Talk:Siege of Szigetvár/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Renata (talk) 00:29, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I am leaning towards failing the article as it has some major flaws, but I decided to give you an opportunity to fix them -- I see a good start. I will list my biggest concerns now and will hold on detailed review until the big-picture items have been addressed.

1. Entire article needs to be thoroughly pruned of "heroic" references to Zrinsky and emotional descriptions of the battle
   • As part of a Copy Edit process requested by Kebeta (GOCE page), I'll note my responses in-line here. I've tried to comply by removing heroic comments. --Kevin Murray (talk) 02:00, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
2. Title: I believe it should be Siege of Szigetvár. Also, please decide and stick to consistent naming of Szigetvár or Szigeth. (I understand this is a controversial/nationalistic matter).
   • Article name change done. --Kevin Murray (talk) 02:00, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
   • effected a consistent usage of the name "Szigetvár" except in direct quotations and titles. --Kevin Murray (talk) 02:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
3. Background section is extremely unbalanced: 300 words on 3-year period (1526-1529) and only 57 words on 23-year period (1529-1552). Trim one, expand the other.
   • I've done this by bringing in a summary of information from related WP articles about the 1529-1552 period. Someone may want to confirm the citations and go through to makes sure that my summary makes sense. One thing that is unclear is whether there wasa treaty (of sorts) in place in the last few years of this period or whether the Turks were just occupied elsewhere. It seems that the latter may be the case, as other articles suggest that the Turks were engaged with a Shah closer to home who was nibbling at their territory. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
4. Please provide modern scholarly references (ie after World War II) for the number of troops, especially 3000 vs 100,000 -> cited references are from 19th century, which is the time of Romantic nationalism and its historiography is seriously flawed in favor of Romantic legends
   • I suggest that this is going beyond a copy-edit and requires the editors involved here to either do more research or disprove this assertion. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
5. Section on "depictions in culture" needs to be transformed into prose.
   • Done by Gregor --Kevin Murray (talk) 02:09, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
6. Aftermath needs more about the Treaty of Edirne (what were its major provisions?) and future years.
7. Entire article needs serious copy-editing as some sentences are broken and I am having a diffulty understanding them.
   • I was able to bring in more information about the treaty, but more importantly that th etwo sides were able to resolve their immediate conflict and the aftermath was 25 years of realtive peace between the beligerents. I'd like more info, but I don't see this aas standing in the way of eventual GA status.
   • I've begun the copy edit process and substantially completed the lead section and the next two sections. The was much confusion, repetition and unneccessary detail which I removed. However, some of the text was so confusing that I had to guess at the true meaning and may have goofed in my interpretation. The main contributers may want to verify my work and make corrections. I'll do some more later. --Kevin Murray (talk) 03:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Renata (talk) 00:29, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

1. 1. • The main contributors seemed satisfied with the direction and content of the work so far, so I'll continue to copy edit the remainder of the text. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I've left a further to-do-list below. I suggest that wehn that work is complete, this article should be renominated for GA status. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Renata, and thank you for a GA Review of this article. Unfortunately, I don't think that I can seize an opportunity that you gave me, by not failing the article in the start. By your points, I will try to explain why not:

1. I already pruned "heroic" references to Zrinsky as I could, particularly since every second English source which I found refers to Zrinsky as a modern "Leonidas", and so on..
2. No problem. The most of the English sources which I found referes to the battle as the "Battle of Szigeth", but I don't have no problem with using the name "Szigetvár" throughout the whole article. In some cases the name Szigeth is necessary, like Hungarian epic poem "Peril of Sziget", and so on... I am not following why is this a controversial/nationalistic matter, what is the difference?
   • Google test: Siege 193 : Battle 18. Renata (talk) 15:37, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
     • Oh, I see. You think it should be "siege" instead of "battle". More precisely "Siege of Szigetvár". There were some skirmish before and final battle after, but the siege is definitely prevailling. So I agree. Should we make a move proposal to "Siege of Szigetvár"?
3. No problem. I thought that was a good Background section, but I could expand 23-year period (1529-1552).
4. I provided both: from 19th century & modern scholarly references (ie after World War II) for for the number of troops. Actually, I didn't found any reference which says that there were more than 3,000 defenders and less than 100,000 attackers. The numbers are in fact "worse"; less than 3,000 (2,000, 2,300, 2,500 and 2,800) and more than 100,000 (120,000, 150,000, 200,000, 250,000 and 300,000). In adition I put a note to this matter.
5. Ivan zajc's opera "Nikola Šubić Zrinski" is hardly a prose. Maybe to put a sentence about "Turkish–Hungarian Friendship Park in Szigetvar", that would make a section "less prose"?
   • I think you misunderstood. The section needs to be converted from a bullet list into a naturally-flowing paragraph.
     • Yes, I misunderstood you. So this want be a problem.
6. No problem.
7. No problem - I can get some help.

Regarding above, if you think that there is a chance to achive a GA status for this article, I will give it a try. If my answer above doesn't satisfy requirements, we can adjourn this nomination, and let some other editor to nominate the article when it is "good to go". I notified WikiProject Turkey, WikiProject Croatia, WikiProject Hungary and WikiProject Middle Ages when I nominated this article for GA, so it might "wake up" more interest from others, but since now no edits from another editors were made (except user GregorB). Regards, Kebeta (talk) 10:12, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I am confused. Are you saying you are not going to fix any of the issues? Renata (talk) 15:37, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I am not saying that I am not going to fix any of the issues, just that some issues I can not fix. I will fix some of your issues regardless to GA, but if that is not sufficient for GA, I will take my time and fix them in a period longer than one week. Like I said, I provided both: from 19th century & modern scholarly references (ie after World War II) for for the number of troops. If somebody else can provide better sources, that would be great. Regards, Kebeta (talk) 07:01, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, some of Renata's objections seem to coincide with my earlier comments. Essentially, #1 is a consequence of #4; unfortunately, fixing #4 requires significant additional sources, so this is probably going to be very difficult to address. I tried to find some sources online, but no luck. GregorB (talk) 15:46, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I am failing the article. It's been exactly a week and not a single edit was made -- or even promised. Renata (talk) 23:42, 14 July 2010 (UTC)