first? The natural article quality lifecycle is from Stub -> Start -> C -> B -> GA -> A -> FA; check Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment. MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:00, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

• Because I believe it is of A Class quality, and a GA review is not mandatory.Georgejdorner (talk) 17:28, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

• There is benefit to a GA review. If the article passes GA the rating applies to all projects such as Aviation, Biography, Milhist, etc. Following a successful GA review the article is identified as a GA article by adding the GA icon to the upper right hand corner of the article and this is visible to all other languages as well. The A-class review only applies to Milhist and in some cases to the affiliated projects. With this I am not saying that the article is not of A-class quality, I am trying to say that you miss an opportunity to show the quality of the article to a greater audience.MisterBee1966 (talk) 17:49, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

• Hadn't realized that little quirk in the assessment process existed. Certainly will have to take it into account in the future.Georgejdorner (talk) 06:40, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

• Have you tried using the {{Cite book}} template? It should help you format the reference correctly MisterBee1966 (talk) 15:48, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Done.Georgejdorner (talk) 19:06, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
• Armee-Abteilung A you translated it with "Army Division A", I think "Army Department A" or "Army Detachment A" fits better. Division is a bit ambiguous MisterBee1966 (talk) 12:53, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
  • As I do not speak German, I used the Bing translator, which produced the above. If a German speaker supplies a more accurate translation, I will probably use it.Georgejdorner (talk) 17:11, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
    • It is not that difficult to learn. As a matter of fact even young kids speak the language. Maybe you should search the article for Abteilung (example Flieger-Ersatz-Abteilung). In two instances you use Detachment and in the instance of Armee-Abteilung A you provide Division as the translation. At least ask Mr Bing to provide you with a consistent translation. :-) MisterBee1966 (talk) 14:58, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Comments - Dank (push to talk)

• "while hospitalized for four months. Sneaking from hospital,": I'm American, but reasonably comfortable with BritEng. I generally don't recommend concessions to American ears in BritEng articles, except in cases where Americans won't have a clue, are likely to misread, or are likely to think they're looking at a typo (which is of course a problem on Wikipedia ... things that look like mistakes draw edits, whether they're mistakes or not). I'll also recommend something if there are several things together that may strike copyeditors as problems (depending on who you ask). Most English-speakers think "from hospital" needs a "the", and there are two other things that some copyeditors will react to here: the close repetition of "hospitalized ... hospital", and "sneaking from" (which is unidiomatic in AmEng). So ... you make the call. I'd probably just strike "Sneaking from hospital" (particularly since "once again bolted from medical care" in the next paragraph reinforces the idea). - Dank (push to talk) 14:29, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
  • You apparently did not not see the American usage tag on the talk page. However, you do raise some points about usage at which I shall take another look.Georgejdorner (talk) 17:09, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
    • That's true, I didn't realize you were aiming for American English, from what I saw in the lead. Okay, I probably don't have much to offer here, then. - Dank (push to talk) 19:06, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
      • I would much rather sort through any and all of your responses than have you curtail your comments.
      • I substituted "decamping" for "sneaking".Georgejdorner (talk) 17:42, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
• "he shot down 14 more enemy airplanes by 8 August 1918. Two days later, he shot down his final two victims on his final flight before being downed. Two days after that": I'd go with: "he shot down 16 more enemy airplanes before being downed for the last time on 10 August 1918. Two days after that" - Dank (push to talk) 15:56, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Indeed, this deserves another look.Georgejdorner (talk) 17:09, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
    • Rewritten.Georgejdorner (talk)

Nominator's note: Please withdraw this nomination, as I am no longer participating in Wikipedia.Georgejdorner (talk) 21:22, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

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

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

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No consensus to promote at this time Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:10, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Gamal Abdel Nasser

Nominator(s): Al Ameer (talk)

Prior nomination here.

Along with a few other editors, I've been working on this article for a few years now and intend to nominate it for FAC soon. However, I would like an A-class review from this wikiproject beforehand to make sure it is ready for FA. The article's been a GA since 2009, but didn't pass it's initial A-class review in 2010. Since then, all the concerns of the previous reviews have been addressed, the article has been substantially expanded with new material and sources, and many parts have been rewritten/reorganized. Although it's still quite large (after all, Nasser was arguably the most monumental Arab political figure of the 20th-century and ruled Egypt for 16-18 years), the article's prose has been trimmed down to around 80 KB. It's second peer review (and a thorough copyedit from WP:Copyeditors) was concluded a few weeks ago and there has been additional followup at the talkpage. I looked over both the A-class and FA criteria, and believe the article now meets them both. --Al Ameer (talk) 00:52, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

It's a massive article, so might take me a while to get through it all! First pass comments. That said, it doesn't seem overly long for such an important figure.

• Writings; is there nothing else you can say about his writing except list the books? Is there no commentary on his writings, for example?
• Nasser strove to keep his career separate from his family life; "strove" implies a struggle, is there any commentary on the difficulty he had achieving this?
• Personal Life; just checking... there is no extant criticism of his personal life?

Will add more later. --Errant ^(chat!) 10:57, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

• There is available English-language info on his memoirs and the Philosophy of the Revolution. My only concern is article size, but if you think it's best to add commentary, I'll add a sentence or two for each. If the alternative is removing the section altogether, I don't mind doing that either. I clarified the part about his career/family life to be closer to the source. His personal life is probably the only part of his life where there is no extant criticism, even by his biggest detractors. He certainly didn't take care of his health though and had many ailments (I assume due to genetics and chain smoking). I look forward to the rest of your review. --Al Ameer (talk) 14:34, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Image check

• File:Nasser_portrait2.jpg: when/where was this first published? Same for File:Gamal_Abdel_Nasser.jpg, File:NasserLawSchool.jpg, File:N-10009.jpg...actually, all works with the PD-Egypt tag - some include it, most don't
• File:Turco-Egyptian_ka'im_makam.gif: source? What is the legal status of this design?
• File:Nasser_cheered_by_supporters_in_1956.jpg: the provided source link gives a copyright notice for a non-CIA source
• File:Egypt,_Syria_Merge_In_New_Arab_Republic.webm: licensing tag is wrong
• File:Presidents_Gamal_Abdul_Nasser_and_Shukri_al-Quwatli_receiving_Yemeni_Crown_Prince_Mohammad_Badr_in_Damascus_in_February_1958_congratulating_them_on_formation_of_the_United_Arab_Republic.jpg: source link is broken
• File:Nasser_and_Sallal_in_Sanaa.jpg also needs initial publication information
• File:President_Nasser's_visit_to_the_Suez_front_with_Egypt's_top_military_commanders_during_the_War_of_Attrition.jpg: why does this have a CC tag?
• File:Nimeiry,_Nasser_and_Gaddafi,_1969.jpg: this was photographed in Libya, not Egypt - check licensing and publication
• File:Presidential_Standard_of_Egypt.svg is sourced to a redlink. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:53, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I believe I've now fixed the issues for all the photos of Nasser and replaced "File:N-10009.jpg" because I was unable to ascertain where it was taken (most likely Egypt, but possibly Sudan). With "File:Nasser_and_Sallal_in_Sanaa.jpg" I wasn't sure what you meant exactly, but I've clarified that the photo was taken in Yemen and adjusted the licensing accordingly. I don't know anything about the Presidential Standard of Egypt file (don't even know if it's a real thing) so I just removed it from the Egyptian Presidents Template. I also know nothing about the "Turco-Egyptian ka'im makam" file. Should I remove it as well? --Al Ameer (talk) 21:11, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Actually I missed "File:Nasser_cheered_by_supporters_in_1956.jpg". I removed the photo from the article for now. The photo appears to have been attributed to a source other than the CIA, but it was taken in Egypt. Does it still qualify for PD-Egypt if this is clarified? --Al Ameer (talk) 21:33, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Comments -- I'll try and do a full review at some stage. In the meantime, you have a series of Harv errors, which you can check by installing this script. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:14, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

• All fixed. --Al Ameer (talk) 17:54, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Lead/infobox

• In the infobox, you could reduce the sea of blue by removing duplicate links; I'm also not a fan of little flag and rank icons, though I acknowledge they're not forbidden and some people seem to like the little pictures.
• Generally no need to link modern-day countries, e.g. Britain, France, Israel, Syria, etc. These examples are just from the lead so you could check the rest of the article as well. Linking obsolete political entities such as the Soviet Union is fair enough though.

• Done. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Nationalization of Suez Canal

• the Egyptian people had a right to sovereignty over the waterway, especially since 120,000 Egyptians had died building it -- that figure seems much higher than I've heard elsewhere; does the source report Nasser himself using the figure?

• Nasser himself states that figure. I put in quotes. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Pan-Arabism and socialism

• In January 1957, the US adopted the Eisenhower Doctrine and pledged to prevent the spread of communism and its "agents" in the Middle East. -- not sure what the justification is for scare quotes around "agents"; suggest simply drop the quotes or else use the term "proponents" or some such (without quotes).
• Nasser initiated the Helwan steelworks, which were on their way to becoming Egypt's largest enterprise -- how could he "initiate" (i.e. start) something that was already "on the way"? Suggest either he must have supported/helped it as an existing enterprise, or he initiated and it subsequently became Egypt's largest enterprise.
• In the fall of 1958 -- could we have more specific dating for those not in the same hemisphere as Egypt?
• The new Iraqi and Syrian governments soon sent Nasser delegations to push for a new Arab union on 14 March. -- to clarify, did they send their delegations on 14 March, or did they want a new union to be proclaimed on 14 March?
• He received the Hero of the Soviet Union award the same year. -- I feel this needs some explanation as we've previously highlighted his supposed opposition to communism and establishment of NAN, neither of which (one assumes) would've endeared him to the Soviets.

• Done, ehh almost. I just removed the Hero award since I don't have anything else on it to make it relavant to the rest of the text. Unfortunately, I could not find the exact date to clarify "fall of 1958." Still working on that. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not fanatical about seasonal dates so don't sweat it too much. If you can just alter the Americanism to "autumn" it'll be okay with me (other reviewers may complain when it gets to FAC but I won't)... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:04, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Modernization efforts and internal dissent

• In 1961, Nasser sought to firmly establish Egypt as the leader of the Arab world and to promote a second revolution in Egypt with the purpose of merging Islamic and socialist thinking to satisfy the will of the general populace. -- I assume what we're trying to say here is that Nasser saw himself as attempting to satisfy the will of the people? I draw the distinction because I'm sure all rulers see themselves as doing so, whether it's truly the case is another matter. For me, it would sound more neutral if we simply dropped "to satisfy the will of the general populace".
• Nasser guided al-Azhar to create changes in its syllabus... -- I don't have access to the source but is "guided" a euphemism for "ordered"? I ask particularly because soon after you say he "forced" the organisation to issue a fatwā.
• Sometime during this year, Nasser suffered and survived a heart attack. -- since we don't seem to have a specific date for this, and you mention it in the Personal life section (along with another such incident), I'd suggest dropping it from here.

• Done. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Six-Day War

• In early 1967, the Soviet Union issued multiple warnings to Nasser of an impending Israeli attack on Syria -- spotchecking Kadil, he describes the Soviet reports as "unconfirmed", and appears to have Nasser's man Fawzy declaring that the reports of Israel mobilising against Syria were "baseless".

• Clarified. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Legacy

• Nasser transitioned Egypt from British-occupation to serving as an influential power in the developing world. -- I have a couple of concerns with this sentence after spotchecking it. Firstly the expression is quite similar to part of a sentence in the source and might be paraphrased better. Secondly as written in the article it suggests that Egypt was occupied by the British when Nasser came to power, which I don't think is quite correct is it? I gather there was British military presence and British influence, but that's not what I understand by the term "occupied". In any case I think the source gives credit to Nasser for making Egypt independent but the transition from British "occupation" seems to be mentioned in passing rather than directly credited to Nasser...
• Egypt experienced a golden age of culture during his presidency -- "golden age" is a bit peacockish, although I've no objections if it's a quote from a source and you can attribute it.

• Clarified the part about the transition from occupation. And attributed "golden age". It was a direct quote. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Personal life

• His social status was still well below the wealthy Egyptian elite, and his resentment of those born into wealth and power continued to grow. -- I think this is the first time we've specifically mentioned his resentment of the elite (I recall us mentioning resentment of the British) and wonder if this should be touched on earlier in the article to help explain his motivations.

• Relocated. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Images/sources

• I'll rely on Nikki's image check and hope she'll be able to complete a source review as well... ;-)
• I notice in the Al-Azhar subsection that you could consolidate references, i.e. in both paragraphs two consecutive sentences have exactly the same citation. There may not be a rule against this but I think the fewer citations one can get away with, the better the text flows.
• Given my few spotchecks of sources suggested some issues, I think the article would benefit from a fuller spotcheck of sources for accuracy and avoidance of close paraphrasing. Alternatively you could revisit the article yourself based on the sort of things I've identified so far in that respect.

• It would be preferable if someone else could do the spotchecking other than myself. During Czar's review, I did a general spotcheck, but missed a few sections. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Structure/content

• Structure seems logical and in line with similar bios.
• Content-wise there's a lot of detail but I don't find it overwhelming and, while I don't claim to be an expert on Nasser or Egyptian history, the major facts presented in the article seem in line with the general wisdom as I understand it, and the tone appears mainly neutral except where queried above.
• You have a number of duplicate links that you can check with this script. Some may be justified owing to the length of the article and the resultant space between links, but pls review in any case.

Summary

• I've copyedited as I went through the article, so pls let me know if I've misinterpreted or broken anything. All in all, this is a mammoth effort that I hope will attract more comment. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:06, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• I really appreciate the review and extra c/e. Czar and I had been discussing the length issue during the peer review and copyedit. We brought it down to 78 KB from 95 KB, but 78 is still pretty large. Once this review is finished (pass or fail), I plan to nominate it for FA in its present structure so hopefully size won't be a make or break issue in that process. I'm in my fall semester now and have been bogged down in study and testing (that's why I've been delayed in my replies) so I might not be able to make significant changes to the article anytime soon if something like creating a "Presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser" article would be required. As for the points you brought up above, I think I've addressed them, but someone might have to do the spotcheck if necessary. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, spotchecks are carried out by reviewers, my suggestion was that you yourself might want to revisit anything that was in the back of your mind from editing that could perhaps use some further paraphrasing or tweaking for accuracy. However there's no particular need for that if a reviewer carries out a decent spotcheck; I may not be able to myself but I might ask around as it would be good to get out of the way before you look at FAC. Anyway, thanks for making those changes; I enjoyed reading the article and hope that with further comment it will pass this review and give you a good lead-in for FAC. Pending source review and spotcheck I'm giving it my provisional support. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:04, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Source spotcheck -- Sorry for the delay, I've ended up doing a further spotcheck myself as my preferred candidate for the task was unavailable; note that I've had to restrict myself to publications available on preview at GoogleBooks...

