Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Review

The review department of the Military history WikiProject is the project's main forum for conducting detailed reviews—both formal and informal—of particular articles within its scope.

The department hosts two forms of review internal to the project:

• Peer review (an informal review meant to provide ideas for further improvement)
• A-Class review (a formal review of a candidate for an A-Class quality assessment)

It also provides a convenient collection of military history articles currently undergoing formal review outside the project:

• Featured article candidates
• Featured article review
• Non-article featured content candidates

Peer review

Please add new requests below this line

Military

This article has been a subject of an important reorganization and reformulation since a couple of weeks now. I think most of the areas related to the subject has been covered but may be some more work is needed. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Cla68

Broad, general topics such as this one are difficult to write about and I commend you for taking on this subject. You appear to cover all the areas of the subject, the "what, where, when, why and how". I think you might consider adding more info on the purpose of military forces, whether as instruments of state power, to secure national objectives, as self-defence, etc. Cla68 00:20, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Buckshot06

Second cla68's commendation: appears to be a lot of good material here. Some thoughts:

• Logistics could use a little more description, possibly with the ageless quote that amateurs discuss tactics while professionals talk logistics included.
• The military zones map doesn't appear to serve any purpose
• There could be a lot more citations throughout to back up your text.

Buckshot06 14:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Roger

Here are some initial thoughts. (I've not commented on sections I've been involved with.) I'd like to see the whole thing loosen up a bit, perhaps approach the subject with a little less earnest reverence (but that's probably just me).

2 Military science

Section intro could do with expansion. Perhaps putting into historical perspective, the siege machines of Archimedes and Leonardo di Vinci; development of chain-mail, invention of the stirrup (both these changed the battlefield immeasurably).

2.1 Organization

Reads a little like an extract from an induction lecture (perhaps that's where the editor remembers it from). More detail, more referenced anecdote.

2.2 Intelligence

Again, perhaps a bit stilted. More anecdotal stuff perhaps. Spies in history (Alfred the Great sneaking into his enemy's camp; Mata Hari); espionage methods: invisible inks, cyphers. No mention of great intelligence coups: Patten as a decoy for D-Day etc. Changing methods of intelligence, dawn of electronic surveillance etc

2.3 Strategy and tactics

Currently a bit bitty. Really needs a tighten up. I can probably do this, but not until September/October.

2.4 Logistics

No mention of food and drink; yet crucial factor in many battles. Food: "An army marches on its stomach" (Napoleon). Water: crusaders -v- Salah-el-Din Battle of Hattin. Weather and lines of communication: Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow, Hilter's Battle of Stalingrad. Petrol shortages: Battle of the Bulge, Afrika Korps at El Alamein. Ammunition shortages: Germany for most of World War One.

2.5 Technology and equipment

No mention of military inventions that have filtered across to the civilian world yet there are thousands of them. GPS and the Internet are of course modern examples. This is particularly true in medicine. Specific medical advances are often driven by a surge in specific battlefield injuries (plastic surgery for fighter pilots, prosthetics[1], blood plasma, knee reconstructions in Northern Ireland etc). This could probably be a separate sub-section Military medicine, which could also take about deveopment of field ambulances, MASH, Red Cross etc.

3 Military history

Strange opening sentence. Intimately connected with the study of tactics and strategy. Old battle scenarios often dusted down for modern use: Gen. Schwarzfkopf revisiting Guderian and Rommel to plan Operation Desert Storm.

4.4 Militaria

Needs creating, then expanding. Some focus on badges, ranks etc (we have people interested in that here).

5 Other uses of "Military"

A bit apologetic. Needs expanding

--ROGER ^TALK 08:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Walter Model

This started out as some minor corrections to a decent if short article, and turned into a full-blown research project. After ~2 weeks, I figure it's definitely B-class, hopefully GA-class, with luck maybe even A-class. Comments welcome. -- Hongooi 14:45, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Woodym555

Just a little comment after a quick run through.

• The references do not use the appropriate template, see [book template] for more information. Most people use only the information in "Example 2". You will need to supply ISBNs (where available) for all the books used. Woodym555 15:05, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks, fixed up now. -- Hongooi 16:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

• Some more comments
• Even with 88 citations some paragraphs do not have citations. According to WP:CITE there should at least be a citation for every paragraph

• Hm, are you sure? I just had a look at WP:CITE and all it says is that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs to be cited. There doesn't seem to be any hard-and-fast rule that every paragraph needs a citation. That said, I just had a look at the article again, and there's some areas where I left out the cites. Thanks for the heads-up.

• • No i don't believe there is any set down rule. I was judging it against current FA criteria and my experience of FA nominations. In FAC comments it is regularly commented that paragraphs should have citations. Also if a whole paragraph does not have anything that could be considered contentious, even by a sceptical viewer, then it is probably not concise enough and contains no real information. Anyway, the references that you have added have fixed my problem with it in the first place. Woodym555 19:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

• The statement "He has been called the Wehrmacht's best defensive tactician." in the lead is a POV statement in its nature and as such should be cited.

• Done.

• Images, some of the images are correctly tagged but are unsure of sources and could use some more detailed fair use as you have with the infobox photo. Many of these are copyrighted and this can be a stumbling block for FA and GA. (This is being a bit fastidious and nit-picky though)

• Yeah, it's a toughie finding pictures for these WW2 articles. I'll see if I can add more detail on the description pages.

• Rank data, could this be put into a table. This is personal preference (and entirely optional) but i think it might look better in table format.
• Other than that i recommend submitting it for GA or A-Class review. It certainly seems able to pass the criteria. Woodym555 11:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks! I've given it another round of tidying-up. I might submit it for A-class review in the next few days. Thanks again for your comments. -- Hongooi 13:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Easter Offensive

Been working on this stub for a while. Turned out pretty long, and would like some constructive criticism. RM Gillespie 20:10, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

WT

Looks quite good, but the 'ibid's should be replaced with full citations. Any wikitext can always be changed, leading to wrong citations if a new quote gets inserted carelessly. I suggest to reduce your overall amount of citation and just put references for each chapter. Wandalstouring 16:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Thank for the suggestions. Have straightened out the "ibid" problem, but do not feel a change in the footnote structure is warranted at this time. RM Gillespie 18:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin

Overall, very good; just a few nitpicky points to look at:

• "correct title of which is the Nguyen Hue Offensive" - presumably you mean that was the PAVN name for the operation? It may be a good idea to explain the naming issue more explicitly, even if only in a footnote.
• I don't think it's necessary to italicize PAVN divisional designations; the underlying convention is likely to be totally meaningless to the average reader, who won't understand why some units are italicizes while others aren't.
• The "See also" section can be removed, I think; all of those links are prominently given in the article already, so there's no need to repeat them.
• The external link should ideally be annotated to explain what exactly it's a link to; raw links aren't usually the most helpful for the reader.

Keep up the great work! Kirill 02:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• Kiril, once again a loudly vocal "muchos gracias" for your suggestions. Have added a footnote to explain the name discrepancy and removed the "see also" links. Should the italicizations be removed? I would think that it would remove confusion, since there are so many units identified by numerical designations. It would not really matter if either side were so identified. RM Gillespie 18:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd probably go ahead and remove the italics; while using them to distinguish sides is a clever approach when dealing with an audience that understands it, I suspect most readers won't realize that the different font is intentional. Kirill 20:17, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• Done. RM Gillespie 13:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Attack on Sydney Harbour

This peer review request is following a major rewrite and expansion of the article. I am looking to eventually push this article up to Featured Article status, and as such request that others point out any errors or omissions from the article, as well as provide advice for what needs improving to reach FAC status. I have identified several "things to do" at Talk:Attack on Sydney Harbour#Further expansion, but an external view is requested. -- saberwyn 04:23, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

• Question Have you done an automated peer review? See AndyZ's javascript program. I have done one, result is here - it might be a good idea to move it though. The APR seemed to have some sensible opinions.Garrie 07:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
  • No, I hadn't. Thank you. I'll chew through what it says. -- saberwyn 07:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Rename. Since the article describes the attacks on Sydney AND Newcastle, the article should be renamed to reflect this. - 52 Pickup 10:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
  • The main attack, as well as one of the two secondary bombardments, was on Sydney Harbour. That aside, do you have any suggestions as to what the article should be renamed to? -- saberwyn 23:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
    • If you could somehow put the Newcastle bombardment in the Aftermath section, then I don't think a renaming would be called for. Even if you leave the article outline as is, I still don't think the article necessarily needs to be renamed. CLA 07:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin

Overall, quite nice. A few points to consider, though:

• The "partof" field in the infobox ought to be readable as a single phrase; see any of Cla68's WWII articles for a good way of doing this.
  • Now reads "Part of the Battle for Australia during World War II". Appropriate? -- saberwyn 08:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Looks good. Kirill 15:56, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
• The single explanatory note would be better off worked in with the rest of them; see below.
  • See below. -- saberwyn 08:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
• "References" should be "Notes" and "Bibliography" should be "References". (There are other options, of course; but "bibliography" is essentially deprecated as a section name, as it's difficult to distinguish whether it's intended as a listing of references or merely as further reading.)

I have chosen to lay it out in this way as it is the way I have been taught at university. I split the Footnotes (notes on the content of the text) from the References (the specific citations for the texts used in compiling the article) to avoid losing the former amongst the latter. Also, I use the term bibliography in the definition that it is a list of all texts cited within the article as opposed to a "Reading list" or "Further reading" article, as this implies to me the inclusion of material above and/or beyond that used for the article.

I am also slightly confused because this layout was acceptable when I submitted the AHS Centaur article to Peer Review, A-class Review, and FAC (at least, I assume it was, because nobody commented). Further advice and guidance to the relevant sections of the policies is requested, if I am in the wrong. -- saberwyn 08:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

A strict reading of WP:LAYOUT#Standard appendices and descriptions would suggest that "Bibliography" is intended for listing further reading, rather than references. As far as Centaur goes: it may have been missed during the FAC, or perhaps the guideline is outdated. It's not that big of a deal, in any case; I prefer a simpler two-section structure (c.f. this), but if you're more comfortable with keeping the existing headings, you're basically free to do so until someone at FAC bothers to object over it. ;-) Kirill 15:56, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• The scrollable footnote box is, frankly, a horrible idea, as it makes the article unprintable. Even a collapsing NavFrame would be better than this.
  • Done.-- saberwyn 08:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
• Some thorough copyediting would be helpful. One particular issue to check for is the use of a semicolon when a colon is needed (e.g. "Six submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy were involved in the attack on Sydney harbour; I-21, I-22, I-24, I-27, I-28, and I-29.", "21 sleeping Navy sailors were killed; 19 Royal Australian Navy, 2 Royal Navy.", etc.).

Kirill 02:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• • Will work on it, but due to my "proximity" to the text, more eyes would be appreciated. -- saberwyn 08:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Dreadnought

This article was first forked from battleship over the summer. I have far from exhausted my to-do list on it but I'm running out of inspiration, hence the peer review. There was a very brief previous peer review since when I have added a whole wodge of technical material (yes, I know, none of it's sourced- that's next on my list). What does everyone reckon? Regards and many thanks, The Land (talk) 18:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Mackensen

Well, you've mentioned sourcing, but let me re-iterate that concerning the "super-dreadnought" section. It was always my impression that the first real super-dreadnought was the Queen Elizabeth, because she incorporated 15-inch guns and oil-burning engines. I'm also a little uncomfortable using Robert K. Massie as a source; he's not careful enough in his research. Marder or something like that would be better. Mackensen (talk) 23:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree broadly about Massie - I think he's a reasonable source for most thigs but he does drop occasional clangers. I don't have Marder, but I do have the relevant bit of Conway's History of the Ship, which indicates that the Orionss were the first super-dreadnoughts. The Land (talk) 19:37, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Massie is an unreliable source (not much different from a blog). He regurgitates old myths. His books are inadequately footnoted, so it is impossible to know the source of his statements.--Toddy1 18:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

The 13.5in and 14in ships were described as super-dreadnoughts.--Toddy1 18:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin

As you've pointed out, sourcing is probably the biggest concern at the moment; there are large chunks of the article with very sparse citation, if any. Aside from that, a few other points to look at:

• The image placement needs to be reworked; the multiple images stacked along a single margin near section headers produce all sorts of bizarre floating effects on some browsers.
• The prose is somewhat choppy overall, with many short and even one-sentence paragraphs. I'd try to condense things a bit.
• Some of the sectioning is questionable. Why is the single paragraph on Japan in its own section? I'd actually go so far as to suggest that the "Dreadnought building" section contain only two sub-sections, one for the UK and Germany and one for everyone else.
• The section headings could use a bit of work. "Development of the all-big-gun battleship" is rather too long—why not just "Development"—and leading articles should be omitted.

Hope that helps! Kirill 03:16, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

MBK004

As has been mentioned before, keep working on the sourcing. Other than that, I've uncovered a few things that could use (at least for me) some clarification:

• In the lead: --> The product of British technical superiority and the willpower of Admiral Jackie Fisher, Dreadnought was no bolt from the blue.
  • No bolt from the blue? - What does this mean, perhaps better wording is in order?
• Shouldn't World War I and World War II be wikilinked in the lead?
• Is it really necessary to link to a page multiple times within the article? Isn't one link at the first mention of the term appropriate?
• Long-Range Gunnery section:
  • Wikilinks to Russo-Japanese War, and Naval War College? Could not find any occurrence of these being linked at all in the article.
• The choppy prose and questionable sectioning mentioned by Kirill above is also something I agree with.
• Image placement is also as mentioned above an issue that needs to be resolved.
  • This image: Image:British Grand Fleet 2.jpg needs a proper license tag. Proper image licenses (Fair-Use, PD, etc.) are part of the GA requirements. This is something that was brought up in the GA review of USS Texas (BB-35).

