Talk:Finnish VI Corps (Continuation War)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Finnish VI Corps (Continuation War)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Gog the Mild (talk · contribs) 17:22, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• No publisher location for Anye et al?
  • Need to check a hard copy.
    • Added. -Ljleppan (talk) 16:33, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
• The lead seems a little short for the length of the article; seems to rather skim over some of the corps' actions; and contains no dates at all.
  • Good point, expanded significantly.

That will do, for GAN, but you may have gone a little far the other way. Consider combining and slimming slightly paragraphs 2 and 3. This is optional, as it is it is just about up to GA standard. (Which is quite impressive considering how quickly you put it together.)

Fair point; combined paras 2 and 3, with slight condensing. -Ljleppan (talk) 11:02, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• Could there be more Wikilinks? Eg "Finnish Continuation War", "corps" and "mobilisation" in the first sentence.
  • Added
• Could there be a proper introduction to the topic. Eg, what is the Finnish Continuation War? When did it happen? Who was fighting who and where? Starting an article with a negative presupposes that the reader understands what the information being negated.
  • I've extended this a bit and added "Further Information" links to the most relevant section and subsection of the Continuation War article. I'm not sure what the proper level of background here is; giving a general introduction to the whole of the Continuation War seems iffy in an article about a single corps.

I probably have over-high expectations; as a main page TFA scheduler I have got used to boiling a 10,000 word article down to a short paragraph. How about

The Finnish Army mobilized on 10 June 1941 in preparation for the Continuation War, the Finnish component of the German invasion of Soviet Russia - Operation Barbarossa. This followed a series of negotiations between Finland and Germany going back to at least May 1941. VI Corps was set up as part of a general reorganization of the Finnish forces on 29 June.

This is entirely as a discussion piece - it is your' article and don't let me take it over. What I have done, I think, is chopped some sentences into smaller, more "digestible" pieces; added a little additional background; lost a little waffle - "Notably, however"; cut out the negative bit, let's tell a reader what it is, not bend their little brains with what it's not. Feel free to revert, object to or comment on any of this. And it is overkill for GAN, but it looks like a passable short introduction to me. I think that this can flow straight into the next paragrph, which I think is nice work. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Agreed that this wasn't in too great of a shape. I made a larger pass, splitting this into two sections along the lines of "the background of how we got to a point where the corps is created" and another para on "creation of corps and disposition before start of hostilities". -Ljleppan (talk) 11:02, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• Similarly in the second sentence, what is "the V Corps"? Why and when was it disbanded?
  • The complete reorganization in which VI Corps gets created is too messy to explain in detail here (basically, multiple corps get shuffled around in terms of subordinate units, corps headquarters and commanders), but I've expanded the section a bit and added some background to explain why that reorganization happens.

See above.

Addressed together with above -Ljleppan (talk) 11:02, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• Is it known what Paavo Talvela's rank was when he was promoted?
  • Added
• I am guessing that the 5th and 11th divisions were components of the VI Corps, and were its only components. Confirmation in the article would be useful.
  • The phrasing "VI Corps consisted of the 11th and 5th Divisions" is rather unambiguous to me, but then again I'm not a native speaker. Do you have a suggestion on how to improve the phrasing?

No, it's fine. I was being slow.

Regrettably, this is currently looking like a quick fail to me. (Note the difference in the level of detail with the GA Finnish III Corps (Continuation War).) I will hold fire for a couple of days for improvements to be made. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:22, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: Thanks for the feedback. I've expanded both the lede and the mobilization for now. Before I dedicate more time to this, could you take a look and let me know whether the changes to those two show sufficient promise that we'd want to continue the review? -Ljleppan (talk) 20:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