• FN40: The WP article states Nasser had also felt bitter that his brigade had not been relieved despite the resilience it displayed. -- I'm sure this is correct but the source doesn't express it quite this way, rather it states that the defenders of Falluja were embittered, and they gathered under Nasser's leadership to instigate the coup of '52.
• FN58: Okay.
• FN59: Okay.
• FN222: Okay.
• FN236c: The WP article states Observers noted that the declaration signaled an important shift from political repression to liberalization, although its promises would largely go unfulfilled. The source states The March 1968 declaration signaled a second major shift under Nasser from repression to liberalization, although its most basic promises, like those of March 1954, went unfulfilled. -- First of all, if you say "observers noted" then I'd assume you meant contemporary commentators, reporters, public figures, etc. In fact this is the observation of an author in 2007. Secondly, the phrasing in the source and the WP article are a bit too close for comfort as far as I'm concerned. I'd suggest either recasting the sentence entirely or else quoting/attributing the source passage. Thirdly, isn't the source, Rethinking Nasserism, co-edited by Onn Winckler?
• FN274c: Okay.
• FN293a: Can't see any mention of the New Wafd Party or Jamal Badawi on the cited page.

My conclusion from the above and from a few instances during my general review when accuracy or paraphrasing of sources seemed in question is that, while I haven't discovered major problems, there are enough niggles that I think you need to walk through the article and double-check sourcing/paraphrasing yourself before submitting for FAC. I realise this a daunting task in such a large article, and you may not have added and sourced all the material, but when you nominate an article for ACR or FAC you're taking responsibility for its prose, structure, coverage, image licensing and referencing, and any problems associated with them. By the way, while I was spotchecking, I noticed a few more style points:

• On 25 January 1952, a confrontation between British forces and police at Ismailia resulted in the deaths of forty Egyptian policemen, provoking riots in Cairo the next day which left 76 people dead. -- pls go through the article and ensure consistent representation of two-digit (or larger) numbers.
• loosely-structured -- generally, double-barrelled adjectives where the first word ends in "ly" are not hyphenated, again pls check throughout.

Subject to the above style points being addressed, I'm still happy with the article as far as prose, structure, coverage, and supporting materials go but I can't help feeling that a more comprehensive spotcheck, which I can't supply, would reveal more things that need finetuning. I reiterate that this article is a great undertaking and, I think, deserving ultimately of A-Class and FA status, but I just can't support it all the way at this stage. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:57, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Ian. Thank you for being so diligent with this review. I agree that these points need to be addressed prior to the article being promoted. Anotherclown (talk) 10:12, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Given the issues raised and the length of time it will likely take to work through I have now requested the review be closed with no consensus to promote at this stage - here [1]. This article is very good in my opinion but still needs some work to ensure it is complete. Of course there is nothing stopping the article from being re-nominated once the checks have been completed and I would be more than happy to review it again at this time. Anotherclown (talk) 08:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Comments. Feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

• "one of the towering political figures of modern Middle Eastern history and politics in the 20th century.": How about "one of the towering Middle Eastern political figures of the 20th century" or "one of the towering political figures of the 20th century"? I'm not sure what "modern" means here.
• "only one of two honorable Arab military actions": Not sure what this is saying.
• "The apparent disconnect between the population and the palace": "disconnect" is informal in this context, and I'm not sure what it means here.
• "began a struggle to reduce its influence over his activities": Not sure what this is saying ... you don't need a political struggle to change your own activities. What was the nature of the influence that he was trying to change?
• This is a very long article, and I'm sorry I don't have time to finish it. I copyedited down to Revolution. - Dank (push to talk) 02:01, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Hey Dank, I hope I addressed your concerns. The last one about the Brotherhood will require more research since the source I use is a bit vague with the early links between Nasser and the Brotherhood. I've been busy with classes lately, but will look into other sources as soon as possible. --Al Ameer (talk) 01:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Yes, everything looks good down to where I stopped, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 03:36, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

• CommentsSupport
  • Technical review:
    • A couple of dab links [2]:
      • Mukhabarat
      • Nasser (disambiguation)
    • External links check reveals one dead link [3]:
      • Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond (info) [uark.edu]
    • Some of the images lack Alt Text so you might consider adding it for consistency [4] (suggestion only - not an ACR req).
    • The Citation Check Tool reveals a couple of minor issues with reference consolidation:
      • {{Harvnb|Dawisha|2009|p=191}} (Multiple references contain the same content)
      • Dawisha191 (Multiple references are using the same name)
      • Aburish310 (Multiple references are using the same name)
    • Images review has been completed above.
    • The Earwig Tool reveal no issues with copyright violation or close paraphrasing [5] (no action req'd).
    • A large number of duplicate links per WP:REPEATLINK:
      • Royal Military Academy
      • 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty
      • Egyptian_Revolution_of_1952
      • Alexandria
      • Umm Kulthum
      • Helwan
      • Soviet Union
      • Aswan Dam
      • Saudi royal family
      • Khaled Mohieddin
      • Algeria
      • Palestinian Fedayeen
      • Sayyed Qutb
      • Straits of Tiran
      • Zakaria Mohieddin
      • Khartoum
      • Arab Socialist Union
      • Hussein el-Shafei
      • Beirut
      • Helwan
      • Tawfiq al-Hakim
      • Tunisia
      • Sudan
      • Abdullah al-Sallal
      • North Yemen
      • Muammar Gaddafi
      • arteriosclerosis
    • A few of the references are lacking places of publishing.
    • Will read over this today and provide a full review afterwards. Anotherclown (talk) 00:01, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Article review:
      • "Nasser received a cephalic graze wound from a policeman's bullet...", might be more accessibly worded as "Nasser received a graze to the head from a policeman's bullet..." or something like that.
      • This seems awkward: "Nasser's political activity grew more dominant throughout his school years, such that he only attended 45 days of classes during his last year of secondary school." Perhaps consider something like: "Nasser's involvement in political activity increased throughout his school years, such that he only attended 45 days of classes during his last year of secondary school..."
      • I am confused by what these sentences mean: " He strongly objected to the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, which stipulated the continued presence of British military bases in the country and was backed almost unanimously by Egypt's political forces.[8] Consequently, political unrest in Egypt declined significantly and Nasser resumed his studies at al-Nahda,[16] where he received his leaving certificate later that year." Why did political unrest decline if the opposition to the treaty was so widespread?
      • "In 1937, Nasser applied to the Royal Military Academy for army officer training..." is his motivation for joining the army known?
      • Suggest reordering this sentence: "After graduating from the academy in July 1938,[8] he was posted to the town of Mankabad near his native Beni Mur, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry." He would have been commissioned on graduating, then posted, not the other way around. Consider instead: "After graduating from the academy in July 1938, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry, and posted to the town of Mankabad near his native Beni Mur."
      • Wording seems a little awkward here: "...Nasser stayed in touch with the group's members primarily through Amer, who continued to discover interested officers...", consider instead: "Nasser stayed in touch with the group's members primarily through Amer, who continued to seek out interested officers..." or something like that.
      • "...but was ultimately refused entry to the AHC's forces by the Egyptian government for unclear reasons...." → "...but was ultimately refused entry to the AHC's forces by the Egyptian government for reasons that were unclear...."
      • "He sent emissaries to forge an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood in October 1948...", wikilink Muslim Brotherhood here (it is previously linked only in the lead).
      • "...concluded that the agenda of the Brotherhood was not compatible with his nationalism...." do we know why?
      • Repetitive language here: "By then, the organization had expanded to around ninety members; according to one member..." ("member" used twice in the same sentence), perhaps reword?
      • "On 25 January 1952, a confrontation between British forces and the police of Ismailia killed forty Egyptian policemen..." consider instead: "On 25 January 1952, a confrontation between British forces and police at Ismailia resulted in the deaths of forty Egyptian policemen..."
      • "...made songs praising Nasser's nationalism..." consider instead: "...wrote songs praising Nasser's nationalism."
      • Colourful prose here: "Nasser's Bandung efforts devotedly sought a proclamation for the avoidance of international defense alliances..." consider something like: "At Bandung Nasser's sought a proclamation for the avoidance of international defense alliances..."
      • typo here I think: "...his promotion of pan-Arabism was viewed as a threat pro-Western states in the region...", consider "... his promotion of pan-Arabism was viewed as a threat to pro-Western states in the region..."
      • "...In September, Turkish troops massed along their Syrian border..." → "...In September, Turkish troops massed along the Syrian border..."
      • missing word here I think: "...and allowed broadcast of anti-colonial propaganda from Cairo...", consider instead "...and allowed the broadcast of anti-colonial propaganda from Cairo..."
      • some redundancy here: "...Amer's increasing autonomy forced Nasser, who had already had diabetes..." → "...Amer's increasing autonomy forced Nasser, who already had diabetes..."
      • Repetitive language: "Nasser refused the call[208][209] upon determination that the air force lacked pilots and Amer's handpicked officers lacked competence." (specifically "lacked" twice) Consider instead: "Nasser refused the call upon determination that the air force lacked pilots and Amer's handpicked officers were incompetent."
      • "...causing a large exodus of Egyptians from that area....", suggest more simply: "...causing an exodus of Egyptians from that area."
      • I have no expertise in this area, so will confine my cmts mostly to prose. That said I get the feeling that the article covers the topic fairly well (other the few areas above where I have asked for some clarification) and I couldn't see any obvious issues with bias / balance etc.
      • The article covers a lot of ground and is quite large, but it seems to do so using summary style and it didn't seem to be excessive.
      • Given the nature of the subject (a major political figure) and the events he was involved in I think the article does a fairly good job of presenting these appropriately and in good faith.
      • Only possible issue I see is that the criticism section could possibly be expanded (although don't really know of major criticism that is missing given my unfamiliarity with the subject). Happy to accept it as is if this is reflective of the literature though.
      • This is an important article and I am impressed with what you have produced so far. Unfortunately I have only been able to go through it fairly quickly (working tonight and dealing with a few issues by phone), and I am not really familiar with the subject. Happy to discuss any issues that you disagree with. Will have another look once you have responded to my cmts.
      • All the best with the project. Anotherclown (talk) 11:13, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
        • Thanks for the review and the suggestions. I believe I've fixed/addressed the points you brought up above. Concerning the technical review, the first disambiguation link is just a hatnote, but I think it's necessary to keep as long as "Nasser" redirects to the article. The one about "mukhabarat" is trickier and I'm thinking about just removing the sentence altogether. When it's used in this instance it's not describing a particular Egyptian intelligence agency, but the state of domestic espionage in general. For the prose review, I took all of your suggestions. As for criticism, it was a bit longer before, but as with many sections in the article, I reduced it per the peer review/copyedit that was undertaken prior to this A-class nomination. Everything that was rid of was redundant though. I'm sure there's more criticism of Nasser out there, but I believe the major criticisms directly related to him have been addressed. --Al Ameer (talk) 01:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
        • P.S. Actually, I forgot to add his motivation for entering the military academy. Will add it as soon as I can find it. --Al Ameer (talk) 03:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
          • Those changes are looking good so far. Pls ping me if you can find any info on his reason for joining the Army and once you have finished adding the locations to the references and I'll have a final look. Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 10:34, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
            • Found some info about his motivations to enter the service and topple the monarchy in the Aburish book. Please copyedit the new additions if necessary. --Al Ameer (talk) 17:40, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

That looks fine. I added the missing publication locations. One last issue: there is some inconsistency in the presentation of ISBNs. Some use hyphens and others do not. Can this be rectified? Anotherclown (talk) 10:11, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• I've used a script to reformat them. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:05, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks Hawkeye. I've added my spt now. Anotherclown (talk) 10:40, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Thanks to both of you. Cheers --Al Ameer (talk) 20:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support Comments: G'day, I had a quick look and it looks quite impressive. I have a couple of minor suggestions:
  • please check for consistency of English variation. I found some US and some British spelling, for instance: "kilometre" (British), but "defense" (US);
  • repetition: "After briefly returning from Sudan, Nasser returned in September 1942.." (returning and returned);
  • "within the Egyptian Armed Forces's..." --> "within the Egyptian Armed Force's";
  • "Nationalization of Suez Canal" --> "Nationalization of the Suez Canal";
  • "Nasser's personal hobbies included photography, chess, magazines in Arabic, English, and French, American films, and classical music" --> "Nasser's personal hobbies included photography, playing chess, reading magazines in Arabic, English, and French, American films, and listening to classical music"?
  • If you wouldn't mind looking into these points, I will come back try to come back and have a more thorough look a little later. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:15, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the pointing those out. I fixed them, but for the American/British spellings, I couldn't find any other inconsistent words from a scan of the article or through searching for specific common words like "centre" or "organise". To be clear, the spelling I've used in the article is American. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:57, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
      • G'day, I had another read through today. Happy with your changes. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:04, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

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

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

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No consensus to promote at this time Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:01, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

George Juskalian

Nominator(s): Proudbolsahye (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it is currently at GA. I want to hear a further assessment from WikiProject Military History before nominated it to FA. Proudbolsahye (talk) 22:21, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments, leaning oppose This is a very detailed article, but I have some concerns about the relevance and factual accuracy of some material, as well as the reliability of the some of the main sources:

