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I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to know if this article has any possibility of being a GA or maybe a FA, and recommendations. Thanks, Armando.Otalk • Ev 01:02, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style. If you would find such a review helpful, please click here. Thanks, APRt 12:48, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill Lokshin
Everything has a possibility of making FA (eventually); but there's still quite a bit of work to be done here before you're really ready for that:
Citations! An article that's not thoroughly cited stands no chance at all of passing FAC, or even GAN. I'd suggest focusing on this as your top priority.
The repetition of names in the "Combatants" and "Commanders" fields in the infobox is somewhat clunky; I'd suggest, at the least, changing the combatants to be "Forces of Cao Cao" and "Forces of Liu Bei".
The lead should be quite a bit longer.
After the major issues are resolved, some thorough copyediting will likely be needed; there are some pretty rough spots in the prose.
Hope that helps! Kirill 04:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Seems heavily WP:ORish and needing a lot more citing(some paragraphs without anything at all). At the moment reads much more like a college(=university) essay than an encyclopaedia article. Buckshot06 22:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill Lokshin
This is a very good start, but I would tend to agree with Buckshot06: it still retains an overall structure and flow more suited to an essay than an article. A few more specific points that stand out:
The "Origin of the concept" section is woefully incomplete. While Roberts was the first to propose a coherent thesis of the "Military Revolution" under that name, the general point that a revolutionary development in warfare had occurred in the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries was certainly made by historians before that point (F. L. Taylor and Charles Oman, for example). There's some potential for a longer section outlining the develompment of the concept up to and including Roberts' formal introduction of it, I think.
A large part of the "Discussion on tactics" isn't, really. I would suggest breaking things apart into multiple sections on the different variations on the basic thesis (Roberts & tactics; Parker & geography; Hall and firearms per se; and so forth); some of these points are more technological than tactical, and trying to cover them all under a single heading is probably not the neatest way of approaching it. Hall's Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics may be a useful source for some more material on the technological side of the debate, incidentally.
The "Discussion on size of armies" has an unduly prominent place, I think, given that it's only one of the concerns involved; I'd suggest pulling it into a somewhat more general section on the various historiographic issues involved in this debate. Alternately, it may have potential as an entirely separate article on the army sizes of the period; but it's not really the core of the military revolution thesis, I think, and should not overwhelm this particular article.
The "Conclusion" section is entirely out of place; such general statements should be made in the introduction to the article.
On a more technical note, the footnotes need some cleaning up, and should probably contain page numbers (or ranges) where possible.
Hope that helps! Kirill 23:07, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have been working on this article (following on from battleship and ironclad warship which became FAs) and want some feedback. I haven't exhausted my to-do list on it yet but there will inevitably be some things I've missed. The Land 16:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ready for A-class review, do you think? The Land 14:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"The last ships which can be considered the 'first pre-dreadnoughts'" . . . you've lost me here. Can't there be only one set of 'first pre-dreadnoughts'?
(More to come later - got interrupted for real life stuff!) Maralia 18:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Erm. Yes. The basic problem, as with all naval terminology, is that there is no hard and fast definition of what a pre-dreadnought is - no-one sat down and thought "I'm going to build a pre-dreadnought battleship". So you have some people arguing the Admirals (1889) are fundamentally pre-dreadnoughts, or that they aren't but the Royal Sovereigns (1892) are - only with the Majestics do you get a genuine consensus that the pre-dreadnought design had been reached. So the Majestics are the last first pre-dreadnoughts. I agree it's a very confusing phrase and should probably be changed ;) The Land 19:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I made it through the rest of the article now. Made various typo fixes and such; my edit summaries should explain those. A couple more issues:
"The first French battleship after the lacuna of the 1880s was Brennus" Lacuna is a fairly obscure word that I only barely remembered—and I had 8 years of Latin. You might want to rephrase this.
"In some ways these ships prefigured the later battlecruiser concept" Perhaps presaged rather than prefigured?
Thanks for an interesting read! Maralia 02:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Thanks. The Land 14:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I went through the changes you made since yesterday, and made some typo fixes again. A couple new issues:
"battleships worldwide started to be built to a similar design" Can you reword this out of passive voice?
"the chaotic appearance of the ironclad warships" This reads as though individual ironclads had a chaotic appearances; it doesn't really convey what you mean. I'm drawing a blank on a better way to say it, but I'm sure we can come up with something. Maralia 15:39, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Chaotic development does the trick. The Land 17:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
One more thing: the formatting within References and Sources is inconsistent. Examples:
References 9, 10 and 13: "title. page" "title, page" and "title page"
Sources 2 and 3: publishing date is in different places
From a prose standpoint, I think it's ready for A-class review. Maralia 17:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill Lokshin
Looks quite good, overall. A few specific points:
The caption for the diagram of the HMS Agamemnon mentions "five turrets amidships". Are you counting turrets along a single broadside? There are six turrets making up the secondary battery, as far as I can tell.
External links should be placed after the reference section(s).
I'd suggest changing all of the footnotes to short form and having a separate section for an alphabetical bibliography. The long-first-note style doesn't lend itself to a medium where text can be moved in an article; here, for example, Roberts and Gardiner both appear in short form before the actual publication data is given.
Fixed Agamemnon - you are right, six turrets. Have added the sources in full, will return to the full-length footnotes later. The Land 14:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The first real article I've written in more than a year now; I'd be very appreciative of any sort of feedback that others might provide. Obviously, copyediting and additional images are needed, and I'll be providing both; but I'm particularly interested in the content itself. Is the narrative clear everywhere? Are there parts that need more detail? Less detail? (I've tried to avoid descending into too much trivia, as I'm wont to.) Do some points need more or better explanation? Kirill 05:53, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
victor falk
I did some wikilinking. In general, I don't think there is too many details; but it is a very detailed article, and I think an very short overview (just a 'graph with a few lines, not a section) between the lede and the prelude would be helpful, maybe just a slightly modified version of the stub [1]. the treaty of Crépy: its article is now redundant; it should either be merged & redirected into the #Treaty of Crépy section, or that section should be merged & redirected to the treaty article, and summed up in a few words that link to it. The first option has the advantage of consolidating, the second of making the article more concise.--victor falk 08:36, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the linking. I intend to expand the lead by another paragraph or two; that will probably provide a good overview once it's done. I'll look at the Crépy article; unless there's a lot of additional detail there (and I doubt there is, based on what I know of the treaty), I'll probably wind up merging it here, to avoid having the article sitting without the full context available. Kirill 12:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In which Crépy was this treaty signed?--victor falk 17:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Don't ask stupid questions you already know the answers to.":) It was [Crépy]], the red-linked one of course. I'll stub it.--victor falk 18:01, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Larry Dunn
The article looks good. It's got lots of good detail and many cited sources. It'll be a useful article to broaden the scope of your article on the Battle of Ceresole.
I made a few minor changes -- I checked around and Piedmont seems to be referred to more often in modern english as simply "Piedmont" rather than "the Piedmont." The Wiki article on Piedmont does not use the "the."
At the risk of looking ridiculous I might suggest a map -- yes, the war was of a truly gigantic scope, but a map might help to bring the whole thing together. This would be an ambitious one for someone like Mapmaster to sink his teeth into.
The article gets a little dense sometimes -- now and then, it's a bit terse when there's lots going on, and I dropped the narrative thread a few times, although I am very familiar with these campaigns. It might be productive to open up the text a bit so it's not so compact.
Small points though, as the article appears to be in great shape. Larry Dunn 20:49, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for the comments! A map (or several maps, more likely) would indeed be a quite helpful; as I'm a very poor cartographer, unfortunately, I'll have to go look for help on this. You're probably right about the prose being too dense; my normal style tends towards the unduly ponderous to begin with, and the strictly chronological ordering of points may break the narrative thread. I'll be copyediting the article quite a bit in the future, so hopefully I'll be able to smooth over some of the rough spots.
(But it'll probably be a while before I get back to major work on this; I've just gotten a copy of Cecil Roth's The Last Florentine Republic, so I'll likely be focusing my attention on my earlier, never-completed article on the Siege of Florence.) Kirill 23:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I know what that's like -- I wanted to finish up the analysis of Pike and Shot as well as the Battle of Tagliacozzo, but haven't been able to find the time to do the research in a while. Larry Dunn 17:48, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Buckshot06
Not my period at all, so it's a bit hard to hold the thread of events. The main actions seem to have occurred in the north, but I assume the convention, given the casus belli was Milan, to call it an Italian War? Is this the usual historians' title? Buckshot06 23:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The name comes from the Italian Wars. Historians are pretty consistent about labeling the entire series of conflicts, but the nomenclature within that tends to vary quite a bit. This particular war, for example, could also be called the "Ninth Italian War", the "Fourth Italian War between Charles and Francis", or even just "the 1542—46 war"; I've decided to go with the dated option for the sake of simplicity. Kirill 23:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I started this article about the latest nomenclature for US Army Reserve monthly meetings as there wasn't one previously. Hope you like it. --Eplack 21:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Needs many more inline citations and sources. If you want it to be A or FA level, I would suggest having an inline citation every paragraph. There must be other books or websites that detail what the Army Reserve is and how it functions.
Some questions you might try to answer in the article:
Where are reserve garrisons usually located?
Where are their field training sites located?
Do they usually use regular Army sites for their field training, or does the reserve have it's own field training sites?
Since their battle assembly can last from two to four days, how many days are they actually getting paid for, and how does the whole battle assembly pay structure and retirement system (points for "good years" etc) work?
What happens if a soldier is injured during a battle assembly and do injuries occur very often?
Are there any special preparations that a reserve unit undertakes during assembly if they know they will be deploying in the immediate future?
Are there any full-time positions in active reserve units and what is there role in planning, preparing, and participating in weekend assemblies?
What do the soldiers do on Saturday night? Do they return home, or do they sleep in the garrison or field location somewhere?
Do they take their weapons and equipment home with them, like they do in some European countries, or is all of their weaponry kept in the garrison or another location?
Do they ever take part in any ceremonial assemblies, like presenting awards, honoring fallen comrades, marching in a local parade, presenting the national colors at an event, or honoring a visiting dignitary?
How are reserve members notified if an assembly schedule or location changes suddenly?
What do reserve members do between assemblies? Work regular jobs? Are they in contact with their comrades at all? Are they required to keep a certain level of physical fitness or remain within a certain area?
What is the history of assemblies? How were they originally structured? How have they evolved over time?
Who decides what type of training takes place at an assembly? Is there direction from national leadership, or almost wholly local? Is an annual training plan developed, or is the unit training plan shorter or longer than that?
How is the assembly structured? Does it begin and end with a unit formation? Is roll call taken? What happens to soldiers who don't show up or arrive late or leave early without authorization?
I know that some of these questions are answered in the main Army reserve article, but any of them that pertain at all to assembly you might should consider addressing in this article. All in all, an excellent start on the article. Cla68 21:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just a thought but why isn't this part of the United States Army Reserve article? That isn't so long that it would struggle under the weight of this as well .... --ROGER DAVIEStalk 01:21, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Vasa is one of the oldest preserved warships in the world, and me and User:Peter Isotalo have been working on it to bring it to FAC, with GA (it is currently a candidate) as an intermediate goal. Feedback from the milhist experts here would be much appreciated on how to improve it further. henrik•talk 09:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill Lokshin
Very good article, overall; a few suggestions, though:
✓ The bulleted list in the "Armament" section may be better as prose or in a floated box of some sort.
There are some statistics in the "Ornamentation" section that need to be cited.
The "See also" section should be eliminated; if the terms can't be linked to sensibly in the article, they typically don't need to be linked at all.
✓ "Sources" should probably be "References".
✓ Some of the external links seem a bit questionable.
The See also-links are highly relevant to the topic at hand, namely naval warfare (especially that of the 17th century) and marine archaeology. Trying to work them into the article would needlessly burden the prose. I'm all for cleaning up link farms, but a mere five links doesn't exactly smack of excess.
Maritime archeology - could this be easily linked under, say, "marine archaeologists" in the lead.
Kronan - this, as the two other ship links, is a reasonable "see also"-type link; but I wonder if it might not be better off in a navigation template of some sort, given that all the ships will be interlinked this way.
Royal Swedish Navy - this definitely ought to be linked the first time the Swedish navy is mentioned.
Is any of that reasonable? Kirill 22:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments, they're much appreciated. I've taken the liberty of marking the suggestions that (hopefully) have been addressed with a ✓ the same way I saw User:Oberiko do. henrik•talk 21:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Since when has there been consensus that "See also"-sections should be eliminated or that they can never repeat a link buried in prose? I've certainly heard the complaint before, but I just don't understand what the point would be when dealing with an example that has only a handful of both useful and relevant links.
That has been my impression of what FAC reviewers prefer to see; obviously, if you don't intend to take the article to FAC, then this may not be particularly relevant to you.
(Personally, I don't like "See also" sections; they give the impression of material that ought to be mentioned in the article but isn't, reducing the sense of the article as a completed piece. But that's more personal preference than anything else.) Kirill 00:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That is actually the reason we have "See also"-links; to include linkage that would simply be awkward or irrelevant in prose and that can lead the interested reader to other related articles. The "complete" article would probably be the perfect article.
I have rewritten this article and I would like to have it promoted to a higher class in the fututre and I would like to see how I can improve it. Kyriakos 22:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill Lokshin
Very nice, as usual. A few suggestions:
An article on the Byzantine-Norman Wars would be nice, even if it's a stub to start off.
Any chance of getting a tactical map of the battle? Or is there not enough information for that?
Staggering the images along both margins will clean up the layout, I think.
Overall, though, this looks good to go. Kirill 18:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review, Kirill. At the moment I am trying to get a tactical map of the battle or maybe make one myself. I have moved a few images around and I will create an article for the Byzantine-Norman Wars. Kyriakos 21:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yannismarou
"Robert had no intentions for peace; he sent his son Bohemond with an advance force towards Greece, then followed shortly after." Robert was the one who followed shortly after?
"Modern historians put the army's size between 18,000 to 20,000 men." Source? Otherwise, it is weasel. Even if it is the same source you have at the end of the paragraphs, the use of "modern historians" expression not only justifies but demands the addition of a citation here IMO.
"Near Dyrrhachium on 15 October." "The Battle of Dyrrhachium or Siege of Durazzo took place on October 18, 1081 between the Byzantine Empire." MoS issues with the inconsistency in the way you write dates. Check the whole text and fix these inconsistencies.
"The Normans immediately set the church on fire, and all Varangians perished in the blaze.[6][22][23][21]" When I have more than one citations in a row I use to merge them (see El Greco and also see Sandy's "patent" in Tourette syndrome. But again I don't think this is a prerequisite for FA status. I have seen articles passing without doing what I advised them to on this particular issue!
In "Aftermath" I see only Haldon's assessment of the battle. I would like to have a more thorough analysis of the outcome of the battle. Haldon is an important modern historian, but what other modern historians say? Again neither is this a prerequisite for FA status. It is just an advice for the article's thoroughness, leaving aside FA criteria. Now, if you add more modern assessments, you may reconsider the necessity of having a box where only Haldon's views are exposed.
Instead, the lack of a a tactical map of the battle, as Kirill pointed out, could be a problem during the article's FAC.
In general, the prose is nice (it could be further improved), the structure is rational, the referencing satisfying, and the article seems to cover its topic quite thoroughly. IMO, it is already in FA level (though, I must point out again that a map would add to the article), and I think this is the best job you've done up to now Kyriako.--Yannismarou 10:00, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Has the looks of a possible GA, but knowledge isn't only about looks. Some specialist's feedback should be useful. Thanks, RCS 11:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill Lokshin
A few points to consider:
The lead should be lengthened considerably; as it is, it doesn't really summarize the article.
As the citations are never repeated, it should be possible to combine neighboring ones so as to avoid having two footnote numbers in the same place in the text.
The images would look better staggered along both margins. The image sizes shouldn't bounce around quite so much either.
The structure of the sub-headings is almost incomprehensible. The use of the parenthesized Roman numerals isn't going to be obvious or meaningful to the average reader, and full unit names aren't the best section titles in any case. I'd suggest a chronological or geographic breakdown for these sections instead.
The order of battle would be neater placed as a (floated?) table rather than as a bullet-list section.
Overall, though, this looks quite good. Kirill 23:19, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've made numerous substantial additions to this article over the last month -- incluing adding some images (which historically have been my weak point), & would like some suggestions on what more I could do to further improve this article. (Yes, I know it needs a map -- what else? ;-) -- llywrch 03:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill Lokshin
Quite good, overall; a few suggestions:
The lead should be lengthened considerably; as it is, it doesn't really summarize the article.
This may just be personal preference, but I dislike article titles that begin with dates; perhaps something like Abyssinian expedition of 1868 might be neater?
The "See also" section should be eliminated; the lone link there can easily be mentioned in the text when the treasure itself is being discussed.
A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for January 2009.
This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it is a pretty good article which is looking like it could go through FAC soon. This is mainly a request for any last minutes polishing to it.
There appears to be a bit of a gap in the Service modifications section covering the 70s and 80s - i.e. nothing covering the distinctive LLTV mods of the 70s , the cruise missile mods (including the effects of the SALT treatys) or the aircraft modified to lauch Harpoon.
The article talks about airborne alert duty and the accidents involving nuclear weapons that occured during this task. It would be helpful to talk about the end of such operations.
Its use as a launch platform for X-15 and such could be described in more detail.
Joe Baugher's website is used as a reference a lot. The use of this website as a WP:RS has been questioned before at the F-4 Phantom FAR. In addition, not all the websites used as references are correctly formatted - again this may be a sticking point if the article is taken to Featured Article.
As long as this article is, splitting off a separate Design section seems like way to go.
Global Security and Vectorsite are self published works like Joe Baugher's site.
List publish dates in references if available.
Images should not be on left and right at the same vertical position. That can squeeze the text between and cause readability problems for users with low resolutions or large text. I'll fix some of this.
Boeing has offered to replace the B-52's engines times before. That should be mentioned if you can find a good source(s).
That's all I can think of at the moment. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:42, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This article was formerly just a stub. The new article covers the campaign in considerable - perhaps excessive - detail. Let's see if it can be taken all the way to Class B. Hawkeye7 21:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The intro should be expanded by another paragraph or two so that it summarizes in a little more detail the entire article.
Done Expanded the introduction.
There's enough pictures available that you can put a picture in the infobox instead of a map. This frees the map up to be used in the article somewhere.
Done The map has been swapped with the picture of the landing
You should have more background on why and how the Japanese forces ended-up on those islands in the first place. What was their strategy behind occupying the Admiralties? What was their strategy to defend them? I added a reference that perhaps might help with the Japanese POV.
Done Added a section explaining this.
The language of the article seems slightly biased in favor of the Allies, which is difficult not to do since the sources are probably written that way. Remember that we're supposed to write the articles in a way that the reader can't tell who the writer wanted to win in the battle. One way to avoid Allied POV is to put mention of awards of the Medal of Honor and other decorations in the footnotes instead of in the main text.
Japanese POV accounts of this campaign tend to terminate abruptly, probably due to the death of Ezaki and his staff. I'll ask the Japanese-reading types if they have anything. Hawkeye7 23:10, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done Checked but they have no more material on this campaign.
I usually separate the references into "Books" and "Web" sections so that it's not such a big, overwhelming list.
All in all, a lot of good work on the article, with good detail and well-organized. Cla68 11:35, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Cla68 that there should be more detail in the Background section on the Japanese forces involved. His questions for this are excellent. Also, minor point, but as for the commander Colonel Ezaki Yosho, was his name Yosho, Yōshō, Yōsho, or Yoshō?
Done Typo. It should have been Yoshio.
The pro-Allies POV issue continues throughout the article - the disparity between Japanese and Allies in the degree of detail provided is enormous. There really needs to be more on Japanese tactics, their view of the battle as it progressed, and various actions and troop movements made from their point of view. As Cla68 suggested as well, it is perfectly understandable that, given the types of sources I imagine were used, the POV of the article would come out this way. Still, efforts for objectivity need to be made in all sections of the article.
Done Added some more material on Japanese perspective.
The final analysis section in particular is probably the most unbalanced POV of the whole article. The base building portion, in the aftermath of the battle, is of course told from the Allied point of view, as they had now won the islands, and there were no more Japanese to speak of. But in the final analysis, you write exclusively from the Allied point of view, and the language used makes it sound like one of those over-dramatized History Channel programs. "No general could ask for more" has got to go, and the rest of this section needs to be rewritten to be better balanced, relating not only the Allied benefits in capturing the islands, but also what it meant for the Japanese to lose them, and other aspects such as that.
Done Added some more material on Japanese perspective.
It's good that you link such terms as APD and LCVP, but many other terms are not wikilinked and are therefore unknowns; I think maybe it might be better to also spell them out fully the first time they are used. What do APD, LCVP, LCPR, LST, LCR stand for?
Done Added more wikilinks. Cleaned up wiki articles on landing craft a bit.
Fixing these POV issues is going to be a lot of work, but outside of that, the article is really great in every other way. Long, detailed, well-organised, well-written, with lots of maps and pictures, and quite well-cited. Thanks for your efforts, and keep up the good work. LordAmeth 23:16, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Have brought this article on the last surviving Canadian World War I veteran up from a Stub to a B Class article, and now I want to focus on bring it to GA class and beyond. My biggest problem (and the reason I hadn't nominated for peer review yet) was that I have been unable to acquire a photo to be used on the article. There's a good picture here at Veteran's Affairs Canada, but their non-commercial use is not sufficient for Wikipedia and they never responded to my inquires on whether or not I could use the picture (I used the formal request template too!). I hope that my work thus far has proven that I am willing to work to get this article to at least GA class, which is the reason I am nominating this for peer review. As a side note, however, if anyone has any good ideas on how to get a picture, I would really appreciate it. Cheers, CP 02:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is a good article overall but i have a few suggestions.
Take a look at WP:LEAD. (In summary: the lead should summarise the whole article in a couple of paragraphs.)
Done Sort of a short lead, but it's also a short article. Cheers, CP 20:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the sections are just individual sentences. I think some could be merged to form paragraphs as the prose does not flow well.
e.g. "Babcock claimed a harrowing ocean voyage to England, where he got seasick." This sentence does not mean anything, claimed what?
e.g. Babcock asserts that he would have fought in the war, given the chance,[4] the war ended before he could be brought to the front lines. Again, this sentence is two sentences merged together. "The war ended..." should be a separate sentence.
Done Although I may split some of them up again once I deal with your point below. Cheers, CP 20:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In general, some of the text needs to be "beefed up" a little bit.
Doing... I'm not having much luck finding more sources. Could you perhaps suggest some specific areas to beef up, so that I can look for more specific things? Cheers, CP 23:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Could "last surviving" not be a level 2 section header?
Done Cheers, CP 20:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Early life section needs expanding. If he has an autobiography out, this should provide some info.
Done Cheers, CP 21:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you could find out the isbn of the autobiography and list it in a "further reading section."
Not done Looks like it was just friends and family only. I did find another article during my search, however, so I'll try and use that to flesh out the early life section. Cheers, CP 21:05, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, an image needs to be found. (You know this already, but still worth mentioning)
Doing... They responded to me with a form that I have to fill out, so we'll see if I can do that. Cheers, CP 16:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is a good article at the moment, it just needs some more work. Excellent start though. Woodym555 01:25, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review, I'll get on these right away! I'm especially disappointed that I forgot to expand the lead, especially since that's my number one comment when reviewing for GA. I'll also look to see if his autobiography is available or not - from what I understand, I think it was more of a personal thing that he distributed to friends and family - but I will have a look. Thanks again! Cheers, CP 01:49, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Expand the intro by one more paragraph so it summarizes in slightly more detail the entire article.
Instead of using "he" to refer to the article's subject as often, try using Ludwig at least every other time, and especially at the beginning of a section.
I think you could change the "family" section title to "origin" or "birth" so that it will appear that you have more information on his early life.
I think you have too many one paragraph sections. Whenever possible sections should contain at least two paragraphs. Perhaps some of them could be combined.
I would suggest having a citation in at least every paragraph, preferably at the end of the paragraph, even if it's the same citation for the following paragraph.
The grammer needs going over again, there are some problems. For example, "according to some with the intention restraining William's older sister Carolina" and "It is not impossibly that Ludwig had an influence in bringing prince William V"
All in all, very good work on the article. Cla68 23:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Roger Davies
My concerns echo Cla68's. The biggest current problem is the inadequate referencing, which is an absolute bar to further progress. (You will see that it fails B-class for the same reason.) Otherwise, a comprehensive and broadly well-written piece. --ROGER DAVIESTALK 10:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Self-nomination. I've expanded the article pretty heavily (I'm not done yet), but would like to get some feedback on what areas still need improvement thus far. Oberiko 15:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I hope no one takes offense to my editing their comments, but I'm adding ✓'s to points that I think I've addressed. Oberiko 20:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill Lokshin
Very nice, overall; a few points that stand out as needing some work, though:
The lead could stand to be a little longer; it doesn't mention much about the operation itself. ✓
"Casualties" should be part of "Aftermath", no? Putting them under one of the days seems a bit counterintuitive. ✓
The section names could stand to be a bit terser. ✓
Since the footnotes don't provide full bibliographical information, that section should be titled "Notes", and "Bibliography" changed to "References". It is, in any case, nearly impossible to navigate these sections if the authors are never mentioned in the notes, particularly when the titles are already given in shortened forms.
Can the lone OOB link in the "See also" section be worked into the text somehow? That would allow you to get rid of that section. ✓
Some of the external links seem of questionable scholarly value; and, if you're going to have that many, there probably needs to be some sort of logical ordering to them. ✓
Keep up the good work! Kirill 01:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Roger Davies
Kudos for the map!
I concur with Kirill about a longer intro. ✓
Sentences are a bit long and complicated in places. (Many of the semi-colons could be replaced with points.)
Section name are sometimes long. Perhaps consider replacing "Outcome of the second day and plans for the third" with "Outcome of Day 2 and plans for Day 3" etc (which is how days are referred to in the main section headers)? ✓
Notes, references and further reading/bibliography do need attention. Perhaps short titles in "Notes"; full titles in "References"; and everything else in "Further reading"?
Occasional AmEng spellings have crept in (defense, center, armored). I've changed these to BrEng.
Times are handled inconsistently. Perhaps 24:00 clock throughout, with 05:00 for 5:00 etc? ✓
Very nice article, well worth pursuing. Some constructive criticism comments and questions...
The references/bibliography really needs attention. Cites 4 and 6 don't even appear in the bibliography as far as I can tell. If they do, it just underlines the difficulty of viewing the sources.
Is it standard for infobox stats to be cited? I don't think it looks good and the information is anyway provided and cited in the main article. ✓
I think that the quote of Wavell's concerns is too big. Wouldn't this information be better worked into the narrative using your own words and supported with cites from this quote? ✓
Do you think it worth while including a narrated (as opposed to a bare listed) order of battle for both sides at the start of the article, perhaps expanding on the plans section. I find this helps to place units that appear subsequently into context and aids in comprehending the battle narrative. As an example, the 2nd Queen's Own Camerons suddenly appear in the attack on Halfaya Pass, when the plans section earlier informed us that this was part of 11th Indian Brigade's task.
Some of the sections are a little short (e.g. the 1st 2 on Day 2 of the battle). This comment was levelled at my work recently and whilst as an editor I prefer neat organised sections dealing with specific events, as a reader they do tend to break up the flow of the narrative. Can the sections be expanded or the narrative re-worked to merge them?
"Numerous" breakdowns? Can you be more specific? Especially as the British suffered terribly from unreliabable equipment.
Unfortunately no. While almost all sources cite large numbers of breakdowns, none of them provide any details as to the amount. Oberiko 12:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
IIRC correctly the Western Desert Force suffered terribly and repeatedly from its failure to press home attacks with coordinated combined arms actions in the way that the Germans did right from the invasion of Poland. Certainly here the separation of tanks from supporting infantry and artillery cost the Commonwealth forces dearly, especially in terms of armour. Is it worth including something about this in the aftermath section?
General need for copyediting (some awkward sentences, redlinks, etc)
I have wanted to push this article towards FA for a while and I decided before I go I'll see what I can improve on it. All comments are greatly appreciated. The article was last peer review in September 2007 here. Kyriakos (talk) 23:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
EyeSerene
Congratulations on a fascinating, enjoyable article. I've commented in more detail below; because you mentioned FA, I've been quite picky, so I hope you don't take my criticisms too much to heart. Your hard work on this article is very much appreciated!
Prose: this would benefit greatly from the detailed attention of an FA-experienced copyeditor. Some examples of awkward prose flow, grammar and lack of clarity:
"In inner politics, he ordered the killing of the ephors in the meantime."
"Later that year, the ephors sent Cleomenes to seize the Athenaeum, which was near Belbina, one of the entrance points into Laconia, disputed at the time between Sparta and Megalopolis." Too much going on in a single sentence; could be split.
"In response, an Achaean army arrived, relieved the city and inflicted a minor defeat on the part of the Spartan army nearest to the city walls." Remove "..the part of..."
"In 226 BC, the citizens of Mantinea appealed to Cleomenes to expel the Achaean garrison from the city. One night, he and his troops crept into the city and expelled the Achaean garrison before marching off to Tegea." Repetition of "expel"
"Historians Polybius and Sir William Smith claim that Cleomenes seized the city by treachery" Should this be "cities", plural?
Macedonian phalanx image caption uses "weren't"; change to "were not" (also needs a source for the caption)
"The ephors looked after the day to day running of the state and where the arbiters of war and peace." "where"→"were"
"In the Achaean League, the position of strategus was the highest. A strategus was elected annually..." "strategus"→"strategos"?
Completeness: there are a number of places where additional detail would be useful for the reader (even if only an explanatory word or two), especially where relevant wikilinks don't exist. Some examples are below, but it may also be useful to try to re-read the article from the perspective of someone completely unfamiliar with the period (difficult, I know!). This should help to highlight the sections that need further explanation; obviously the article mustn't wander too far off-topic, but neither should it oblige a reader to follow too many wikilinks in order to understand it ;) Some examples:
Why "two royal families" in relation to Sparta?
Why would Cleomenes take Tegea, Mantineia, Caphyae and Orchomenus in Arcadia? What was the Aetolian League?
Why was ravaging the area around a city an important tactic in Greek warfare?
Why was increasing the Spartan citizen count important (and who were the perioeci)?
Who is Pausanias (why is his opinion important)?
Sourcing etc: this looks ok, though I can never predict how well the use of primary sources will go down at FAC ;) I spotted a couple of other points:
Ref 23 (Plutarch, Life of Aratus) seems to be either dead or broken
Inline citations are needed for every controversial statement, statement of opinion, and facts and figures. Although you've sourced most paragraphs, I think more detailed sourcing may be needed in some places - to take one example, it's not clear whether the cite at the end of the "Cleomenes estimated that Argos would be easier to capture..." paragraph refers to just the last sentence or the preceeding ones too (and the claim that "no Spartan king had ever managed to seize Argos" needs its own citation).
Manual of Style compliance looks good - I didn't spot any obvious problems anyway.
Images: these seem to be fine, although I'm not sure about using the infobox map in such a prominent location as it relates more to Aratus than Cleomenes. A more focused map would be good, if possible.
Thank you for submitting this article for peer review - I think it has the makings of an excellent article, and wish you all the best on your road to FA! EyeSerenetalk 21:02, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wandalstouring
Remove the map in the header it's misleading. Elis was a Spartan ally as you write and not part of the Achaean League as the map suggests. Another issus is that the legend of the map could be improved to enhace understanding what these colours and symbols mean. You could copy the specific battle symbols and have them as small illustrating images in the legend of the map.
The drawing of the phalanx is misleading because the shields are as big as with the hoplites you show. I know this wrong image gets recycled for every Macedonian phalanx, but you have to write a disclaimer and explain that not only the shields are wrong. Next issue is the length of the sarrissa that did change over time. I judge these sarrissae to be 5m and less, thus an early Macedonian phalanx, while this battle took place in late Hellenistic times. Another issue you have to clarify. Best search for a fitting image on the web like this, this or [2]. You can use Template:External media for linking. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article is well cited right now, but it's relatively short for an article of this importance. Revolutionaryluddite 16:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill Lokshin
The article seems very heavy on the political aspects of the report, particularly the response to it, but light on the substance. A large portion of the article should be devoted to summarizing the content of the report itself; as it is, there's only hints of this material in the testimony sections. I'd suggest reorganizing the article along these lines:
I'd second Kirill's suggestion to break down the report into its component parts. Right now, the responses section is really heavy in comparison to the rest of the article. There's not much about the report itself when set against the amount of space devoted to responses. The graphs are a nice touch, but it isn't made clear whether those have been taken from the report or if they're simply used as illustration in regards to what the report is covering. That can be remedied by a quick fix to the captions. The rest of the article is a bigger task, and it'd probably be best to sit down with the text of the report and go through it section by section, filling in citations where needed.
JKBrooks85 20:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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Support. Looks good. Cla68 (talk) 07:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This is a very new article, only a few weeks old, but is fully referenced, comprehensive, has PD images and I don't think there are any outstanding MOS issues. Hope to take it to FA eventually, so help on a copy-edit if anyone wants to volunteer would be appreciated, if the prose isn't quite there. Carre 08:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support, as it meets all criteria. --Eurocopter tigre 21:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Eurocopter tigre. Well done. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:21, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
After recently expanding this article from a Stub to B-class along the lines of the other canceled Iowa class battleship, USS Kentucky (BB-66), and consulting with the Iowa class guru, I've decided to put this article up for an A-class review in preparation for Featured Article Candidacy and also bringing the Iowas to Featured Topic status.-MBK004 06:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment A few things I see that may help improve the article:
Find a cite for the NROTC note; that can probably be accomplished by checking the University of Illinois' webpage. Without a cite I fear that information may come under the larger heading of popular culture, and that will create problems down the line.
If I were you I would consider removing the second to last battleship paragraph; in this particular case the information there isn't particularly notable to the ship.
Check to see that all information in the ship table is correct; I usually find one or things carried over from the last ship I happened to be working on.
See if you can find out anything about why Illinois wasn't considered for a rebuild; I doubt anything will turn up, but you never know what you may discover without really meaning to (NOTE: I won't hold this suggestion against you if nothing turns up).
Other than that, everything looks to be in order. Well Done. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
NROTC cite: I have taken a look at the webpages for the university, the stadium, and the university's military science department with no luck in finding any blurb at all about the bell, let alone the traditions associated with it. The bell and its location are notable, but do I need a cite for it even with the picture? I have also left a message at the talk page of the editor who added the information to the article. Hopefully it isn't original research, because the bell itself is notable. Thanks a bunch, Tom.
Second to last paragraph: Removed.
Ship Table Figures: I haven't seen any irregularities.
Why no rebuild?: Unfortunately I don't have access to my library of maritime history books for another week, and the university library is severely lacking in this subject. I would guess that since the Illinois was only 22% complete when canceled compared to the 73% of Kentucky, that would be a major factor along with cost of completion. NOTE: This is just speculation, but it probably isn't far from what really happened.
Support. Comment. As soon as you cite the University of Illinois information at the end of the article, I'll change this to a support.Cla68 07:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See the above part that Tom has raised.Tom has found your cite.-MBK004 16:28, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Found an NROTC cite for the bell. Everything else appears to be in order. Well Done. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:13, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I found it very irritating to have all the common properties of the Iowa class repeated in conjunctive form: "Illinois’s main battery would have consisted of nine 16 inch (406 mm)/50 caliber Mark 7 naval guns, which could hurl 2,700 lb armor piercing shells some 24 miles (39 km). Her secondary battery would have consisted of ten 5 inch (127 mm)/38 caliber guns, which could fire at targets up to 9 miles (14 km) away....". Since the ship never received its armament, I think a reference to the Iowas should be enough. --Stephan Schulz 15:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How do the others who have reviewed and lent their support feel about this?-MBK004 16:10, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Under normal circumsances I would agree with you and support the reccomendation that these refernces to the armament be removed; in this case though, the armament information helps the article by giving it more meat than it would otherwise have. I therefore do not see a reason to remove the information in this case since there is no service history for the ship. Thats my opinion on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:34, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This is really confusing. Raul, you restarted Piłsudski's nomination without earlier decision being reached or properly announced. In the process you wiped out contributions from reviewers who deserve an answer. How is this possible if at all, please explain? --Poeticbenttalk 18:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comments aren't wiped out; they are one click away. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How about the votes cast already and left hanging, including my own vote of support? Are they also "one click away" from this nom? --Poeticbenttalk 19:52, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The point of restarting a nomination it to clear away objections and discussions that have been resolved and are no longer relavant, and to force people to remain attentive to their comments. If you have objections from the old nom that remain pertinent, feel free to repost them (but DO NOT copy-and-paste en masse from the old nom) Raul654 (talk) 19:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Poeticbent, if you still Support, you can re-enter that here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Aren't the previous votes valid as cast, unless altered by the voters? Nihil novi (talk) 03:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I count: 26support, 7opposed. Nihil novi (talk) 04:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Anything posted prior to the restart is gone (out of consideration) unless the person reposts it. Raul654 (talk) 04:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This unilateral decision to ignore and subvert an on going discussion and debate is extremely disturbing and insulting. A restoration of the previous votes and comments is absolutely necessary to keep the integrity of the discussion intact. I agree with Poeticbent on this one, and this "new effort" needs to be shelved right away. Dr. Dan (talk) 04:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes to what? That they are good questions, or that, yes, "Big Brother" wants to shovel the previous discussion down the memory hole? Dr. Dan (talk) 15:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The standard procedure is that if the nomination does not succeed the issue is shelved and the time is given to resolve whatever prevented the article from being promoted. Similarly to how failed RfA candidates have to wait rather than run an RfA after RfA until they like the result same tradition is making a perfect sense for FA-noms. Several edit wars took place during the nomination and the edit wars were not over some specific phrasing, reference or an inclusion of sourced opinion but, for example, removals of whole sections diligently written by editors was attempted and various spurious reasons were cited for that. The effort to dismiss and disparage the editors who voiced their concerns reached a new height and the insistence that the article is great and those who oppose do so for the personal, POV or other bad-faithed reasons were repeatedly invoked at multiple pages. I don't see what is the point of the unprecedented immediate rerun of the nomination that exposed the article's being unready for an FA without first addressing those issues. The last nom drew plenty of bad blood. As if this was not enough and we need an urgent rehash of this dramatic process. --Irpen 05:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The vote was nearly 4:1 in favor of the Featured-Article nomination. Apart from a few constructive criticisms, the bulk of the nay comments consisted of vociferous but uninformed carping and accusations which were convincingly rebutted by the nominator. Nihil novi (talk) 05:26, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is not matter how much votes of support or oppose it have, what is matter - article improvement and that presented problems on FAC should be solved.M.K. (talk) 12:03, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I agree with the decision to rerun the nomination. It is not a vote, so the numbers don't matter. All that matters is the reasons for support or objection. And the responses to objections or comments. I agree with Nihil Novi to the extent that it will be better if the objections and responses are stated simply and plainly. Follow-up discussions or editing discussions are probably better placed on the article talk page, so that the wood here can be seen for the trees. qp10qp (talk) 11:45, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The better choice was to give more time for improvement article and only then current problems there solved renominate again. Currently not mush is done in order to solve them, and we have quite far from consensus that info should be kept which not. Indeed, we can stuck in process of restart over and over again, not good IMO. M.K. (talk) 12:03, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I have no problems with restarting the nomination, the article has changed much during the last one, primarily due to extensive copyediting. The article is much better now than it was a month ago when the nom was submitted.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 12:34, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Nomination should be restarted as the article has been improved since the last nomination. - Darwinek (talk) 12:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: A malincuore, there are too short sections, such Relations or Names.Weak Support: now it's OK, but the last section can be enlarged --Brískelly[citazione necessaria]