Overall, this is a promising article that I look forward to seeing Featured! -MBK₀₀₄ 07:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

HMS Ledbury (L90)

Hi, i've just finished writing up this article, and I would really appreciate any help in improving it. Reuv 20:46, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Woodym555

This is a very good start, there are some areas for improvement though:

• A new ship infobox is available from the following link on Wikiproject ships:Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ships/Tables#Table of statistics for a ship.
• The references need clearing up. Are there any specific page numbers? In which case use specific page numbers. If you need an example on how to do this see Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope.
• Also, try to use the ref name format and this will reduce the size of the text. Info can be found here: Wikipedia:Footnotes under the subheading Citing a footnote more than once.
• Could the further action section be expanded slightly. The article is currently based wholly on the Malta Convoys. Did the Ledbury play a major part in any other battles?
• Could Operation Pedestal be broken down into subsections? At the moment there is a very large block of text.

This was a very quick overview, if you want me to expand on any comments then leave me a message here or on my talk page. I will try to check the text in detail when i have the time. On first viewing though it seems like good prose. Woodym555 17:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Well done on the updates to the article, i have just done a thorough copyedit and i couldn't find many things that were wrong. A few weasel words were removed but little else needed work.

The main problem that i still have with the article is the emphasis on Operation Pedastal. I understand this is pivotal in the history of the Ledbury, but is there any information on any other actions. In the introduction it states "Her already impressive battle honours were further increased during the Allied landings in Sicily and Salerno, and in the Adriatic and Aegean." Yet it does not go into detail on these actions in the article. An expansion of these sections, even one or two paragraphs on each action and the role Ledbury played in it would make it a more rounded article. I hope that this is of some help. Again, any queries can be put here or on my talk page and i will be happy to help. Woodym555 22:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a couple of Manual of Style related issues.

• MoS:Times It needs to be correctly formatted throughout.
• In the cite web template, you have accessdate and accessyear, it would reduce the text slightly if it was shown in the most common style of '|accessdate=2007-06-28'
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) has a small amount of text related to italics. I don't think that there is a specific rule related to the ship name always being in italics except in a title. The loose rule is that it should be used for emphasis so i do not think that all the instances of Ledbury should be in italics, quotations should be but not the ships name. Use other prefixes such as 'the Ledbury' that omit the italics.
• Wikipedia:Footnotes The correct syntax for the multiple footnotes is

This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote.<ref name="multiple"/>

I think some browsers have problems dealing with your references as they are. Also so that new editors could easily understand the reference it is better to give them a name such as IWMweb13 or ref name="AuthorX"p.13 and not a, b, c as new editors would not be able to understand them.

Other than these small style objections, I would now put it up for GA Review to see what they say and it should be passed easily. Woodym555 15:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate a lot your help in this article, I've addressed the issues mentioned, removed the italics, arranged time according to MoS, and changed the dates for the references in the suggested style. I also renamed the multiple references and used the format given. Thanks a lot for the hints! Reuv 00:35, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Uhud

just passed GA... was wondering what in terms of content, style, expression (or anything else) could be done to improve the article and raise it to featured quality. ITAQALLAH 18:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

old windy bear

ITAQALLAH I have read the article carefully, and it is just my opinion, but it might benefit from citing from another couple of detailed military analysis of the battle itself, but it is generally quite good and manages to steer the narrow line between religion and history that is inevitable with the early battles during the rise of Islam. old windy bear 21:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• i'm currently in the process of looking to see if i can get any more in terms of narrative or analysis of this event. Watt's books and the Encyclopedia of Islam cover it quite comprehensively, and most biographies don't tend to go into meticulous detail about it. i'll see what i can dig up. ITAQALLAH 04:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

ITAQALLAH Watt is my source also, but I will check further too, but I think you covered it pretty thoroughly. It would be nice to have another good source analysis or two, but as you say, most histories of the period don't go into tremendous detail about the Battle of Uhad.old windy bear 20:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[User:Itaqallah|ITAQALLAH]] In a final review of the article, I added the fact that Khalid ibn al-Walid(ra) emerged as a brilliant general in this battle, displaying his talent for the first time as he would go on to conquer the Sassanids. Other than that, I think you did a superior job. Nice work! old windy bear 10:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

thank you Oldwindybear. i've got a hold of Tor Andrae's book ("Mohammad: The Man and His Faith"), and i'll see if there's anything else i can add. ITAQALLAH 15:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Sa.vakilian

1. I checked the article and put some comments in the talk page. But why don't you use Arabic histories like Tabari and Ibn Athir. We can't find most of the details in the western histories.
2. You can use Battle of Badr which is an FA article to complete the prelude and get some ideas about what sections can be added like Badr in the Qur'an and Important participants.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 05:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The participants idea is a good one, actually. Certainly the Shiites make a great deal out of Ali's role in the Battle. I still think the article is a good one as he constructed it, but a participants section is a good idea. Ibn Athir does not have many more details than are currently in the article, as I recollect it concentrates most heavily on Battle of Badr ?old windy bear 09:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Fortunately Shia and Sunni sources are agreed on Ali's role. --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 00:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sa.vakilian(t Then it would do no harm at all to put it in the article. I simply wanted to avoid lengthy arguments. old windy bear 00:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or

The general impression from the article is that it is poorly written, does not describe the battle adequately, and is trying hard to demonstrate that the battle "may not have been a defeat for Muhammad".

• The number of Muhammad's troops is incorrect. Muhammad's army numbered 1,000 only before Ibn Ubayy's departure; thereafter they were 700 strong.
• Khalid ibn al-Walid was not a commander of the Meccans on par with Abu Sufyan. Khalid merely commanded the cavalry on the left flank. For this reason, the map that shows him on the right flank is also incorrect.
  • Watt and Muir both state that Khalid commanded the right flank, while Ikramah commanded the left. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• The outcome "strategically undecisive" means nothing, except as an attempt to show this was not really a defeat for Muhammad. Very few battles are strategically decisive; this meaningless "strategically undecisive" expression can be appended to pretty much every battle.
• Why is there no date for the battle according to the Islamic calendar?
• The intro is very bad. It contains very little information on the battle itself, but lots of details on where the Muslim emigrated from, where the Mount Uhud stands, what some scholars supposedly think on the outcome etc.
  • the intro does need to be more comprehensive, which i shall address shortly. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "The Muslims had the worst of the affair" is unencyclopedic style.
• "Prelude" is not an encyclopedic title for a section. Be sure not use the definite article in the titles of other sections.
• "Muhammad had preached the message of Islam in Mecca" is loaded religious language. Avoid such Muslim terms as "message" (risala) and "call" (dawah).
• "tight-knit community of followers" - bad English.
• "but had also succeeded in angering the rest of the Quraysh" I don't think that angering the Quraysh was Muhammad's intention, so he couldn't "succeed" in it.
• "After years of persecution" How exactly were the Muslims "persecuted"?
  • most sources relate the Meccan persecution of the Muslims. i don't think it's appropriate to delve into that here. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Abu Sufyan accompanied a party of 200 men to the city" Which men? Meccans?
  • Watt simply says men. we cannot assume that it was solely Meccans, it may have also consisted of nomadic allies. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "obtaining temporary residence with the chief of a Jewish tribe" What are the names of the tribe and its leader?
• "He then left the city, burning two houses and laying waste to some fields in fulfillment of his vow." Did he do this alone? It's pretty diffcult for one man to lay waste to some fields. Also, the article previously mentions no "vow". This whole passage referenced to Watt (1964) pp. 132—135 is so strange and murky that one needs at least the full quote from the source; meybe then it could be decoded.
  • will try to improve the flow. mention of vow has been made more explicit. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Defeat by the Muslims the Battle of Badr had infuriated the Meccans, who now wanted revenge for their dead kinsmen." Already mentioned above.
• "The following year on 11 March 625 with Abu Sufyan at the helm, they raised another force, often numbered at 3000" And less often numbered at what? In addition, this is bad English.
• Usually, the descriptions of battles start with the order of battle, describing the opposing forces and their location. We can see none of this here, so the account of the battle is haphazard, with archers, cavalry, Khalid ibn al-Walid etc, popping out of nowhere. The course of the battle is thus pretty difficult to understand even with the help of the map. However, a map is not a substitute for the order of battle; in addition, the movements of troops are shown on the map rather selectively. As a result, we know something only from the text, something only from the map, and the reader must string together the events on his own.
  • have tried to make the text about the battle more comprehensive, though i'm not completely finished with that yet. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Shortly before the battle commenced, 'Abdullah ibn Ubayy (the chief of the Khazraj tribe) and his followers withdrew their support for Muhammad and returned to Medina" Wrong, Ibn Ubayy left on his way to the Mount Uhud, long before the battle commenced.
  • "Shortly before the battle" is attributed to Watt. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Ibn Ubayy and his followers would later receive censure in the Qur'an for this act." How and in what verse?
• The article misses the famous story how Muhammad's uncle Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib successfully fought in the battle before being killed by the Ethiopean slave Wahshi. For this reason, "the corpse of Hamza" just pops up out of nowhere.
• Why is there nothing in the article on what, if anything, Muhammad was doing during the battle?
• Why is there nothing on the role of Ali in the battle, according to the Shi'a tradition?
• "after some brief verbal exchanges with Umar ibn al-Khattab (a companion of Muhammad)" is an unnecessary detail.
  • the Abu Sufyan/Umar exchange is frequently mentioned in the accounts of this battle. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Other scholars such as Montgomery Watt disagree, noting that while the Muslims did not win, the Meccans had failed to achieve their strategic aim of destroying Muhammad and his followers; and that the Meccans' untimely withdrawal indicated weakness on their part." Watt may be right in what he notes, but I don't see any "disagreement" anywhere; namely, Watt doesn't state the battle was not a defeat for Muhammad. The who are the "other" scholars? I cannot see any. this appears to be an attempt to stir some non-existing controversy regarding the outcome of the battle, a major flaw of this article.
  • i will see if this opinion is restricted to Watt. however, he does appear to be disagreeing, as he says: "The battle of Uhud has sometimes been presented by occidental scholars as a serious defeat for the Muslims. This is certainly not so." (p. 47) - he then goes on to explain why. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "tactful military leadership of Khalid ibn al-Walid" How can military leadership be "tactful"?
• "A verse of the Qur'an revealed soon after the battle" This is not a NPOV statement: Quranic verses were "revealed" only according to the Muslim tradition.
  • the ambiguity is deliberate: it doesn't say from whom it was revealed. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• "The success of the Meccans' rousing of tribes against Muhammad reaped disastrous consequences for him and the Muslims with two main losses: one was where a Muslim party had been invited by a chieftan of the Ma'unah tribe, who were then killed as they approached by the tribe of Sulaym; while the other was when the Muslims had sent out instructors to a tribe which stated it wanted to convert to Islam — the instructors had been led into an ambush by the guides of the would-be Muslim tribe, and were subsequently killed." This sentence is nearly impossible to understand unless one already knows what it's talking about.
  • will try to make the passage clearer. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• The section "The historical record" is unnecessary. The sources for the early Islam are all the same; there is no need to review the sources in every article. The paragraph on the battle in the Qur'an and tafsir must be moved to the section on the Muslim tradition. In addition, a Quranic "chapter" is known as sura.
  • there is substantial discussion dedicated to assessing this battle from a historical perspective in the Encyclopedia of Islam article, so it makes sense to cover that aspect. there is no section about the Muslim tradition, the section on the Muslim reaction is about the response of Muslims in the aftermath of the battle. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or 19:35, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or Some of the structural flaws you point out are legitimate. But other issues are not, for instance:

• Khalid, for instance, had begun to demonstrate the tactical, (not tactful), genius that would mark the career of the great general who destroyed the Sassanids, among other huge victories. You fail however to mention it was Khalid's swift movement to take advantage of the archers going after spoils that nearly cost the Muslims the field when you state he was a subordinate commander - the point is this is the day he began demonstrating why military history remembers him, and had the Meccan army followed his lead they would have pressed the battle home and ended Islam at Uhad;
• You state the article should outline the shiite claims regarding Ali - they claim he killed between 2 dozen, and 200 men, which is so impossible to even dignify with putting them in an article. I think you set a bad precedent by diving into the Shiite claims on Ali, frankly. You open a door that leads to religious arguments rather than military ones.
• You state the article is an attempt to sugarcoat a defeat. Quite the contrary - ITAQALLAH was very careful to state most historians regard it as a defeat. But what you do not say is the very simple fact that 3000 men had 700 at their mercy, and failed to follow up on Khalid's lightning advance, and let them fight their way to an effective draw - in addition, the Meccans had Medina at their mercy, and failed to follow up on that at all. Not only did they fail to follow up on the immediate battlefield and press home a victory that could have destroyed Muhammad's army, but even more disasteriously, they failed to attack a city that was effectively helpless. If ever an army managed to turn victory into defeat, it was the Meccan army at Uhad.

I don't want to minimize that you make some points on structure which I am sure ITAQALLAH will address. But I strongly agree with his decision to avoid the trap of discussing the Shia claims on Ali's slaying of hundreds, et al, and no amount of argument can change the fact the Battle of Uhad could have meant the end of Islam had the Meccan army pressed home their victory. Bluntly, strategically it was a huge defeat when you consider that Medina was at their mercy, in addition to the Muslim army, and they let both go. That is the real bottom line: thanks to Khalid's emerging genius they had the field, the opponent, and the entire city had they only fought to a conclusion! Instead in a few short years they were bowing 5 times a day! This was their last real chance to stop Muhammad, and they utterly failed when they could have and should have won a total victory. I agree ITAQALLAH has some language issues, but as to his work on this article, I would maintain he did a good job in avoiding the trap of arguing the claims on Ali, which are really religious in nature, not military, and he wrote a reasoned, basically sound article. old windy bear 20:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

thanks for everyone's input, including Beit Or's. i'll work on all the issues mentioned with some feedback on a few of the points raised. ITAQALLAH 20:42, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or, for some of the content-based concerns you raised (Muhammad's role during the battle, Hamza and Wahshi, and so on), could you refer me to some academic sources for these accounts? i agree that the intro isn't of good quality yet. as for the section "historical record", i included it because Robinson in the EoI Uhud article discusses this aspect in reasonable depth, and it seems appropriate to relate it in the article. ITAQALLAH 20:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

the Shia claims on Ali's slaying of hundreds!!!

You're kidding. Please show a notable Shia source which claims. --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 00:27, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sa.vakilian(t I really do not want to get into what sources are notable, and which are not. (Actually, the only source which is without question is the Holy Qur'an) But as to others - and again, please understand I accept no source except the Holy Qur'an as notable, for example, for online sources, [[2]] is one that makes such claims. I don't claim this is a reliable or notable source, and this is the kind of argument that I wanted to avoid to begin with. old windy bear 00:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

My dear friend, as I know Shia and Sunni sources are agreed on Ali's role and we can use Ibn Athir in this case. I've put a comment in the talk page of the article. --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 01:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sa.vakilian(t My friend, I happily defer to your superior knowledge in this matter. Are you going to let ITAQALLAH put it in, or will you? Your help in this is greatly appreciated. old windy bear 01:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

as i've opined on the talk page, we should stick to using established reliable sources. i don't have an objection to classical sources in principle, but given that they are frequently misused, they should be related through reliable third party sources. anyway, this kind of discussion belongs at the villiage pump really or some other community forum. ITAQALLAH 01:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

ITAQALLAH In the end, I feel you should add or not add to the article based on the relevance of the proposed edit to the subject. If the role of Ali is a legitimate part of the military history of the Battle, it is fair to ask that it be included - but that is just my opinion. I feel strenulously that we MUST stick to military subjects. I still feel strongly you did a good job in constructing this article. old windy bear 01:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Old windy bear, in my long list of comments I never mentioned a single editor by name. In your much briefer response you mentioned Itaqallah several times. You may want to move somewhat closer to the policy and comment on content, not editors. You may feel Itaqallah did a superb job on that article. Fine, it's up to you. However, please comment on the article's content, not the person you may feel is its author. Beit Or 18:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Beit Or I always address the person I am speaking to, as in this case, to you. I have reviewed the comments you are referring to, and respectfully, don't feel my comments were inappropriate. I have found that newer editors tend to get discouraged in the process, especially during peer reviews when critiques of the article may be viewed as a personal attack. I feel I commented on the article, and made no personal references whatsoever except to compliment the primary author for attempting to work on a difficult subject. No one except for you felt that my comments were inappropriate. You and I simply disagree on how to review an article, and how to work with other editors. old windy bear 15:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

i have struck through those concerns which have been addressed (just so i know what else needs to be done), and the other points i have either commented on or intend to address soon. ITAQALLAH 00:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Omaha Beach

First big edit and a lot more work than I anticipated. I think it's finished but I can't see the woods for the trees anymore. I would really appreciate it if others could have a look and let me know how I can improve it. I have a couple of days before real life intrudes and I take a wikibreak for a month or so, but I will watch and action recommendations as and when I can. Thanks. --FactotEm 16:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to express my appreciation for the review of this article. I have done what I can to incorporate the comments. I believe the biggest issue now remains the lack of any narrative on the impact - I did try but it would only have been a snatched attempt and not good enough. I'll continue to try and improve the article when I get the chance. In the meantime I have added a comment to the discussion page highlighting this review. Thank you. --FactotEm 10:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The Land

• Good work! A very thorough account of the American efforts on Omaha. A couple of specifics about the article as it stands:

The frequent references to companies (e.g. B/116) is inevitable but can be confusing; can you explain the terminology in a more prominent place (e.g. the first para of 'Plan of Attack')?

I think the article needs a bit of information about the impact of the battle; concluding at the end of the first day of fighting leaves a lot unsaid. What effect did the landings at Omaha have on the rest of the Normandy campaign and why?

In the lead section, another paragraph outlining the impact and the casualty figures would be helpful (the lead is meant to sum up the whole article).

Are there more sources you can refer to? It is always best, particularly with history, to draw on a range of sources

The biggest issue with the article as stands is that it's entirely written from an Amercan perspective. How did the German defence of the beach compare with their plans? How did the 716th and 352nd respond to the German attack and did it matter? What were the famous quotes, medal citations and casualty figures for the German side? As it stands, all your work has created a very good half of an article - but the other half is necessary to make it into a great Wikipedia article. The Land 16:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate them. I have added some detail about the composition of the units involved to the 'plan of attack' section and introduced there how the companies are represented in the article. Two very good points about the impact and the German side - I basically ran out of time but do intend to address these as time permits (and that will then also take care of the lead). I'll also try and dig out some more sources. Do I need to worry about the length of the article? I read that there is a preference for a limit of 32Kb and this is already at 42Kb. --FactotEm 19:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about length at this stage. Have a look at WP:LENGTH; if you do end up with a very long article then it's relatively easy to split off sections if appropriate and necessary. The Land 07:45, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Carom

I would echo most of The Land's comments, particularly with regards to the need to discuss the aftermath of the battle (i.e. consequences and impact) and the German perspective. I would also note that there are a great number of very, very, very short sections, which is not ideal, as it can hinder readability. It is possible that some of them might be combined in order for the article to "flow" better. You might also consider that the "dramatizations" section could be expanded - some of these are fairly significant, and probably warrant some discussion. Carom 17:57, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

And thanks go to you too. I've merged the shortest sections that appear in the 'Breakthrough section'. The other main offender is the 'Second Assault Wave' section but I'm not sure about eliminating the sections there. Are they as bad for readability? --FactotEm 19:57, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Strike that. Found a way to do it and I think it looks a whole lot better. Thank you. --FactotEm 03:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

37 mm Gun M3

I'd like to get some comments and suggestions concerning further improvement of the article. Thanks in advance. Bukvoed 08:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Woodym555

I think it is a good start but it still needs a lot of copyediting. I have copyedited all of the sections except Organization and employment. I will have a go at that when i have more time.

• In particular i could not understand the sentence "Although patterned after PaK 36 and often referred to as a copy of it" Does this mean that the overall design was a copy or just the outer casing. Pattern suggests the paint job or camo.
• Organization and employment, The whole section seems to be slightly confusing "in December 1941 these battalions were reorganized as independent tank destroyer battalions and eventually opted for self-propelled anti-tank guns" If they were reorganised would they not get a decree form headquarters on which weapon to use or would they be given an option. The whole system of "organization" is not explained. Is this in terms of battalion and regimental structure? I am not knowledgable enough on the subject to fully understand it. It maybe needs a link to organisational structure of the Army so that the casual reader would be able to follow the article.
• Generally it does not flow and it is very choppy in places which reinforces the need for a thorough copyedit.
• The references do not use the appropriate template, see [book template] for more information. Most people use only the information in "Example 2".

It is a very good start though. Woodym555 21:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your remarks and for copyediting the article.

1) About "pattern". M3 was obviously influenced by PaK 36 but differences, externally or internally, were quite significant. Don't think somebody ever confused M3 for PaK 36. "Patterned after" was supposed to mean "modelled on" / "followed the concept lines of" / etc.

2) About TD battalions. I rephrased the section, but in case it's still bad, here's some additional info. On 3 Dec 1941 divisional AT battalions were officially removed from the divisional structure and became tank destroyer battalions under the Tank Destroyer Center. Of course tank destroyer battalions themselves couldn't choose their weapons. The organization chart of these battalions was developed by the TD Center and obviously had to be approved by someone (AGF ?). The TD Center wanted TD battalions to use self-propeled guns, so the battalions gradually received 37mm GMC M6 and 75mm GMC M3. After it happened, TD battalions never used the towed 37mm M3. Later the AGF insisted on arming some TD battalions with towed guns, but these were 3-inch guns.

3) About the whole organization. I just tried to show where in the organization chart were 37mm AT guns. I think explanantions of organization structure are out of place in an article of a specific weapon. It would be nice to have an article with detailed explanation of the WWII-era US organization charts, but we probably don't have one. Well... I'll think about a way to make things more clear.

4) About references. Thanks for the link, I'll try to improve the references fromat when I have more time.

Thanks again. Bukvoed 08:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Your rephrasing is much better for the uninformed reader to understand. I have copyedited the organisation section taking your info on board. A couple more pointers though

• In the Japanese section it says "the guns were only somewhat effective". What were they not so effective at. I think that needs to be included in this section, as are the drawbacks in the other sections, if it is to be a balanced encyclopedia article.
• Could the self propelled mounts be tabulated. Headers could be along the lines of "name | gun | mount | comments|. I think it would look better than a list.

You could ask for other comments form other users, but other than the points listed above, and also the references, you could try and put it up for A-Class Review. Woodym555 22:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

1) The gun was not so effective against fortifications. The 37 mm HE shell simply didn't contain enough explosives. I changed the article to reflect it.

2) I'll experiment with turning the self-propelled mounts list into table.

Again, thanks a lot for your help. Bukvoed 19:28, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The Land

Looks really good now. I've done a bit of editing the prose for clarity; I'm sure a lot more of this can be done. However I think you should put the article up for A-class review forthwith. The Land 21:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Yes, I think I'll put the article up for A-class review. Bukvoed 06:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Victoria Cross

Hello. This article was previously a Good Article but was delisted for a number of reasons. Wikipedia:Good article review/Archive 17 I, along with many other editors, have tried to fix the problems raised and I am now asking for it to be peer reviewed to see if there are any outstanding problems with it. Thanks in advance. Woodym555 20:07, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

cla68

Good article, but I recommend the following for improvement:

• The intro should completely summarize the article's body in two to three paragraphs.
• Link the currencies used as per the WP:Manual of style.

I'm not sure what else the article might need and invite others to also add their review. CLA 02:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, i have lengthtened the lead as per guidelines and i have fixed the currency issues. I will now put it up for A-Class review to get any further comments. Thanks again Woodym555 08:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

This has made FA so i will now archive it. Thanks for all your comments.Woodym555 12:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Charles N. DeGlopper

Need help to determine the completeness of the article, some direction on refining it. Trevorbrooks 16:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Oberiko

• This article needs to cite its sources
• Can you be more specific as to when he received the medal in the introduction? "Battle of Normandy" has different meanings to different people (see its talk page for details), be it the "Normandy Campaign", "Invasion of Normandy" or "Operation Overlord".
• I'd remove the Google Map links within the article
• Instead of a time line, I think a full section for "posthumous awards and honors" would be better able to contain the information beyond his death Oberiko 13:20, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

jwillbur

• There is a lot of information in the Timeline section, it should be converted from a list to prose and worked into the rest of the article. That would give you enough text to create sections for his early life and legacy, for example.
• In the "Medal of Honor action" section, the first 7 sentences or so don't deal directly with DeGlopper's regiment. It's good to have some background on the battle, but that level of detail is not necessary. It would be better to summarize that information in a few sentences and then focus on what DeGlopper himself experienced during the battle.
• Use inline citations throughout the article.

jwillbur 21:50, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

These are exactly the types of suggestions I was looking for, thank you! I'll work on it as time allows.Trevorbrooks 21:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope

Hi, i have added quite a lot of information to the article and i have formatted it and now i am just asking whether it needs any more information or whether any of it is inaccurate in any way. What can be done to impove it? Thanks Woodym555 21:06, 9 June 2007 (UTC) updated Woodym555 21:09, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Carom

A good start; here are a few things you should address:

1. Very, very few citations or notes of any kind. You may find it instructive to read the relevant MILHIST guideline, found here. This may help you determine what should be cited.
2. Some very, very short sections. I believe most of them can be expanded, but if they cannot, they could perhaps be folded in to other, larger sections.
3. Very, very little information about the rest of his life, both pre- and post-RN. I imagine this information is available, and it should be added to the article.
4. I would remove the "gallery" section and incorporate the images into the body of the article.
5. There are a great number of redlinks in the middle part of the article. You may wish to search around to see if articles exist for these topics under a different name. If not, you are obviously not expected to create stubs for all of them.

Hopefully these comments help a little; let me know if I can expand them in any way or provide any other assistance. A nice start, though. Carom 21:17, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Carom, thanks for your advice. I have acted on all of them and am now wondering if it should be forwarded for A class review? Woodym555 10:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)Updated Woodym555 17:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The only thing I would suggest doing before submitting it to A-Class review would be to expand the lead section. You may find it instructive to read this guideline to get an idea of how long this section should be and what it should contain. For example, for an article the length of this one, I would imagine a lead section of two to three paragraphs would be appropriate. Carom 22:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Carom, thanks again for your advice. I have now added a new lead section which i think adds enough detail and i will put it up for A-class review. Woodym555 16:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This article just passed A-Class Review, thanks for all your help, should this review be closed and archived now? Woodym555 19:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

152 mm howitzer M1943 (D-1)

A common effort of a group of editors. We'd like to get some comments and suggestions concerning further improvement of the article. Bukvoed 08:29, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin

Not bad, overall, but some points that still need work:

• The lead could stand to be longer; two or three paragraphs is pretty much the norm now.
• The "Production" section is really too short to stand on its own; it may be better off to absorb it into the previous one (as "Development and production").
• The "Summary" section is out of place; parts of it should be in the lead, while some of the more technical details would be better off in the description of the gun itself.
• An explicit "Trivia" section is unacceptable. While some of these points are interesting, they should be worked into the text itself (as footnotes, if needed).
• The "Surviving pieces" section should be converted into prose (a sentence or two, at most) and ideally absorbed into one of the larger sections ("Organization and employment", perhaps).

Kirill Lokshin 11:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. We reworked the article, taking these remarks into account. Bukvoed 07:53, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Duquesne Spy Ring

This quality article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 9 May, 2007. The topic has many interesting elements (e.g., Nazi Spies, a double-agent, major FBI sting operation, a colorful ring-leader in Fritz Duquesne, etc...) and many supporting documents in the public domain. Because of the heavy use of public domain material, a Wikipedia newbie worked hard to get the article deleted, even going so far as to submit an AfD on 17 May, 2007; however, his arguments were flawed and the article received a speed keep. Now that the unnecessary AfD debate has ended, it is time to look at ways to improve the article. Your comments and edits would be much appreciated.