• "George Juskalian was also the cousin of famed Medal of Honor recipient" - I would have thought that all MoH recipients are "famed"?
• "he was instrumental in the building of a national park" - what does this mean? Did he lead the team who set up the park? (which seems unlikely for such a young person)
• "He volunteered for active service for the United States Army in 1939." - needs a source
• "George Juskalian was given the rank as first lieutenant" - wouldn't this have been his prior rank? (earned through ROTC)
• "with a salary of $120 a month" - is this relevant?
• "The division became famous for conducting the Carolina Maneuvers which was a preparatory exercise for the World War II effort" - what's the relevance of this? The 1st Division was already famous for its role in WW1.
• "Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Teddy Roosevelt's oldest son, became commander of Juskalian's 26th Infantry Regiment in 1941" - is this relevant? Roosevelt was many levels above that of a mere company commander
• "The soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division were among the first American troops shipped out for WWII" - somewhat dubious. There were already two full US Army divisions in Australia at this time, with the 1st Marine Division in combat on Guadalcanal.
• "with Roosevelt as assistant 1st Infantry Division commander." - is this relevant?
• "When landing in Oran on November 8, 1942, the American soldiers met resistance from the Afrika Korps under the command of Erwin Rommel as they began climbing Mount Jabal." - totally wrong: Oran was defended by Vichy French troops, and there were very few (no?) Germans in the country at the time
• "With supporting fire from British battleships" - I don't think that British battleships provided fire support for this landing. I'd suggest that you consult a history of the landings at Oran.
• "During the campaign, Juskalian distinguished himself in battle and earned the Silver Star." - what did he do to earn this prestigious medal?
• "The POWs partaked in various activities such as organizing a theater group, orchestra, library, athletics, language school and etc." - what's the "and etc" referring to? This also makes the POW camp sound like a holiday camp, which doesn't seem appropriate - the POWs tended to be bored and underfed and made to do menial work
• "The German Gestapo entered into the rooms" - did the Gestapo really operate in POW camps?
• "Dwight D. Eisenhower, the General of the Army" - Ike was a General of the Army, but his job was the Chief of Staff of the Army
• "His responsibilities included staffing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined Chiefs of Staff" - "staffing" implies that he was a member of these committees, which obviously isn't what you mean. I'd suggest replacing this with "supporting" or similar
• "First Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division" - some links are needed here (also, it's the 1st Battalion)
• What's the relevance of the names of the company and regimental commanders in the paragraph which begins with "When the Korean War commenced"
• What was Juskalian's role in the Battle of Pork Chop Hill, and does it really justify a section? It seems that he withdrew his battalion when ordered and that was that.
• "As principal logistics officer, Juskalian supervised all the U.S. Army advisors to the Iranian Army's technical service department chiefs, all of whom were general officers." - colonels don't supervise generals
• "Additionally, his office was responsible for preparing the annual program for the input of military material and construction from U.S. resources to the Iranian armed forces, a program which ran millions of dollars annually" - what's the relevance of the "millions of dollars"? Colonels typically command forces of about 3000 people and the budget for the unit or serve in equivalent roles, so this isn't that significant.
• "Beatrice MacDougall, the widow of Lieutenant Jack W. Kirk" - can this woman be described in something other than the context of the man to whom she was previously married?
• "Gregory, a son by his previous marriage with Beatrice MacDougall, lives in Stockbridge, Massachusetts with his wife Christian and family." - what's the relevance of this guy's living arrangements?
• "letters of appreciation were sent from former Senator John Warner and Presidential candidate Bob Dole were read." - not good grammar
• What establishes the following as reliable sources?:
  • Triumph and Glory: Armenian World War II Heroes (appears to be from a small press)
  • "Recollections of a War Veteran". The Virginia Connection (local news website, with the article comprising mainly of the subject of the article's recollections)
  • "George Juskalian, in His Own Words". Centre View (as above) Nick-D (talk) 07:53, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Nick-D for a great review. I have fixed most of the issues you have raised above. I have removed much of the information you considered irrelevant and have made clarifications elsewhere. Here are justification and responses to some of the few other concerns that I have yet to have addressed. I also have my own questions I answers for before making any additional changes.

• "This also makes the POW camp sound like a holiday camp, which doesn't seem appropriate" - Please see the official website of the Oflag 64 Association set up by former POWs of the Oflag 64. It states on the main page, "The “Kriegies” (short for Kriegsgefangenen: prisoners of war) made the best of their situation organizing sports events, musical and theatrical performances and escape plans."
• "Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Teddy Roosevelt's oldest son, became commander of Juskalian's 26th Infantry Regiment in 1941" - Is the "Teddy Roosevelt's oldest son" part irrelevant to you? or the entire sentence? Just let me know, I'll delete or fix accordingly.

Now in terms of reliability of sources, my justifications are simple. Firstly, they don't make outrageous claims. They just provide additional details needed to establish a more comprehensive article. Also, the sources above which you have mentioned are readily verifiable and affirmed by other independent sources. Though these are recollections or offline books, I've yet to come across anything that claims anything contradictory or in the wrong. I can safely say that almost all of the claims can be affirmed through other sources. The above sources may just be giving a few more detail than others.

Some of these other sources that can be use to verify or reaffirm include:

• Numerous Congressional Records (Other examples include this and this)
• Peer-reviewed sources
• Books published by a symposium of Armenian-American veterans (side note: Tashjian is a respectable editor/writer who is a regular contributor to peer-reviewed journals)
• POW records
• And others such as Church bulletins, obituaries and etc. Proudbolsahye (talk) 20:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The nonsense about the 1st Infantry Division fighting Germans around Oran was preserved when the relevant sentence was re-written, adding material saying that "The POWs had the opportunity to partake in various activities" really makes it sound like they were in a holiday camp, which they weren't (and that website isn't a reliable source), and there's no way that Mr Juskalian was supervising officers who greatly out-ranked him in Iran. I'm not at all convinced that those sources meet Wikipedia's criteria for reliable sources: in particular, the article is heavily dependent on the recollections of Mr Juskalian in his old age. Nick-D (talk) 08:38, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

1. I'll look into the Oran resistance. The source doesn't mention German resistance in particular and it may be the fault of my OR.
2. The article doesn't say it was a holiday residence as assumed. It just said they partaked in various activities. Although I do believe the Oflag64 Association website is a reliable source, here are additional sources that talk about the various activities the POWs of the Oflag 64 conducted: (Movie about Oflag 64 per New York Times, "The men were allowed to have sports, music, and theater events, and had a camp newspaper.", Athletics and other activities were organised on a continuing basis in the camp to help occupy the prisoners' time., Oflag 64's first year of sports is a story of rags to riches. From the first pick-up softball game, played with a...etc. etc.
3. He supervised Army advisors to the general officers of the Iranian Army, not the United States. Proudbolsahye (talk) 17:44, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I've just (inexhaustibly belatedly - sorry) revisited my comments, and I'm afraid that I'm going to maintain the oppose. While the article is much improved (nice work), I'm still concerned around the reliability of the sourcing here. Nick-D (talk) 11:19, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• Comments: G'day, I had a quick go at copy editing some of the article. Please check you are happy with my changes. To be honest, I think it might need a bit more work, but I will hold off to see how you go with Nick's concerns regarding sourcing. The only other suggestion I'd like to make at this moment is can you please add a ref to this: "Kevork found a job at the Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Works in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Armenian Church of Our Savior on January 18, 1891." Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:12, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
• I did some more copy editing tonight, but there were a couple of points/things I will need clarification/help on:
  • I found this a bit awkward: "George Juskalian was also the cousin of Medal of Honor recipient of the U.S. Army, Ernest Dervishian." (The issue here is that the start of this paragraph is about Kevork, and then it ends with George with no real link. Can you please try to move this to a more appropriate paragraph, or reword it?) AustralianRupert (talk) 12:23, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Fixed. Moved to personal life section. Proudbolsahye (talk) 20:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
      • Looks good, thank you. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:49, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
  • When did this take place: "He left active service and intended to study law at the American University in Washington, DC"? It seems like it might be out of sequence with the sentence about working with the FBI.AustralianRupert (talk) 12:23, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
    • The sentence is in line with his life. He wanted to go to Law School but his father died in 1938. Naturally, it should be around 1937-38 that he planned on going but unfortunately there's no mention in sources when he planned on going to Law School. Personally, I don't think it is important because he never actually went. Also, a date is provided in the next sentence which gives a proper approximation as to when he planned to go to law school.Proudbolsahye (talk) 20:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
      • My concern is that at the moment the chronology is uncertain. At one moment he is in the FBI investigating Dillger, and then in the next paragraph it says "He left active service..." To me, active service means the military, so did he leave the FBI and go back to the Army or do you mean he left the FBI? If not, when did he leave the FBI? Did his father die before or after he joined the FBI? One option might be to move the sentence so that it comes after the sentence discussing the national park, if that is where it came. Thus, it might then read: "where he helped build a national park. After leaving active service, Juskalian had intended to study law at the American University in Washington, D.C., but when his father died in 1938, he gave up this plan and returned to Fitchburg to reunite with his mother and assist his brother-in-law's dry-cleaning business. That year, after passing a government exam, Juskalian became a fingerprint classifier for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and took part in the in search for John Dillinger, who was on the "Top 10 Most Wanted" list. He then volunteered for active service in 1939." (Also when he volunteered for active service in 1939, do we know where he was posted?) AustralianRupert (talk) 10:49, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
• Fixed according to your proposal. Paragraph looks fine now. He was posted at Fort Devens.
  • I think there are too many headings used in the article. For instance some of the low level headings in the "German Prisoner of War" section are probably redundant. Please try to reduce these.AustralianRupert (talk) 12:23, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Well, his POW life is very significant and long to say the least. I was debating whether I should remove them, but it will make the whole section utterly long and confusing. I chose to divide up the paragraphs just so the reader won't get lost and can pin point when, where, and which camps he went to just by looking at the section headers. Proudbolsahye (talk) 20:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
      • Understood, but I think you need to work to reduce this somehow (I note that it was also an issue for the FAC reviewer). A single heading "Prisoner of War" is probably all you need in my opinion. One way might be by reducing the level of detail in this area by reducing the use of block quotes. For instance, the secton on Oflag XIII B, is really just repetition (as you have pretty much said all of that in your own words previously): "Juskalian would later describe: "They arrived the end of March, and the German guards fled, but there weren't enough trucks to take us all out there. German infantry soldiers were all around and my buddy Pete and I were recaptured, we were tired and depressed but thankful to be alive." AustralianRupert (talk) 10:49, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
• Reduced category headers. Removed "Capture" and "Liberated as POW" headers. Come to think of it, I'm glad you mentioned this. The "Captured" and "Liberated as POW" looks pretty unprofessional. Also, I reduced that long quote that was repetitive of information already mentioned. I have now reduced it to "Juskalian later remarked: "We were tired and depressed but thankful to be alive.""
  • "Juskalian received orders from Colonel Kern to withdraw his forces". Kern's role probably needs to be described here. For instance, was he the regimental commander? AustralianRupert (talk) 12:23, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Fixed. Yes he was a regimental commander. Proudbolsahye (talk) 20:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
      • Great, thanks. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:49, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I will come back tomorrow night and continue the review. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:23, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Fixed some of the issues. The other issues I might want you to hear what I have to say about them. Otherwise, thank you. Looking forward to hearing your next questions and concerns. Proudbolsahye (talk) 20:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
      • "The other issues I might want you to hear what I have to say about them": sure, please let me know what you think. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:49, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Let alone the fact that almost everything used in that source reflects the information provided in peer-reviewed journals and United States Congressional Records, the source actually does a good job of paraphrasing his accounts and overall achievements. In fact, in the source, most of his recollections are paraphrased. Might I add, the source doesn't make bold claims, it merely provides added detail to various facts which, as mentioned above, appear it various other sources as well. Proudbolsahye (talk) 22:27, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay I made the necessary edits. These edits were very productive. Looking forward to your remarks/questions. Proudbolsahye (talk) 02:35, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

• I took another run through tonight and did some more copy editing. I think I'm pretty much done now, except for the following questions:
  • "Juskalian married Beatrice MacDougall, the widow of Lieutenant Jack W. Kirk, one of Juskalian's first company commanders" --> do we know when they married? AustralianRupert (talk) 12:37, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
    • According to this snippet view, it is 31 August 1951. I know it's a snippet view but I think we should be okay.
      • Yes, that looks fine. Thanks. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:40, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
  • "After his marriage, Juskalian and his wife" --> which marriage was this, the first or the second? AustralianRupert (talk) 12:37, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Second marriage.
      • Okay, your changes look good, I'll be happy to support so long as Nick is happy you've addressed his concerns. I think we've dealt with a few through the copy editing process, but there might be a couple remaining. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:40, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment
  • No dab links [12] (no action req'd).
  • External links check reveals a dead link [13]:
    • Juskalian, Decorated Local Veteran, Honored (info) [patch.com]
  • Images lack Alt Text so you might consider adding it [14] (not an ACR requirement - suggestion only).
  • The Citation Check Tool reveals no issues with reference consolidation (no action req'd).
  • Images all appear to be PD/free or licensed and seem appropriate to the article (no action req'd).
  • The Earwig Tool reveal no issues with copyright violation or close paraphrasing [15] (no action req'd).
  • No duplicate links per WP:REPEATLINK (no action req'd).
  • repetitive language in the lead: "After Korea, he became an advisor to the Imperial Iranian Army in Tehran (1957–1958). During the Vietnam War he became a military advisor..." ("he became" x 2). Perhaps reword one?
  • "arriving in Ellis Island on November 15, 1887....", consider instead: "arriving at Ellis Island on November 15, 1887..."
  • "Juskalian was called to active duty at Fort Devens, Massachusetts and was promoted to the rank as first lieutenant in November 1940." Why? (part of the US military build up due to the war in Europe one assumes but adding something on this would provide context to the reader).
  • "Juskalian later learned, while still a POW...", abbrev POW needs formal introduction here (abbreviations introduced in the lead are treated separately)
  • "... shared food rations..." → consider more simply "... shared rations..."
  • "... The tunnel already was some 80 to 100 feet long...." consider instead "... The tunnel was already some 80 to 100 feet long..."
  • This sentence needs some work: "The tins were also used to create a pipe for fresh air to funnel through the tunnel with the assistance of a hand-cranked fan at the beginning of the tunnel." The funnel and tunnel construction sounds bad to my ear, can it be reworded? Also consider changing "at the beginning of the tunnel" to "at its entrance" or something like that.
  • The paragraph beginning: "Before the tunnel had been completed, the American POWs" is fairly repetitive using the construction "American POWs" or "the two American POWs", can it be reworded?
  • "On August 31, 1951, Juskalian married Beatrice MacDougall, the widow of Lieutenant Jack W. Kirk, one of Juskalian's first company commanders...", consider more simply: "On August 31, 1951, Juskalian married Beatrice MacDougall, the widow of Lieutenant Jack W. Kirk, one of his first company commanders." Anotherclown (talk) 22:36, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you for the review. Im out of town as of now. It will be hard to go over these concerns. However, as far as I can see, user Yerevanci has taken charge on some of the stuff. Proudbolsahye (talk) 09:10, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