Unfortunately "google hits" are not all that some make them out to be. "Malincuore" is Italian, and literally means "heartache" and more loosely, disappointing. Dr. Dan (talk) 15:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a translation of mal au cœur. Are the two expressions related, and if so, how? Turgidson (talk) 16:20, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. As before. But now much more whole-heartedly. Due to tremendous response, the article is much improved, including all sorts of details—big and small, nuts and bolts and all—taken care of. I say, enough carping criticism (constructive or otherwise)—let's give it a thumbs up, and appreciate a job well done. Turgidson (talk) 13:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support One of the best articles on Wikipedia, in large part due to unusual interest of different sides, which positively contributed to the contents. Tymek (talk) 14:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I agree with Piotrus that the article is much better now than it was last month. I believe this is largely due to very specific concerns brought up dealing with a variety of issues, not ...because of vociferous and uninformed carping and accusations... (let's not start up with that rhetoric again). I also believe the article will be much better in another month or so when some final tweaking and improvements can be concluded. Maybe it will be done in two weeks, maybe two months. This is why I also agree with Irpen, that there is no need for an urgent rehash of the nomination. No need to rush into it. I also hope when the proper time comes to re-nominate the article, that every editor voting will come up with an explanation for their vote. Previously, this seemed to be somewhat lacking. Dr. Dan (talk) 15:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am always happy to address or join in ongoing discussions about what could be further improved; alas, I am not aware of any outstanding unadressed issues still at large. I am sure that as with any article on wiki discussions will continue for ever, but do note that a Featured article is not a "final" or "perfect" one - just one fulfilling the FA-requirements, which I sincerely believe this article does.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Still possible to see that it was not written by a Martian. Beginning with the lead: the statement that Pilsudski was responsible for Poland's independence. Referenced now, but still worded as though his responsibility were universally acknowledged. Quoting Orlando Figes: "But suddenly with the Versailles Treaty it (Poland) found itself with a guarantee of independence and a great deal of new territory given to it by the victorious Western powers as a buffer between Germany and Russia". No credit given to Pilsudski. The US Department of State, not surprisingly, gives credit to Woodrow Wilson - no mention of Pilsudski. [3] The statement needs to be reworded as an attribution. And we have established that he is controversial - that belongs in the lead too, but it will take a while to work out the wording and the references. Flora Lewis described his regime as "ultimately disastrous" . [4]. Yo, people, he put a prime minister in jail (Wincenty Witos) - not currently mentioned. Minority opposition to his government is currently characterized as coming solely from extremists. How many square miles of territory did he acquire by military means that were not sanctioned by Versailles and are not part of Poland now? Etc, etc. This will take some time. Novickas (talk) 17:23, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You may have a point that the article can be added to or reworded, but those links don't provide usable sources (a US state department website and a newspaper article). Lets break what you say down into objections and try to respond:
considered largely responsible for: what about conflating two sentences to "a major influence on"? This doesn't contradict your Figes quote (though nor does the present wording, in my opinion, which just comes at it from another angle). Could you give the full ref for the Figes, so that one may check what he says about Pilsudski? qp10qp (talk) 18:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Figes ref is from A People's Tragedy: Russian Revolution 1891-1924, 1996, ISBN 0-7126-7327-X, page 697. On the same page: " as soon as Poland gained its independence it began to strut around with imperial pretensions of its own. Marshal Pilsudski, the head of the Polish state and army, talked of restoring 'historic Poland' which had once stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. He promised to reclaim her eastern borderlands...As the Germans withdrew from the east, Polish troops marched into the borderlands..." Hope this suffices. More on request, but later. Novickas (talk) 20:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is this all that Figes mentions of Piłsudski? For the record, snippet (read: useless) view is all that Google offers for that publication, so verification requires printed copy.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, verification isn't a worry to me (I know the book). I just wanted to see if Figes says anything to contradict the article's point about Pilsudski's importance to the independence of Poland. Neither quote does that: the original quote merely says what was agreed at Versailles (the article covers that), and this one merely says what happened after the independence. qp10qp (talk) 21:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Witos's imprisonment could be mentioned; just add it in. However, the article makes it clear that Pilsudski was a dictator and anti-parliamentary. Those who think that this article paints Pilsudski as a hero might look again at its content (it records that Pilsudski was sometimes thought to be a hero, but that is a different matter). I disliked Pilsudski after reading this article and did not admire him; the article did not strike me as glorifying him. qp10qp (talk) 18:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You say Minority opposition to his government is currently characterized as coming solely from extremists. I don't know how you can draw that conclusion: it is quite clear that he was opposed by the normal democratic bodies—for example, here: From 1926 to 1930, Piłsudski relied chiefly on propaganda to weaken the influence of opposition leaders.[18] The culmination of his dictatorial and supralegal policies came in 1930 with the imprisonment and trial of certain political opponents on the eve of the 1930 Polish legislative elections, and with the 1934 establishment of a prison for political prisoners at Bereza Kartuska (today Biaroza),[18] where some prisoners were brutally mistreated. I don't see how the anti-democratic and dictatorial behaviour of Pilsudski could be made plainer without the article becoming biased in the opposite direction. One instinctively sides with those on the receiving end.qp10qp (talk) 18:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have added the note on him being controversial to the lead a few hours ago. As I have explained to you before, many factors contributed to Polish independence, and depending on context, various ones will be emphasized. I am not suprised that publication on Versailles notes Versailles, or that one on Polish-American relations mentions Wilson. But this article is about Piłsudski, and details on what contributed to Poland's independence belong in another article(s) - not in the lead of P. article. George Washington "was a central, critical figure in the founding of the United States" - surely he was not alone, but you don't find in the lead an extensive discussion of other founding fathers or international politics. The article does not claim that "Piłsudski alone was responsible for Poland's independence", instead, like GW article, it qualifies his role with "He is considered largely responsible for Poland having regained her independence". This seems perfectly appropriate and is well-referenced.
Newspapers are not the best of references. Lewis quote is not clear, she may as well mean ("Pilsudski... established an authoritarian regime... eventually disastrous") that Second Polish Republic ended in disaster after Nazi invasion in 1939. We have better criticism in legacy, including the well referenced claim that Piłsudski "inevitably drawn both intense loyalty and intense vilification" - which, amusingly, we can see well in our discussions here :)
Witos imprisonment - part of the Brest trial controversy - is discussed in the article in its context and linked, the list of who was arrested and sentenced (or not) does not belong in P. article but in the relevant subarticle (eleven important politicians were tried, quite a few more were arrested and briefly imprisoned alongside Witos, including Wojciech Korfanty, another Polish PM ... so what? This is article about Piłsudski, not about the Brest trial).
Minority opposition to his government is currently characterized as coming solely from extremists - I am pretty sure that Dmowski and endecja - mentioned many times throughout the article - are not characterized as minority extremists, and many other factions opposed to him are mentioned (socialists, communists)...
Pilsudski's approach to Polish eastern borders is discussed extensively, with at least a para dedicated to that issue at the beginning of the 'Polish-Soviet War' chapter.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As it stands just now: "The plan (i.e. Międzymorze) met with opposition from most of the intended members—who refused to relinquish any of their hard-won independence—as well as from the Allied powers, for whom it would be too bold of a change to the existing balance of power structure." No, the most often-cited reason for Allied opposition is that they had intended Poland to stay within what they had determined to be its ethnographic boundaries, and this was their major problem with supporting Poland during the Polish-Soviet War. Refs later, or you-all can look it up yourselves. Also: "Piłsudski's regime marked a period of much-needed national stabilization and improvements in the situation of ethnic minorities, which formed almost a third of the Second Republic's population" and "Mainstream organizations of ethnic minorities similarly expressed their support for his policies of ethnic tolerance, though he was criticized, similarly to the communists, by Jewish (BUND), Ukrainian, German and Lithuanian extremists". Methinks the Ukrainians, Germans, and Lithuanians would disagree with this. As for the Jewish minority, read this from the Simon Wiesenthal foundation: "In 1926 Marshal Jozef Pilsudski seized power with the help of the army. He had no anti - Jewish tendencies and refrained from using antisemitism as an instrument for furthering political and socioeconomic policies. At first, Pilsudski promised to improve the situation of the Jews but little was accomplished in practice although the general atmosphere with regard to the Jews showed improvement." [5]. Not as strong a statement as is currently written. But doesn't this all belong on the article talk page, and doesn't it all indicate serious disagreement? Also pls remove the word "dream" from the article. Novickas (talk) 19:20, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I can't help to note you have not addressed my or Qp10qp's replies above. Can we assume you are satisfied with our arguments? P.
Sorry, not satisfied and not done. If it goes ahead and becomes an FA, so be it; I won't have time in the upcoming days to address it further, but will continue to keep an eye on it - pls bear in mind that I don't like edit warring, so my lack of that does not constitute an endorsement. Novickas (talk) 19:45, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Could you address our replies, so we know which of them do you find unsatisfactory, and why? P.
The Allies cared much less about ethnic boundaries than about balance of power. They did not want to see their traditional ally Russia weakened, but of course they coated this in more "politically correct" arguments. This should be mentioned in most publications (scholarly, not newspapers) that analyzes the issue in depth, instead of just mentioning this in passing. That said, we can just shorten this by leaving rationales in the Międzymorze article - but selectively added those that support one's POV and leaving others out is a 'no-no'. PS. And certainly ethnic boundaries were the last thing on Allied minds during the PSW; it was the balance of power which made them request P. help Whites against the Bolsheviks - even through the Whites were much less willing to recognize independence of any former Russisan Empire minorities. It was the balance of power and desire for strong Germany and Russia that kept England in the anti-Polish camp (read on Lloyd George), and French desire for weak Germany that countered it (and resulted in the Allies not doing anything for or against Poland). American Wilson, the idealist might have cared about non-realpolitk concepts like ethnic boundaries, but by the time of the PSW he was already trampled by the US isolationism, and USA expressed no interest in Międzymorze.
Regarding analysis of the statements made by various factions after his death, this is referenced with a scholarly publication dedicated to analyzing those. Feel free to provide a scholarly reference to the contrary.
As for the Jewish minority, read the current references. I believe the article is neutral with regards to that issue.
Does this belong on the talk page? Perhaps, but why do you post it here? The FAC time, as evident, attracts comments from many editors who are otherwise not active in the article. We try our best to address them.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Novickas has a point about that paragraph. It's easy to fix, so lets take it to the talk page. On the other hand, this afternoon I was comparing the part of the article from the retirement to the end with a number of books written by non-Polish historians, and I found that to be the only paragraph that didn't stand up. qp10qp (talk) 19:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The paragraph about relations with the nationalist minorities and the Jews. I have added some material, referenced from Leslie, which balances the largely positive tone of the paragraph. I hope this addresses Novickas's objection on that point. qp10qp (talk) 21:26, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Novickas makes this objection: As it stands just now: "The plan (i.e. Międzymorze) met with opposition from most of the intended members—who refused to relinquish any of their hard-won independence—as well as from the Allied powers, for whom it would be too bold of a change to the existing balance of power structure." No, the most often-cited reason for Allied opposition is that they had intended Poland to stay within what they had determined to be its ethnographic boundaries, and this was their major problem with supporting Poland during the Polish-Soviet War. Refs later, or you-all can look it up yourselves. - But I don't see the difference between what you say and what is in the article: they wanted the existing balance of power, not an expansion of Poland. I am willing to address your objections, but this seems very minor and in my opinion does not merit a change to the wording. qp10qp (talk) 19:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment section on "historiography" per comprehensiveness?--Kiyarrllston 00:42, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to see it in every article :) This one is above average, with discussion of Polish historiography and wealth of publications. If I had a source for non-Polish historiography, I'd have added it, but I don't recall a good analysis ATM.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 02:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to see it in every article too :D...
Previously Alleged non-NPOV - what are possible solutions? I previously proposed in order to achieve NPOV a section on (Józef Piłsudski's) "Political views", more recently I proposed a section on historiography, previously there was a section on criticism, "Public Image" is another name for a name for such a section.
I believe Piłsudski is a hero of Poland as it's "liberator" - - that he was a great man in the eyes of many does not diminish that he was also a "fascist" in the eyes of others.
What do you think, Piotrus? Please note that these might be good suggestions even outside of being solutions to a non-NPOV but rather to improve comprehensibility and organization.