-- Ctatkinson 01:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Jackyd101

• Sounds like you've had a tough time, well done for getting through it in a sensible manner. Its a nice article about an obscure by very interesting subject, however I do have a couple of comments. Firstly, the piece needs to be better cited. There are several links to the FBI source information at the bottom and several books listed, but it isn't clear exactly what information come from which source. Used citweb or citebook templates to create a proper notes section.

I'm also not wholly convinced by the article's structure. It might be better to take the information in the lead, William Sebold and Fritz Duquesne sections and create sections on the narrative history of the event (i.e. formation of the group, Sebold's double agent status, links with Germany, aims of the group, FBI monitoring of the ring, ring's collapse and arrest, aftermath). Then the small boilerplate mugshot sections could be placed below (Im not sure if it's just me, but some of the photos don't seem to match up with the personal information.) If anyone besides Duquesne and Sebold is notable enough for their own article then give it to them to save on size constraints. As it is, the article talks about the collapse of the group before the connection between Duquesne and Sebold. The information is all there it just seems to be in a slightly confusing order.

It should also be made clearer in the opening sections how the ring was recruited and organised, I didn't see anything really about that. Those are the major issues I have with the article right now, but it is an interesting read and can be relatively easily improved, good job.--Jackyd101 11:00, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

CJSC

I would second the above comments re: the article structure. In its current format I feel a better title for this article would be "List of Duquesne Spy Ring members", as it primarily consists of profiles of the various participants, rather than offering a summary overview of the ring's organization, activities, capture, and eventual conviction (as a minor aside, "brought to justice" in the lead has potential POV issues that might be better avoided through a more neutral rephrasing.) As Jackyd suggested, it's not clear that all 31 members need to be profiled, even in brief; rather I would focus on the ring as a whole, with specific attention being paid only to key members. Although the material is definitely public domain, Wikipedia's needs require a different narrative format from what's been provided by the FBI, so I would urge you not to lock yourself in to the existing article structure; the use of other sources, complementing the public domain FBI material, should help to bring out the history, which is likely to be of far greater interest to the average reader (and it does sound like a pretty fascinating case) than a detailed biography on each conspirator. Also, I understand your attachment to the article, but please do try to assume good faith on the part of the editor who nominated this article for deletion, as I saw no evidence that he meant it otherwise. Thanks, -- CJSC // Contact 14:18, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Berlin

Now the articles are stable, I think that they would benefit from a review by some extra pairs of eyes. The Battle of Berlin is closer to a campaign than a simple battle. To the Soviets it was the Berlin Offensive Operation but in English the "Offensive Operation" is known as the "Battle of Berlin" rather than the "Berlin Offensive". The article is now a detailed campaign overview with only one major section of the battle (encirclement) that has not spawned a more detailed page. A review of the Battle article will probably involve reviewing the more detailed pages as well. They are:

• Battle of the Oder-Neisse
  • Battle of the Seelow Heights
• Battle in Berlin
• Battle of Halbe

--Philip Baird Shearer 12:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Cla68

This review is for the main article. I'll try to review the sub-battle articles later:

• As much as possible, inline citations should be in the infobox to support the information contained there.
• The intro should be expanded to two or three paragraphs because of the overall length of the article.
• The background section begins in August, 1944 and therefore appears to assume that every reader will know how and why the USSR and Nazi Germany ended up in the conflict with each other in the first place. A short synopsis of the entire war between the two countries, perhaps a paragraph in length, would resolve that.
• I think the prose is choppy, but I'm known for being partial to run-on sentences, so, take my opinion on this with a grain of salt.
• Needs another copyedit to correct minor grammar mistakes ("detiorated from their heights in 1944").
• Several abbreviations (RAF, USAAF) are used without being completely spelled out the first time they appear.
• Wikify all dates.
• Every paragraph should have at least one inline citation at the end.
• Avoid one-sentence paragraphs.
• The images seem to be bunched-up towards the middle-to-end part of the article. Are there any that can be moved up or placed in earlier parts of the article? The profusion of images in the latter part are creating some white space. Some of them could also probably be moved to the left side.
• I think most FA reviewers prefer the footnotes section to be above the references and further reading sections.

There's a lot of really good, detailed information in this article and it's enjoyable to read. Cla68 23:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Flubeca

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

• Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Wikipedia:Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.^[?]
• Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.^[?]
• Per Wikipedia:What is a featured article?, Images should have concise captions.^[?]
• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 20 miles, use 20 miles, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 20&nbsp;miles.^[?]
• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), when doing conversions, please use standard abbreviations: for example, miles -> mi, kilometers squared -> km², and pounds -> lb.^[?]
• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), please spell out source units of measurements in text; for example, the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth.^[?] Specifically, an example is 15 km.
• Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Build the web, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006.^[?]
• There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
  • correctly
  • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).^[?]
• Please make the spelling of English words consistent with either American or British spelling, depending upon the subject of the article. Examples include: armor (A) (British: armour), meter (A) (British: metre), metre (B) (American: meter), defence (B) (American: defense), organize (A) (British: organise), realise (B) (American: realize), counter-attack (B) (American: counterattack), programme (B) (American: program ).
• Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
  • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
• As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2]^[?]
• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, -Flubeca^Talk 01:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review

Instructions

Requesting a review

To request the first A-Class review of an article:

1. Please double-check the MILHIST A-class criteria and ensure that the article meets most or all of the five (a good way of ensuring this is to put the article through a good article nomination or a peer review beforehand, although this is not mandatory).
2. If there has been a previous A-Class nomination of the article, before re-nominating the article the old nomination page must be moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Name of nominated article/archive1 to make way for the new nomination page.
3. Add A-Class=current to the {{WPMILHIST}} project banner at the top of the article's talk page (e.g. immediately after the class= or list= field).
4. From there, click on the "currently undergoing" link that appears in the template (below the "Additional information" section header). This will open a page pre-formatted for the discussion of the status of the article.
5. List your reason for nominating the article in the appropriate place, and save the page.
6. Add {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Name of nominated article}} at the top of the list of A-Class review requests below.
7. Refresh the article's talk page's cache by following these steps. (This is so that the article's talk page "knows" that the A-class review page has actually been created. It can also be accomplished in the 2010 wikitext editor by opening the page in edit mode and then clicking "save" without changing anything, i.e. making a "null edit". )
8. Consider reviewing another nominated article (or several) to help with any backlog (note: this is not mandatory, but the process does not work unless people are prepared to review. A good rule of thumb is that each nominator should try to review at least three other nominations as that is, in effect, what each nominator is asking for themselves. This should not be construed to imply QPQ).

Restrictions

1. An article may be nominated a second (or third, and so forth) time, either because it failed a prior nomination or because it was demoted and is now ready for re-appraisal. There is no limit on how quickly renominations of failed articles may be made; it is perfectly acceptable to renominate as soon as the outstanding objections from the previous nomination have been satisfied.
2. There are no formal limits to how many articles a single editor can nominate at any one time; however, editors are encouraged to be mindful not to overwhelm the system. A general rule of thumb is no more than three articles per nominator at one time, although it is not a hard-and-fast rule and editors should use their judgement in this regard.
3. An article may not be nominated for an A-Class review and be a Featured article candidate, undergoing a Peer Review, or have a Good article nomination at the same time.

Commenting

The Milhist A-Class standard is deliberately set high, very close to featured article quality. Reviewers should therefore satisfy themselves that the article meets all of the A-Class criteria before supporting a nomination. If needed, a FAQ page is available. As with featured articles, any objections must be "actionable"; that is, capable of rectification.

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Please add new requests below this line

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

Sukhoi Su-25

Very good article with proper images and references. I worked a lot on it in the past few time, and I would like to know if it deserves to become an A-class article. Regards, --Eurocopter tigre 16:00, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

• ComentSupport This really needs a good copyedit, but it appears to meet the other criteria. Carom 19:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I already talked with some people to help me do it. So, are you supporting it? --Eurocopter tigre 19:25, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Not until the prose has been improved a little (although, I'm not actively opposing it, either). Carom 19:37, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

• Can you tell me exactly which sections currently need attention and most urgent copyediting? Thanks, --Eurocopter tigre 19:55, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The whole article needs to be looked at, really. In particular, there are a number of long, clunky sentences that could be reworded or recombined to allow for a better flow, and you may wish to examine the comma usage in some places - there are a number of unneccessary commas that make for awkward reading. Carom 21:42, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support — I've copyedited a few of the sections, and fixed a date error in the intro paragraph -- it didn't agree with one of your cites later on. It's a pretty comprehensive look on the subject, and even though I'm not familiar with the topic, I felt that it was easy to read. JKBrooks85 15:28, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support — I've read through it all and reworded in places to clarify. It looks good. Very good detail on the design. -Fnlayson 21:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment the images used on the page appear to lack sources outside of a very vague link to a website, and the claim of PD on all of them needs further justification. Megapixie 06:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Infact given [3] they would seem to all be unfree... Megapixie 06:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

See this link [4], there is a clear copyright information at the bottom of the page - Copyright notice: Information on this non-profit web site has been collected from a variety of printed and online sources for educational purposes in accordance with the Fair Use clause of the U.S. copyright law. --Eurocopter tigre 07:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

That would make them unfree for the purposes of wikipedia. It's basically saying "we took these images from copyright books, websites and magazines and are using them here because we think we can get away with it". The only way we could use them is under fair-use, however we don't have a clear source, and they fall outside the WP:NFCC. Megapixie 07:53, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

But the images were taken from books, sites, etc, in accordance with the US copyright law - and the site clearly says they are under fair-use. So, our source is 'www.aeronautics.ru', a site which guarantees that this images are in fair use, and it is not our, or wikipedia's business to verify if this is true or not. --Eurocopter tigre 08:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Look I don't know how to say this politely - but you are completely wrong about this. www.aeronautics.com is almost certainly not the copyright holder, therefore they cannot release the images. The page that sums this up most succiently is Wikipedia:Upload/Unknown_author_or_license. If you want to read up on this (and you should before uploading any more images) see the image use policy at Wikipedia:Image use policy. In particular

" Before you upload an image, make sure that either:

• You own the rights to the image (usually meaning that you created the image yourself).
• You can prove that the copyright holder has licensed the image under an acceptable free license.
• You can prove that the image is in the public domain".

Of which you have done none. Megapixie 08:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• You can prove that the image is in the public domain" - In my opinion, that copyright notice proves that the image is under fair use in public domain. I really don't know what to say anymore, we should find a compromise for the sake of the article. Is there any chance to change the licensing claims into better ones? --Eurocopter tigre 09:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Aeronautics.ru's fair use claim works here as well, I believe. It's just info on the original source needs to be added here in the fair use rationale claim. It may take contacting the site to fins that out. -Fnlayson 13:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Ultimately none of the images from Aeronautics don't pass WP:NFCC criteria 1,2 and 10a:

• We could reasonable create replacements for all of the images (1)
• All of the images were likely being commercially exploited (2)
• we have absolutely no idea where any of them ORIGINALLY came from (10a)

10a is fixable. The other two are not. Even if they were - we are not commenting on the images critically, they are not uniquely historic (none of them would justify there own article per Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima) and we are certainly not using them for parody so they aren't fair use. Megapixie 13:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Wait, most probable some of this images were taken by Soviet Air Force or other Soviet/Russian officials, so this images would fall under something similar with the {{PD-USGov-Military}}, but i'm not sure if such an image tag exist. No offense, in the 1970s Soviet Union, there were very few people and officials which had access to military prototypes, etc. However, I'm still supporting the fact that this images could fall under fair use on wikipedia also (opinion supported by Fnlayson also), although I think it will be imposible to contact the site, as it was last updated in 2003. --Eurocopter tigre 17:16, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• Replacement images may be available but not readily (Iron curtain thing). I'm not sure of the commercial aspects of the images themselves. Some images of newer versions may be attainable though. Possible tags are {{PD-RU-exempt}}, {{PD-Russia}} or Image copyright tags. I hate trying to go back and fix CP tagging on images.. -Fnlayson 17:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• • Me too, but unfortunately there is always somebody who is assuming bad faith, and like to screw up other people's work, so we will have to find a sollution to fix this problem for the sake of the article. I have studied the Russian Copyright Laws, and the {{PD-RU-exempt}}, {{PD-Russia}} doesn't apply here. --Eurocopter tigre 17:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

As nobody else has anything to comment regarding the images, I think they should remain under fair-use, and the aeronautics.ru claims should work on wikipedia as well. --Eurocopter tigre 10:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I have listed the images at WP:PUI. Megapixie 11:58, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

All the posible unfree images were removed and will be replaced very soon. --Eurocopter tigre 15:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support — It meets requirements, though it still needs some copyediting. I'll try to work on it. --Victor12 16:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Seems to have met the criteria. Kyriakos 23:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

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

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

37 mm Gun M3

Self nomination. The article was peer reviewed recently and the reviewers suggested that it might be good enough for A-class. Bukvoed 06:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Nice article that appears to meet the criteria. CLA 07:20, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support Quite. Carom 19:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support A very good article which provides a detailed overview of the gun and how it was used. --Nick Dowling 01:28, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Good article. Kyriakos 01:33, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support. LostArtilleryman 17:32, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

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

Featured article candidates

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

The article was promoted 00:00, 16 July 2007.

