Talk:Belgium in World War II/Good Article Review

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: W. B. Wilson (talk) 18:05, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Disclaimer: The reviewer is half-Walloon.

Review done at request of user Brigade Piron (talk)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	"allied" should be "Allied" if referring to the Western powers. Done! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC) Suggest spelling out numbers less than 10 ("four years" vice "4 years", etc.) Done! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC) Suggest "light tanks" vice "battle tanks" (the latter being a more modern term in English usage). I believe there to be a difference between the two terms; light tanks as I understand it are a subset of "tanks" more generally and (while they are actually light tanks), the point I'm making in the section is that they are "proper tanks". ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC) The comment about "many of those" who collaborated were shot after the war should be quantified -- the sentences The period after liberation also saw a wave of prosecutions of those suspected of collaboration during the war. 400,000 Belgians were investigated for collaboration of whom 56,000 were prosecuted. Nearly 250 were executed. should perhaps be moved to the "Collaboration" section from the "Liberation" section. I'd prefer to keep the main mention of this in the liberation section as the anti-occupier "backlash", but I've quantified it in the Collaboration section as you suggest! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC) The section "commemoration" should perhaps be titled "Legacy and aftermath", and should include mention of significant changes such as Belgium abandoning neutrality and becoming a center for international cooperative endeavors such as NATO and the EU. Section retitled, but I'll take some time to make the additions! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC) Done! --Brigade Piron (talk) 09:15, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Suggest a final sentence to the lead section summarizing Belgian military and civilian deaths in the war, as well as a cost estimate of the material damage done to the country (if available). This page mentions war damage as having been eight per cent of the national wealth. Done! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	he sent a letter to Adolf Hitler in 1942 which has been credited with saving an estimated 500,000 Belgian women and children from forced deportation to munitions factories in Germany -- yet Forced labour under German rule during World War II has a cited quote of 500,000 Belgians being used as forced laborers in Germany in January 1944. This apparent contradiction should be clarified. Here's the original source 1 I'm not sure, but I assume that it was an additional 500,000? I will add the forced labor to the life under occupation section though. ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:06, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
	2c. it contains no original research.	None noted.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	"18 Days' Campaign" section makes no mention of refugees. This bears mention and should be quantified if possible. This page mentions 1.8 million Belgian refugees in France at the beginning of July 1940. I prefer not to cite blogs, but I've found an alternative source that mentions 2 million and added that (with a small paragraph) to the section! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 19:15, 23 May 2013 (UTC) "Life in occupied Belgium" section should address German meddling in Belgian politics as concerned the relations between the two primary ethnic groups in the country. As I understand it, the Germans attempted to further divide the two groups. This is probably a good section to address long-term German aims regarding the existence of Belgium as a nation had the Third Reich won the war. A U.S. Army publication, Belgium A Country Study, Washington: GPO, 1985; mentions "The German occupation regime . . . resurrected the World War I plans for the annexation and dismemberment of Belgium into Flemish and Walloon regions." (p. 45)
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	A comment has been made about the use of terms like "liberation". While this term could be potentially misused, it is appropriate in the case of Belgium in 1944 considering the overwhelming Belgian public support for the Allied operations of 1944 that forced the German occupation regime out of the country.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	An excellent start to the article. There are, however, some major areas that should be addressed for the sake of completeness. Military matters appear to be well-addressed; the experience of the civilian population could use expansion in the areas of 1940 refugees, overall national casualties in the war (World War II casualties addresses this with a sourced reference), perhaps the total of civilian deaths in the Ardennes Offensive (some 3,000 IIRC), the total of forced laborers in the Third Reich, and the material cost of the war to Belgium. One economic item to add is that the Congo's gold alone contributed some $28.5M to the war effort ("Country Study", p. 45).

Transcription

I'm certainly not an expert, but I believe the content of this review page should be being automatically transcribed onto the talk page of Belgium in WWII - which it doesn't seem to be. Likewise the talk page does not show that it is currently being reviewed. Do we have a bot problem here? ---Brigade Piron (talk) 09:17, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Brigade, I just pasted this content into this page -- there probably is a more automated way of doing this that would get the 'bots involved. Likely my bumbling that made this manual and not automatic, sorry. Cheers, W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:14, 28 May 2013 (UTC)