Talk:Rudolf Berthold/GA1

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Manelolo in topic GA Review

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs) 03:06, 30 December 2017 (UTC)Reply


I'll get to this shortly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:06, 30 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

  • No DABs, external links OK
  • Regarding your photos of the Albatros D. III and the Siemens-Schukert D. III, it's very hard to claim a license of life +70 years when the photographer isn't actually identified. You'll need to find other examples with better licensing.
  • Can you add a photo of the Fokker D. VII? Or perhaps photos of the aircraft flown by his victims? The bottom half of the article is pretty sparse on images.
  • The lede is supposed to be a summary of the article; there's an awful amount of detail there.
  • Not sure we need so much detail on his early life. Time of birth and his early schooling seem more than we need. I'd suggest summarizing the latter. Similarly, his license # isn't really necessary.
  • Once you've mentioned a year, it's generally not necessary to mention it again unless a lot of words have passed.
  • More later.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:40, 4 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

    • Photo of Albatros D.II removed. No other photo available. I was not aware that there are photos in Commons we cannot use.
    • Subbed in photo of Siemens-Schuckert D.III where photographer is known. Hope this is proper.
    • I am not averse to adding more photos, once I understand the parameters of licensing. However, I see no point in supplying photos, just to have you reject them.
      • Learning about the proper licensing of images is a pain in the ass as there are tons of images that are loaded onto Commons without good licensing. But try this guide to licensing [1] I'll tell you what, send me links to images that you'd like to use, and I'll review them before you go to the trouble of adding them to the article.
    • I purposely withheld or restricted several classes of details from the lede. Unit designations. Duty stations. Numerous aerial victories. Instead, I concentrated on rendering detailed information that would illustrate the importance of his role in the war. I should hate to weaken that. I realize the lede is a tad long, but Berthold had a busy career.
      • Very true, but there's still an awful amount of "meat" there when you should really be giving teasers with the real substance in the main body. For example, in my own article ledes I rarely give specific dates, generally just the year, with occasional months. To give you an idea of what I'm thinking, here's my take on the second paragraph of your lede:
      • "Berthold joined the German Imperial Army in 1909 and paid for his own flying lessons before getting his license four years later. He was one of the pioneer aviators of World War I, flying crucial reconnaissance missions during the invasion of France in 1914. He commanded one of the first dedicated fighter units in 1916, scoring five victories before suffering severe injuries in a crash that kept him hospitalized for months. Berthold prematurely returned to duty to successively command two of Germany's original fighter squadrons. Before he was wounded again in 1917, he had shot down a dozen aircraft and won Germany's greatest honor, the Pour le Merite. Later that year, he once again bolted from medical care to return to the front."
      • I think that this conveys most everything that you were trying to get across in a more generalized form.
        • Readers come to encyclopedias for facts, not just writer's observations. Your gloss fails to mention such insignificant details as his recon flight sparking the Battle of Aisne, and his receipt of the second Iron Cross of the entire war. And that's just 1914.Georgejdorner (talk) 00:27, 6 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
          • That's the point, the lede is a summary and an introduction to the rest of the article. Precise details are supposed to be glossed over and saved for the main body. To see what I mean, you might want to take a look at other GA-quality ace articles and see how they balanced detail in the lede vs in the main body.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:15, 6 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
    • The basis of Berthold's patriotism was his schooling. I think it shows how he grew to manly estate. I want to show how he aimed at a military career from an early age.
      • That's fine, but you don't really establish any connection between the schooling and his career desires. You just list the schools and then his pronouncement comes out of nowhere, so I'd dump the schools and just use the quote.
        • To point out what you overlooked, I resort to the vanity of quoting myself:
        • "By the time he had completed his studies there at age 14, he had adopted a personal motto from Horace: "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's Fatherland.""
        • And for his next school, chosen, as he said: "...to better fit himself for a military career."
        • And, surprise, surprise, he ended up in the military after he graduated.Georgejdorner (talk) 00:27, 6 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
          • True enough, but there's no info on why he decides on such a thing. Merely saying that he decided on a military career while at a certain school says nothing about why he made such a decision. Was it a teacher, some patriot who came into his life around that time, who? Or maybe something he decided entirely on his own. The article simply doesn't tell us enough about why, regardless of the schooling unless there's something out there about that particular school producing an abnormally high # of officers.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:15, 6 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
            • You are correct in your surmise that the sources contain no information on who or what influenced him to a military career. There is no mention in the article of the number of officers graduating from these schools. It seems Berthold picked his schools from an early age, with the aim of joining the military. Can you point me to a source that says otherwise? And just why is he supposed to follow your scenario?Georgejdorner (talk) 19:09, 6 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
              • <baffled>What scenario? I never postulated a scenario.</baffled> You're the expert here as we both know; I'm just the editor trying to ensure that important details are emphasized, unimportant ones are deleted, and that the whole thing ties together in a coherent and cogent manner. To this end I think that you should drop everything about his schooling, as it's unnecessary detail, until he makes his decision and then run with the bit that says he chose his later schools to aid his military career.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:56, 6 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
    • His pilot's badge number can be an aid to future research by editors to come.
    • I appreciate the heads up about the repetition of the year. I plan to copy-edit that in a bit.Georgejdorner (talk) 18:54, 5 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

Continuing on

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Unrequested edits for improvement

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And one last edit

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More continuing on

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Georgejdorner (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2018 (UTC)Reply


Please continue the critique below, as this section has become unwieldy.Georgejdorner (talk) 20:07, 1 February 2018 (UTC)Reply


Continuing critique

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Please continue comments below.