---

Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident

previous FAC

Respectfully re-submitting this article for FA consideration. Since the last nomination, the article has received copyediting support from WP:JAPAN [5], undergone a peer review with WP:MILHIST [6], and passed an A-class review [7]. CLA 00:27, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - Image:MarineMichaelBrown.jpg is definitely a replaceable fair-use image; we don't need to use non-free images to show living people. The two pictures of his lawyer don't really seem to be particularly historically significant or really discussed in critical commentary, but I can see where those could go either way. (ESkog)^(Talk) 05:04, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
  • We need at least one picture of Michael Brown in the article, because he's at the center of this story. The image you specifically mention is most likely a public domain mugshot. Since the source of the image doesn't say that for sure I put the fair use rationale on it. What would you need done with the images in the article in order to change your opposition to the article? CLA 06:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Okay, I removed the fair use images. CLA 03:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
      • All concerns addressed, looks good. (ESkog)^(Talk) 03:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose on fair use grounds as above, but extending; Image:MarineMichaelBrown.jpg may or may not be a mugshot and we can not presume public domain just because it is a mugshot (even if it is). The source is copyrighted. Further, there's no fair use rationale for this particular use. Also, as he's living, it's replaceable fair use as noted above. Image:ToshimitsuTakaesu&MichaelGriffith.jpg lacks fair use rationale for this article. I also concur with the general comments regarding depiction of his lawyer. Why? There's nothing in the images that add to the article. The article discusses his lawyers, but a visual depiction of them does not add to the article significant, which is a requirement under our fair use policy. Image:MichaelBrownandToshimitsuTakaesu.jpg lacks fair use rationale for this article as well. --Durin 15:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I've removed all three fair use images from the article. CLA 03:44, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
• SupportWeak Oppose
  • No infobox? I am sure there is one that can be used here.
  • Lack of inline citations (not following the text you have written). The references in "Web" can probably be used in inline citations. (WP:CITE).
  • Stubby paragraphs. Combine or remove.
  • Some very long paragraphs. Reader will get lost.
    • If you can explain to me what you mean with the Notes thing (that I think is very odd), I will strike it out. After you have finished, please message me.--trey 03:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
      • Okay, I split some paragraphs and combined some paragraphs ([8], [9], [10], and [11]) and added an infobox: [12]. Instead of spreading the footnotes throughout the text, which I believe interrupts the flow of the article, I combined them all at the end of each paragraph (except in the case of direct quotations). In each citation is the author's name and the title of the article, which the reader can reference in the "Web" section. I've used this footnote style in the last four articles that I've successfully nominated for FA. See Battle of Edson's Ridge, Actions along the Matanikau, 1994 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 crash, and Battle of Cape Esperance. Cla68 09:01, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support A detailed, well written and well referenced article on an interesting topic. --Nick Dowling 01:19, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Under the trial section, the last three paragraphs all start with on and then a date, this repetition doesn't seem like professional writing. And for the citations, why aren't the sources inline? You have an inline section under what you call "notes", which are not notes, but just the names and titles of the sources in the web section below. By doing this you force the reader to look at your "notes" and then search the list below for the correct article. This is not necessary. The "notes" should be removed and the web sources and other sources should be done by inline citations. While you may have used this format for citations in previous FA's I think its redundant and should be changed. KnightLago 16:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Since the paragraphs in the trial section are divided by time sequence, I'm finding it hard to think of how the paragraphs should begin. Any suggestions you might have of how you think those paragraphs should begin would be very helpful. Yes, the "notes" section does force the reader to find the full reference below. I've seen it done this way in many history books that I read and in many other articles here in the project. Cla68 20:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
    • I have seen it done in books as well, but this is not a book. I think authors do that because they are going to continue to reference the source and don't want to put footnotes on every page. But I think we should be uniform in sources, and not force the reader to search for anything. I also think it would be easier for you as you write to just use inline citations throughout. It would certainly save you time. I tried to work on the sentences I talked about above, but I noticed something else. Paragraphs 2,3,4,5 under the trial section all start the same way. I think this needs to be changed also. KnightLago 14:25, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
      • Thank you for your helpful edits to the article. Cla68 04:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support, per my comments at previous FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 01:10, 7 July 2007.

---

Ceawlin of Wessex

Passed GA; I hope this is now ready for FAC. Some other Anglo-Saxon royalty FAs, for comparison, if useful: Ælle of Sussex, Penda of Mercia, Æthelberht of Kent. Thanks for all comments. Mike Christie (talk) 18:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support I did the GA review of this article, and it is easily up to FA standards. Great job as usual. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
• I don't know how much I should comment on this article, since I created the earlier version mumble years ago of this article which stood until this extensive -- & very readible -- rewriting. I will note a couple of things. First, I am pleasantly surprised that (I'm guessing here) Mike Christie referenced a number of sources which I had in mind, but did not mention in that earlier version. However, I am a little puzzled about the style used for sources: to me it seems that the entries are duplicated at length, once in the notes then again in the references. Could this be condensed? lastly, there are a few other sources & points that I feel could be added -- but I'd rather discuss these with Mike offline, rather than suggest that these must be added for the article to obtain FA status. -- llywrch 18:20, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

With regard to the references and notes; I am not sure what the MOS really wants here. I have always used the full form of the sources in the notes, since I figured that subsequent edits might detach other mentions of those sources from the article. However, I know there is also a style where the "references" section shows full source details, and the "notes" section just uses summary style: "Kirby 1991, p. 42", or something similar. I don't mind switching if MOS requires it; I was just being conservative about keeping all the data in each location. For the other points, Llywrch, please post on the article talk page and I'll follow up there -- I look forward to seeing your comments. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 18:51, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally (and this is just my opinion), I would think that as long as it is unambiguous, there is no need to convert all references to one style or another. In fact, several guidelines, policies, and ArbCom decisions recommend against it. References should be complete, be cited to reliable sources, and used unambiguously so everyone can easily see where each fact comes from. This article does that in spades. Other Featured Articles use different formats and do it equally as well. Different is not always better. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:32, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support—mostly well-written. But I notice this bit, which needs fixing in a number of places:

The sources are also inconsistent on the length of Ceawlin’s reign. The Chronicle gives it as thirty-two years, from 560 to 592; but the Regnal Lists disagree: different versions give it as seven or seventeen years. A recent detailed study of the Regnal List dates the arrival of the West Saxons in England to 538, and favours seven as the most likely length of Ceawlin's reign, with dates of 581–588 proposed.[10][15] However, the sources do agree that Ceawlin is the son of Cynric, and he is usually named as the father of Cuthwine.[16] There is one discrepancy to be noted in this case, too: the entry for 685 in the [A] version of the Chronicle assigns Ceawlin a son, Cutha; in the 855 entry in the same manuscript, Cutha is listed as the son of Cuthwine. Cutha is also named as Ceawlin’s brother in the [E] and [F] versions of the Chronicle, in the 571 and 568 entries, respectively.[17]

Whether Ceawlin is a descendant of Cerdic is a matter of debate, however. Subgroupings of different West Saxon lineages give the impression of separate groups, of which Ceawlin's line is one. It has been suggested that some of the problems in the Wessex genealogies came about because of efforts to integrate Ceawlin's line with the other lineages: it was very important to the West Saxons to be able to trace their ancestors back to Cerdic.[18]

Present tense is odd. Colon after semicolon is awkward. "Seven years", not a length of seven. Remove "to be noted". Lots of however, but and also. Explicit references to sources ("it has been suggested that ... [18}"; smoother to say "Some of the ... may have come about ... [18]". So perhaps fresh eyes need to run through the whole thing; most of it looks pretty good, though. Tony 05:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I've done a copyedit pass and I hope have dealt with most of these points. I left the present tense in place; I hesitate on this usage but ultimately I think the sense can be justified. The documents were written in the past, but are present now for us to cite as sources in historical debates, so in that sense the Chronicle "says". The writer of the Chronicle "said" something in 890, but the Chronicle itself still says it today. If there's a consensus that this is not a style we want to see in WP, I can change it, but I thought I'd explain my reasoning. Mike Christie (talk) 16:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Support. Well written article and of FA quality. Kyriakos 21:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 01:10, 7 July 2007.

---

Victoria Cross

Self nomination. I have been rewriting and updating this article for a while. It has been through a peer review and has recently passed an A-Class review on the MilHist project. I now believe that it meets the criteria for FA. Thankyou Woodym555 15:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

This is an article which I would very much like to see as an FA. I've had it on my radar for a while, though I've yet to make any substantial edits, but I've been impressed with what you have brought to it. (Incidentally, you may find that WP:ODM is another forum worth discussing this article in).

However I'm sorry to say that I think that the article still needs further development, primarily in the area of the medal's historical origins and development. I find this to be fairly sketchy at the moment; certainly some attempt has been made to address it, but a little more context re. (for example) pre 1854 methods of rewarding gallantry, the practice of other European nations, who was the prime instigator for the institution of the medal and their motivations, etc. This is one aspect which I think needs development, on the other hand there are notable omissions - eg the whole area of awards by ballot is not even touched upon. There are also one or two dubious assertions, such as the section dealing with the discontinuation of the 'naval' VC - to the best of my knowledge, the 'red' of the army ribbon is exactly the same as the 'crimson' post 1918. This was simply a case of the navy ribbon being discontinued in favour of the army one - there was no change in the army shade to reflect the RN and RAF as the article seems to suggest.

One thing strikes me about the references - there are very few direct references to the medal's constituting Warrant. This must surely be a key source? Tracing the amendments to the Warrant over the years would be an important element of any history section.

These are just a few of my thoughts. WP:SOFIXIT would probably be a justifiable response - I'll certainly try to in the weeks ahead - but as it stands, I don't think that this can pass as FA.

Xdamr^talk 16:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou for your comments. I certainly agree that the subject warrants a FA.

• I am adding more historical background with refs placed to the orignal clauses in warrants in the coming days, as will a new subsection on the ballots.
• There is a picture here [[13]] that shows a red ribbon clearly different to the crimson seen today. In this article it suggests that it was changed to crimson. The RN blue ribbon was stopped because of the Raf being formed, as to why the ribbon is now crimson is not known. Most sources such as Ashcroft say it evolved. The army warrants state red. Woodym555 18:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I have now added in some more background information specifically relating to Victoria and Albert and some little bits of information surrounding medal structure at the time(order of the bath). The article has been suplemented by the original warrants and clauses have been referenced. Any further comments would be welcome. Woodym555 19:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick reply for now. Re. the ribbon and your IWM picture; I agree that there is certainly a difference between that ribbon and the current one, however, to my eye at least, this is because the IWM picture (for whatever reason) has a heavy red tint. I've seen a few pre and post 1918 VCs and there is no particular difference between them. I think the Warrant's use of 'red' can be put down to mid-Victorian imprecision, nothing else. I have one or two of the standard works on British decorations so I'll try and lend a hand in fleshing out one or two of these areas.

Xdamr^talk 20:58, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Other than the ribbon, is there anything else that prevents this from reaching FA, any other problems or qualms? Thankyou for your work so far. Woodym555 21:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Not as far as I can see - Karanacs pointed out most of the other problems that I would have suggested work on. Good job, this article is certainly at the very least now up to GA, and I think that once the points rased here have been addressed an FA is deserved. As I say, I'll take a look over the content and see if I can supplement it, but otherwise it seems a good treatment of the subject.

Xdamr^talk 13:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support Oppose This is a very interesting article, but I can't support it for FA as is. The punctuation needs serious attention and several areas are missing citations.
  • In the lead there is a sentence that either needs a comma instead of a period or needs proper capitalization
    • Done
  • Should Gun really be capitalized in the lead?
    • Done, no it should not have been
  • Should Non Commissioned Officers be capitalized? In the article non-commissioned officer it is not. (I also recommend adding the wikilink)
    • Done, i have changed it and wikilinked it
  • "The medal structure of the time only rewarded officers...Yet there was no such..." You don't need "Yet,"
    • Done, removed yet
  • Lots of comma issues. Here are a few examples, but I recommend you read through the whole article to see if there are any others.
    • The sentence that begins "In other European countries" is a run-on sentence as it is currently punctuated. You can either substitute a semi-colon or a period for the comma after rank and be fine.
    • You do not need a comma after 29 January 1856,
    • Need a comma after "under the guidance of Prince Albert,"
    • Need a comma after a single year (In 1898,)
    • Do not need a comma after New Zealander,
      • Done, gone through the article and fixed the plethora of comma problems that afflicted the article
  • Citations should come after punctuation
    • Done, during the copyedit i couldn't find examples where they weren't, other than inline citations
  • You should combine the two sentences about Chinese guns.
    • Done, combined the sentence
  • I think it should be "is stored ina vault guarded by 15 Regiment..."
    • Done, put maintained instead as it is part of a system of logistical warehouses and stores in Donnington, guarded by RMP(Royal Military Police), i believe.
  • No period to end the sentence that is marked by citation 13. ("inscription FOR VALOR.")
    • Done, removed period
  • Should not be a period after "Australia, Canada, and New Zealand[25]"
    • Done, removed period
  • "As at January 2005" should be "As of January 2005"
    • Done, changed to of
  • In one place gunmetal is listed as one word, in others it is two words
    • Done, wikilinked first instance and changed to gunmetal everywhere else
  • Why are there [ ] around QROs?, and why is the period inside it?
    • Done, i have fixed the wikilink and deleted the abbreviation
  • Need a citation for this sentence: "In January 2006 the amount was $A3,230 per year which is indexed annually in line with Australian Consumer Price Index increases."
    • Done, added two citations that were clauses from the Australian Government
  • Three sententences in a row begin with "The largest number..." Would it be possible to mix this up?
    • Done, changed paragraph structure and merged one sentence, changed the remaining one
  • The sentence about Surgeon General Manley is a little unwieldy. Perhaps you could list the two crosses and then list the actions that he received them for.
    • Done, changed into two sentences
  • Need a citation for the number of surviving VC holders.
    • Done, added in new sentence about service that highlights the remaining survivors
  • Need citations for the paragraph that discusses Manley, Trigg and Roope.
    • Done, added individual citations
  • Need citation for "The change reflected the increasing difficulty in attaining the award."
    • Deleted the line as it is mere speculation, no verifiable source (i.e book) mentions it, it was really about making sure that acts of bravery could never be taken away from an individual no matter what else they may have done.
  • Need a citation for Richard Spooner section
    • Deleted the section as there was no verifiable references other than his wiki page
  • A lot of the information on Lummis seems misplaced in this article. It is not all about the VC, and it may not belong in this article.
    • Done, this was in the article due to a deletion dispute which resulted in a merger. The article has since been reinstated and so i have removed much of the information related to him.
      • This is much better, but I'd still remove the birth and death dates for Lummis and also remove the last sentence. He is important to this article solely because he had a large archive that resulted in a book. Karanacs 14:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
        • Done, cut down to recommended levels
  • Instead of "as yet unissued," need to have "as of XXXX, unissued"
    • Done, changed sentences
  • For articles that have an author, you must include the author name in the citation (see cite 3).
    • Done, changed some to cite news template and amended accordingly
  • All citations must have a publisher (see 4, 12, etc)
    • Done, added publisher
  • Is there any way to trim the list of external links? There are a lot listed here.
    • Done, I have cut down the links and have created an Archives subsection

Karanacs 01:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

My first replies are in bold, i will rectify the citations and commas in a thorough copyedit. Woodym555 11:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

All replies are in bold and i have now done the copyedit, i hope all your objections have been rectified. Thanks Woodym555 16:04, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

You've done a good job so far. I went throught it one more time to check out the citations, though, and I added fact tags in other places where the citations appear to be missing. It may be that those facts are cited by articles already listed, but I did not find them in the citation that was closest to the fact. Karanacs 17:21, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I think i got all of your fact tags, a slight sense of overkill, (the sky is blue ) but i do understand the need for a completely referenced encyclopedia, just hard sometimes finding obscure data on annuitys! especially when Hansard seems to be down. I now hope that your objections have been met, thankyou for your thoroughness. Woodym555 19:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks and great work! I am especially impressed that you've already included the information about the NZ VC being awarded today. Good luck! Karanacs 01:30, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support I have previously edited this article when the Alfred Shout VC was sold. The effort of editors since to get to this standard is commendable. Gnangarra 01:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Support Now that the concerns have been pretty well addressed, I have no hesitation in commending this as a top-notch bit of work. --Xdamr^talk 01:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support probs to the article have been fixed, I believe it now meets FA Brian | (Talk) 07:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support I made some minor changes to the article, but I feel this is FA material. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 23:28, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 13:35, August 2, 2007.