I suspect that the picture that Piotrus has given us may be as close as we will get to "Piłsudski's political views." I don't think he ever published a synthesis of his views; he was a pragmatist; and he tended to keep his cards close to the vest—the result of decades of clandestine work, dogged by secret-police spies and enemies of every political stripe. Even politicians in modern western democracies tend to be duplicitous. Don't expect complete declarations of political views from a man in his circumstances in that period. Nihil novi (talk) 16:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support "Józef Piłsudski"'s Featured-Article nomination. This article is one of the highlights of Wikipedia. There is nothing to compare in Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Americana or even in Polish encyclopedias. It is a superior, comprehensive, balanced, well-illustrated, eminently readable, full-length biography, distilled to the proportions of an on-line encyclopedia. Nihil novi (talk) 03:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain may have some issues, but- what's FA quality anyways? - way more attention is paid to this than to less controversial articles, this article is far above in quality. Good work, Piotrus.--Kiyarrllston 11:36, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Query naming- why the non-english accents?- why not Pilsudski? - what is he normally referred to in english works as?--Kiyarrllston 11:36, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good, thanks, sorry for not noticing Nominator's answer in the previous FAC.--Kiyarrllston 05:17, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose then academic facts being described as fantasy, equaled "to moon is made out of green cheese", labeling as flowery languge; instead of it inserting original research and weasel words, in any sense such article can be promoted. My previuos concerns on older nom is also not resolved fully. M.K. (talk) 15:29, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I supported it last time and support also now. It was very good article in the previous nomination, now it is even better as concerns of various editors have been reflected. I also agree with Nihil novi. I've never seen such comprehensive article about this person nowhere. - Darwinek (talk) 15:55, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OpposeWeak oppose—Article is excessively long; details should be branched off into subarticles, see WP:SIZE. —Remember the dot(talk) 18:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. Piłsudski is a central figure in a period of Polish history that could be termed "the Age of Piłsudski." This article does a unique job of bringing together the salient information on the man and the age. Nihil novi (talk) 22:24, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can't you cut it down to a 50 KB summary of his life and that period of history, and move the less important details to subarticles? —Remember the dot(talk) 00:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you concerned about limited space, or about limited attention spans? The ADHD-readers' version is already in the article's lead. Nihil novi (talk) 01:08, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mainly I'm concerned about the extremely high load time of 110 KB articles on dial-up connections, especially when trying to edit them. 10-20 seconds to load the article for editing...1 minute to load each preview...10-20 seconds to save...it kind of discourages dial-up users from contributing. —Remember the dot(talk) 01:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate these technical aspects, and your bringing them to our attention. On the other hand, Piłsudski was a complex man living and acting in a complex time, and so has inevitably stirred controversy. I fear that far-reaching paring-down of the article might lead to misleading oversimplifications. Nihil novi (talk) 11:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Content wouldn't be deleted, just copied to one or more subarticles and then summarized in the main article, with links to the subarticles. Surely a reasonably comprehensive summary of Józef Piłsudski could be given in less than 100 KB. —Remember the dot(talk) 02:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Two questions: 1) Is there any actual requirement (not recommendation) in respect to article sizes? 2) I know that there is an occasional practice of splitting someone's life into separate articles, but this is remarkably arbitrary and ghastly. Wouldn't it be safe to assume that people who worked on the article have more familiarity with what can and cannot be split into smaller articles? (In other words: Surely, one could develop some articles from this one, but should they be developed along arbitrary lines just because the text is too big?) Dahn (talk) 02:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I may be nitpicking, but I fail to see how an article about someone's biography could be separated from the article on the person - the two terms are synonymous (I know stuff like that was done in the past, but I for one have always thought of it as a bad idea). In any case, it is better for an article to say more than for editors to bicker over what is "essential" (you will note that two or three FAC applications of this article have prolonged themselves over precisely the "essential" issues to have in the article). One could move and develop elsewhere the various parts that come in addition to biographical data (even if that would arguably not be a significant reduction). Plus, there are currently many FAs who go way over the limit, and this was deemed (and, to my eyes, was) the best solution.
When a subject is complex, the article itself will have to be complex. Especially since this length was achieved after a shaky compromise, meaning that creating other articles could only lead users to contention and the article back to the drawing board for eternity. Dahn (talk) 03:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You could call the new branch Life of Józef Piłsudski if you wanted. The main Józef Piłsudski article covers not only his life, but his legacy and family, so there's already a separatoin between his life and his legacy. —Remember the dot(talk) 03:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Biography" and "life" are themselves synonymous to each other in this context, so it would not make much sense. Yes, bio and legacy are separated, but they are so in the article. For the rest, an article about a person is about that person's life and something else - the solution would be to turn that something else into an article, instead of making two about what is mainly the same thing. I could see separate ones on "Legacy" or "Family", but to have one on "Life" (or, alternatively, ones on, respectively, "Childhood", "Adolescence" etc.) looks like the worst solution possible. And let me add that the solution implied is to a non-existing problem (per my previous arguments). The concern here is not to cut down articles, but to create prose that is not sectioned abruptly according to arbitrary criteria. Dahn (talk) 03:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
←I've been thinking about it some more, and perhaps a better solution would be to create articles based on the existing section breaks. For example, we could have an article on the Authoritarian rule of Józef Piłsudski, which would be a more logical division. That would allow more room for future expansion of the specific topic of his authoritarian rule, with a shorter summary of the topic in the main article. Surely a decent summary can be created for each of the long sections, something between the coverage that the lead section gives and what the subarticle would give. —Remember the dot(talk) 06:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is certainly a direction to look into, and it does look feasible. The problem in this case may be more subtle however: editors seem to have different ideas about what is essential, especially in respect to that part of the article; though I have not looked into it, it would seem that the recent expansions have attempted to cover all of what is essential in all takes on the matter, which means that they may not agree on what needs to be summarized, and that what we see before us at the moment actually is the summary. I for one see no technical problem with the length - meaning that a subarticle may actually be an even larger version of the section, and that the section is as small as it could ever get.
I should specify I took no part in authoring any section of the text - I'm just a bystander who has expressed mild objections to an earlier version of the article. At the moment, I am neither opposed nor supportive, because I think that the article needs some more work before reaching FA level (format problems and not just are still quite visible). I'm not sure it is not actually up to FA requirements, but I would still be polishing it if I would have a better grasp of the subject 9and, yes, part of that polish will involve condensing some parts of the text). Dahn (talk) 06:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While I certainly agree that subarticles should be created, 1) I don't think that length is a problem - we have many other FAs of similar length, it there is no policy or FA requirement of shorter length; in other words, it's just a personal preference which shouldn't constitute an objection 2) based on my experience with subarticle of Polish-Soviet War - ex. Polish-Soviet War in 1919 - which where split exactly to address such FA lenght objection, I can see that such articles are rarely read or edited, and hence somewhat useless. 3) The large size of the article is also a result of higher than average density of citations and variety of references. Surely you don't recommend we cut down on those? 4) Finally, in any case, splitting of sections would entitle rewritting the entire article, which would require hours more of work, new voting, rereading it by various editors who voted and so on - which I don't think is necessary. That said, I do support creation of more subarticles, and I do think that new content should be added to them, not to the current article.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is a guideline about article size: Wikipedia:Article size. A 100 KB article crushes a dial-up connection, which doesn't do much for encouraging contribution. It's possible to have shorter articles that are still well-referenced. Unfortunately, previous FACs have not paid much attention to this issue.
If detailed information is split off into subarticles, and those articles are in turn rarely read, doesn't that indicate that few people are interested in reading that information anyway? —Remember the dot(talk) 19:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With all respect to the Third World inhabitants, most of readers and contributors of English Wikipedia use broadband. Perhaps we could have a 'dial up' Wikipedia with tiny articles, but I prefer to have comprehensive, multimedia articles to small stubs. In any case, if an editor wants a tiny summary, this is what lead is for.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm not talking about small stubs. I'm talking about the exact same information, perhaps more comprehensive, split into different articles with a condensed version left behind. Still, I see your point: dial-up is dying out. Thus, I'm changing to "Weak oppose". —Remember the dot(talk) 05:56, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A minor suggestion partly sparked by the above comments: it would seem that the google book URLs in the text would in themselves, if placed together, amount to an entire paragraph. Now, as far as i could tell, they follow precise and complete bibliographic references, which means that they are redundant. The links themselves would not necessarily be visible to all users, and the viewable text, if I understood correctly, is not made available indefinitely - the viewable pages in one book can change with time, or google books may prevent the same users from revisiting them over and over. (In addition, they drag the text editing window to the right, which can get really annoying.) Is it possible to have them removed, or do they serve some other, not immediately apparent, purpose? Dahn (talk) 20:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Google books are not very editor friendly, but they allow a user to view the selected page ASAP. True, they tend to rot - but on some random basis (I know some that have been stable for two years). As useful, they should stay - but certainly, as a very long urls they may take 1kb or more. If we cared more about technical aspects than writing good articles, we could remove them - but I'd hope our care is in the other direction.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, but my full point is that the references accompanying them are already exact (down to page numbers), meaning that the technical aspect is covered without them having to stick around. Dahn (talk) 20:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Adding a link to online page is helpful. Remember: Wikipedia is not paper. We can afford extensive and hyperlinked bibliographical information - just as paper publications often skip ISBN (which we link to online book search engines), or hyperlinks on authors or titles of notable books (for obvious reasons).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - per Nihil novi, supported last time. Rudget. 16:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support since the last nomination. JRWalko (talk) 19:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - like before. I'm reinserting my vote, for the record. In the future though I would prefer for my vote to be respected regardless of any later administrative decision to restart a runaway discussion. --Poeticbenttalk 19:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support For the same reason I supported it before. Also it seems that most all of the reasonable concerns and objections from last round have been made right. Ostap 20:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I supported last time. Kyriakos (talk) 21:22, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support as last time, but more strongly so, given improvements. One small point: we're told condolences were expressed by "Eastern Orthodox" and "Greek Orthodox" organisations. Could this be clarified? Does the Church of Greece, one of the Eastern Orthodox churches, operate in Poland? Or was it just the Polish Orthodox Church, also an Eastern Orthodox church, that was expressing condolences? Biruitorul (talk) 23:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support As the last time--Molobo (talk) 01:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment If I remmember correctly both my history teachers at primary and high school mentioned that politicaly the march of the First Cadre Company into the area of Cracow in 1914 was a spectacular failure, citizens barred their doors and windows instead of showing support for Piłsudski's legioners - I have heard that event may have influenced Piłsudski's authortarian belifs. In my opinion This article should mention that event and it's possible future implications. Mieciu K (talk) 18:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Urbankowaski discusses this and argues that it was not a big failure, more of an average welcome with fewer volunteers than Piłsudski expected, but no 'empty streets' or 'barred doors'. IIRC he noted that such accounts were propagated by enemies of Piłsudski and the Legions, although there are confusing (contradictory) accounts of those events. If you have a ref that states that this even influenced Piłsudski, feel free to add it - although considering the lenght of the article, perhaps the FCC article would a better place for that? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At the beginning of World War I, when Polish Legions cavalry officers attempted to pay a courtesy call at Oblęgorek, that singer of the national epos, Henryk Sienkiewicz, kept them at arm's length. Many people were lukewarm toward the Legions, and recruiting officers found slim pickings. Which, if anything, only underlines the farsightedness and determination of Piłsudski and his men. Nihil novi (talk) 03:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support IMHO this article meets the FA criteria. Mieciu K (talk) 23:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support as before, it is well written and sourced article. ≈Tulkolahten≈≈talk≈ 18:23, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support (didn't change my mind). If that's not a FA, what is? --Beaumont(@) 20:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - while long, the article is well-referenced, and its size should not be held against it.--Riurik(discuss) 07:40, 12 January
2008 (UTC)
Comment. Now that we near the end of this debate concerning the placing of the Pilsudski article as a FA candidate, I would like to again make a few comments. First, it was never my intention to prevent this article from attaining FA status, but only that a balanced and coherent encyclopedic article would be presented to our readers on English Wikipedia. Along the way, I also came to the conclusion that in the future, when and if I cast a vote in such debates, I will never personally use "per so and so" as the explanation of my position, but will explain my vote based on the subject matter, and my knowledge of it. To do otherwise would be suggesting that I didn't have my own opinion, or that I didn't have a clue about the actual subject matter at hand, or that I was just too lazy to give my own explanation. It seems odd to me that many of the earlier votes of "support" have retained their position without making any contributions or changes to the article. And not even acknowledging the many improvements and changes that have come about since the last survey. The least one could do is acknowledge is that the opposition votes catalyzed these changes to occur. I hope everyone has recently re-read through the article. I have. Granted, that has not been easy considering its length, tenditious style, and the spiderweb of "references" that one has to wade through. That was always one of my greatest objections to the article as it stands, because it gives it a ludicrous quality, and there is nothing ludicrous about this great man who did so much for Poland.
Also as I stated previously, one of my biggest problems with the article was its frequent incoherency, resulting from edits by individuals with a poor grasp of English, and its attempt to portray a controversial figure in a cult of personality POV type of format. The continual reversion of sourced edits (by very established historians, e.g., Norman Davies, Timothy Snyder, and others), with comment like "it's offensive" and the like, was another reason that I objected. This activity soon began to also violate WP:OWN as time went on. Someone would make a useful edit only to have it reverted by one or two of the same people. Why because they personally didn't like it. They decided that their job was to "forge" this article according to their POV, and history and the facts be damned. As these "offensive" arguments became stronger and the reasons for their reversion became less tenable, the solution by these parties was to sweep these issues under the carpet and obscure the information by allowing it to stay in links to the footnotes, rather than allowing it to be part of the article proper (with a few other manoevers). This fact should be strongly considered in deciding what to do with this new proposal, and that the former information be reinstated.