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

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

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No consensus to promote at this time Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:43, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Ulster Defence Regiment

Nominator(s): SonofSetanta (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I have reviewed it extensively over the last two weeks and made many improvements. The article is free from error, properly referenced and complies with WP:NPOV. SonofSetanta (talk) 16:43, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments: G'day, welcome to Milhist A-class review. The first point I want to make is thank you for your hard work so far. I hope that you will find the following comments helpful. That said, unfortunately I don't believe that this article meets the A-class criteria in its current state. Nevertheless, if you wish to achieve this, I would like to help you, so I will provide a few observations/suggestions:

• I note is that the article doesn't appear to have been through a peer review or a Good Article review prior to its arrival here at A-class. While this is not mandatory, it is usually advisable as A-class criteria are quite strict and Milhist ACR aims to be just below Featured article standard. Thus, going through a GA review prior to A-class usually makes the ACR a bit easier.
• in regards to length, I think the article may be a bit too detailed and I don't think stays focused enough for an encyclopedia article. For instance, please consider if it really necessary to discuss things like duty hours, personal accomodation, information cards, rates of pay, the number of Elizabeth Crosses not awarded, etc. or if it is, whether the weight that is placed upon these topics is suitable (most certainly they would if you were writing a book, but perhaps not here. That said, before cutting information, please ask others for an opinion on this, as I am only one editor and others may have a better knowledge of how to handle this topic than me);
• be careful of over capitalisation. For instance, per WP:MILTERMS ranks should not be capitalised unless being used as a title, e.g. "appointed Lieutenant Colonel" should be "appointed lieutenant colonel";
• there appear to be a number of single sentence, or very short paragraphs. Where possible, I suggest merging these to make larger paragraphs;
• be careful of overlinking terms. As a general rule, a term should be linked once in the lead, once in the infobox and once in the body of the article (although sometimes it is acceptable to link less common terms a second time in the body if it is felt it will help reader understanding). Currently there are quite a few overlinked terms. If you install this script, you will be able to highlight them;
• "sectarian outrages or robberies" (I'm not sure about the use of the word "outrages" here. A more descriptive term might be better);
• "Non-commissioned officers (nco's)" --> "non-commissioned officers (NCOs)" (abbreviations should be capitalised here and the apostrophe is incorrect);
• this reads quite awkwardly: "A study in 1988 showed that half the women serving were married and 42% were mothers, two thirds of which were infants or of school age." Perhaps this might be better, "A study in 1988 showed that half the women serving were married and 42% were mothers; the children of two thirds of the mothers were infants or of school age."
• is there a citation for this: "Two UDR soldiers were killed by the regular army, three by loyalist paramilitaries, and the remaining 192 by republican paramilitaries (mainly the Provisional IRA). Four Greenfinches were killed during the Troubles, Private Eva Martin, L/Cpl Jean Leggett, Cpl Heather Kerrigan and Pte Margaret A. Hearst."
• is there a citation for this: "Three-ton and four-ton Bedford trucks were used for large troop movements. A range of unmarked civilian cars and vans was used for staff, administration and covert activities."
• is there a citation for this: "Each battalion was able to communicate with other battalions using C42's and B47's installed in the battalion or company Operations room (Ops Room) or Communications Centre (Comcen) as well as the BID 150system of cryptic coding and scrambler telephone system."
• is there a citation for this: "referring to the redundancy payments received by former UDR soldiers still serving with the Royal Irish Regiment at the end of Operation Banner (The official army title for operations in Northern Ireland)."
• is there a citation for this: "Each battalion had a number of pipers who also participated in a centralised pipe band formally called the Pipes & Drums of the Ulster Defence Regiment. Its uniform followed the traditional military dress for Irish pipers, consisting of a saffron kilt, bottle-green "Prince Charlie" jacket, bottle-green cape and bottle-green caubeen adorned with a double-size cap badge. Unlike other Irish regiments in the British Army, UDR pipers did not wear a hackle and he lining colour of the cloaks was unique to the regiment."
• including constructions like this "See: Miami Showband killings" in the middle of a paragraph seems a bit ineligant. It would be better to work the link into a sentence within the body of the text;
• is there a citation for the paragraph beginning: "The plan was approved by early summer 1991 and proposed:"
• is there a citation for this: "The City of Belfast and a number of boroughs throughout Northern Ireland paid their own tribute to the regiment by granting freedoms including: North Down, Larne, and Newtownards."
• is there a citation for this: "The UDR Memorial is in addition to the UDR Roll of Honour situated beside Lisburn War Memorial, Castle Street, Lisburn that commemorates UDR personnel from the Lisburn area who died in the conflict."
• this is not a sentence: "Referred to colloquially as barrack-busters.";
• this is not a sentence: "Killed in action on 9 August 1971 at a vehicle checkpoint (as part of the internment call-out) close to the Clady Bridge border crossing.";
• this is not a sentence: "Killed by a former member of his own company "possessed of strong Republican views" who moved across the border after the killing and is not known to have returned to Northern Ireland."
• this is editorialising: "Unsurprisingly this fact is..."
• I'm not sure this is correct: "for arresting the shootists" ("shootists" should probably be "shooters");
• be careful about consistency of date format. For instance, compare "2013-07-17" with "21 January 1970";
• try to make your citations as consistent as possible. For instance compare "Potter p311" with "Potter 2001, p. 94" and "Chris Ryder, The UDR-An Instrument of Peace? ISBN..." (they all use different styles)
• please avoid using all caps for titles in your notes/citations. Title case is easier on the eye. For instance "ULSTER DEFENCE REGIMENT (Hansard, 3 February 1972)" probably should be "Ulster Defence Regiment (Hansard, 3 February 1972);
• there are several "page needed" tags which need to be fixed;
• the Bibliography would probably be better if it were to use authors first rather than the titles, particularly as your short notes/citations use author names. In this regard, you might consider using a template to format your references, such as the {{cite book}} or {{cite web}} etc. as it will help ensure consistency;
• In terms of progression from here, I recommend the following: make an attempt to address the comments I have made as best you can, then wait for this review to run its course (it will probably take another four to six weeks, unless you ask for it to be closed earlier). After that, I would recommend listing the article for a peer review at WP:PR and a copy edit at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests. After both of those are complete, I suggest asking for a Good Article review by listing the article at WP:GAN. Once all of those processes are complete, you can consider whether you want to bring it back here (if it doesn't pass this time), or go to Featured Article Candidates. If you have any questions about my comments, please feel free to ask. Cheers and good luck with taking this article further. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 13:42, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

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

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

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No consensus to promote at this time. Anotherclown (talk) 10:55, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Edward Soriano

Nominator(s): RightCowLeftCoast (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it has been peer reviewed, expanded during the course of its GA nomination (which it has passed), and has been additionally expanded and copy edited. If there are any shortcomings I am willing to work on the article until the shortcomings are dealt with, with hopes of passing this review and moving to FAR. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:05, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• "was the highest-ranking Filipino American officer to have served": is the highest-ranking ("was" would mean he's dead) [more soon] - Dank (push to talk) 21:49, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Modified.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:37, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

• I'm glad you're thinking about FAC and I hope this passes, but it's unusual for articles to pass FAC with a single-paragraph lead; if a single paragraph really does summarize the article, then the article is significantly shorter than most FAs and might be opposed for that reason.
• "Born in the Philippines, Soriano moved with his family to the United States during his childhood, graduating from Salinas High School, and being commissioned as an officer through Army ROTC at San Jose State University.": Unless there's a word such as "after" or "before" in there somewhere, the present participles suggest that events happened in the same time frame, and they didn't, so: "Born in the Philippines, Soriano moved with his family to the United States and graduated from Salinas High School before being commissioned as an officer through Army ROTC at San Jose State University."
• "Serving during Operations Desert Shield, Operation Desert Shield, and Operation Joint Endeavor, he retired in March 2005.": Same problem here with the present participle. Also, Desert Shield is mentioned twice ... if you meant Desert Storm, then better would be: "After serving in operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Joint Endeavor, he retired in March 2005." (The lowercase on plural "operations" isn't mandatory, but most style guides prefer it.)
• "Additionally, he was the first Filipino American promoted to be a general officer in the United States Army.": I recommend removing this here, and adding to the first sentence: ", and the first promoted to general officer."
• " Since retiring from the Army, Soriano has worked for Northrop Grumman, and sat on various boards of directors.": No comma, and "sat" isn't wrong, but "has sat" is usually recommended.
• There's no prohibition on citations in the lead section at FAC, but reviewers may object to so many in such a short lead. [I'll stop there.] - Dank (push to talk) 19:30, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I have implemented your changes to the lead, please see this diff.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:42, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

If a second paragraph is added to the lead, what would you suggest? The lead goes into why the subject is notable (a notable first, and a notable status within an ethnic group), the subject's early life, and career. Would the lead expand upon the subject's career into more detail?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:54, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

One or two sentences per section, maybe. - Dank (push to talk) 01:01, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

How about this? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:56, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Looks good. - Dank (push to talk) 23:13, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Is that is all that needs to be improved for the lead, or the infobox? What about the body of the article? Please let me know how I can improve the article to achieve Class-A status, and make it easier when this article reached FAC.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:58, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• I had intended to review at GA actually - an interesting individual.
• Worth linking operations Desert Shield etc.
• "Since retiring from the Army, Soriano has worked for Northrop Grumman" - with a fairly short lead, you could probably afford to explain what the company is, e.g. "worked for the defense contractor, Northrop Gumman", or similar.
• " Soriano came to the United States in the early 1950s when his father, Fred Soriano, a soldier in the United States Army, was assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia;[1] he was six when he left the Philippines." - I'm guessing from this that we know exactly when he left, rather than just the decade?
• "Soriano's mom's name was Encarnacion." - "mother's name"
• " San Jose State University" - worth linking
• "is married to Vivian Guillermo, whose parents come from Laoag but was born in the United States" - I wasn't sure what this was trying to tell us about his wife (i.e. is her ethnic heritage or birth place important to the article?)
• "Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps" - worth linking
• Military career. It was a shame that there's not more that could be said about this; I'm guessing there are no further sources that could be used?
• "In June 2004, as the commander of Fort Lewis, Soriano ordered the court-martial of Ryan G. Anderson,[20] who was sentenced in September 2004 to life in prison with the possibility of parole after Soriano removed the death penalty as a possible sentencing option." - what was Anderson sentenced for?
• " In September 2004, Soriano met with Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at Malacanang,[22] who had met before during Arroyo's state visit in May 2003,[23] after being invited by General Narciso Abaya, Chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines" - "who he had met before"?
• "List of notable Filipino American servicemembers" - is "servicemembers" a real word? (NB: it may be a US Eng variant, but I've never seen it before) Hchc2009 (talk) 18:50, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

NB: I don't know if this is a reliable source, but there's some interesting additional information on him here. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Here are the changes that I have made in response with the above suggestions.

Now I had done implemented some of the changes. I did not provide new wikilinks to San Jose State University and Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Both are already provided wikilinks in the lead section, and an additional wikilink wouldn't be abiding by WP:OVERLINK.

As for other points,

• Yes, we would know the year which he had moved away from the Philippines, but the reference does not give an exact year, which if we added it, someone could argue WP:SYNTH or WP:OR so I am not going to add that at this time.
• I had not found other reliable sources that give additional information of the subject's military service
• As for information about his wife, Vivian Guillermo, it could be argued that the information is trivial. However, it also verifies that she is also a Filipino American, but differs from the subject of this article as she is an American-born Fil-Am and is a second generation.
• Servicemember is a word, which is a more recent use rather than calling someone by the service specific common designation (Soldier, Marine, Sailor, Airman, Coast Guardsman). Please see this link.

I too saw the website which is linked above, but as it has questionable status as a reliable source I didn't utilize it. It might fall under WP:ELMAYBE.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:10, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments

I did the GA review for this article, but I see a number of good improvements have been made since then. Some comments:

• I didn't pick it up when doing the GA review, but strictly speaking there is no need for cites in the lead (and infobox) as everything in the lead/infobox should be in the main body of the article (and cited there).
• The lead and infobox refers to "Operation Joint Endeavor" but there is no mention of this elsewhere in the article.

That's my two cents worth. Zawed (talk) 09:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, real life got in the way. I made a mention of service in Bosnia, in the body of the article, with this change here. Although citations in the lead or the infobox are not necessary, per WP:CITELEAD (and given a past Class A review that sought that everything be cited), I am cautioning towards leaving the citations in the lead.