---

Ironclad warship

Self-nomination; this article is a thorough treatment of a fascinating and neglected part of naval history, which has recently passed an A-class review from MilHist. Regards, The Land 18:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support - Well referenced and nicely developed on a difficult subject. The lead could do with some tweaking, but I'll give my support. NSR77 ^T_C 23:18, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Ironclad redirects to ironclad warship, so why not just use the former as the title? Peter ^Isotalo 06:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

We can do, but it's been like this since 2003 and there is no overwhelming reason to change it. The Land 18:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment — The lead includes the statement that "At the same time, it was often held that the ram or the torpedo were the crucial weapons of naval combat" but fails to explain why this is relevant to ironclads. It could mention, for example, that ironclads were designed for ramming, but their deployment tactics had to be modified to account for the torpedo. — RJH (talk) 18:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Have fixed this up, will return to it shortly. The Land 18:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. — RJH (talk)

• Support Saw a few things I didn't like, but overall this looks good. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
• Strong oppose — Severe problems with the citations, which aren't very specific. When there is a specific claim being made, the reader shouldn't need to search through a whole book that has a much more general scope. Presumably, the authors will have found that specific claim on some page, or in some section of a given book. If there is a whole chapter about the claim in question, give the chapter; else, give the section or the pages — otherwise, the citations are of little use to readers of the article. "Naval Warfare 1815-1914" serves as a reference for over 20 specific claims (that the US Navy had no ironclads as the war broke out; that the Union was building two specific ships a bit later; that a specific ship arrived at some location at some specific time and so on), and not a single one of them has a page number or any information more than that, presumably, it is covered somewhere in the 270 or so pages of that book. As far as I can see, the other citations have the same problem. Even a direct quotation such as the one given for R. D. Hill in the "Before the Ironclad" section doesn't have a full citation to support it. In short, article doesn't at all comply with WP:CITE (full citations).

This is now fixed - at least, for the 97% of references where I have access to the source. The Land 14:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

• An impressive amount of work appears to have gone into addressing this objection - great improvement! Markus Poessel 15:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Some other issues:

• References/notes: Some irregularities — one book is cited like an article (quotation marks instead of italics for the title); one ISBN is not linked; if there is a reference section, why are some titles given only in the notes, and not in the references; at least one book cited without year/publisher; citation style in notes uneven (sometimes the author first, sometimes the title)

Think I've fixed this.

• Not quite - some books are now present both in the notes and in the references section, the Northrop news is only in the notes. You're mostly there - just one more run to make sure that all the cited works are in the reference section, and referred to in some uniform way in the notes (author/pages appears to be the chosen style), and it's done. I'm not going to quibble about style (using the proper kind of dashes, space or not after "p."), but there should be uniformity. Go these last few remaining steps, and I'll withdraw my opposition. --Markus Poessel 15:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorted, I think! Everything listed in the notes should now be in the references; and every fn should be in the format, Author, A.N. "Name of Book" p.1-2 The Land 19:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

• I'm counting more than 15 red links. Some of them look like they can be readily rectified - for instance, why does there need to be a red link for chilled iron if there is a WP article chill (foundry) which presumably would be appropriate here? If there's no article for nickel-steel, is there some useful subsection of steel that could be linked to? If the gas cementing link is red, would it make sense to link to Krupp armour? In short, the article doesn't look like anyone has made a thorough wikification check yet. Also, as far as I'm aware, editors presenting a FAC are encouraged to create stubs in order to keep down the number of red links in the candidate article.

• Number of red links greatly reduced; if you'd create stubs for floating batteries, forced draught and Numancia_(ironclad), you'd have gotten rid of all of them. Markus Poessel 09:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

• OK, I created a stub for floating battery. One red link left; no big deal, I'd guess. Markus Poessel 15:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Talking of wikification, has anyone checked the non-red links? Why, for instance, does mine point to the disambiguation page instead of the Naval mine page? Why does the link for the seasoning of wood point to the seasoning page that is about food, instead of seasoning (wood)? Why does at least one monitor point to the disambiguation page? Why does the ram point to a disambiguation page, when there appears to be a perfectly good article Naval ram (which even links back to ironclad)?

• Great improvement on this point, too; wikification still to correct: change Sloop to Sloop-of-war, turret to Gun_turret, ton to either Long, Short, or Metric ton so the reader knows what is meant. Markus Poessel 09:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

• Lead tweaking: "The first ironclad battleship, La Gloire, was launched by the French Navy in 1859,[2] and was quickly followed by Britain and other major navies." — The warship was followed by navies? How about "The first ironclad...was launched...in 1859; Britain's and other major navies quickly followed suit" or something like that?
• Lead tweaking: "After the first battles with ironclads took place at the 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads of the American Civil War" — singular or plural? Can several battles take place at a single Battle? Or is it more like "After the first fighting/engagements/encounters involving ironclads took place"? (Also, "involving" sounds more suitable than "with", since there wasn't some strictly non-ironclad force doing battle with ironclads.)
• Two further tweaking issues I noticed while looking through the wiki links: "the British Cowper Coles" should probably be "the British inventor" or "the British Naval officer Cowper Coles". In describing the Japanese Imperial Navy, it would make sense to mention that Kotetsu was re-used CSS Stonewall. Markus Poessel 09:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Lead has been written, did as you suggested with Coles. The Stonewall/Kotetsu link is mentioned.

The Land 14:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Some copy-editing still necessary, though: Re-reading once, there's one double punctuation (comma, reference, semicolon), at least one lower-case that should be uppercase, and at least one misspelled word. Apart from that, at least from my point of view, it reads better now. Markus Poessel 15:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, those were the things that I found just randomly scanning the article - so there's definitely no guarantee that, say, I found all the instances of sub-optimal wikification. Markus Poessel 10:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

You are right about the wikification, which I will address. Regarding citations, I'd point out that WP:CITE said it rather differently when I nominated the article - [14]. I can address this but it will be a lower priority than the wikification. The Land 12:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:CITE has had this requirement for years, but it did apparently get lost in this revision by User:Christopher Parham and was only restored a few weeks later here. You seem to have had bad luck on timing for your nomination to fall into this specific period of time. Please don't take this issue lightly, though — having incomplete citations is almost as useless as having no inline citations at all, and it makes Wikipedia look very unprofessional — Potemkin encyclopedia articles, if you will. Wikification, as far as it concerns issues like readers having to make two clicks to go to Naval mine instead of a single click, is much less serious by comparison. Markus Poessel 16:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I think I've sorted the wikification issues. Next, the citations. The Land 21:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

• Minor object. I expect those issues can be address easily. Don't we have any modern (color) photos of those ships? The article could use at least one. Lead should have no more then four paragraphs, it is also ilink light - terms like 'steel armor plates', 'explosive or incendiary shells' or 'coastal defence ships' - from the first few lines - need to be ilinked. 'There were many types of ironclads' misses citations for the last two types. 'End of the ironclad' could be expanded a little. 'Ironclads today' section needs more references, and transformation of the list into a paragraph.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:48, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Re the photos - ironclads are an under-photographed subject; at one stage I was worried too much use of modern photos would result in having too many photos of HMS Warrior. There is quite a good free image of the Huascar, which I'll include as well. References and other fixes I will attend to but I might need a bit of time to do so. The Land 20:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Am spending some time on this over the weekend, pelase don't close the discussion before then! The Land 14:36, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Lead is now shorter and more thoroughly linked. I've added the photo of Huascar. I had a look for decent copyfree photos of either the new Monitor model or the Cairo; and can't find any. The Land 14:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support—well, I will support when it's received a run-through to fix things.
  • Provide metric equivalents.
  • MOS breach: spell out units and hyphenate when a used as a compound adjective: "36 6.4 in" (this may be an instance where MOS allows you to omit a conversion on the grounds of awkwardness). Also, spell out "36", in a rare instance of the need to avoid a clash of digit functions.
  • "Very" is usually very redundant. I can cope with "very long vessel", but not "very successful" straight after.
• Where's your boundary between digits and spelling out numbers? (nine/10?) I see "sixteen" and "16".
• There's the awkward U dot S dot and there's US.
• "Amongst" -> "among": keep it plain.
• Do not use hyphens as interruptors. See MOS on em dashes.
• See what MOS thinks of hyphens after LY.

Tony 12:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Will deal with theissues you raise on Sunday. The Land 14:55, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been through the units but nto sure I've got the guns totally right. I'm not helped by the fact that during this period one could classify a gun by the nominal weight of shot, or the calibre, or the nominal weight of the gun. I have attempted to provide a calibre in both metric and imperial for all the guns so readers have some sort of conistent basis for comparison.

Had another look and think I've got it this time. Though exactly when a calibre is used as an adjective and when as a measurement, I don't know. The Land 18:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:ABB says that U.S. is preferred to US, so I've standardised on it.

Think I'm there with the numbers and appropriate use of mdashes.

Have de-veried the article (yes, I do seem to overuse it!) and I think you'll be happy with a number of other prose tweaks I've made.

Let me know if you have any more thoughts! The Land 13:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose These minor fixes needed:

• "It is often held that the power of explosive shells to smash wooden hulls" – sentences shouldn't start with "it" when the "it" doesn't stand for anything
• "It took until 1881 for the Royal Navy to lay down" - as above

Not heard of that before. It is a perfectly valid English usage to do so. The Land 16:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• "with calibre increasing from 8-inch (203 mm) to 16-inch (406 mm)." - the use of "with" as an additive link should be avoided. It's best to use a semicolon instead.
• "with the French laying down centre-battery ironclads in 1865" - "with" as an additive link
• "with Britain possessing as many ships as the next two navies combined." - "with" as an additive link

Fixed the latter two of those; I think a semicolon would be clunky in the first instance

• ly- words need to be fixed per Tony

You're going to have to help me here - I can't see them so you need to point some out to me. The Land 16:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• "There is no clear end to the ironclad period" – sentences shouldn't start with "there" when the "there" doesn't stand for anything

Again, never heard of that before. One might say "There is no such rule". The Land 16:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• "There were nonetheless real innovations from Russia" - as above

Fixed that. The Land 16:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• Page ranges in the footnotes need en dashes rather than hyphens

Will sort eventually. The Land 16:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• "while receiving a number of shell hits which bounced off their armor" – the "a number of" is redundant
• "with a number of innovations like" – the "a number of" is redundant

Done, thanks for pointing that out The Land 16:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• "were very influential on the designs" – the "very" is redundant

"Very" is not redundant in every case. In this case, I think it's justified.

• "offered many advantages in terms of the engineering of the hull." – the "many" is redundant

Done The Land 16:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• Birth of the Battleship: British Capital Ship Design, 1870-1881 - the date range needs an en dash instead of a hyphen. Other date ranges in the footnotes also need fixing.

Yes, will get round to it, dash formats in footnotes is not something I can get worked up about. The Land 16:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• "Noel, Gerard H U Noel et al" - is the Noel meant to be repeated?

Done The Land 16:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• "which weighed 6.5 tons," - is this a long, short or metric ton?

Long, throughout. I've made this clear on the wikilink on first use of the unit.

• "would ever carry guns as larg>." - typo. Epbr123 09:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Fixed thanks. The Land 16:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

There are no rules against starting sentences with "there" or "it", but they involve using passive voice, which should be avoided. Epbr123 16:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Take the point but I think it's appropriate in the examples we're discussing. E.g. "It is often held" is better than the vague "Many historians hold" or the excessively long "A long tradition of naval history holds". "It took until 1881" indicates that significant time passed, as opposed to "In 1881". And "There is no clear end" is surely better than "Naval historians agree there is no clear end" or "Naval historians cannot agree".... Unless you have a better idea about how to express these points! The Land 16:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

"The power of explosive shells to smash wooden hulls, as demonstrated by the Russian destruction of a Turkish squadron at the Battle of Sinope, is often held to have spelled the end of the wooden-hulled warship."

"The Royal Navy took until 1881 to lay down a long-range armored warship capable of catching enemy commerce raiders, Warspite, which was completed in 1888."

"The ironclad period had no clear end, but towards the end of the 1890s the term ironclad dropped out of use."

• I'm not certain whether active voice is used in all these, but they're less wordy than before. Epbr123 17:06, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 01:59, 24 July 2007.

---

Sargon of Akkad

Revamped and overhauled article, recently made GA. I did not originate the article but I did substantially modify it, not sure if that makes it a self-nom. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support as nom. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support, interesting topic and interesting article--Aziz1005 00:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Support - very interesting article, nearly there.