Personally I like Pilsudski, and have stated so in the past. Naturally, I take issue with the fact that he was a dictator, and an opponent of democracy. He was a fish swimming in the pond of totalitarianism, which was in vogue in that period of European history. He wasn't alone, nor was he as big a fish as some here would have liked him to be. Just the same, he did the best that he could under the circumstances, and with what he had to work with. As user: Halibutt stated (with sourced information and links) and so did Davies, Pilsudski considered himself Lithuanian. This fact has been fought "tooth and nail", more because of the argument WP:IDON'TLIKEIT, than a true refutation of this fact. Let it stay on the record here. Same with his establishment of a concentration camp, or Pilsudski referring to "Poles as a Nation of Morons", or Dmowski and Co. considering him an "alien in their midst". Relevant, factual information, that didn't fit in with the one-side portrayal that was being censored.The article could still be vastly improved, given a little more time. Is the article now better and less biased than before? Yes! Can it still be improved and made better with a little more time? Of course it could. So then, why do we have this unusual push, push, push? The article is not about to be deleted, WP is not about to cease to exist. I'm hoping that whoever feels the need for this extraordinary push to make this an FA article, is not fearful that their own questionable edits might not pass the test of time and analysis. The biggest "red flag", is this continual rush to make this an FA, with a new survey every couple of weeks. Since the debate started, this article has been vastly improved. Let the work continue. Dr. Dan (talk) 14:58, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What Piłsudski has been quoted as saying of Poles ("morons"), any politican has thought at times of his constituency, so it is superfluous to use such a quotation, out of context, to gratuitously insult all Poles.
Dmowski's opinion of Piłsudski hardly seems germane. Probably a critical, if not scatological, comment of Piłsudski's could be cited regarding Dmowski. Again, par for the course, with politicians. Nihil novi (talk) 20:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Further comment on comment: So why this constant dawdle, dawdle, dawdle? Our esteemed colleague's skill in filibuster would do honor to a United States Senator.
Our colleague's style of argument reminds me of that of George Bernard Shaw, of whom a critic remarked that seldom has a writer used so many words to convey so little substance. Nihil novi (talk) 20:58, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nihil, who decides if someone is a Pole, and that if another person is a Polish-Lithuanian-Commonwealth, "Lithuanian" (but is still actually a Pole)? Is there also such a thing as a Lithuanian, and also a Polish-Lithuanian-Commonwealth, "Pole"? I'm assuming that your exclamation marks are trying to state that your belief is that these type of Lithuanians deserve a special designation. Is there not a similar designation for such "Poles"? Or are Poles simply Poles, and the others, like Pilsudski who were Lithuanians, at best Polish-Lithuanian-Commonwealth "Lithuanians?"
Whereas granted, Fujimoro is a Peruvian (ex officio of course), the history lesson regarding the Narutavicius brothers and the Sheptytsky brothers was unecessary, unless it was for the benefit of others. The bottom line regarding your examples is that we have two families, one Lithuanian and the other Ukrainian who were polonized, as was Pilsudski. And for the record no one is attempting to argue that Pilsudski was not the dictator of Poland, just as previously no one was arguing that Jogaila was not the King of Poland (lot's of the same faces from that debate are here at this one). But his ethnicity, or descent, if you prefer, remains important information and belongs in the article. And not as a footnote. If you insist on more examples let's take J. Dzierzon. On the basis of some quote or letter, the article on WP insists that he is a Pole. I'm not disagreeing that if that is true, then the article is correct. Yet, although we find that Pilsudski stated that he was a Lithuanian on many occasions, "poof," that argument doesn't count here. Why? To really understand Pilsudski, you have to see how his heritage played an enormous part in his psychological make up, and his role on the stage of world history. Incidentally, I'm sure you're aware that Pilsudski's mother was disinterred from Lithuania (Jedrzejewicz mentions in his biography of JP, that the Lithuanian government was very gracious and helpful in granting her son's wish to bring her remains to Vilnius). user: Halibutt stated in the archives of Pilsudski's talk page (archive 2003-2006 sec. 13). "Imagine the faces of Dmowski's nationalists when Pilsudski stated he's Lithuanian in the Polish Sejm...BTW his Polish "Lithuanianess" (sic) was one of many serious problems the nationalists had with Pilsudski and many of them hated him for that". A very pithy analysis of the facts, from Hali, and it should be incorporated into the article (Davies' referenced information regarding this was rv'd, because it was "offensive"). I don't think Davies is offensive but I think some of his works fall into WP:IDON'TLIKEIT, when they fall short of the expectations and POV of some people. Assuming of course that there is no ojection to a balanced, neutral, and unbiased article.
Now to the question of the "Poles being a nation of morons". That is not my opinion. That is Pilsudski's (although Prokonsul Piotrus corrected it to him calling them "idiots"). When Davies brought that into the Dmowski-Pilsudski quarrel it was to illustrate the intensity of the antagonism between the two. Not out of context or gratuitously, BTW. Ditto when Davies stated that Pilsudski considered himself a Lithuanian of Polish culture. It too was to emphasize the feud between them. Pilsudski's opinion of Dmowski and vice-versa are very germane and relevant in this article.
After reading your comments on my comments, I have a better understanding of your user name, Nihil novi. Regarding my U.S. Senatorial run, you could also consider a run for the Sejm. Lastly, since you have a penchant for Latin, consider....."ex nihilo nihil fit." p.s. I don't have a problem with Shaw. Dr. Dan (talk) 23:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I stand by my previous comments. Nihil novi (talk) 23:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't blame you for not wanting to respond. These are thorny issues that are better handled at the article, not here. And the rest truly, is "Nothing New". Dr. Dan (talk) 13:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing to respond to. Like a squid, you conceal the paucity of your argument with a great effusion of ink. Nihil novi (talk) 16:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now, now, be nice! Don't compare me to a squid. I don't want Ieoth to have to tag you. I didn't compare you to a crayfish swimming backward and hiding under a rock, just because you couldn't answer my objections. Try to be civil and more pleasant. Dr. Dan (talk) 20:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, a simile is a comparison, not an equation, and I'd appreciate you not invoking my name again in a threatening manner with regards to Digwuren case enforcement. Thanks. Ioeth(talkcontribsfriendly) 21:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. There are some article standardisation issues in References and Further reading sections (current revision 183596548):
op. cit. — there are many versions of formatting and writing of op. cit.: cursive and non-cursive, with space between these words and without space (op. cit./op.cit.), with periods and without (op. cit./op cit).
Further reading section — no periods at the end of some sentences.
There are also some minor differences in referencing style, for example ISBN written with and without dashes (-); sometimes there is comma (,), sometimes semicolon (;) before ISBN. Visor (talk) 09:10, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In editing this article, when I've encountered non-English-standard punctuation, I've tried to correct it.
Poles are often unaware that they use different standards than most Anglophones. In numbers, for example, they use commas for decimals, and periods where Anglophones use commas (thus, "5.280,03" rather than "5,280.03").
Similarly, Poles italicizearticle titles and use quotes on book titles—again, the exact reverse of what Anglophones generally do.
The "op. cit." situation is thus but the tip of the iceberg.
"Op. cit." is the abbreviation of the Latin "opere citato"—"in the work [previously] cited." Since it comes from a foreign language (Latin), in English it is generally italicized. And since "op. cit." is an abbreviation, it comes with periods. And since these are two words, there should be a space between them.Nihil novi (talk) 20:20, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've corrected the "Further reading" section as far as I could. In some items, information was unclear or missing. Poles, for example, frequently list the place of publication but not the publisher, or vice versa. Nihil novi (talk) 20:54, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A side note: Bibliographies in Polish publications often abbreviate authors' first names, even when the authors don't do so on their title pages. Some years ago, a Polish historian expressed surprise on learning that "B. Tuchman," author of The Guns of August, was a woman (Barbara Tuchman). Nihil novi (talk) 21:41, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as in the last round. A lot of superficial gloss and we-want-it-to-be-featured, and no improvement regarding the NPOV issues I had a quick look at. "Relations with Weimar Germany ... Pilsudski's tenure could for the most part be described as neutral"? According to Polish historian Marian Zgorniak [6], Polish military leaders like Gustaw Orlicz-Dreszer since the 1920s had, in accordance with Pilsudkis orders, prepared offensive concepts against Weimar Germany, which was defenseless due to Versailles restrictions. What might "marsz na berlin"! refer to anyway, travelling to the Olympics in 1936? And "in January 1933, Piłsudski is rumored to have proposed to France a preventive war against Germany"? With all the sources on a "preventive war against germany" +1933, all a Featured-Article-candidate, which "should exemplify Wikipedia's very best work", can come up with is "rumored to have proposed"? Really, this prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard. In the words of Polish historian Waclaw Jedrzejewicz : The Polish Plan for a "preventive War" Against Germany in 1933, or even The Polish war for a preventive war against Germany in 1933. When will the third FA candidacy be started? -- Matthead DisOuß 09:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article mentions P. plans for a war against Germany. Going into details of unrealized and highly speculative military plans is rather off topic in this article.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This article is about a dictator - you have to expect protracted discussion. Some particular points. His attitude towards minorities is currently described as favorable, but Timothy Snyder mentions public corporal punishment of Ukrainians [7] ordered by Pilsudski. Other questionable wordings, some of which are easy to fix - "considered responsible for regaining Poland's independence" - just change to considered by many. A coin featuring his "rugged profile". Conflicts "resulted in Poland moving eastward" - passive tense. The use of the word "dream" to describe plans that much of the rest of the world saw as imperialism - the Polish government felt it necessary to defend itself against this charge in an "appeal to the world" [8]. The Locarno treaties as appeasement - not a universally accepted interpretation. He and some historians perceived them as such. Villified is not a neutral word. There were constitutional crises in 1990s Poland that involved widespread fears of a renewed Pilsudksi-like presidential role [9] - no mention. Some issues have been addressed and the article has been improved thereby, but more remain. Novickas (talk) 16:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article mentions (just as Snyder writes) that OUN attacks led to repressions and deterioration of the relations between Ukrainian minority and Polish government.
As currently stated: "Piłsudski's regime began a period of national stabilization and improvements in the situation of ethnic minorities". This implies that the ongoing problems stemming from post-WWI territorial changes - Ukrainians seeking independence and upset about Galicia, Germans upset about the Danzig corridor, etc - went away for some unspecified period of time. Most authors treat the entire interwar period as turbulent. See Ilya Prizel, Aviel Roshvald, Roy Leslie, etc - some of these authors' viewpoints are discussed at the talk page.
Any author who goes into this at depth will notice that the situation fluctuated; Piłsudski tried to improve the situation but failed, and the deterioration accelerated after his death. In any case, this is simply not a major issue in an article about him. Second Polish Republic had many failings, and not a single one of them (nor any of its achievements) should be given undue weight there.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am not aware of any source that argues Piłsudski was not responsible for Poland regaining independence. Granted, his activity was only one of the resulting factors, but the article doesn't claim he was solely responsible for it - so I see no contradiction here.
As currently stated: "He is considered largely responsible for Poland having regained her independence in 1918". This statement is single-factorial. Yes, some people see it that way, but an encyclopedia is not in the business of attributing major historic developments to a single person. For an encyclopedic version see Britannica [10] - it's a one-page summary, not too burdensome to read. Note the sentences "The chances of Polish independence increased radically in 1917 when the United States entered the war and two revolutions shook Russia....The Inter-Allied conference (June 1918) endorsed Polish independence, thus crowning the efforts of Dmowski, who had promoted the Polish cause in the West since 1915."
This is well referenced, and majority of sources put Piłsudski's efforts above Dmowski's - which nonetheless, together with the Versailles and its aftermath, are mentioned in the article.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rugged - fixed. "resulted in Poland moving eastward" - string not found. Dream - fixed.
The passively-worded phrase in question is "a series of escalating battles which resulted in the Poles advancing eastward."
Locarno - extensively discussed before; the article makes it clear it was Piłsudski's POV to see them as such.
As currently phrased: "Piłsudski was disappointed by the French and British policy of appeasement evident in those countries' signing of the Locarno Treaties." This is not a universally-acknowledged interpretation of the treaties - you could say this about the Munich Agreement, but not here.
Some minor 1990s crises in Polish politics which made somebody compare the situation to P. times (60 years after his death and without an article on either en or pl wiki) don't seem relevant here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:43, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These crises and their relation to Pilduski are mentioned in the New York Times [11] , by the National Defense University[12] ("This is of immense importance because of Poland's experience with the defense council during the Pilsudski and 1980-81 martial law eras") and in these books [13], [14]. I would submit that the creation of a post-Soviet constitution is not minor, and that there was much more discussion of these issues in PL-language sources.
Feel free to expand articles about modern Polish political history with this information. But this is not of much relevance to P. article.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Length/access issues - I have DSL and I have problems editing this page (now 71 KB), the article itself, and its talk page. Novickas (talk) 16:56, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure the problem is with DSL? I have DSL, too, and no problem editing this article. Nihil novi (talk) 18:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. While the article is truly impressive and well written, References and Further reading sections fails WP:FACR 2(c): _consistently formatted_ inline citations using either footnotes or Harvard referencing. I've also noticed some issues:
Two the same references written in different ways:
2. Marian Marek Drozdowski, Przedmowa, in Marian Marek Drozdowski, Hanna Szwankowska, Pożegnanie Marszałka. [...]
8. & 142. Zbigniew Wojcik, Przedmowa, in Marian Marek Drozdowski, Hanna Szwankowska, Pożegnanie Marszałka. [...]
Int. link to Watt, not to Watt, Richard: 144. Watt, Richard (1979). [...]
No locations in references—for example, let's take two first references: no location for Plach, 2006 (Warsaw) and Drozdowski, 1995 (Athens, Ohio).