Please let me know anything else I can do with the article to improve its quality so it can meet Class-A requirements.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:25, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments:

• the main images all seem appropriately licenced. I couldn't check all the medals etc as I have a limited download, but my advice is to make sure these are good to go before nominating at FAC;
• his date of birth should probably be added to the Early life section;
• not sure about this: "In the 1960s, his family moved to Salinas, California, leading to Soriano graduating from Salinas High School". (specifically "leading"). Perhaps this might work better, "In the 1960s, his family moved to Salinas, California, and Soriano later attended Salinas High School".
• this sounds awkward: "Soriano is married to Vivian Guillermo, whose parents come from Laoag but was born in the United States, and they have raised two children, Melissa and Keith". Perhaps try, "Soriano is married to Vivian Guillermo, who was born in the United States to Laoag natives. The couple have two children, Melissa and Keith."
• "which was followed by his leadership of an anti-tank platoon in the 508th Infantry." --> "which was followed by command of an anti-tank platoon in the 508th Infantry."
• "the army" (in Australia we would capitalise this as "the Army" (as a defacto proper noun as it is referring to a specific army), but I'm not sure about the US). I will leave it up to you to decide what is best;
• this seems a bit awkward: "Returning to various positions in Virginia and The Pentagon, these including..." Perhaps try, "Returning to the United States, he undertook various positions in Virginia and The Pentagon, including..."
• "force provider" seems a little jargony. What does it actually mean ("Fort Lewis units deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom" perhaps...)
• "In September 2004, Soriano met with Philippine President"... (where did this take place, in the US or the Philippines?
• the capitalisation here looks a bit irregular: "the current President of the board of directors". Perhaps try, "the current president of the board of directors";
• I wonder if it would make sense to add some mention of why he received his decorations in the Military career section. For instance, maybe you could just mention why he got the major ones. That might help expand the article a little;
• do we know when soriano and his wife married?
• "Chief of staff" --> this should either be "chief of staff" or "Chief of Staff"
• inconsistent "3d Battalion" v. "3rd and Ist Infantry Divisions"
• inconsistent "operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm" v "Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm". Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:08, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
  • As there hasn't been any response to these comments, I have made most of these changes myself. There are a few I can't deal with, though. I will be happy to support once these are addressed. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:35, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

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

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

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No consensus to promote at this time Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:55, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Belgium in World War II

Nominator(s): Brigade Piron (talk)

Since I am not in a position to implement a major change suggested (with regard to reputable sources), I think it would be best to close the review. Thanks to everyone for their comments though.Brigade Piron (talk) 13:12, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I think it would be a good addition to WP:MHP. It has recently been promoted to GA status. Brigade Piron (talk) 21:25, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments (not a full review): G'day, good work so far. I had a quick look at the changes that have been made since the GA review and at this stage, I have only looked at referencing.

• In this regard, for a successful A-class review, I believe that the following sentences need referencing:
  • "Belgian Congo remained loyal to the government in exile and was put at the disposal of the Allies, making a significant contribution to the Allied war effort" (specifically who states that their contribution to the Allied war effort was "significant" and that they "remained loyal");
  • "These were repressed by military force, often violently."
  • "In February 1945, Achille Van Acker replaced Pierlot as Prime Minister."
  • "Léon Degrelle however, managed to escape to Francoist Spain amidst the chaos of the war's end, where he remained until his death in 1994."
  • "Belgium was also a key player in the unsuccessful negotiations about the creation of a European Defence Community (EDC) in the 1950s. Belgium was assigned a sector of the British zone in West Germany, around the town of Cologne, which it occupied from 1945. Belgian soldiers remained in Germany until their final withdrawal in 2002."
• Reference/note 59 has a "page needed" tag that should be fixed.
• once these are done, I will come back and take a more thorough look. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:09, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
  • All done! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:55, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
• in the lead you mention the figures of 88,000; 1.05% and 8% but they do not appear in the body of the article. If they are important enough to be in the lead, they should probably be in the body of the article somewhere as well. If you do this, and cite them in the body, the references in the lead could be removed;
• inconsistent hyphenation: "army-in-exile" (in the lead) v. "Belgian Army in Exile" (section header);
• in the Holocaust section, I think the short paragraph starting "Of the 25,000 deported..." probably should be merged with the paragaph above it;
• inconsistent terminology: "Begian Army in Exile" v. "Belgian forces in exile";
• "400 Belgian pilots served in the Royal Air Force" --> Probably should be "Four hundred Belgian pilots served in the Royal Air Force" per WP:ORDINAL figures shouldn't be used to start a sentence;
• wath out for overlinking. I removed a couple, but the duplicate link checker tool reports a few more: "Yellow badge", "Auschwitz concentration camp", Hubert Pierlot", "Royal Air Force", "United Kingdom", "Canada", "1st Belgian Infantry Brigade", "Antwerp"; "Royal Question"; Fort Breendonk";"Pierlot IV Government"; "Rexism", "Jozef-Ernest van Roey";
• "western front" --> probably should be "Western Front" as it seems to be a defacto proper noun;
• "File:Sswallonie.jpg": this probably needs a US licence as well as the German one (on the image description page);
• is there a url or book that can be added as the source from where "File:99th Infantry Division Moving Through Wirtzfeld.jpg" was taken? Currently it just gives the source as the US Army Center for Military History, but it would have been scanned from somewhere...
• is there a reference for Note 1?
• final point, I found the prose a little awkward in places, have you thought about listing it at WP:GOCE for a copy edit? AustralianRupert (talk) 09:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
  • G'day, its been a couple of weeks now since I posted these comments. Are you able to provide an update on how you are going with this? If you don't agree with my comments, I'm more than happy to discuss. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:39, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments It's always nice to see good-quality articles on "big" topics such as this. I have the following comments:

Thanks! If it is OK, I will attempt to respond to each point individually for clarity. ---Brigade Piron (talk) 15:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• The 'Background' section seems a bit brief - can you say more about the country's defensive plans? (in particular, did the Belgian Government believe that it could actually hold off a German offensive in 1939, or was the goal to play for time by slowing down the German force?)
• The material on the fighting in 1940 doesn't note that British and French forces entered the country as soon as the Germans invaded - this was actually the main body of the British-French forces, and they deployed as part of a plan which was pre-arranged with the Belgian Government. This also raises the question of why the Belgian Government didn't allow British and French troops to take up positions in the country before this time.

Belgium was neutral, to allow Allied troops into the country before the declaration of war would have been a clear violation of this. I must admit I have not heard that the plan was pre-arranged, but I will make a note of it.

I've somewhat over-stated things, but there was a degree of cooperation. The Belgians appear to have acted in general accordance with the Allied plans without properly coordinating with them. See the British official history of the campaign here for a discussion of this. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• "It is estimated that around two million civilians fled their homes during the campaign." - can more be said about this? This must have been a traumatic experience for the country.
• "and could only field 180 serviceable aircraft out of its total of 234" - this is actually a pretty good serviceability rate for military air units of the era, and wouldn't be considered awful today

I'm not an expert in this area. I cite the figure in the context in which Mollo (2001) uses it only.

• "The military held out against German forces for 18 days, against overwhelming odds" - this seems to be putting a positive gloss on things. The Belgian military was comprehensively outmaneuvered and outfought and had to surrender after a very short campaign. I don't think that the odds were "overwhelming" - the Belgian military was quite large, and was operating alongside powerful British and French forces and the main weight of the German attack was in northern France. The problem was that the Allies doctrine was totally outdated and they lacked air support.

This is very much a contentious point. The Belgian army was clearly outnumbered (20 divisions to 141!) and underequipped but it held out remarkably well in actual fighting. It retreated because it was outflanked and because of the poor coordination with British and French forces. The 28th May surrender was made because it was clear that there was nothing that anyone could do to save the army. The Belgian army is usually perceived to have performed better, given its obstacles, to either French or Dutch armies in the period. In any case, there is quite a bit of literature that supports the argument presented. Cf. "Despite some support by British forces, the Belgians were simply outnumbered and outgunned from the beginning... The Belgian forces fought on, courageously, but were continually overcome by the invaders." from here, both a reputable source and one that is independent of Belgium.

Are you sure about that figure for the German forces? Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• "Occupied Belgium was also targeted by the Allied bombers from both the British RAF and American USAAF. The policy led to high civilian casualties as bombs missed their intended targets and fell on civilian areas." - while this is a fair point, you should also note that the Allies at least attempted to avoid or minimise civilian casualties during raids on occupied Belgium.

Sorry to sound so negative again! The text (I hope!) makes it clear that factories etc. were the target of the bombers, but very little effort seems to have been made to prevent civilian casualties, which seem to have been considered as inevitable.

Not at all true: the Allies made considerable efforts to minimize civilian casualties in occupied western Europe. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• "yet one estimate puts the number of German soldiers killed by the Belgian resistance in 1941 as higher than in all of France" - not a very meaningful comparison given that the resistance in France didn't really kick off until 1942/43

As I say, I'm not an expert. Resistance in Belgium was also pretty nascent in 1941 and didn't really kick off properly until 1944!

This seems like a cherry-picked figure. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• Note 2 needs specific references

Can you tell me how to attach a reference to a note? I have seen it done elsewhere but can't seem to get it to work in this article!

It works the same as other references - just include the reference within the note. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• "After the defeat in 1940, significant numbers of Belgian soldiers and civilians escaped to Britain who, along with Belgian pre-war émigrés in Britain and Canada, formed the Belgian forces in exile." - is there a figure for the total number of people here?

That's a valid point. The only number I've been able to find is the figure of 4,500 by 1944 mentioned though I will keep looking.

• "Two all-Belgian fighter units, Nos. 349 and 350 Squadrons, were formed in the Royal Air Force with over 400 pilots between them" - is this figure correct? A fighter squadron typically had about 20 pilots on strength at any point in time, and if the Free Belgian forces peaked at 4,500 people this means that one in ten was or had been a fighter pilot, which seems unlikely given the exacting criteria pilots had to meet.

I'm not sure. I will check the source again. Now that you mention it, my gut feeling is that is the squadron (maintenance, logistics etc.) all told, though it probably includes replacement pilots also.

Interesting point actually - the source clearly indicates pilots, though does not specify the two Belgian squadrons. If you see here too (not exactly a reputable source, but still...), there seem to have been loads of Belgian pilots floating around in the RAF in various different squadrons. This (521 pilots and navigators during war) seems to be the source for the above and is a website I trust a great deal and is already referenced. It certainly gives the 400-pilot figure a certain legitimacy.

Those don't appear to be reliable sources I'm afraid. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• "13,000 Congolese troops served under British command in Nigeria." - what were they doing there? Nigeria was never a war zone or close to one.

No idea, will check!

On garrison duty. I've put this on the Free Belgian Forces article I'm writing currently.

• Were the African members of the Force Publique volunteers or conscripts?

Ditto.

As far as I can see, they were volunteers but I cannot find any source which deals directly with this (during the war at least)

• Was the Belgian brigade allowed to take part in serious fighting in 1944? Given the small size of the force and the lack of a supply of reinforcements it may have had to have been assigned relatively low-risk duties to prevent it from being destroyed
• Watch out for over-linking (for instance, in the first sentence of the 'Liberation' section)
• "A post-war SHAEF report estimated V-Bombs had been responsible for killing 5,000 people" - is there a more recent source you can reference for this than a 1945 provincial Australian newspaper? (in 1945 Canberra wasn't much more than a large country town)
• Many of the websites used as references don't seem reliable at first glance. For instance:
  • What makes http://www.waroverholland.nl/ a reliable source? I note that its author describes himself as a historian, but doesn't say which of his works have been published. If he's had works on this topic published by reputable firms or in academic journals or the site itself is referenced in such sources it's OK.
  • Likewise, what establishes http://home.scarlet.be/vdmeiren/The%20Campaign%20of%20the%20Belgian%20army%20in%20May%201940.html, http://www.brigade-piron.be/ as reliable sources? Nick-D (talk) 11:13, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

OK - my rationale behind these sources is that they do not make outrageous claims (and because exact references are impossible in the franco-english language writing I have at my disposal) while they are cited to substantiate facts rather than as legitimation for opinions or interpretations. In the case of brigade-piron.be I stand behind it as a reputable source in all regards (it's as much of a veterans group as it is of history) but I agree, the others are less so. Where I can find alternative references, I of course will replace them however much of the literature on really specific aspects of this topic remains elusive!

Sorry, but for A-class status clear-cut reliable sources are needed to support all material. Veterans groups do not generally qualify as reliable sources. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments ★★RetroLord★★ 15:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)' As former GA reviewer I thought I might make a few comments, hope no one minds.

• As it is the lead doesn't really touch on either the Belgian Congo or Leopold III sections of the article, could this be recitified?

That's a very good point. I'll do something about it now.

• "King and commander in chief of the Belgian army" Perhaps change to "King of Belgium and commander in chief of the Belgian army"?

This is the problem - constitutionally, Leopold is "King of the Belgians", not "King of Belgium" (as a constitutional monarch) but "King of the Belgians and commander in chief of the Belgian army" sounds a bit long winded.

That's all for now, ★★RetroLord★★ 15:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that, ★★RetroLord★★ 09:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• I think the article name should replace 'in' with 'during' to match some of the other similar articles (Military history of Australia during World War II, Australian Army during World War II
• Add an infobox.
• In the background, add more on the pre-war fortifications - they took years to construct, cost a lot which meant they did not purchase modern tanks and aircraft and basically useless.
• Speaking of useless, there should be more description on why these static fortifications were easily defeated.
• Neutrality was a big deal in the defense strategy of Belgium and I think this could be expanded.
• I'm not a fan of that block quote.
• The capture of the Eban-Emael forts in the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael deserves a little more discussion, and a link.
• The Battle of Belgium explains to me why that section is called the "18 Days' Campaign" of 1940 but the latter is probably a better section name for an English language article, plus I think you are should avoid quotes in section titles.
• Almost all of the air force's... How many? Which airforce?
• Note 1 can go in the text as far as I can tell.
• several hundred -> pick a number or a range of numbers. This type of phrasing is common throughout the article and the sources hopefully have more specific numbers.
• Of the 25,000 deported, over 24,000 were killed. Fewer than 1,000... -> Of the 25,000 deported, fewer than 1,000...
• Free Belgian forces or Belgian forces in exile? The former sounds better to me.
• No bibliography? Kirk (talk) 14:18, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

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

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

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• Not promoted: AustralianRupert (talk) 10:05, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