• Remove the 'In Fiction' section
• Source (and hopefully expand) the statement "The Assyrian and Babylonian kings who based their empires in Mesopotamia saw themselves as the heirs of Sargon's empire."
• When discussing the 'Sargon Legend', it could be clearer how the 'Legend' relates to the other documents mentioned in the section; also tense confusion with "When Sargon returned to Ur-Zababa, the king becomes frightened "

Can see this being an FA very soon. The Land 16:33, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I have addressed your issues with my latest edits, with the exception of the literature section. Many articles about notable people contain sections on literary works in which those figures have appeared. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 02:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

In that case I'd significantly expand the mention of Nimrod, which is of encyclopedic value, and ditch the mention of the rather trivial comic. FAs need to avoid trivia. The Land 08:00, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the comic myself and supporting conditional on it not going back in ;) The Land 17:13, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - three columns of references probably isn't needed; two should be fine. -- Phoenix2 ^(holla) 00:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

• This is a stylistic preference; many FA's have three columns. This surely is not an issue that should deny the article FA status. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 02:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

• I am not opposing, but I am not very happy with the ToC organisation. There should be a separate discussion of what primary sources we have, when they were found, and how their respective date and status is evaluated, as well as some bits on the history of research on Sargon, who was involved, and how fixed our knowledge on Sargon is considered at present (any open debates?). Piecing together from the article body, we have the "Sargon legend", the Sumerian king list, the "Epic of the King of the Battle", the Chronicle of Early Kings, "The Neo-Assyrian Sargon text", and "another source (Nougayrol 169)". The article is also rather positive in many places. "Sargon's own daughter Enheduanna": it is by no means certain that she was his natural daughter. She was called his "daughter" sure enough, but this may as likely as not be just a court title. A dramatic account of Sargon's conquests is attributed to "Kramer, The Sumerians 61.; Van de Mieroop 64-66", which is fair enough, but it would not be superfluous to go into more detail as to what are our sources for this. Also missing is Sargon's Sumerian name (how does the "Sumerian Sargon Legend" spell Sargon?) The article is certainly fair, and I wouldn't expect more out of a Britannica article on Sargon, which is why I'm not opposing this FAC, but frankly the information given leaves me a bit unsatisfied. More issues: The article naively links to Azupiranu, an article on a "city". This is probably not really a city but a metaphor alluding that his mother tried to abort the fetus. At least speculations in this direction belong mentioned. Is the Akkadian form Šarukinu{{fact}} or Šarrukīnu? The bit on the parallel to Moses should mention Biblical scholars who maintain that the Moses birth story was in fact fashioned after the Sargon legend. We need more on the position of Sargon legend in the later Assyrian empire, and should probably treat later sources separately, just as we wouldn't use Matter of France material directly in a biography of Charlemagne. We need a clean report on what is known from inscriptions, what is known from 3rd millennium texts, and what is known from later Assyrian accounts. Please do not tell me to just {{sofixit}}. I would like to , but to address all the points just raised, I would have to sit down with the article for half a day at least. dab (�) 08:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Please give me a source for your assertion regarding the identity of Enheduanna and Azupiranu. I have never seen them identified as anything other than Sargon's daughter and birth city, respectively, and would be interested in reading about the controversy. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

not sure if I got this correctly. azupiranu means "saffron", and saffron was used for abortion, but the synthesis may be spurious, I have no reference for it at present in any case. dab (�) 18:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Moses/Sargon, my impression is that the scholars who maintain that Moses' story was cribbed from Sargon's were in the extreme minority. The prevalance of this motif in mythology around the world and the fact that there is no real way of telling which story, Moses or Sargon came first (the Sargon legend that has the castaway baby motif is from a Neo-Assyrian text that is later than or contemporaneous with much of the Torah) don't really lend themselves to such certainty.

With respect to the comments about organizing the sources, I see the point but I think that separating out the sources in this way would result in a long string of tiny sections as each source doesn't say very much. I have done my best to organize the material into a chronological narrative of Sargon's life and been very careful to identify which material comes from which source. The reader should be able to ascertain which items are from much later texts from reading the article. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 14:59, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Šarukinu vs. Šarrukīnu is just a matter of pronunciation. The latter is more accurate, because it makes more of an attempt to capture the original pronunciation of his name, according to how Assyriologists have deciphered the Akkadian language.--Šarukinu 22:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

it's a phonological difference. The cuneiform spellling apparently has no plene, so we need a reference to an Akkadian dictionary to establish kīnu "legitimate".

• Support - Wikipedia needs more FA's about ancient Bet-Nahrain ("Mesopotamia")--Šarukinu 22:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - Could there be a link in the article to a cunieform webfont (in a box like at the top of Japanese language for example)? I really like the map and the family tree, by the way.--Estrellador* 20:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support, although I believe that the article could benefit from some expansion. I listed on talk page some points that could be mentioned. As it is, the article is head and shoulders above the level of our pages about ancient Mesopotamia (look at Umma, for instance). --Ghirla^-трёп- 15:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Good and instresting article. Kyriakos 04:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose for now, fixes needed. Quotations are not italicized (WP:MOS#Italics) and the author of a quote of a full sentence or more should be given. The lead should be a compelling, stand-alone summary of the article. The article opens with three stubby sentences one after the other, with no connections:
  • The "Sargon legend" is a Sumerian text purportedly describing Sargon's life. The extant versions are incomplete. The surviving fragments name Sargon's father as La'ibum.
• "In literature is a section of one sentence. Either the section should be expanded, or the sentence could be incorporated elsewhere.
• Date and number ranges (not only in the text, but including footnote page ranges and dates in references) are separated by endashes, not hyphens (see WP:DASH).
• All websources should have a last access date and specify publisher.
• Informal, unencyclopedic prose, sample: The name of Sargon's primary wife Tashlultum and those of a number of his children are known to us.
• Vague statement begging for a citation: Two other sons, Ibarum and Abaish-Takal, are mentioned in some sources.
• Prose: After coming to power in Kish, Sargon soon attacked Uruk, ... Soon after coming to power in Kish, Sargon attacked Uruk ???

The above are samples only, indicating the need for someone to audit throughout. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:04, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe the majority of these issues have been addressed now. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 04:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Why are solo years linked ? (WP:MOSNUM) Ibid should not be used in Wiki as it is dynamic; text can move or be inserted, changing footnotes. (See WP:FN and WP:CITE. Endashes on date and page ranges have not been corrected, per WP:DASH; the article still uses hyphens for dashes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I was the one who introduced ibid. to this article, & only because I couldn't think of a better short version of the book's title that would work for this article. Do you have a suggestion for a better way to cite this source? (BTW, complaining about hyphens vs. en/em dahses is getting a bit nit-picking, don't you think?) -- llywrch 02:44, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a need to shorten it, but why isn't Oppenheim in the Reference list anyway? No, I don't think expecting FAs to comply with criterion 2 (WP:MOS) is nitpicking. If FAs don't have to comply with our Manual of Style and WP:WIAFA, why do we bother to have them ? Let's just pass FAs the same way GAs are passed, because one person says so. Further, my oppose wasn't based only on criterion 2; I will strike my oppose once all issues, including 2—MOS, are resolved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

In point of fact, there are no more ibids. The citations are now uniform. With regard to hyphens vs. en/em dashes, I do believe that is nitpicking and I have no intention of going through and coding endashes throughout the article. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 01:49, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, citations look good now. If you'll note the full commentary above, my Oppose was not (and still is not) based on dashes. A thorough audit of the prose is needed, and I gave examples only. For example, looking at the current text, one finds:

• Stories of Sargon's reign and might may have influenced the body of folklore later incorporated into the Bible.

I can't decipher what that sentence is trying to say; a prose audit is needed throughout, as well as adjusting still numerous instances of faulty dashes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the prose of the sentence is quite clear. The reference is to stories of Sargon's reign, meaning the period of his rule, and might, meaning his power. What is unclear? Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 03:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Ps, fixed the dashes myself with the help of Brighterorange. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:48, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Is the section heading, "Wars in the north west and east" supposed to have a comma? The text doesn't discuss north west and east, so it's hard to tell. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

What is the source for the Chart of the Royal House of Akkad ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Continuing: thanks for fixing the north west and east section heading. I've looked at the comment from the GAC reviewer numerous times, trying to figure out why that phrase was singled out in the GA pass and no one else had mentioned it in three weeks, while I couldn't decipher its meaning. Regarding the sentence mentioned above: it references a "body" of literature, but the next sentence then gives only the example that scholars speculate that Sargon may have been Nimrod, leaving unclear if there is more to the entire "body" mentioned. If there is more to this speculation, could it be discussed in more detail or expanded to include a few more words so the reader knows there's more than one speculative example? Not knowing what is meant by "body of folklore" made me wonder about 1b (comprehensive). Also, recasting the sentence to avoid "might may" will be less of a tongue- and brain-twister. I'm also wondering if you planned to review my other comments above, so I can strike my Oppose. It started as an "oppose for now", as I expected these items to be easily resolvable. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it is clear what the "body of folklore" that went into the creation of the Bible means. I don't know how to clarify that statement. Obviously we don't know every piece of folklore on which the Biblical author or authors relied. Nimrod, as the article makes clear, is a larger-than-life figure in both the bible and the midrashic traditions that grew up around it, and may have been based on Sargon. I honestly don't understand what you're objecting to there. With respect to the "might may" sentence, I again think the meaning is clear. You are welcome to change it if you wish but I do not believe that the sentence violates any rule of English and therefore should not stand in the way of FA. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 13:40, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Moreover, as far as I can tell, all of the issues you raised have been addressed. Please identify any remaining issues you have. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 13:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comments A couple of points:
  • In the section "Origins and Rise to Power", you reference a source by its abbreviation "ABC" Which source is that? Assyrian And Babylonian Chronicles? I know a little about the subject, & the abbreviation is unfamiliar to even me.
  • I see a number of citations of Samuel Noah Kramer, but none to his long-time rival & equally respected academic Thorkild Jacobsen. I own a copy of his edition of the Sumerian king list if you need help addressing this point. -- llywrch 18:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
    • "ABC" is Grayson's Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles. I have fixed the ref. I would greatly appreciate if you could add information from Jacobsen's work, as I do not have access to it. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 04:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
      • After reading it for the first time in many months, I found that Jacobsen's work did not have much to contribute -- although I added it. So I tried to make up this deficit by adding from the translations in my copy of ANET -- which I hope stengthens this article. -- llywrch 02:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
        • Do you support the article for FA now? Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 03:28, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
          • I didn't know I had supported or objected to this article. My intent in commenting (& in making some edits) was just to help make it better. -- llywrch 06:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Good article. Avala 16:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

• There are MOS issues here, but I'll support in the expectation that they'll be fixed. Mostly well-written and researched.
  • I'm getting black-diamond question marks for the cuneiform at the top, both in the real text and the edit box. Is it my Mac OSX? Not a pretty sight.
  • "c. 2334 BC–2279 BC"—No, read MOS on dashes and spacing.
  • I see "seventh" and "7th"—normally, you'd spell out single-digit numbers.
  • "To help limit the chance of revolt"—Remove "help", yes?
  • "(r. 556–539 BC)"—what does "r." mean? Should this abbreviation be included at MOSNUM? Again, a spaced en dash is required where there are spaces within either or both items.
  • I can't see one caption that is a real sentence, so please remove the periods. (See MOS.)
  • Sandy's "might may" sentence: "Stories of Sargon's reign and might may have influenced the body of folklore later incorporated into the Bible." It's OK, but why not "Stories of Sargon's powerful reign may have influenced the body of folklore that was later incorporated into the Bible." Tony 04:07, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
    • ack, on the date dashes. When Briangotts declined to fix the dashes, I contacted Brighterorange (who is testing a script), but his script chokes on BC dates, and I failed to correct them adequately manually. I think I've fixed them now to conform to WP:DASH. I incorporated Tony's suggested wording on that one sentence, and am striking my oppose; there were still a few small pending issues on my list (above), but I don't have time to keep following this FAC right now, and it generally looks quite good now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:51, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
      • See [15], [16], .[17], [18], [19], [20]. "r." is quite common abbreviation for regnat or "ruled/reigned". Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 20:10, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment "A number of" is too wordy and sometimes redundant. "Several" could be used instead. "He captured Uruk and dismantled its famous walls." - the word "famous" is too subjective. Epbr123 10:03, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 20:57, 17 July 2007.

---

Siege of Malakand

An interesting topic with some wonderfully accessible sources. Very quickly written which left me with a couple of prose and spelling issues but most of these have been fixed. Very well referenced I feel, though the references section is a little complicated as a result. This, and possibly a slight weakness in the aftermath section along with one or two remaining minor issues may still exist, however I hope that this FAC will help iron out these one or two remaining kinks.

Please remember to check back after commenting as I will be continually addressing all your points and queries :) thanks! SGGH ^speak! 12:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. The first sentence is quite long to be readable. Generally I don't like the lead as it doesn't have a summarized background, despite of casus belli in the infobox. Also there is an iscription near the Pashtun tribes in the combatants, which doesn't seem to be a Pashtun banner of that time. Should be removed IMHO. --Brand спойт 14:34, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

There isn't a Pashtun banner at the time that I could find, so I choose "Pashtun" in their written language, but I can try to find something more suitable. I will also work on the leading sentence, though the Durand line bisecting Pashtun lands is a good summary of what is a fairly simple background story I felt... do you have further suggestions re: that? SGGH ^speak! 17:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I have worked on the lead's first few lines, but to be honest I would prefer you put forward your ideas about the lead yourself, as I'm not sure how better to briefly explain the background in a more effective way than what is already in place, without loosing the "briefness" of it. SGGH ^speak! 17:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Moderate support. A quite pleasant stuff as for me. Technically however, it would be much better if there would be any map or diagram. --Brand спойт 21:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll get on it. SGGH ^speak! 22:03, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Haven't found a map as of yet, but have found a new references format which I spotted on the Tony Blair which I have incorporated. SGGH ^speak! 13:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support, I really enjoyed the article and I think that meets the criteria of an FA. Tony the Marine 23:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
• Comment, I really dislike the scrolling box for notes... this is the first article I've seen it on but I think it's needless, ugly, unhelpful, figured I'd mention that here. gren グレン 03:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I had never seen it before I found Tony Blair's article. I chose it for practicality to shrink the percentage of the article taken up by notes, I don't actually know what the concensus is on using it, will try to find out! SGGH ^speak! 09:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Just put them into 3 columns to save space. SeleneFN 22:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

That's true, though not everyone's browsers seem to support that. SGGH ^speak! 22:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• I would say it is commonpractice on about a third of all FAs. At any rate, the scroll box is very out-of-place with the typical Wikipedia formatting. SeleneFN 23:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll set it as a columns. SGGH ^speak! 14:51, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Done SGGH ^speak! 21:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• comment Find a better term for the local people than 'natives' which has got to still carry all all the racist/imperialist connotations that it did during the colonial period. Just because it might be used in old quotations does not mean it needs to be used in current narrative Hmains 02:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to replace the word native, and have one in one or two cases, however 90% of the time the word is part of terms like the "native infantry" or "native casualties" used to refer to Pashtun forces fighting as levies in the ranks of the British garrison. I'm finding this use a little unavoidable without causing great confusion as to what Pashtun peoples I am refering to, and saying "Pashtun forces who fought for the British" every time seems redundant. Do you have any suggestions? The above is me just talking utter crap. It's all sorted now, I replaced the one correct use of the word native with indigenous, and the rest with the correct reference to sepoys or Indian troops in the british army where appropriate. That's just me being half asleep. Thanks Hmains SGGH ^speak! 18:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support: I passed the article to GA, and found it an easy-to-read and well-referenced article. Alientraveller 16:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

*Oppose No Vote The lead is poor. It should be a succinct summary of the whole article. We don’t need to know how much W.C made for his newspaper article. Details like this should not be in the lead! I have tweaked the lead somewhat, what do you think? :It is better if the numbers one through nine are spelled out; use figures for numbers 10 and above.

• • I think I have fixed most of these, but will keep looking.

:There are lots of typos. Sentences without full-stops, unwanted spaces, surplus commas, sentences that don't start with capital letters etc, etc

• • I have gone through the article and fixed all that I could find, and will continue searching

:There are no maps. Something particularly desirable for battle articles aiming for FA status. At least a good quality map of the region so we know where we are.

• • I will try and find one of the Malakand region or at least of the NWFP, but detailed maps of the immediate surrounding area have been very hard to find.
    • I have included a map of the NWFP but that is all I can get a hold of at the moment... I have made a map. SGGH ^speak! 14:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Needs a thorough check and copyedit throughout eg:

:Nowshera was located south of the Kabul River " six hours by rail from Rawal Pindi". :Why is the latter part of this sentence in quotation marks?

• • Because it is a direct quote from the source.

:Captain Holland and the General were wounded, and the group severely depleted as it failed twice to retake the dump before was successful with a third attempt. :Do you mean 'They were' successful?

• • Yeah, fixed.

:Major Deane, the British political agent, noted the growing unrest within the Pashtun sepoys,[18] who stationed with the British, during July, and his warnings were officially distributed to British officers on 23 July 1897;

• • tweaked to flow better

:Needs quite a bit of work and polish for FA but has potential. Raymond Palmer 12:48, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I have addressed your comments with bold replies. SGGH ^speak! 14:06, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

....anyone? SGGH ^speak! 21:53, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

*Still Oppose I'm afraid. In places the writing is poor and not yet ready - in my opinion - for FA status.

Despite further attacks during the night of July 28/29, the British recorded only two killed from the sepoy ranks and the severe wounded of a Lieutenant Ford

Blood arrived at Nowshera on July 31 1897 to take command, and on August 1, 1897 he was informed that the Pashtun forces had turned their attention to the nearby British fort of Chakdara, a small, under garrisoned fort with few supplies that had itself been holding out with 200 men since the first attacks in Malakand began, and had recently sent the signal "Help us" to the British forces.

The relief force assembled at 04.30am on August 2 with low morale, however with the use diversionary attacks the force was successful in breaking out of the Pashtun encirclement without loss, creating confusion amongst the Pashtun forces "like ants in a disturbed ant–hill" as observed Blood

The siege of Malakand was Winston Churchill's first experience of actual combat, which he later described in several newspaper columns for which he originally received £5 per column from The Daily Telegraph.[18], and that were eventually compiled into his first published book:

Back in Nowshera, the 11th Bengal Lancers were woken by telegrams describing the situation

There is a mixture of British and US spelling eg: reconnoiter US rumor US centre UK neighbouring UK

These errors, amongst others, prevent the article reaching FA status, IMO. Raymond Palmer 23:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I have addressed the above errors and have spellchecked the article with my software set to US rather than UK spelling, and have gone through it by eye as well. SGGH ^speak! 08:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Support
  • Make sure that all measurements are in both standard and metric (1,519 mile border). See WP:Convert fixed quoted example, I think that is the only one)

There are other instances. Do a search for "miles" and "yards" in the text and you'll find them. Karanacs 18:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Fixed all those with distanes over 10, things like three miles or two miles I have left as they are, as supplying the km distance is less important as the differences are less at such shorter distances. SGGH ^speak! 20:49, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• • The sentence that begins "Commanded by COlonel Shalch" is very long and should be reworded fixed
  • Quotations inside other quotations should use single quotes ' ' rather than double " ". fixed instances of this double quotation mark occuring
  • Need a citation immediately after the Churchill quotation that describes the camp. I know citation 19 is supposed to cover it, but the quotation should also have its own citation fixed
  • After you introduce a person, subsequent references to them should use only their last name, not title and last name. (for example, Major Deane should be referred to as just Deane) I have fixed many of these, i have left a couple in if there is a significant gap between the two mentionings, just to make sure the reader can follow who is who and make things easier
  • Section headings should not begin with "The" fixed
  • "A Lieutenant Watling" should just be "Lieutenant Watling" fixed
  • "Back in Nowshera" should be more formal "In Nowshera" fixed
  • Dates in section Relieving Chakdara are not wikilinked I have wikilinked those dates that are not wikilinked in the lines immediatly above

Karanacs 14:31, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose—Linking and hyphen/dash issues (the requirements for professional formatting and MOS compliance, respectively). 1a, too.
  • Please read MOS on hyphens and dashes and fix the whole article. I have read MoS and fixed all the dashes as per my understandinf of the MoS
  • If you must link the names of countries, please don't do it more than once (e.g., "Afghanistan"—and "Kabul" isn't even linked!).done
  • "when relief column"—"a"?done
  • Remove "own" from the last sentence in the lead? fixed
  • Should this be in BrEng? Why "center"? Standard MoS always seems to prefer American English, so I changed it so, I'm British and originaly wrote it in English before changing it for FAC
  • Audit the whole article for the use of commas: "As the Tsar's troops began to subdue one Khanate after another the British feared that Afghanistan would ...". Comma after "another". And why not avoid commas here: "It was with these thoughts in mind that, in 1838, the British launched the First Anglo-Afghan War and attempted to impose ..." --> "It was with these thoughts in mind that the British launched the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1838 and attempted to impose ..." fixed those highlighted, working through the rest now

These are just examples of why the whole text needs attention by copy-editors. Tony 14:52, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I will get on those shortly. It would help if other editors fixed such minor problems when they found them also. Wikipedia is a collective edit, I don't own this article and we should all be working together. SGGH ^speak! 15:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

• (1) Do NOT strike through reviewers' text. Read the instructions.
• (2) No thanks, I won't edit it for you; it's your nomination, so you find people to work "together", as you say.
• (3) These were examples, not the finish of the issue. You need to find people who are interested in this kind of topic (research edit histories of related articles) and who can copy-edit. Tony 11:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough SGGH ^speak! 19:19, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment, This article is a "featured article" as is. I believe that it the relentless scrutiny going on is ridicules. It is easy to criticize someone else's work instead of helping to improve it as we as members of the Wikipedia community should. The article already passed peer review and that is good enough for me. User:SGGH, keep up your excellent and valued work here. Tony the Marine 19:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Tony, it's okay... the other Tony has a point I just got a little stressed. Back to the FAC! SGGH ^speak! 20:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support as per "Comment" above. Antonio Martin 05:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment a see also section has been added by another user. I personally am not a fan of these for FAs, and neither of my other FA articles had them, and it was recommended that they didn't in their FACs, I was wondering if anyone else will lend their views? SGGH ^speak! 19:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment -This FAC has been on the board for over a month. Could a closing administrator please make a final determination as to the status of this article already? Thank you. Tony the Marine 20:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 20:57, 17 July 2007.

---

Ronald Niel Stuart

Nom restarted (old nom) Raul654 16:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support. The article is comprehensive and informative, and Jackyd101's latest edits have brought the prose to a higher standard. Karanacs 02:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)Oppose. The article does not meet the "compelling prose" criteria. There are numerous misspellings and comma-placement errors, and many cases where sentences are long and convoluted. Overall, the article is comprehensive and informative, but it needs polishing before it is ready to be an FA.
  • Per WP:MOSBIO, subsequent references to the subject of the article should use his surname, not his first name. (See second paragraph early life) He should also not be referred to as Lt Stuart.

Done

• • Is it necessary to include so much information about his parents?

Reduced

• • I would wikilink barque, First World War, victoria Cross, semaphoring, sloop

Done, although First World War and Victoria Cross were already Wikilinked, did you want them done twice?

I know they are linked in the lead, but I think they should also be linked the first time they are used in the body of the article. Karanacs 02:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• • the Pre-War merchant career paragraph does not read well.

Reworded

• • red links should be removed

I want to question this one a little. Whilst I am happy to remove them, doesn't this defeat the purpose of a red link. Whereever I could during the creation of this article I created stubs for any redlinks I could find. The four remaining are all first world war detroyers for which I could not find information with which to create even a stub. Nonetheless, they should be linked so that when the articles are created they will link to the right place (otherwise how will the creator of the new article know to link them here?) I will remove them if necessary, but I think its a shame to do so just because the stub required does not exist.

I think they should be removed, but I won't make this the deciding factor in my vote. Karanacs 02:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

All red links delinked.--Jackyd101 21:55, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• • I've fixed a few misspellings in the article but there are others that need to be corrected. You should also read through the article carefully for comma usage. I saw multiple instances of missing commas and multiple instances of excessive comma usage.

copyedited for commas and spellings.

• • There should be a comma after a single year (In 1914,) This is correct in some locations but is not consistent.

Done (I think)

• • Watch for POV. "he was fotunate"

removed

• • Need a citation immediately after a direct quote. there is not one for "on the top of the line"

Done

• • last line of third paragraph in First World War section does not read well.

Rephrased

• • the 2nd and 3rd paragraph of WWI section deal with the HMS Farnborough, so it would make more sense for them to be included in that subsection.

Moved

• • "the first year of Q-ship service was frustrating for Stuart and the crew" implies that it was also the crew's first year.

Rephrased

• • After the first reference to someone else, they should be referred to only by their surname (unless they share the subject's surname). Therefore, you should use "Campbell" instead of "Captain Campbell"

Done

• • "took the decision" doesn't make much sense to me

Rephrased

• • "month-date combinations should be wikilinked (17 February to allow people's date preferences to work correctly. You should also not use the article "the" in front of the date.

Done (I think)

• • "the submarine, U-83" should either by "a submarie, U-83" or "the submarine u-83"

Rephrased

• • "Unlike the previous encounter, the damage done was immense." is not good prose. "Unlike the experience of the Famborough, the ship suffered much damage" would be better.

Rephrased

• • I've never heard the phrase "was holed" before

Its a maritime expression for a ship hit by a torpedo or impaled on a rock, literally because a large hole is torn in the hull. I've seen it used in many naval texts. I'll remove it though if you still want me too.

I'll take your word for it.Karanacs 02:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• • Need a citation for the fact that "One petty officer was killed and a number wounded."

Done

• • "is it "guns crews" or "gun crews"?

Corrected

• • You mention twice in two sentences that the U-boat got within 50 yds of the Pargoust

removed 2nd one

• • Need to have the metric conversion for each measurement.

Now all done (I think)--Jackyd101 21:55, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• • The sentence about Rosenow and his men being killed is very long. This should either be rewritten or broken into 2 sentences

Rephrased

• • The word "however" is used liberally in the article. Can you cut down on the number of appearances it makes?

Reduced

• • Need a citation for the date that he was presented his VC by King George V.

Done

• • "In the same year he met and married his wife Evelyn in Toxteth, with whom he would have three sons and two daughters" If you are going to use with whom, it needs to be right after the name of the person -- he didn't have 5 kids with Toxteth!

rephrased

• • Check the article for POV changes in mid-sentence.

Done (I think)

• • I recommend having a citation directly after this sentence "one of the most significant and important posts in merchant shipping worldwide." It may be covered by a later citation, but this is a sentence that could be contested and thus should be directly cited.

Removed as explaining it would veer too far off topic and there is no direct citation.

• • Instead of using the term "currently," say "as of XXXX," because the statement may not be true in 6 months or 2 years.

Done

Karanacs 18:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou for a very detailed and useful critique of the article, it is very much appreciated. I have been working over the last few days to address the above, and now only have the metric conversions to do. Will get to those soon and will let you know when they are done. Thankyou, --Jackyd101 12:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Excellent job on the changes. It reads much better now. I made a few very minor edits when I was reading through it again. I saw that you've already done some of the conversions (if you haven't already found it, {{convert}} works wonderfully well. Good luck! Karanacs 02:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Have completed all outstanding issues from above (actually, did so a while ago but forgot to note it here).--Jackyd101 21:55, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support I don't have any major issues. "Twice during the night the tow broke and twice it was reconnected and the battle to save the ship continued" is a little clumsy, and the quote from the London Gazette is repetitive of the article text. DrKiernan 10:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

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