Wrong ISBN for Dziewanowski (1969). (Fixed)
No standardisation for locations in Ref section, sometimes written in Polish, sometimes in English language (Warsaw/Warszawa).
No standardisation for url retrieve date (Retrieved on/retrieved on/Last accessed on/last accessed on).
No standardisation for author (or editor), written in different ways: last, first and first last.
No standardisation for dashes in dates (hyphen/en dash).
Some names are red links, some are no links. What decides about that? Visor (talk) 21:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All known issues mentioned by me above has been resolved. Now, I Support for FA, per Piotrus; well written and well referenced article. Visor (talk) 16:53, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for fixing those issues. All comments are appreciated, but comments followed by fixes are doubly so :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:10, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and this is the whole point being made by many, including myself, that the article needs lots more "fixing". Like you I want this article to become a FA. Virtually everyone currently supporting this nomination was satisfied with it long before so many "fixes" were implemented. Simply put, the article needs plenty more fixing. This unusual and relentless attempt to make this a FA every few weeks, is becoming more of a game, than a serious desire to reach a consensus. Isn't better to create an article that it is the best that Wikipedia can offer to its readers? Until then, I vote Oppose. Dr. Dan (talk) 00:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain This is an interesting discussion. Piotrus and Nihil novi are supporting the FA nomination. And, M.K and Dr. Dan are opposing the FA nomination. Interesting! I studied the article and I think it is a very good biography. However, Dr. Dan and M.K have raised some issues. Is this biography neutral? Masterpiece2000 (talk) 04:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Piotrus, I think the biography is fine. And, you and Nihil novi have contributed significantly to the articles related to Poland. Let me ask a question: Why are Dr. Dan and M.K against the article? Masterpiece2000 (talk) 08:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Read my comment above and archived thread and oh, you also should read others comments as well, in order to find out who are unsatisfied of certain issues... M.K. (talk) 13:44, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Masterpiece, to be clear, I am not against this article. My position regarding this article's strengths and weaknesses have been presented by me in detail on the talk pages. If you have the time (and I do mean time) you can get a very good idea of everyone's position on the archived talkpage, as well as this one. A FA on Wikipedia is purported to be the best type of article that the project can produce. This article is constantly improving, and I look forward to casting a "Support" vote when it truly reaches that point. Soon I hope. Few will remember edits on the talk page like, "He was the greatest Pole of all time and my great grandfather was proud to serve under him in the Polish Victory War of 1920 against Russia. Now this is why this article was delisted". Colonel Mustard, 29 May 2006. Or, "How I long for the day when his spirit finds another body - Oh Marshal Pilsudski We People of Poland love you". Anonymous, 31 Oct 2004
This puts a little of my objection in a nutshell, it once was a highly nationalistic POV'd boring piece of hero worship, pushing a cult of personality. Thankfully, it is less and less so. Without this relentless renomination of the article to become a FA and need to rush it before further improvements are made, it will be just fine. And for the record, the "many votes" it attracts seemed to have a more or less "ethnic component", than a contributory one. Finally this continual "fixing" of the article, whenever an objection is presented (rather than by a dialogue) is most troubling, because it is not a WP:OWN article, and needs a more balanced and neutral perspective. Hope that helps with your query. Dr. Dan (talk) 01:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Masterpiece2000 asked about objections to the article, and you discuss irrelevant "edits on the talk page." Why this exercise in misdirection? Nihil novi (talk) 03:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think I should stay away from this discussion. I don't have great knowledge about Polish history. I will do research before casting my vote. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 02:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
M2000, please take a good look at the talk pages (one archived) too. Might be very enlightening. Best Dr. Dan (talk) 04:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Dr. Dan, I studied the arguments on the talk page of Piłsudski. I have decided to stay away from this discussion. My vote is Abstain! Masterpiece2000 (talk) 05:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Image:MIKASA&TOGO.jpg (on Commons) has an obsolete image tag, and Image:HMS Commonwealth HS.jpg has both copyrighted and public domain listed. I noticed this caption while checking images: "HMS Canopus fires her 12-inch main guns in anger at a Turkish shore battery"—a ship cannot have anger. Rewrite in an encyclopedic tone, and please do this in the article as well, if this type of writing is found there. Pagrashtak 17:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"firing guns in anger" is a standing phrase and used to indicate use of the guns to shoot at an opponent (as opposed to e.g. test firing). It is not indicating emotion (by either ship or crew). Still, I agree that this particular instance is a bit jarring. --Stephan Schulz 17:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, not up on my war terminology I suppose. How about something along the lines of "HMS Canopus fires a salvo from her 12-inch guns while bombarding Turkish forts"? (Taken from the Commons description page.) Pagrashtak 17:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Modified it to the simpler "HMS Canopus fires her 12-inch main guns at a Turkish shore battery (1915)", and let the "in anger" be implied. --Stephan Schulz 18:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is no doubt about the acceptability of either image. The Mikasa image is one of User:PHG's he has placed in in the PD. Since Commonwealth was scrapped in 1921, the photo was taken before 1923, so the image is public domain in the USA. All of this is perfectly plain from the image description pages. The Land 19:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Then the problems I mentioned should be easily fixed. Pagrashtak 22:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not to be pedantic, but the problems are not problems with the article or even the images, only the image tagging. Fixing them would be good, but has little to do with this article review. --Stephan Schulz 23:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we do need to check that there aren't any images that cannot be used in the article. One of the FA requirements is that Fair-use images have a fair-use rationale. Adam Cuerdentalk 03:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Right. But as The Land has laready pointed out, both of the pictures are unquestionably PD. --Stephan Schulz 07:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some quotes from the image talk page: "The image copyright at this time belongs to Jarek Ariga", "the exact source is unknown", "it is presumed this image was published before the ship was scrapped in 1921" (emphasis mine). What part of this is unquestionable? Having all images tagged correctly is a requirement for a featured article, so this is entirely pertinent. Pagrashtak 19:05, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, image tagging is noo an FA criterion: "It has images and other media where they are appropriate to the subject, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images or media must meet the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.". And are you seriously suggesting that the photo of Commonwealth was taken two years after she was scrapped? The Land 20:08, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And how do we convey acceptable copyright status on Wikipedia? With an image tag. I believe the image was taken before 1923. I don't know when it was published, which is what determines the copyright status. I've never questioned the year the image was taken, so please do not put words in my mouth. Pagrashtak 20:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You're winning the award for lamest contribution to an FA request here; however, the article can live without the images. The Land 21:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's not very civil. If you have a problem with Wikipedia's image policy, I suggest you take it up on the policy talk page. Pagrashtak 21:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for nowSupport. Its a good piece but I have some style issues and general comments. The stuff listed below is mainly minor and shouldn't take too long although there are some more tricky pieces.
1st paragraph of "Evolution from the ironclad" is uncited, and makes statements that couled really use sourcing.
"impossible to fight on the high seas" (fight who? contemporary ships?)
Can you name an example of the historians who see them as essentially pre-dreadnoughts and an example of one who doesn't?
"due to" is better than "thanks to"
I've deleted the first paragraph: it wsn't actually saying anything. And I've re-worded the rest a fair bit. The Land 10:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First paragraph of armament is only one paragraph, either merge it into a larger paragraph or expand into a full introduction to the section.
The Battle of the Yellow Sea is one engagement and should not be described as engagments. Make the statistics specific to the action in question. Also link Sino-Japanese War
Think I've solved this by removing an extraneous sentence. First Sino-Japanese War is linked several times.
Merge and perhaps expand the two short paragraphs which conclude the "Armaments" section, particulaly elaborating on the torpedo tubes.
Torpedo tube elaborated. The Land 10:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"supported those powers' colonial expansion." needs a source.
It isn't made clear that the Spanish did not deploy any pre-dreadnoughts during the Spanish American War.
both done. The Land 11:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Europe section has a one line paragraph at the start, merge it into the longer paragraph below.
"principally to further" might read better as "principally as a consequence"
done and done. The Land 11:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First three paragraphs of "Obsalensence" must be merged, expanded and sourced. This is a very important section which isn't given justice at the moment.
Have worked on it - what do you think is missing? The Land 11:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Section on Canopus at the Falkland Islands, name the battlecruisers (Inflexible and Invincible is memory serves).
Linked the class, rather than the individual ships. The Land 11:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Section on forcing the Dardanelles is rather clumsily phrased and needs revising.
Any better? The Land 11:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It may be worth mentioning that Pommern was lost with all hands due to her lack of compartmentalisation (I think Geoffrey Bennett mentions this in his "Battle of Jutland").
Don't have a reference to it: if so, it should go in the
World War II and today section need expanding and tidying. Mention should be made of the mass scrapping and destruction of most remaining pre-dreadnoughts in the early 1920s and some explination of how Mikasa survived (i.e. the many auxiliary roles into which pre-dreadnought survivors were pressed following WW1).
The article might also benefit from some statistics regarding pre-dreadnought losses in battle (I think I have some books somewhere with this information in, but it'll take a long time to dig them out) if you find something then it would benefit the article greatly, especially in regards to WW1.
In all this is a wellworked and referenced piece but it is not there yet. Paragraph and some sentance structure needs work and some areas of the article would benefit from expansion. The sections on armaments, propulsion and armour are exemplary (barring minor issues), but some of the historical sections need work. Have you seen "War at Sea in the Ironclad Age"? [15] Its pretty good on the historical aspects of this subject. Once the issues above are addressed, I would be happy to reassess my opinion of this article.--Jackyd101 10:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for all of that! will get onto it this weekend. I have 'War at Sea in the Ironclad Age' - it's what I would call an 'entry-level' resource (the Sondhaus book I cite is a much more detailed coverage of the same period of time). The Land 10:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, I thought the book I mentioned might be useful as Wikipedia is itself an entry level resource and I was unsure of your depth of knowledge. Sondhaus is indeed much better. Keep up the good work.--Jackyd101 10:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Think I'm getting there with the 'evolution' section: any further comments? The Land 10:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Been a but busy, but will have a look at this tomorrow. Is it ready for another assessment?--Jackyd101 17:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. You might still think there are places where you'd like to see more - if so tell me how and where. The Land 18:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
<deindent>Much better, but I still have some notes.
It seems a touch confusing for the uninformed reader to have the first picture be one of an HMS Dreadnought given the article's title. Is there a picture of Devestation or Royal Sovereign which could go in there? If not, then at least give a date for the ship in the caption, to make as clear as possible which dreadnought is being referred to.
I can't find the Bennett book, so leave that for now.
I suggest removing the header today before the comment on the Mikasa. That sentance could be easily moved to the end of the World War II section and the photograph moved up, potentially to where the Mikasa was mentioned before. The single sentance paragraph looks a little untidy where it is.
And thats it, a much improved article and one I would be happy to support. In an additional note, if you are having trouble with copyright notices, then I suggest claiming fair use for the pictures you want on the off-chance they are still under copyright. It might also be worth looking here for images as all on this website are outside copyright restrictions. --Jackyd101 09:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a statement to that effect somewhere? They do have HMS Ramillies, a Royal Sovereign class ship. --Stephan Schulz 20:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The page I linked to above has a statement on it that to the best of the page owners knowledge, all images used on the site are in the public domain.--Jackyd101 10:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I overlooked this.--Stephan Schulz 12:24, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose (for now)Support. I agree with Jackyd101 (and thanks for the detailed comments!). It's a good article, but it still missing something to make it into a great one. Maybe it concentrates to much on the use of the term (I find the discussion about the first "pre-dreadnought" a bit tedious (and the Royal Souvereign's certainly qualifiy, so its ALL WRONG! ;-)). I think if we go through the list and take care of the points, we will have something much better. --Stephan Schulz 10:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The current version is more satisfactory. The images are much better. It would be nice to find some online-sources to complement the books. --Stephan Schulz 20:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. There are some tiny paras that would look better after merger. Some sections can use more images. More problematic, there are still uncited claims.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 00:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Which claims are worrying you? Ah, I see you've added some fact tags. The only things there which will cause any difficulty are the fates of the German and Greek PDNs in World War II, because the sources I have don't hand don't cover that. With respect, I'm not sure that there needs to be a citation provided for statements like "pre-dreadnoughts continued in active service and saw significant combat use even when obsolete" when there are several cited instances of doing just that in the following section. Re the images, I'm sure I can find a few more. The challenge is to avoid having 15 black-and-white images of near-identical battleships! The Land 10:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
With some help I've found refs for everything you tagged. There are also a lot more images in the article now. The Land 16:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Of course you are free to have any opinion you like. But is there any potentially contentious point that needs referencing? We don't need to have a footnote on every sentence. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:34, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support - All issues seem to have been satisfactorily dealt with. Excellent article. -MBK004 18:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Self-nom and co-nom by User:Ling.Nut and dk. A-rated within WP:MILHIST, this article has been exhaustively researched and referenced. It covers a major battle in Chinese history which is the source of many modern cultural references. It is the result of extensive collaboration by several members of WP:3K.
