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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1861

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

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

Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1861 edit

Nominator(s): Wild Wolf (talk)


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

Comments

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

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

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

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

I forgot to bring the sources I used with me (I can only edit Wikipedia from libraries), but I will change this the first opportunity I get during the next week (unless some else does it first). Wild Wolf (talk) 17:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments/suggestions
  • "File:Battle of Wilsons Creek.png": the source on this is currently listed as Wikipedia, which should be changed to the book or website from where it was originally scanned/uploaded;
  • is there any way to make the casualties column in the table sort from highest to lowest?
  • the Civil War Reference web citations seem inconsistently presented. For instance compare ""Civil War Reference, Athens, Missouri page". History. Civil War Reference. Retrieved September 22, 2011." with ""Civil War Reference". History. Civil War Reference, Hunter's Farm, Missouri page. Retrieved September 22, 2011.";
  • not sure about the presentation here (seems inconsistent with the other entries): "Union One soldier was killed and five others wounded". AustralianRupert (talk) 23:32, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like the Wilson's Creek file was uploaded by Hohum, so I left a question on his talk page asking for help on the source. Also went through the web cites and casualties to change them to a consistent presentation. Wild Wolf (talk) 17:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
G'day, thanks for making those changes. To clarify, my point about making the casualty column sortable hasn't been dealt with. What I am suggesting is making the table sort in a manner that would allow a reader to sort that casualties so that they could quickly find out what battle was the most costly. Currently the table does not sort like this. To be honest, I don't even know if it is possible, but it seems like something a reader might want to be able to do. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:27, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • As I mentioned before, a troop is a unit of cavalry, or a generic body of soldiers and it a confusing title since you mean the latter. If we were talking about Naval combat we'd call this 'Naval Actions of the American Civil War, 1861' . While I don't know the equivalent term for land combat its probably not 'Troop engagement' - there's no ngrams for that phrase in google books. 'Battle' is what the park service uses even though it has multiple meanings [1]. How have you researched this?
  • The table is a tremendous improvement!
  • Can I suggest you don't do all 5 of these simultaneously? Withdraw the other 4 and we can hammer out the details on this one. Kirk (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I posted a comment at the Milhist talk page concerning the name change. Wild Wolf (talk) 17:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
CommentsOppose
  • The initial paragraphs would benefit from section headings, perhaps by theater. Big blocks of narrative text at present.
  • Because the table is sortable, linking needs to be universal so that regardless of how a reader sorts the table the link is there. See the example at Help:Sorting#Numeric_sort_for_BC.2FAD_years.
  • The Losses column is unclear. They appear to be a combination of killed, wounded, missing, captured, but in many cases it isn't clear what we are talking about.
  • Your use of the "location, state" format for "Engagement" appears to fly in the face of common names for these engagements and what readers would look for. For example, most people would expect to see Battle of Fort Sumter not "Fort Sumter, Maryland" and Battle of Hoke's Run, not "Hoke's Run, West Virginia", but this becomes really problematic when faced with "Manassas, Virginia" when you would expect to see First Battle of Bull Run.
  • I agree with MarcusBritish re: the need to break down the scope of citations.
  • You might consider breaking down the table into one per theater, as far as I am aware they didn't have much of an overlap (although ACW is not my strong point).
  • Checks out for dabs, external links, alt text and redirects. Earwig crashed mid check, but I don't see anything that jumps out.

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

  • Given the lack of response in three weeks, there is too much on this review for me to support, so opposing. Sorry about that. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 11:02, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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