Critique for postwar section

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Do you think the 1917 and 1918 sections are too long? I am toying with the idea of subdividing them. What do you think?Georgejdorner (talk) 02:06, 2 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

I think that they're fine as it.
  • Don't like the short first para
  • airfield in top military order Awkward, not encyclopedic phrasing. Maybe something like "well organized"...?
  • Why mention Wittman in the second para? His only importance is that he recovers Berthold's body later.
  • They were trained by late May. I'd fold this into the proceeding sentence.
  • Link Baltic States
  • resting in camp "a" camp
  • before return to Germany Fix this
    • Added "their".16:29, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
  • They arrived with 800 men with 300 rifles and a handful of machine guns. Fold this into the proceeding sentence
  • Redundant years
  • They were scheduled to disarm on 15 March 1920. Merge this into the next sentence with a "but" instead of the "however"
  • doused signals These were literally open flame signals. Perhaps "disabled" would work better.
    • Changed to "darkened".
  • 13 workers and three be consistent with spelling out numbers or not when referring to the same type of thing.
  • The school grounds were encircled. The Freikorps was besieged. Combine these
  • Calling truce "a" truce
  • A crowd of onlookers had not been part of the negotiations. They were outraged by the civilian casualties, and they mobbed the Freikorps. Awkward, combine these
  • The war cry was sounded. Very dramatic, but not very encyclopedic
  • as the mob mauled him Redundant
  • Hans Wittmann retrieved Berthold's body Now tell who Wittman was
  • Damn awkward translation. Needs to be cited specifically.
  • about 15:00 hours How is this important?
  • as can be seen where?

I don't believe that this article currently meets criteria 1a, 1b and 3b because you don't use summary style, the lede has far too much specific information and I find your prose awkward. However, since you probably believe me to be biased, I'm going to request a second opinion from an editor experienced with aviator biographies.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:38, 18 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Will the second opinion change your mind about failing this nom? If not, why waste time? Fail the nom and be done with it. That way I can renominate and get a reviewer I can work with.
I might add, that in my 40+ year publication career, I have seldom met an editor with whom I cannot work. Unfortunately, you are one. In your insistence on complex sentences and large paragraphs, you are insisting on prose not easily read by ESL speakers and younger readers. I believe that is detrimental to WP.
There's no need for you to go back and critique the 1917 and 1918 sections you forgot to review. I am done with this review.Georgejdorner (talk) 16:47, 18 February 2018 (UTC)Reply
Almost forgot, I owe you an apology for the excessive time for this review. I hope that you can forgive me, but real life has been far too dramatic of late for me to spend as much time on Wiki as I'd have liked.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:41, 18 February 2018 (UTC)Reply
A simple note, per review instructions, would have sufficed to stay my qualms. As a veteran, I respect that your military duties come first. However, you gave me the impression that you were too wrapped up in your own GANs to bother with my review.Georgejdorner (talk) 16:47, 18 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

2nd opinion

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I'll focus only on criteria 1a, 1b and 3b as they seem to be the bottlenecks.

  • 1a: the prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and 1b: it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
    • I would agree with reviewer Sturmvogel 66 here. Choppy short paragraphs make the article seem a bit more logbookish than prose. Likewise, the article seems to border on minutiae. To illustrate, I think sections '1914' and '1915' are very close to an optimally readable & interesting size while sections '1916' and '1917' are 1 or 2 paragraphs over it. Section '1918' definitely needs to be divided into two sections and/or summarized. The lede is within MOS:LEADLENGTH with the article itself at 34,335 characters [2]. I also think that the prose, grammar, style etc. per se are good.
  • 3b: it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
    • As described above, sections '1916' and '1917' are a bit overtly detailed. Section '1918' definitely is. Otherwise it seems very fine for a GA.

Conclusion: The article is solid at its core, but aesthetics and minutiae don't let it shine. At this point I agree with the 1st review based on section and para length (WP:PARAGRAPH, WP:DETAIL), although IMHO the lede is according to MOS. Thus, I boldly did a very quick copyedit on the article by uniting short paragraphs and IMHO it is already much better looking and more pleasant to read.

Suggestions: 1) Keep the paragraphs as I've copyedited them just now. 2) Boldly cut sections '1916' and '1917' by a total size of 1–2 paragraphs. 3) Boldly cut section '1918' by approx. 4 paragraphs in size or divide into rational subsections.

Hope that helps, toodaloo! Manelolo (talk) 14:09, 24 February 2018 (UTC)Reply