Very hesitantly and well aware of WP:BEANS, I'll say that there is no need for any reviewer to slag the Harvard referencing style due to any personal preference for the footnote style. The Harvard style is well and clearly sanctioned by WP:CITE. Ling.Nut 07:03, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support The...uh...weird citations you call Havard Referencing are a little hard on the eyes, but otherwise I see no reason to object. Its good, it agrees with the UTEP professors account of the battle, and above all it meets the criteria. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:39, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Object - sorry but it requires more inline citations --Hadseys (talk • contribs) 13:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: More citations? I'm sorry, but this comment could become helpful/actionable if you would indicate where you want additional citations (perhaps you may wish to refer to Wikipedia:When to cite as well). I thank you in advance for your reply. --Ling.Nut 13:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OH I bet you just don't see the abundant examples of Harvard citation? Is that it? It's not uncommon for newer editors to think that the footnote style is the only style that exists... --Ling.Nut 13:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Harvard style is uncommon, but hardly unusable. Just because somebody's used to seeing little numbers as opposed to Harvard references doesn't make the article any less factual or incorrect. The emphasis is supposed to be on referencing the information, not the fashion of display in which it's presented. Gamer Junkie 22:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Concise, clear, and understandable even to someone unfamiliar with the era. Well-cited, but the maps are the best part — they're absolutely fantastic. Excellent work creating those. Definitely worthy of being a featured article. JKBrooks85 20:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support — An excellent article, you have my support.--Pericles of AthensTalk 00:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Are there any other FAs that use Harvard referencing? I don't think I've come across this format anywhere else on Wikipedia. Tommy Stardust 03:05, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You don't need to. It all falls within Wikipedia's rules and policy. Nobody can argue the legitimacy of Harvard referencing other than to say that they don't personally like it. Gamer Junkie 09:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comments It would be nice to have the Wade-Giles (once) for names and places; there will be English sources which use only WG for Ts'ao Ts'ao, for example. I think i know what the hill destoyed "for stone exploitation" means, roughly, but it's both vague and un-English. Was it a gravel-mine, a quarry for flagstones, or what? SeptentrionalisPMAnderson 03:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reply Hi Pmanderson, thanks for your comments. I would be very happy to comply with the suggestions in your comments, but unfotunately I would run into some roadblocks...
To clarify, do you want Wade-Giles after the first use of every Chinese-language name and place? To me that sounds like a stylistic issue which would need to be taken up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Use of Chinese Language) [and I note that you have made a recent comment on that forum regarding this issue]. Also relevant to this question is the essay at m:Use pinyin not Wade-Giles.
You will note that I also have expressed myself on the meta essay. The claim that pinyin is intuitive for anglophones who are not fluent in Chinese (the bulk of our readers) is not convincing.
In response to your question: where to add WG is a judgment call, based on whether what was notable in the first half of the twentieth century. I would add it, once, to the Han generals; placenames are more complex. We sensibly use Yangtze and not the pinyin Cháng Jiāng; on the other hand, purely modern placenames do not need it. I would add it wherever we include Chinese script, and for much the same reasons. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson 04:27, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As for "stone exploitation", you are correct that the source of that info is a published English translation from an original Chinese-language article. That translated version uses the term "stone exploitation." I knew it was awkward when I added it, but the article simply does not specify what type of "exploiation" it is referring to. I briefly considered researching a "most likely case", but I live in fear of WP:OR. I suppose I could also email the author, but that would be a primary source. If you can suggest an English phrasing which preserves the unintentional ambiguity, I would be quite happy to modify the text accordingly. Thanks again, --Ling.Nut (talk) 04:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
a range of hills levelled in the 1930's to use their stone as raw material? or perhaps a direct quote from the English translation, to make clear to the reader what the problem is? SeptentrionalisPMAnderson 04:27, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Lovely piece. Beautifully written and nicely illustrated. I particularly enjoyed bits like: "Even a powerful arrow at the end of its flight cannot penetrate a silk cloth". A few minor suggestions:
provided a line of defence that was the basis for the later creation of the two southern kingdoms Unclear. Did the line become a frontier? Or permit the creation of prosperity?
Typos: A few missing hyphens—a 16-year interruption, the 3rd-century historical text—oh, and fifth-century to 5th-century for consistency.
Tense disjunction: Although Cao Cao boasted. Perhaps Although Cao Cao had boasted or Despite Cao Cao's boasts of?
Slight tweak: and so lacked to and thus lacked (to avoid readings of so as an amplifier)?
I think "line of defence" already implied that the line was a frontier. Other than that, I addressed all your points. :) _dk (talk) 00:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Pmanderson, to work out the details of your suggestion... would Wade-Giles in the infobox be acceptable for the major characters? I tried to imagine how it would look after every name in the WP:LEDE, and in my mind it looks kinda cluttered... then later on we could put Wade-Giles once in the body text for a few other key people and places... --Ling.Nut (talk) 06:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The infobox would be a good idea. I don't think it's needed after every name in the lead anyway; Wu is probably the same in both systems, and some names are unimportant. I also commend {{zh-tspw}} in the first sentence. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson 00:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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.
I'm nominating this article for featured article because it meets all established featured article criteria. Unlike my previous battleship FACs, this one is for a battleship that was never completed, therefore the material presented is a little short due to the lack of service history. This can be compensated for if you think of this article as the third in a series of three: the articles Iowa class battleship and Armament of the Iowa class battleship discuss in much more detail the history of the class design and construction and the weapons and combat systems installed aboard Kentucky respectively. This is a self nom. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:52, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
NOTE I am currently in the middle of a college semester; if I seem slow to respond be patient; it is likely school work has me tied up. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak object The in fiction section section appear very short, and some of the history section should be re-worded and provided with explanation, for example what is "the treaty"? The history section doesn't go into when the ship was sold off for scrapping either, which seems like a rather important detail to omit --Hadseys (talk • contribs) 13:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have fixed "the treaty" to show what the blue link there goes to. I don't follow your comments about the history section as the relevant sections are: 'Background', 'Construction', and 'Fate'. The fiction section does appear short because a canceled battleship doesn't have much of a reason to appear in fiction. That particular section has been removed previously, and I don't know if it belongs or not.-MBK004 15:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe a 'fiction' section is justified, and I've removed it again. The Land 16:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The info in the fiction section should be on the main class page, thats where the generic discussion regard the battleship in fiction was moved to keep the short stub sections out of the article page. By 'when the ship was sold off' do you mean the date (31 October 1958) or something else? TomStar81 (Talk) 00:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support ignore my last objection I misread the article. My concerns have been addressed and this article is very well written --Hadseys (talk • contribs) 23:47, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support The recent addition on the (almost) rebuild as a missile ship helped the article a lot. The article still seems a bit short to me, but is well written. And no worries about a fiction section that no longer exists. Hellbus 03:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support While this article may be short compared to other Featured Articles related to it (i.e.: Iowa class battleship, Armament of the Iowa class battleship, USS New Jersey (BB-62), USS Missouri (BB-63), and USS Wisconsin (BB-64)), the quality of the information presented and the way it is presented scream Featured Article to me when considered as a natural addition to the series of articles on the Iowa class. Plus, since the ship was never fully completed, the amount of information logically will be less than the completed sister ships since the completed sisters have had such a long and distinguished career.-MBK004 03:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is one thing I'd like to see done. Fix the red link in the Fate section for the Sacramento class fast combat support ships. It looks like there are articles on the individual ships of the class, and on the type of ship, but not for the class itself.-MBK004 03:08, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In the background section, you write "By late 1939, it had become apparent that the navy needed as many fast battleships as possible and it was decided that BB-65 and BB-66 would follow the same design as their sisters." Who decided this? The War Department? Congress? FDR?
Under the Fate section, "It was during this time that several plans were proposed to complete Kentucky as a guided missile battleship (BBG) by removing the aft turret and installing a missile system." Again, who proposed this? Active voice makes things clearer.
The bit at the end about being the highest-numbered battleship seems irrelevant. Is there some significance to the numbers, other than to identify the ship?
All in all, a good article and worthy of FA-status. Coemgenus 15:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Respectively:
I always presumed from the wording that it was the USN's decision to build that last two battleship as "fast battleships", but you have raised an interesting point; I will look into nailing that down for you when I get home.
Again, I presume this to be the Navy's idea, and again, I will look into nailing that down for you when I get home.
There is some ambiguity as to which US Battleship was the last battleship; I put this in the article to inform people of that ambiguity so they could see why different ships could hold the title of the last US battleship. It was intended to resemble the note on the pages USS Constitution and HMS Victory which inform readers that both battleships hold a portion of the title of the oldest ship in commission. If it bothers you I can remove it, I just thought it might be of interest to the average reader. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, don't take it out on my account. I just wondered if it was relevant and, as you've demonstrated, it is, to someone. Coemgenus 15:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is a very good article which meets the FA criteria. As a note, these criteria don't require FA's to be long - they need to be comprehensive. --Nick Dowling 06:51, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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.
I have been working on this article for around two months and think that it is of FA level. The article has also passed a WikiProject:Military history A-class rview and it has received a WikiProject:Military history peer review. All comments are appreciated. Kyriakos 20:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Restart, old nom. This has been stalled for six weeks, and on hold for four. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reply. Feature articles should be judged by quality not quantity and while I acknoledge that this article is fairly short, articles of small length have passed FAC for example, Battle of the Gebora. Kyriakos (talk) 20:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support with a few issues. The article appears comprehensive, well referenced, well illustrated and neutrally written.
There is overlinking of dates. eg: while 18 October in the lead makes sense, February1082 does not and there are other surplus links.
The Bohemond advanced with his army - "The" is misplaced
The lead does not seem to adequately summarise the "Aftermath" section
command of the fleet and sailed at once, does not seem to specify which fleet the Doge took, was it his fleet or the Venetian one?
ordered to march a bit in front of the main line - perhaps "just in front" would describe this better
Varangians fled in the church - perhaps "fled into the church"
Weak support oppose I would really like to support this article, but think it inadequately sourced still: Almost all of the narrative depends on Anna Comnena, who is notoriously biased, and Lord Norwich, who is a popular historian with a tendency to repeat his Byzantine source. The account of the betrayal of Dyrrhachium depends on Anna alone. Please consult some modern, scholarly, secondary source. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson 06:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in the city atm and I am going to the state library in the next few hours. So I should be able to find a few new secondary sources. Kyriakos (talk) 22:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have gone to the State Library and found another source and have used it to back up most of the cits containing Anna and Lord Norwich. Kyriakos (talk) 00:04, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you; I will support as soon as the names are regularized. It is pointlessly confusing to speak of Anna Comnena and the Komnenian restoration in the same article. I realize that this will take time, and will be willing to polish it off myself. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson 19:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think I have finally managed to root all the others and regularise the names. Kyriakos (talk) 23:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Have you pinged Pmanderson and Karanacs? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:09, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Appears to be done. Will try to dopyedit over the holidays. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson 01:40, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support per previous nomination's comments of mine.--Yannismarou (talk) 13:38, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
last sentence of lead needs some work; "However, he was defeated by Alexius outside Larissa and was forced to retreat to Italy losing all Norman the Norman conquests."
is "Alexios" meant to be "Alexius"?
There is pronoun confusion in this sentence: "Robert had no intentions for peace; he sent his son Bohemond with an advance force towards Greece and he landed at Aulon, with Robert following shortly after"
Need to use non-breaking spaces between numbers and units. For example, use & nbsp; or {{Nowrap}},
Be consistent between use of Robert and use of Guiscard to refer to him
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 list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page. The closing editor's comments were: 13 days, 4 support, 0 oppose. Promote. Scorpion0422 03:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, another one of my Victoria Cross related topics. This list is in the mould of List of Australian Victoria Cross recipients which is a very recently promoted FL. I think this list meets the criteria and displays all you would want to know about the recipients. As always any suggestions/improvements would be appreciated if you feel them neccessary. Thanks. Woodym555 23:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional support: Shouldn't all those places be wikilinked? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 23:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, i don't think so and here is my reasoning. Wikilinks are used when theyt add something to the article. I don't think linking to a stub about a forest in France will add anything to this list. This is strengthened by the fact thjat most villages have changed immeasurably since WWI, WWII. What has an article on modern day Crimea got to do with a war fought 150 years ago. I think linking to battles where available would be preferable. Saying that though, several VCs were won for several actions over several days. I will try and add battle links, but would that be better in a separate column? Woodym555 14:51, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Depends. My objection was the list of places, with no way to find out anything about them or why a person won a medal there - the places were basically useless information. If the *battle* was the reason the person won the award, I think that should be there and linked. If not, perhaps the place could be linked to a nearby city/town/village? I dunno - but just having the place, with no link, doesn't seem right. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 23:42, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why doesn't it seem right? I think it is useful to know where it took place. Why do you need a link if it isn't adding anything to the list? Usually there is a battle or campaign for which they were awarded, though in the case of Johnson Beharry, a recent recipient, there isn't a battle. His award was for several actions in different places. More opinions on this would be welcome... :) Woodym555 (talk) 23:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was started wading though it, using extra links to battles to substitute, but most of these places are actually small villages instead of the actual division they are in, when the name aren,t incorrect or impossible to determine for lack of infomation on Wikipedia as to which of the dozens of villages with that name is concerned. It is a much more complicated quagmire than it looks. this version is done up to Edmund De Wind. Circeus (talk) 04:52, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Object - I feel that the main text needs inline citations. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, don't know why i missed that. I have added them in now. Woodym555 14:51, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done Expanded the introduction.
Doing... I'm not having much luck finding more sources. Could you perhaps suggest some specific areas to beef up, so that I can look for more specific things? Cheers, CP 23:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Not done Looks like it was just friends and family only. I did find another article during my search, however, so I'll try and use that to flesh out the early life section. Cheers, CP 21:05, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a bunch, Tom.
![[2]](http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/images/Army1.jpg){kind=link}