French ship Vengeur du Peuple

Nominator(s): Rama (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it has recently passed its GA review with encouraging comments; as always, it would be a good thing to label it if it passes the requirements, and to identify things to improve if it does not. Rama (talk) 04:51, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• There is a dablink.
• There is a deadlink.
• Infobox
  • Chamber of Commerce – should be sentence case
  • Link Coulomb and Chapelle
  • Why Third Battle of Ushant and not Glorious First of June?
• Lead
  • The first word of Chamber of commerce (in the lead and later) should probably not be capitalized. The same with {Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War.
  • Admiral d'Estaing and John Griffiths should be linked
  • battle of the Chesapeake probably should be capitalized
• Career
  • 1,150,00 (note 3) – is this supposed to be 1,150,000?
  • 145 kilogrammes of gold should use {{convert}}
  • Link Toulon
  • by engineer Coulomb and by engineer Chapelle seem to be missing a the
  • arcked – can this be linked?
  • Campaign of 1778–1780 under La Poype de Vertrieu
    • Is under ... really necessary in this and the following titles?
    • where he arrived on 28 – probably where he arrived on 28 July
    • Fantasque, Sagittaire, Protecteur, Provence, Zélé, and Expériment should be linked.
    • coming 6th in the line should be sixth, 8th in the line of battle should be eighth
    • mizzen and bowsprit should be linked
• I got until Campaign of 1780 under Albert de Rions. I'll continue later. Inkbug (talk) 07:07, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much; I should have addressed all these points, and I look forwards very much for the rest, should you have the time and inclination to do it as well. The deadlink/disambiguation tools are great. On "Third Battle of Ushant", I tend to find it less specifically British than "Glorious First of June" (which I also find a bit weird), and not too French-specific like "Combat de Prairial"; but this is not the place to militate for different names for battles, and if English-speaking people are much more familiar with "Glorious First of June", it should indeed be used. Thank you very much again and cheers! Rama (talk) 07:43, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Apparently I wasn't clear in my comment about Campaign of 1778–1780 under La Poype de Vertrieu. I was suggesting Campaign of 1778–1780, without any mention of the commander, or maybe even just 1778–1780, without Campaign of. This not something major; I just like shorter titles better. Except for that, everything above seems fixed. Inkbug (talk) 08:54, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• Campaign of 1780, Albert de Rions
  • Link Brest
• Campaign of 1781–1782, Castellane Majastre
  • until the British were driven off – how?
  • 3300 soldiers should be 3,300
  • Link struck her colours
• Campaign of 1782–1783, Lombard
  • Link chevalier de Lombard
  • Link Rochefort
• Glorious First of June
  • The rescue is depicted in Lord Howe's action, or the Glorious First of June, Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg's canvas of the battle. Shouldn't this be in the legacy section?
• The article, particularly towards the end, has many images, with very long captions. I think that some of the images can be removed, and almost all of the captions can be shortened.
• I didn't go through the Legacy section thoroughly, although it seems to me to be suffering from quotation overload.
• I haven't checked sourcing. However, it would be nice if the references would be consistent. Currently some refer to the bibliography section, while some link to external sites. Inkbug (talk) 08:54, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
• I see that you've made some of the changes. One note: usually sites that are not books but used for references are placed in the references section, not the external links section. For an example, you can see USS Kearsarge (BB-5). No need to copy that article's formatting, but it might give you some ideas. Inkbug (talk) 12:24, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments. I've gone through the links and formatting details, and harmonised the style of the citations.

I agree that the article is a bit heavy on images and that their captions are long, but most have actually some significance, either as themselves (like the statue at the Panthéon or the high relief on the statue of the Republic), or with respect to each other (the different engravings). So I find it difficult to prune the article. Do you have any idea?

Thank you again and cheers! Rama (talk) 12:36, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

PS: I have at least managed to trim the captions down a little bit. Rama (talk) 13:36, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• The captions look much better. However:
  • File:Marseillois IMG 5944-white.jpg can use a closer crop (it will make the infobox bulge a bit less)
  • File:Glorieux combats de juin 1794.jpg – What about a caption like "Brunswick fighting Vengeur and Achille during the Glorious First of June, by Nicholas Pocock."?
  • File:Marseillois mg 6219.jpg is redundant to the image in the infobox
  • File:Le Vengeur.JPG can be moved to the side of the section in the text that talks about it.
  • The other images in the gallery don't seem to be adding much. It is clear from the images higher up in the article that the French depiction of the story was highly skewed, so I don't feel that they are necessary. In the external links section there is a link to the Commons category, so anyone who wants more pictures can go there.
• Also, see my note above about the distinction between the external links and references sections. Inkbug (talk) 13:41, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Right, I've trimmed down the images a bit further. The one by Mayer I'd really like to keep, it is a classic and probably the most accurate representation of the incident. Loutherbourg's painting being mentionned in the text, it makes sense to have it, I think. As for Dubois' statue at the Panthéon, it is not exactly what Barère had attempted to pass (his project was never implemented), so it is not exactly mentionned in the text.

You quite right for the others, the second of Ozanne's is almost a duplicate of the one in the body of the article, and the photograph of the stern of Vengeur is not the best of my images anyway. I have reduced the size of the one in the infobox to keep the template to its natural size.

Cheers! Rama (talk) 16:59, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Looks good. I Support. Inkbug (talk) 05:04, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much for you support, but most of all for your valuable improvements! Rama (talk) 07:05, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Support - I reviewed this article at GAN, and I think it's well-written, and concerns a fascinating subject. Rama, one note I have is that when viewing the article on my iPad, the "Propaganda depictions" gallery displays sort of funny - off-centered and with the images bunching to the left. That's not a crucial issue, but maybe someone with more formatting expertise knows how to optimize that setup for mobile devices. Cdtew (talk) 11:25, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Commments

• "The Vengeur du Peuple ("Avenger of the People") was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. Funded by a don des vaisseaux donation from the chamber of commerce of Marseille, she was launched in 1762 as Marseillois." - the first few sentences of a lead are really important for getting and keeping a reader. Although wikilinked, very few, I suspect, will know what a "don des vaisseaux" is. If the sentence was reversed - "She was launched in 1762 as Marseillois, funded by a don des vaisseaux donation from the chamber of commerce of Marseille." - it would be much softer on the reader. If you wanted to be softer still, you could just go for "She was launched in 1762 as Marseillois, funded by a donation from the chamber of commerce of Marseille.", hyperlinking the donation to don des vaisseaux, and keeping the detail for the main article.
• Three "duels/duelling" and three "took parts" in the lead, which was distracting.
• "spurting numerous representations" - I'm not sure that "spurting" is the right verb here; did you mean "spawning"?
• I'll try to work through the rest later. Hchc2009 (talk)

A few comments, not a complete review: - Dank (push to talk)

• Agreed with Hchc's comments.
• "surrendered after losing hope to be rescued by French ship": not sure what this means
• "listed": link (Glossary of nautical terms#L works for me)
• "instrumentalised by the propaganda": used in the propaganda, maybe (but "propaganda" is a strong term, make sure it's accurate here)
• "gave birth to the legend": a little flowery
• "rather than surrender": without surrendering
• "yielding a rebuttal": drawing a rebuttal
• "Rear-admiral John Griffiths": Rear Admiral ...
• "in naval history circles": among naval historians - Dank (push to talk) 02:37, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Status? What's the status on this; it's been almost a month and no effort appears to have been made to address the issues here.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

G'day, I have added a reminder about this ACR on the nominator's talk page. If there is no response soon, I propose closing the review unless someone else can respond to the outstanding comments. Thoughts? AustralianRupert (talk) 07:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'd agree -- pity as this review appeared to be chugging along quite well for the nominator... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:51, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, there has been no response to my post and the nominator has not been active since late May. As such, I have closed the review as it appears that it has been abandoned. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:05, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

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Not promoted owing to nomination at FAC. Ian Rose (talk) 02:28, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Whaam!

Nominator(s): TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I believe this is the most valuable 2-D piece of military themed art in the world (my guess is that it is worth US$70-100 million, since this is Roy Lichtenstein's most famous work and several of his less famous works have sold for $42-56 million in recent years). I am aware that the article has very minimal traditional WP:MILHIST content. However, the 50th anniversary of its first exhibition is September 28. I am shooting for WP:TFA. Thus, I think I need to have this ready for WP:FAC by late July or early August. In order to get it ready, I am hoping to get some feedback. I am hoping to find interest here.TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:54, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

• Sure Tony, I'll be reviewing this soon-ish. - Dank (push to talk) 13:18, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Do you think it is possible that there is any solid "military" content like what types of planes these were, what type of projectile they would have been firing, which war such a battle might have taken place in and such?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 06:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Hi Tony, things seem more stylised in the main image but in the original comic book pic it looks like an F-86 Sabre firing at a Mig-15, which would place it in the Korean War. I don't know for certain however if the Sabres were armed with air-to-air rockets in that conflict. In any case, all this is OR unless there are reliable refs out there that connect the artwork with actual aircraft/armament/conflict. At least this might give you something to search on... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:53, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
      • There is lots of talk online about the planes, but I have yet to find a WP:RS.
        1. According to Shawn D. (talk · contribs) on the talk page, an F-51 Mustang is shooting an F-86 Sabre in Lichtenstein.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
        2. According to the Husky Galore: The source's narrator/shooter is in an F-86 Sabre and Lichtenstein presents a stylized Mustang.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
        3. According to a blog respondent at Tate.org: The source's narrator/shooter is in an F-86 Sabre and Lichtenstein presents a P-51 Mustang. Meanwhile the source target is a MiG-15, but Lichtenstein depicts something resembling a F-86.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
        4. According to a John Penfold, who by the way claims that the exact same comic is the source for Blam, Jet Pilot and Brattata: The source has a F-86 Sabre firing at a Mig-15. "The attacking aeroplane in Roy's work is based on a propeller-driven Mustang, taken from another story in the same comic. It jars with me because Roy deleted the propeller, but the tail is too thin to have a jet exhaust. The resulting plane has no visible means of propulsion."--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
      • No WP:RS on any of this detail yet.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
        • I'd agree with those above who suggest that in the painting it's a propellerless Mustang shooting a Sabre -- which of course makes no sense but, hey, this is art, right?! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:55, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
          • Well, the issue is whether we can source that belief with an WP:RS.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 12:32, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

A few comments, not a complete review: - Dank (push to talk)

• Check for misplaced commas.
  • Are there any in particular that are bothering you?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:01, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Today, I added three and removed two.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
• "Although derived from comics, Lichtenstein made numerous alterations to the work, such as creating two panels from one original, which are the subject of significant critical commentary.": I don't follow.
  • I have revised this sentence.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:49, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• "It is respected for the temporal, spatial and psychological unity and congruence of the narrative and graphic elements, although the two distinct panels are considered somewhat unharmonious.": I don't follow.
  • This is me trying to sound like an art scholar. I am not sure if the confusion is the three different thoughts at once or that each individually is still confusing. Recalling that the WP:LEAD is suppose to summarize the text, I suggest looking at the paragraph starting with "Whaam! stands out from Lichtenstein's other...," which has accessible sourcing. I don't think I am too far off from the proper topic, but once you figure out what I am trying to summarize maybe you can help me to clarify it better.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:55, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• "However, such artwork has since become popular with collectors and is now more widely accepted.": What does "However" contrast with? It doesn't seem to refer to the previous sentence.
  • Fixed.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• "he merely duplicated extant original work": At first I thought "original" meant "his original", but the comic strip wasn't his work.
  • It means "he merely duplicated comics"--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:15, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• "enlarging the William H. Maudlin's ... cartoons": delete "the"
  • Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:16, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• "Although he served, Lichtenstein never saw combat in WWII.": This partially duplicates the first sentence of the paragraph. Delete this sentence, and add "in noncombat roles" to the first sentence. - Dank (push to talk) 01:22, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:26, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• "began to adapt the imagery and motifs of comic strips": adapt them to what? adopt?
  • I have expanded this thought for clarity and completeness.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:29, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• "Lichtenstein in 1958 made drawings": Lichtenstein made drawings in 1958
  • Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:39, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• "He departed ... to cartoon work": "departed" doesn't take the preposition "to". ", turning to" is one option. - Dank (push to talk) 02:26, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Turned it is.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:00, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Ongoing discussion on article Talk page: just so it is known, there is an active discussion on the article Whaam! going on here. Bus stop (talk) 12:59, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

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• No consensus to promote at this time: AustralianRupert (talk) 08:44, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

List of George Cross recipients

Nominator(s): iComputerSaysNo

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I feel that it meets the A-Class criteria. I have worked on this for a couple of weeks, as the basic framework was already in place, and I believe that I have done the necessary improvements to make this an A-Class list. I would also particularly like it to be considered in light of a Featured List application in the near future. iComputerSaysNo 03:26, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• Comments by MisterBee1966

• Table could do with column and rowscopes, see MOS:DTT for more info

•  Colscope done, going to do rowscope when I have a good few mins free... iComputerSaysNo 00:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
•  Done iComputerSaysNo 22:37, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• I thought every entry has to be cited?

• I looked at Lists of Victoria Cross recipients which does not reference every recipient and took that as my reasoning for not - especially as that is a FL. I also considered that there was a link to each recipient anyway. I can't help but think I would be overloading the page adding a reference for each person. iComputerSaysNo 00:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• While I understand your reasoning and I see the point of overloading the reviewers of my most recent lists have ruled otherwise. See i.e. List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (A) or List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (C). The reviewers had mandated that every item be referenced. The request either applies for every list or none. MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

•  This is going to take a while... so please bear with me. I am trying to use London Gazette references so that it is from the only true source iComputerSaysNo 23:09, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for not having this finished yet. I have been very busy with work and uni so have not finished it yet iComputerSaysNo 20:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• "This along with a * indicates that the George Cross was awarded posthumously" suggest "This along with a * (asterisk) indicates that the George Cross was awarded posthumously"

•  Done iComputerSaysNo 00:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Can you add some statistics?

• What did you have in mind? I already had the oldest/youngest. Do you mean mean stats about how many UK, India, etc? How many male/female etc? iComputerSaysNo 00:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, something like that would work for me. MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Are there images of the people available?

• Similar to my concerns about referencing each recipient, would an image for each be overloading the page beyond what it needs? I think that providing a link is adequate or otherwise risk making the page too large. iComputerSaysNo 00:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
•  Done iComputerSaysNo 22:51, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Nicely done MisterBee1966 (talk) 19:50, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Comments. I'm gad MisterBee is reviewing this—he's our expert on lists of award recipients. Overall, this looks like a good list and it shouldn't take too much to get it up to A-class/FL standards. I'll just offer a few comments from my own experience:

• Bolded links are frowned upon, I believe, and I think the convention is only to use bold when the opening exactly matches the title
  • Agreed. Removed iComputerSaysNo 20:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
• is the highest civil decoration of the Commonwealth of Nations implies that it's a civilian-only award, which obviously isn't the case
  • I have slightly reworded this, but I have kept the essence of the decoration, which is that it was designed to be used to celebrate gallantry by civilians, and only be used for military personnel where no military decoration or medal was appropriate. iComputerSaysNo 20:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
• Ditto the civilian counterpart of the Victoria Cross
  • As per above iComputerSaysNo 20:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
• The award was designed primarily for civilians, but members of the military are eligible if there is no military award that would normally be granted seems to repeat the previous sentence
  • Deleted the sentence and rewritten the lead iComputerSaysNo 20:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
• The rest of the lead is excellent as far as it goes, but I would like to see it fleshed out. You mentioned that you based this list on the less of VC recipients; the leads in those lists are quite a bit bulkier than this one. It doesn't need to be huge, but there's more you can say. You might want to look at List of field marshals of the British Army for inspiration (disclaimer: that's one of mine!).
• Since you have text between the section heading and the start of the table, I think you need a caption for the table; the field marshals list has one, so you might wan to pinch the formatting from there
• The entries in the "nationality" column are all countries, not nationalities
• I would personally like to see a reference for each entry; both because the London Gazette citations are interesting and because I've been told in the past that one citation per entry is pretty much what's expected. As it is, it's not clear what many of the entries are sourced to because your inline citations are sporadic.
  • I am slowly filling in citations, but due to work and uni this is taking me some time. I am using a London GAzette reference for every name (used in the rank/role, organisation, and date gazetted unless the LG does not give some information - usually the organisation) iComputerSaysNo 20:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
• I would have expected to have seen Ashcroft in the general references list—he's well respected for his writings about the VC and GC, and it's a much more recent publication than those you currently cite
• All your non-London Gazette specific references need more information; I suggest using the {{cite web}} and {{cite news}} templates for consistent formatting
• Your general references are also inconsistently formatted: you should provide place of publication for all or none of them
  • Added place for publication iComputerSaysNo 20:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
• Do you think those external links add much?
  • I have limited it to two links now - both of which list some of the GC recipients in countries other that the UK iComputerSaysNo 20:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:58, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• This along with an * (asterisk) indicates that the George Cross was awarded posthumously.; this reads awkwardly, and is so low contrast on my screen the marked entries are hard to spot. I'd suggest either shading the whole row or, my preference, simply add an extra column to note posthumous awards (won't oppose over this - but just a general remark).
• Again, not something I would oppose over as A-Class, but the introduction to the table reads awkwardly. I would be inclined to merge the current few sentences together into one paragraph and then move the content of the "Statistics" section (which is of real interest so deserves more prominent placement) to be start the introduction (and scrap the statistics heading).
• I see none of the information in Group awards summarised in the lead, per WP:LEAD.
• I know the content is brain dead obvious to a certain extent, but shouldn't the prose of Statistics section have some sourcing?
• has been awarded the George Cross collectively in perpetuity; I think the word order here is confusing. Maybe has been collectively awarded the George Cross in perpetuity
• There has not been a bar (a second award) awarded to date.; only a minor nitpick, but the two awards clash for me here. I think you could pad out this sentence a little to make clearer what you are saying :)
• World War II could be linked. Also, I believe convention in UK English articles is to use Second World War - but that's not a big issue (someone told me that once I think).

That's it for now. A pretty solid article! I may have some more comments later. --Errant ^(chat!) 18:01, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Co-ord comment: what is the status of this review? It has been open for nearly two months now (its been open 52 days) and there has been no edits to this review page for 10 days. Given that there currently appears to be some concern about the accuracy of the nationalities listed as well as total recipients/missing names (as per the comments on the talk page), and there are still parts of the article unreferenced (for instance the quote in the Group awards section "By God's help Malta will not weaken but will endure until victory is won"), I'm inclined to think that this review should be closed as "no consensus to promote at this time". Does anyone have an opinion on this either way? If it is closed, the nominator can work on the issues raised and resubmit whenever they feel it is ready to undergo another ACR. I will wait a couple of days to see what the response is, but propose closing it in 72 hours if there is no response. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:19, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Rupert. From what I gather, the nominator is in the process of overhauling the article to meet A-class standards and address the concerns of reviewers. Speaking as a reviewer, I'd be more than happy to give him all the time he needs, because I like ACR to be more supportive than the featured processes. But thinking with my coord hat on, it might be necessary to close this review and resume on a separate subpage when the nominator is finished. Your 72 hour window for others to comment seems reasonable. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:04, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

G'day, I have closed this review now as there has been no response to the above post and the comment I left on the nominator's talk page. Additionally, there appear to be concerns on the article's talk page about scope (the number of recipients), and the accuracy of some of the content (the information on nationalities) which should be rectified before being renominated. Please feel free to renominate as soon as you feel you have covered off on the issues raised here and on the article's talk page. Good luck with developing this list further. Thanks for your efforts so far. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:44, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

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• Not promoted. There seems to be an agreement that it's best to wait and see with this one. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Distinguished Warfare Medal

Nominator(s): Casprings (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because one it is a very interesting award. I think this might be the first award globally for cyber warfare. Second, it is a pretty high in the order of precedence, which is also interesting, given it is for cyber warfare. That is why I was interested in the article. When I came to the article, I thought it was already at WP:GA. So I put it in for that. Once passed, my only edit was to change the citation style to Template:R. That said, I am interested in getting this to WP:FA, and this is the next logical step. Thanks in advance for looking at this. Casprings (talk) 02:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Comment/thought bubble Given that this medal was only introduced a few weeks ago, the criteria to be used to assess nominations are yet to be finalised and its place in the order of precedence may change, is this nomination premature given that the article is certain to change significantly over coming months? The article appears to be in very good shape given the newness of its topic, though I'd suggest adding a section on the background to why this medal was introduced (eg, the view that there was not a prestigious medal for the people who fight wars remotely, despite the increasing importance of this aspect of warfare). Nick-D (talk) 00:41, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

• You are right, I think. The Congress needs to pass or not pass the bills and DOD needs to publish guidelines for when to give the award. So the article will change somewhat. Perhaps this is to early. I just think it is one of the more interesting medal articles. Casprings (talk) 23:23, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Let's revisit this in two or three months, and watch it for signs of vandalism. Overtime we can neutrally and verifiable integrate new content into the article, while keeping the quality that is currently present.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:00, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd recommend a slight pause - reviewing for ACR might be a bit early, for the reasons above. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:27, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

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No consensus to promote at this time Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:40, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Charles Dashwood (Royal Navy officer)

Nominator(s): Pietje96 (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I think it just matches the criteria Pietje96 (talk) 18:01, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Support Comments: G'day, welcome to Milhist ACR. Good work so far. I had a quick look and made a few tweaks (please check that you are happy with those). I also have the following suggestions:

• "File:The 'Defence' at the Battle of the First of June, 1794.jpg": this file is lacking author and date information and currently lists its source as Wikipedia. The source will need to be changed to the book or website from where it was originally downloaded prior to being uploaded to Wikpedia;
  • the image has been removed. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• "File:Engelske flåde ud for København august 1807.jpg": probably needs a copyright tag based on the art work, not the photograph that was taken of the art work;
• it might be beneficial to see if someone is willing to copy edit the article, as some of the wording seems a bit awkward. The Guild of Copy Editors is currently holding a blitz, so you might be able to secure someone's services by posting here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests;
  • improved. Pietje96 (talk) 02:41, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
    • I've taken a run through it myself, too. Please check that you are happy with my changes and adjust as you see fit. AustralianRupert (talk) 07:49, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• the lead probably should be expanded to at least two paragraphs;
  • thanks for adding that extra information. If possible, it should be expanded a little more, though to summarise the article in a bit more detail; AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
    • ok, done. --Pietje96 (talk) 02:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
      • Looks good. Thanks. AustralianRupert (talk) 07:49, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• the size of some of the subsections is very small. The article would probably look more balanced if these small subsections were merged into the larger ones somehow;
  • I had a crack at this myself, and merged the Early life section into the one below it. Please review my change. AustralianRupert (talk) 07:49, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

cool. --Pietje96 (talk) 15:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

• be careful of capitalisation of ranks. Per WP:MILTERMS ranks should only be capitalised when used as titles, e.g. "Rear Admiral Smith" as opposed to "Smith was a rear admiral";
  • fixed. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• Note 1 probably should be rewritten slightly as it is not grammatically correct: "He was knighted on 20 April 1825. Grand Cross Tower and Sword on 30 March 1825. Conferred when the King of Portugal went on board HMS Windsor Castle, in the Tagus, in May 1824. Dashwood was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath of Maxwelton in July 1840." (For example "Grand Cross Tower and Sword on 30 March 1825" is not a complete sentence");
  • fixed. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• what is the thinking behind the duplicated headings "Footnotes" and then "Notes"? I'd suggest deleting the lower level heading "Notes" as it isn't really doing anything;
  • this has been fixed. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• the inline citations seem inconsistent in style in places. For instance, compare "James & Chamier, p. 159" with "William James & Frederick Chamier, p.129"
  • fixed. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• additionally, the inline citation "James & Chamier" is inconsistent with the full entry below which just says "James, William (1837)" (without also mentioning the second author);
  • fixed. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• same as above for "Clarke & McArthur, p.249" v. "Clarke, James (2008)" (without mentioning the full details of the second author). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:06, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
  • fixed. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• in the lead, be careful with using terms like "highly efficient" as this is really just an opinion and sounds less than neutral. If an author or a superior described him as such, that is fine, but then you would be best presenting it so as to provide attribution. For example, "Dashwood was described by historian John Smith as a highly efficient officer..." AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
  • fixed. --Pietje96 (talk) 02:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• please try to avoid using contractions like "couldn't" etc. as encyclopedic writing does not really use these. (policy guidance at WP:CONTRACTION);
  • fixed. --Pietje96 (talk) 02:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• "While commanding HMS Franchise frigate of 36 guns (that he held from 21 October 1805 until January 1810)" --> it might be better to put the "that he held from 21 October 1805 until January 1810" into a note like the others (currently labelled a, b and c);
  • done. --Pietje96 (talk) 02:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• in the inline citations: "James & Chamier, p.28, Vol IV": but there is no James & Chamier Vol IV in the bibliography below (there appears to be a Vol II by those authors, though);
  • done. --Pietje96 (talk) 02:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• in the inline citations: "Clarke & McArthur, p.249" : which volume: 14 or 28?
  • fixed. --Pietje96 (talk) 02:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• in the inline citations: "Clarke & McArthur, Vol 17, p. 255", but there is no volume 17 listed in the bibliography. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
  • fixed. --Pietje96 (talk) 02:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• the quote at the end of the American War of Revolution section doesn't really seem that pertinent to the narrative. I'd suggest just removing it;
  • Ok, done. --Pietje96 (talk) 15:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• the infobox says service years 1779-1843, but his retirement is not discussed in the body of the article. Can you add a short sentence to the Later service section outlining when he retired and also when he died (currently the date appears in the lead and infobox, but not in the body).
  • The infobox was wrong. Fixed. --Pietje96 (talk) 15:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
• extra bibliographic information such as publishers, locations and ISBNs/OCLC numbers could be added to the works in the bibliography. These are generally expected at A-class and can usually be found at worldcat.org. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:49, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
  • fixed! --Pietje96 (talk) 15:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
    • Cheers, those changes look good. I've added a few extra details for the bibliography and added my support for promotion of this article to A-class. Good luck with the rest of the review. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:43, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
      • Thank you for your effort improving this article. Greetings Pietje96 (talk) 21:21, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• I would like a picture in the infobox.
• Rank questions
  • 'being appointed as a midshipman'
  • 'appointed as a junior lieutenant'
  • 'employed as master's mate'
• I'm almost positive Royal Navy officers were not appointed -. Ratings were also not appointed or employed - he probably was mustered at other ratings than Midshipman so I would use a different wording.
  • As an aside, I'm always grateful for finding examples of Master's Mate-> Admiral!
• Its unusual to me he was 'acting as aide-de-camp', was that the exact wording in the source?
  • Also acting aide-de-camp probably implies an honor like acting lieutenant (which is possible). In this case he probably was just 'acting as his servant' (as indicated by the lemonade story).
  • Above 'a junior' lieutenant - I don't think this is correct and the source doesn't support this - he was mustered as midshipman, and there no rank of 'full lieutenant'. Kirk (talk) 20:28, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
• I would include his squadron in the admiral promotion path ('of the Blue'); I was unclear about his final rank since he was posthumously an Admiral (yelllow?) Kirk (talk)
• During the course of the engagement, Dashwood had to lash the fore top-sail yard which had been shot in the slings, to the cap, whereby the ship was enabled to wear in pursuit of the enemy. - I can't find this in the reference at the page. I'd work on the phrasing since this is jargon-filled.
• appointed commander - not what the source says. He bought a ship and was the master. Kirk (talk) 20:41, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
• Citations need some work: volume IV of James & McArthur isn't there, and James & Charmier appears to be duplicated other than one has a page #.
• HMS Defiance needs a link. Kirk (talk) 13:50, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Oppose This article was put up for GA after this ACR was initiated. I'm the reviewer and I have not received any response to my comments. Once those are answered, I'll be happy to let this review proceed on its own merits. GA is certainly not a requirement for ACR, but it's damn confusing to reviewers when a lower level of review (GA) is initiated after a high one like A class.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:17, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• I sympathise with Storm's position; while I've had tandem GANs and ACRs on the same article myself in the past, I ceased the practice some time ago and do not recommend it, preferring to get GAN out of the way first and then initiate ACR.
• For that reason, I'm just going to note here while I think of it some concerns with the lead:
  • Firstly, for the size of the article, I think another paragraph's worth of detail could be added to properly summarise it.
  • Secondly, peacock terms like "distinguished", and especially "prestigious", should be avoided.
• Feel free to ping me for further review/comments when the GAN is over with. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Comment

• I agree that the best thing would be to address Sturm's GAN points and get through that nomination first. I started reviewing for ACR but after I had noted a few things I went and looked at the GAN comments Sturm made, and we are very much on the same page. Experience shows that getting through the wider community lens of GAN before going to ACR is of value to an article and smooths what can be a pretty torrid process at times. I would not support this article here while no attempt has been made to address Sturm's GAN points. On top of that, it is a respect thing. He's bothered to review, but no response has been made at all?
• I'm happy to look at it again when the GAN review has run its course. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 10:47, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

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No consensus to promote at this time. Anotherclown (talk) 23:21, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1865

Nominator(s): Wild Wolf (talk)

I am seeking to pass this article for AL class. It is a listing of American Civil War engagements for the year 1865. Wild Wolf (talk) 22:14, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments

I think the references are too bundled, making specific details of those huge paragraphs hard to verify. Would like to see:

1. ^ Fonvielle, pp. 294–296, 302, 314–316.
2. ^ Fonvielle, pp. 332, 341, 345, 359, 382, 428.
3. ^ Calkins, pp. 29–36, 43–53.
4. ^ Calkins, pp. 63, 75, 86–91, 171–179.
5. ^ Hughes, pp. 1–5, 21–22, 34, 38, 148, 163–165, 209–211.
6. ^ Bradley, pp. 27–28, 39–40, 55–64, 81, 121, 215–217.
7. ^ Trudeau, pp. 10–13, 258–259.
8. ^ Trudeau, pp. 6, 178–179, 184.
9. ^ Trudeau, pp. 259–261.
10. ^ Trudeau, pp. 340–341, 360.
11. ^ Trudeau, pp. 369–370.

broken down into more in-line citations, to support individual key sentences, esp. those with dates/numbers/stats. Other than that, all seems fine.

Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 11:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

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No consensus to promote at this time. Anotherclown (talk) 23:16, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1864

Nominator(s): Wild Wolf (talk)

I am seeking to pass this article for AL class. It is a listing of American Civil War engagements for the year 1864. Wild Wolf (talk) 22:11, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments

I think the references are too bundled, making specific details of those huge paragraphs hard to verify. Would like to see:

1. ^ Symonds, pp. 76, 79.
2. ^ Trudeau, p. 341.
3. ^ Symonds, p. 83.
4. ^ Kennedy, pp. 300–303; Symonds, p. 89.
5. ^ Kennedy, pp. 313, 323.
6. ^ Symonds, pp. 91–93.
7. ^ Sword, pp. 269–270, 281, 425–426.
8. ^ Josephy, pp. 165, 188, 201–209.

broken down into more in-line citations, to support individual sentences, esp. those with dates/numbers/stats. Other than that, all seems fine.

Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 11:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

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No consensus to promote at this time. Anotherclown (talk) 23:09, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1863

Nominator(s): Wild Wolf (talk)

I am seeking to pass this article for AL class. It is a listing of American Civil War engagements for the year 1863. Wild Wolf (talk) 22:09, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments

I think the references are too bundled, making specific details of those huge paragraphs hard to verify. Would like to see:

1. ^ Kennedy, pp. 197–199, 202–213, 251–259.
2. ^ Kennedy, pp. 147–173, 181–184, 225–231, 241–247.
3. ^ Kennedy, pp. 139, 179–180, 232.

broken down into more in-line citations, to support individual sentences, esp. those with dates/numbers/stats. Other than that, all seems fine.

Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 11:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

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No consensus to promote at this time. Anotherclown (talk) 23:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1862

Nominator(s): Wild Wolf (talk)

I am seeking to pass this article for AL class. It is a listing of American Civil War engagements for the year 1862. Wild Wolf (talk) 22:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments

I think the references are too bundled, making specific details of those huge paragraphs hard to verify. Would like to see:

1. ^ Foote, pp. 399, 444–450, 481–514.
2. ^ Foote, pp. 590, 633–641, 668–669, 703, 754; Kennedy, pp. 144–148.
3. ^ Foote, pp. 305, 319–321, 333–348, 381–385.
4. ^ Foote, pp. 390, 558, 572–575, 732–740.
5. ^ Foote, pp. 351–360.
6. ^ Foote, pp. 278–293.
7. ^ Foote, pp. 296–305.

broken down into more in-line citations, to support individual sentences, esp. those with dates/numbers/stats. Other than that, all seems fine.

Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 11:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

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No consensus to promote at this time. Anotherclown (talk) 22:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1861

Nominator(s): Wild Wolf (talk)

I am seeking to pass this article for AL class. It is a listing of American Civil War engagements for the year 1861. Wild Wolf (talk) 22:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments

I think the references are too bundled, making specific details of those huge paragraphs hard to verify. Would like to see:

1. ^ Foote, pp. 48–55.
2. ^ Foote, pp. 69, 78–81, 140–141.
3. ^ Foote, pp. 86–88, 115–120.
4. ^ Foote, pp. 90–95, 98.
5. ^ Josephy, pp. 44–51.

broken down into more in-line citations, to support individual sentences, esp. those with dates/numbers/stats. Other than that, all seems fine.

Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 11:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I forgot to bring the sources I used with me (I can only edit Wikipedia from libraries), but I will change this the first opportunity I get during the next week (unless some else does it first). Wild Wolf (talk) 17:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments/suggestions

• "File:Battle of Wilsons Creek.png": the source on this is currently listed as Wikipedia, which should be changed to the book or website from where it was originally scanned/uploaded;
• is there any way to make the casualties column in the table sort from highest to lowest?
• the Civil War Reference web citations seem inconsistently presented. For instance compare ""Civil War Reference, Athens, Missouri page". History. Civil War Reference. Retrieved September 22, 2011." with ""Civil War Reference". History. Civil War Reference, Hunter's Farm, Missouri page. Retrieved September 22, 2011.";
• not sure about the presentation here (seems inconsistent with the other entries): "Union One soldier was killed and five others wounded". AustralianRupert (talk) 23:32, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks like the Wilson's Creek file was uploaded by Hohum, so I left a question on his talk page asking for help on the source. Also went through the web cites and casualties to change them to a consistent presentation. Wild Wolf (talk) 17:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

G'day, thanks for making those changes. To clarify, my point about making the casualty column sortable hasn't been dealt with. What I am suggesting is making the table sort in a manner that would allow a reader to sort that casualties so that they could quickly find out what battle was the most costly. Currently the table does not sort like this. To be honest, I don't even know if it is possible, but it seems like something a reader might want to be able to do. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:27, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• As I mentioned before, a troop is a unit of cavalry, or a generic body of soldiers and it a confusing title since you mean the latter. If we were talking about Naval combat we'd call this 'Naval Actions of the American Civil War, 1861' . While I don't know the equivalent term for land combat its probably not 'Troop engagement' - there's no ngrams for that phrase in google books. 'Battle' is what the park service uses even though it has multiple meanings [16]. How have you researched this?
• The table is a tremendous improvement!
• Can I suggest you don't do all 5 of these simultaneously? Withdraw the other 4 and we can hammer out the details on this one. Kirk (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I posted a comment at the Milhist talk page concerning the name change. Wild Wolf (talk) 17:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

CommentsOppose

• The initial paragraphs would benefit from section headings, perhaps by theater. Big blocks of narrative text at present.
• Because the table is sortable, linking needs to be universal so that regardless of how a reader sorts the table the link is there. See the example at Help:Sorting#Numeric_sort_for_BC.2FAD_years.
• The Losses column is unclear. They appear to be a combination of killed, wounded, missing, captured, but in many cases it isn't clear what we are talking about.
• Your use of the "location, state" format for "Engagement" appears to fly in the face of common names for these engagements and what readers would look for. For example, most people would expect to see Battle of Fort Sumter not "Fort Sumter, Maryland" and Battle of Hoke's Run, not "Hoke's Run, West Virginia", but this becomes really problematic when faced with "Manassas, Virginia" when you would expect to see First Battle of Bull Run.
• I agree with MarcusBritish re: the need to break down the scope of citations.
• You might consider breaking down the table into one per theater, as far as I am aware they didn't have much of an overlap (although ACW is not my strong point).
• Checks out for dabs, external links, alt text and redirects. Earwig crashed mid check, but I don't see anything that jumps out.

Peacemaker67 (send... over) 10:36, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

• Given the lack of response in three weeks, there is too much on this review for me to support, so opposing. Sorry about that. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 11:02, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

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• No consensus to promote at this time AustralianRupert (talk) 05:07, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

School of Advanced Military Studies

Nominator(s): Casprings (talk)

This article failed a A class review. That discussion can be found here. Since then the article has gone through editing, a copy edit, and a GA Review, which can be found here. I think some of the major problems with the last A-class review have been fixed. The article reads less promotional, many of the quote boxes have been removed, etc. One problem that has not is the fact that the article does use a phD dissertation for many of its cites. The dissertation comes from a former director of the school, and can be downloaded here. To me, I didn't see this as a problem is insurmountable. I started a discussion at WP:RSN on this that can be found, here.

With that in mind, I would ask for one more look at the article. Thank you in advance for your reviews. If the source problem keeps it from a better assessment, I understand. While certainly my own judgement, I think the level of academic review that a dissertation goes through is enough for it not to stop an A-class rating. Once again, thanks in advance.Casprings (talk) 04:51, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose. I think you're going about this the right way, with reviews and noticeboards, but, on top of the NPOV problems, the tone simply isn't right for a Milhist article, A-class or not. For example, even given that it's in a quote from a promoter: "the most brilliant education for critical thinking in military history, and the most revolutionary change in the planning structure of standing armies since the creation of the Prussian General Staff in the mid 1800". Others will work with you on the sourcing; once that's done, let's have another look at the prose tone. - Dank (push to talk) 13:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The article was clearly written in a favorable tone. While I have tried to remove some of that language, any help on prose to make it NPOV would be welcome. I agree with your statement on that example. The rest of the section gets the point across. But, that particular endorsement is a little out there and is POV in nature, given it is given by a US General officer. Casprings (talk) 15:42, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• Can you add the ISBN and OCLC# for: Benson, Kevin (2009). School of Advanced Military Studies Commemorative History: 1984–2009. Kansas: United States Army Command and General Staff College. Its still 1/3 of the citations and its a sketchy source if no one can actually find it (I still cannot find this in Worldcat). Assuming its an academic history monograph it should have a bibliography you could use to diversify those citations to a more reasonable percentage. Kirk (talk) 22:46, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think this is the source: http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/Events/SAMS25th/SAMS25YearsHistory.pdf

• Thanks, it doesn't have a lot of citations which doesn't help. I think you should change the bibliography to reflect the type of material - was it published as a pamphlet? Kirk (talk) 15:15, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

*Given the nature of the publication (it is a pamphlet), I am starting to see that there is a source problem and the article doesn't deserve to go forward as a A quality article. I have knowledge of the school, so I know the information. However, if it can't be sourced, there is a problem.

* Check your style guides how to add pamphlet/[Pamphlet] in there somewhere; you'll probably have better luck if you diversify the sources. Kirk (talk) 15:06, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Sorry, but the same problems in all the previous reviews concerning sourcing still exist. Thomas E. Ricks' new book The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today has several pages discussing the school and its influence which would be useful as an independent source. I also agree with Dank's comment in regards to the article's tone. Nick-D (talk) 03:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think you are right now. For the article to continue to develop there needs to be more sources and not just from a former director. The ricks book might be a place to start.Casprings (talk) 04:07, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

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Not yet ready for promotion. Constantine ✍ 09:33, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

North American P-51 Mustang

Nominator(s): Petebutt (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I think it meets all the criteria and deserves examination for elevation to A-class Petebutt (talk) 06:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Comments: G'day Pete, I've only had a quick look, but at this stage I don't believe it meets the A-class criteria. I made a few minor tweaks and I have the following observations:

• there are many uncited paragraphs. At a bare minimum, each paragraph would need a reference at the end of it;
• there appears to be a mix of US and British English in the article. Please choose one (I'd suggest probably US English here);
• there are "citation needed" and "page needed" tags that should be dealt with;
• the article probably needs copy editing as well. For instance (please look through the entire article):
  • this isn't a sentence: "In 1996, in the BBC Television series Decisive Weapons which was narrated by Sean Bean."
  • this is missing something: "The P-51 Mustang was the subject of a 30 minute episode entitled "The Cadillac of the Skies" in reference to its exceptional performance and how it started off as a British purchase as a low level attack fighter into the powerful long range bomber escort that it would eventually become in the Air War in Europe through a combination of being fitted with the Rolls Royce Merlin and the fitting drop tanks that allowed to escort the bombers of the United States 8th Air Force all the way into occupied Europe and back."
• the citations should be standardised to use the same style. For instance compare citation # 36 "Sims 1980, pp. 134–135" to citation # 38 "Gunston, Bill. North American P-51 Mustang. New York: Gallery Books, 1990. ISBN 0-8317-1402-6."
• be careful of overlinking terms. I removed one, but there are others throughout the article;
• if these points can be addressed, I will gladly have another look. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose. Petebutt and AR, thanks for your work on this. Petebutt, after AR's points have been addressed and you've gone through checking for basic grammar mistakes, I'll come help with some copyediting. Also see WP:Checklist. Also, please contact some of the people who have edited this article to let them know it's being reviewed ... I don't see your name in the list of the 100 top editors. - Dank (push to talk) 03:46, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose I agree with AR's comments, and also have the following comments:

• The coverage of Australia's use of these aircraft seems much too detailed
• The 'Design and development' section seems incomplete given that it stops at the prototype stage - the article should cover the development of the main variants of the P-51 and their characteristics
• The material on the USAAF's use of the P-51 in Europe seems too strongly focused on the air-to-air role
• The coverage of the aircraft's use in the Pacific during World War II seems a bit sketchy
• What's the purpose of the 'Expert opinions' section? It gives the opinion of a single expert, and some self-serving nonsense from a German pilot (if the Luftwaffe's pilots could outmaneuver the P-51, why was it the main instrument of the destruction of the Germany fighter force during early 1944?)
• The British use of this aircraft deserves much greater coverage given that the RAF was the second-largest operator of the type, likewise the material on the use of the aircraft by China seems too short Nick-D (talk) 06:52, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose I agree with the comments of AR and Nick-D, plus the following:

• The "Genesis" sub-section is too long and detailed; some of this, especially the technical details, could be transferred to North American P-51 variants (which in itself needs work, for example there is no description of the NA-73X): this sub-section can then be changed back into 'Design and Development', with a brief description of why the NA-73X was conceived and a brief description of each major development.
• Agreed on Australia (*cough* partly my work) - the technical descriptions of Australian manufacture can also be added to the 'Variants' article which will shorten this (now done, some editing still needed).— Preceding unsigned comment added by Minorhistorian (talk • contribs) 21:02, 16 January 2013

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