That's a really fast and reasonably good response, so from my point of view there is no longer any danger of a rapid close. I'm happy to work it through with you taking as long as it takes - I have been impressed with the work you have done on these Finnish units. (Back in the day I did some minor work on Continuation War.) If it is ok with you I'll try to make this as much a place to get the principles of writing GA standard articles over, so you can repeat the process, as the assessment. If you would prefer a "don't mess around, just assess it, pass or fail" let me know. My availability may be a little patchy, so bear with me please. (Yes, I know I haven't responded to your specific responses above - I will.) Gog the Mild (talk) 21:11, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

A more thorough learning experience sounds excellent, but I wouldn't want to impose too much on you. I'll let you decide on that front. With regard to timing, I'm not in any specific hurry (I still have a bunch of articles in the backlog so it's not like I'll be idle) so don't worry on my part if you need to take some time off at any point. -Ljleppan (talk) 21:25, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

No worries, as an FAC coordinator I am used to helping people over the hump to get articles to FA. This essay - [[WP:GOG1}} - may or may not interest/amuse you. I got a lot of help from a lot of good editors in my first few years on Wikipedia and like to try to live up to the high bar they set. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

• "the Soviet 4th Naval Infantry Brigade was able to land on Lunkulansaari Island". Could the fact that the landing was on an island be covered at first mention?

• The AoK's worry wasn't about the island in particular, but rather about a possible landing in the general sector, so I'd want to leave the start of the para as-is. As for the landing that actualized, I'm not sure how to rephrase this given that "Island" is already in the (red) wikilink.

OK. Fair point. Leave it.

• "continued south along the shore of lake". Did you mean to name the lake? Or should it be 'the lake'?

• The latter, fixed.

• "To their right was the German 163rd Division and to their right the V Corps." Should one of those be 'left'?

• Nicely spotted. Fixed and added compass directions to make life easier.

• "Also during January 1942, Talvela was replaced by Aarne Blick." Is Blick's rank known?

• Yes, major general. Fixed.

• I have done a little copy editing as I have gone along. Could you let me know if you disagree with any of it? Thanks.

• This looked excellent, much thanks!

• "while the Lapland War continued." What is the Lapland War? You haven't previously mentioned it. And, separately, is there a link?

• Linked, and added a few words to explain that it refers to the expulsion of the remaining Germans.

• The Demobilization section. Is it known where the corps was during this period?

• Short answer: not really. Longer answer: I'm not aware of any secondary sources that would cover this. All the sources I've seen either kinda stop discussing the individual units/corps following the cease fire, focusing instead on the political developments. The units that go on to participate in the Lapland War are naturally an exception, but VI Corps is not among them. Based on my time spent digging through the war diaries, VI Corps seem to have stayed somewhere in the border region for a long while (I recall a message about them transferring the border guard duties to some other unit fairly late), and if I recall correctly the GHQ instructions were to demobilize the individual regiments/battalions at the same locations where they were mobilized. But there's not really any one neat war diary excerpt I could point at either, since it's instead a billion situation reports about the nth regiment/battalion having reached Random Place, Nowhere.

If the sources support it, it would be nice to be able to say something like '... were redirected to other fronts and the situation stabilized with the VI Corps in the general area of Ilomantsi' or similar. Similarly, would that border guard duty source support something like 'the VI Corps remained in southeast Finland during this period' or similar?

Good thing I looked again; regarding the latter point, one of my sources contained an extremely useful two-paragraph subsection I had completely overlooked before. I also ended up introducing the whole defensive line by name (which I presumably avoided previously because even the fi:WP article is essentially a stub).

1. Apologies for taking so long to get back to this. 2. Despite my earlier comments, this is in good shape. I await your response to my handful of comments above, and any thoughts you have on my copy editing, but I see little problem with moving this rapidly along to GA. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely no worries w/r/t point #1, I've been taking a holiday break as well :) I believe I fixed most of the comments above, with two left somewhat unresolved. I'd appreciate if you could take a look at those and give your thoughts. -Ljleppan (talk) 19:20, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

• That all sounds good. Given the number of changes I'll want to run through the whole thing again. I will try to do that sometime tomorrow. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:59, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

• A nice piece of work. Promoting. More than ready for ACR IMO. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:05, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed