Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian)/archive1

< Wikipedia:Featured article candidates
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by GrahamColm 18:50, 6 December 2012 [1].

13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) edit

13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Toolbox
Nominator(s): Peacemaker67 (talk) 04:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it has recently undergone significant improvements through GA and MILHIST A-Class, and I believe it now meets the criteria for FA. It is a little known but very interesting Waffen-SS division in which most of the rank and file were Bosnian Muslims. Peacemaker67 (talk) 04:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image comments

  • Map needs more comprehensive sourcing
    • The map corresponds to the description in Lepre, for which I have added an inline citation. Essentially the AO was marked by the river boundaries as mentioned in the article text. Do you think it needs a ref for the district arrangements as well? Peacemaker67 (talk) 09:32, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure I agree with the use of a non-free image, as it doesn't seem particularly important to the text. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The image of Hampel and the Chetnik leader was included to show both Hampel, one of the two important commanders of the division who is otherwise not shown, as well as the relationship with the Chetniks, who fought alongside the division during four of the eight anti-Partisan operations the division conducted. Despite the fact that they were clearly opportunistic, the Chetniks were the main local auxiliary force used by the division, and I felt it was appropriate to include this photo to illustrate that fact. Peacemaker67 (talk) 05:23, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review

  • No spotchecks possible (all print sources)
  • Sources look high quality, comprehensive and reliable
  • Why is citation 3 formatted differently from other Tomasevich (2001) citations?
  • Citation 100 should be "pp." not "p."
  • In what language is the Böhme book?
  • In what language is the Čorak magazine article?
  • Same question re the second and fourth "Further reading" sources. (all non-English sources should be labelled)

Otherwise, no further sources points. The article looks well worth reading, and I wish I had a bit more time to do a full review. It is a shame that such a thoughtful article should languish unattended at FAC, but maybe someone will pick it up. Brianboulton (talk) 18:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Brianboulton. I have addressed all of your review comments per [2]. Thanks again. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 10:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments.

  • To the lay reader, this article appears well researched, well written, neutral in tone and appropriately referenced. The prose is generally excellent. However, it seems overly long in relation to the (un)importance of its subject. When I'm reading long articles on WP, I expect them to be about subjects that are either of contemporary (Mitt Romney) or enduring (Betelgeuse) importance, or of such public prominence that they generate extensive interest, secondary sourcing and commentary (Cher). I can't bring myself to read this much text about a single element of one of the armed forces of one of the allies of one side of one war. How would I cut it back? Hard to know where to begin, as military history isn't my thing, but in the subsection on Operation Hackfleisch/Rübezahl, there is a list that seems of inconsequential detail: "The columns were allocated tasks and composed as follows". Surely this could be deleted entirely and the reader would lose nothing? If someone wants this kind of stuff, they should simply read George Lepre's book. I think most text within the subsections on each operation, that does not directly bear explicitly, directly and significantly on the ouctomes of the 13th Waffen Division's major actions could be removed. Examples: under Osterei: "attacking positions held by the Partisan 3rd Vojvodina Brigade at Gornji Rahić on 26 March, killing 124 Partisans and capturing 14." Under Maibaum: "The deployment south of the Spreča, and therefore outside the security zone, during Operation Maibaum was ordered by the corps commander, Phleps, despite opposition from Sauberzweig. This caused friction between the two that eventually required Himmler's intervention". Under Vollmond: "Soon after Hampel's assumption of command, he became aware that local Chetniks were scavenging the Operation Vollmond battlefields for divisional equipment. He met with the Chetnik leader Kerović and arranged for the return of the equipment in exchange for small arms ammunition and boxes of hand grenades". I think a ruthless cull would improve the article.
  • Another unnecessary list: the names of each officer executed in 1948 (none of them wikilnked, so seemingly not particularly notable in their own right).
  • One specific, that perhaps reflects the distinctive culture of milhist articles, I don't know: I have no idea what an "order of battle" is, it isn't wikilinked, and it constitutes a heading with a list of names (again, none of them wikilinked, so seemingly not particularly notable in their own right).
    • That is not the purpose of an OrBat! Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:50, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I realise I've sounded pretty negative, so I should re-emphasise that it appears beautifully crafted: it just seems more something out of a book for a military history enthusiast and less from an encyclopedia... hamiltonstone (talk) 11:40, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    • Thanks for your interest, Hamiltonstone. I am concerned that I may have erred on the side of too much detail. Of course, relevance is (naturally) relative and context-driven. For the Muslim people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this article may be of great interest, but I concede that for others outside the former Yugoslavia (and Germany) the interest may be limited. Alternatively of course, within the niche area of Yugoslavia in WWII, it is actually reasonably important, as it goes to the ways in which Bosnian Muslims sought to assert their independence from domination by other nationalities in the region (something which echoed through the 1990's into today). A difficult call to say the least, and I struggled with what to leave in and what to leave out. Some aspects, Operation Maibaum in particular, were far more significant than the communist government allowed them to be in the wake of the communist victory of 1945. It's a tough one. I certainly am willing to look at trimming some parts, and without minimising your comments, I am interested in a wide range of views on this, particularly from those in the MILHIST community. I will look at some trimming while I await some further input. Thanks again. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 14:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments Tentative oppose. It's perfectly natural for writers to seek review and visibility for their work, so no one should be denied at FAC for problems that are arguably unactionable. I'm happy we worked on this at A-class, I think you can be proud of your work, and I'm happy you brought it here for review by the larger community ... but the fact that you've only got one somewhat skeptical review so far underlines for me that this article just doesn't succeed in keeping the general reader interested in this much detail about this one unit. Granted, I might feel different if I had grown up in the Balkans or I were Muslim; I can only say that, from my imperfect perspective, this doesn't feel like a good fit with other Featured Articles. I'm not competent to judge what should stay and what should go ... and you may very well not want to get rid of anything, it might be better to leave it as an A-class article. - Dank (push to talk) 22:17, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I accept that it may have maxxed out at A Class, it's to be expected that will happen with obscure topics in such an obscure subject area. I'm pretty happy with it at A Class. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 23:11, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • If it's any consolation, I think biographies, such as the one you've got at A-class currently, may fare better at FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 03:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I wouldn't rule it out as being viable as an FAC. I almost only write about subjects that appear to many readers as obscure biographies, so I have a vested interest in obscure subjects being FA-able :-) I'd be happy to see 13th Waffen as an FA, but i'm not sure the article I'd want at FA is the one you want to write, because it would be shorter. The article does appear basically sound, so it's your call. Good work, anyway. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:35, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Or, to put it another way, a first rate A class article is better than a Featured Article'. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:53, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong disagreement with these opposes FAC requires that an article comprehensively cover its subject. If that means that it contains more information than some reviewer who knows nothing about the subject wants to know, so be it. This is not the simple English Wikipedia. We are not writing articles for them, but for people who genuinely want to know about the subject. It has been reviewed by the Military History Project editors, and rated as an A class article. I am not going to accept that an A class article cannot be promoted to FAC because it meets the FAC requirement of comprehensibility! Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:50, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem is, it's going to need some supports to pass, and an oppose of an oppose is not a support. In attempting to figure out why it doesn't have any supports, I found that I had a hard time following the narrative. - Dank (push to talk) 04:02, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • There are always judgements to be made in the applying of the FA criteria, and one of those judgements is the balance between criteria 1(b) and (c) on the one hand, which require comprehensiveness and a thorough survey of the literature, and criterion 4 on the other, which requires that the article "stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail". The view I expressed was that this appeared to go into unnecessary detail. That fact that Dank "had a hard time following the narrative" may also point to criterion 4 problems; given that the actual prose is pretty good, i doubt it's an issue with the quality of writing per se. I'm willing to hang around and see how this plays out, and keep reviewing if the text can be trimmed. But the nominator may prefer to let it stand at its current level of detail. As i said earlier, that's their call, and i certainly respect their hard work done to create authoritative text on the subject. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hawkeye, here's some detail. Let's look at just the first sentence: "The 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) was a Waffen-SS mountain infantry formation used to conduct operations against the Yugoslav Partisans in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) from March to December 1944." Readability (without clicking) is important at FAC. No one expects a FAC to be trivially easy to read; readability involves assessing the number of things that a reader might not understand when they first get to it. Too much too fast means low readability.

  • "Waffen": Most readers will have no idea what this word means. It probably should be italicized and followed by "(Armed)". See WP:Checklist#clarity: if most readers won't have a clue what you're saying at this point in the sentence without clicking, and most won't, then you need more than just a link to make it readable. Same goes for "Waffen-SS" and "Partisans" later in the sentence.
    • Someone coming to the article is looking for information on a particular division, so the answer is be "almost certainly". It probably should be italicized. I do remember that there was a lot of fuss when I was at school about Ronald Reagan's visit to Bitburg, and everybody seemed to know about them. I would have no objection to inserting "Armed" but it doesn't tell you as much as the link, and there is a danger here of playing into a widespread misconception that the Waffen did all the fighting and the other branches did all the dirty work. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "SS Handschar": In the title, there's no reference to German or to WWII, so unless the reader knows what "Waffen" means, they might easily think you're talking about the good ship "SS Handschar" until they read further.
    • It should add "during World War II"". You missed the really big oversight though; the article fails to say why the name Handschar was chosen. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "(1st Croatian)": I can't think of any FAs that give three different ways of describing the same thing in the page title. Readers recoil at being asked remember three different foreign-sounding names for the same thing all at once.
    • The title is a literal translation; I might have phrased it slightly differently, but we need a consistent form for all 34 Waffen-SS divisions. The divisions all had numbers and names, and sometimes an ethnic identification. We have to ask: what search would the readers be using when they want to look it up? It might be "13th SS Division", or "Handschar Division", or "Croatian SS". (These should all be redirects) So the title helps the readers identify what they are looking for, and therefore is a good one. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I can't think of another FA that gives three different ways of describing the same thing in the page title; can you find one? This is a novel theory of what a page title should be; we could run it by WT:TITLE and see if they agree. [Btw, thanks for all the work guys, I'll come back to this in the morning.] - Dank (push to talk) 05:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The title is the final version of the official name of the division, translated from the German. I've now added a redirect for "Croatian SS", but the others are already in place. I've tried to find every shorthand for it and have incorporated the short versions as redirects. One of the difficulties is that the divisional name format of the "non-German" SS divisions was different from the "German" ones. ie 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS (1st Croatian) rather than 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. This division had a sister division 23rd Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Kama (2nd Croatian), which explains the (1st Croatian) bit at the end of this one's title.
  • "mountain infantry formation used to conduct operations": "formation" and "operations" are words with very little meaning, so they don't help the struggling reader much at all. They're perfectly good words after the reader is on firmer ground.
    • No, "formation" and "operations" are technical terms, with very precise meanings. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Independent State of Croatia (NDH)": The article uses a lot of acronyms, which is fine when you need them, but acronyms reduce readability, so short descriptions are often preferred to acronyms, especially less-obvious acronyms (most readers won't know that "Croatia" in Croatian starts with "H"). It might be better to define "Croatia" as meaning the Independent State of Croatia, and go with "Croatia".
    • Heh, I got there and wondered why all the cars had "HR" written on them! This should be in Croatian as well as English. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have now added an explanation that it is commonly known as the NDH (along with the translation). Calling the NDH "Croatia" is sensitive for Croatians, and is used by other ethnicities in the region to equate modern-day Croatia with the NDH. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:44, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "March to December 1944": Pretty obvious to me that we're talking about WWII, but the clues you've given in the first sentence are sparse ... no mention of Germans or WWII. I'm pretty sure most English-speakers in 2012 aren't aware of what was going on in the Balkan Peninsula in WWII, and all you've said is that we've got a "formation" and "operations" there ... readers who don't know what the Waffen-SS was, even if they get that it had something to do with WWII from the dates, might easily think that you're talking about some local power struggles.
    • Precisely why this article is so badly required! Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, so that's all in the first sentence. There are similar things that will slow most readers down and trip them up and force them to backtrack before they understand throughout. Is my objection on readability any clearer now, Hawkeye? - Dank (push to talk) 15:52, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll make an additional comment at WT:MHC about why I'm opposing that doesn't belong on this page, since it's not about this article per se. - Dank (push to talk) 16:08, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Okay, I get the objection on readability now. I will get started on improving that aspect at least. I've reviewed the first para of the lead, and wondered if you could give me some feedback on whether the readability has improved? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 22:46, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, striking my oppose, the lead is much better. I won't have time to finish this one, though. I'll ask people at WT:TITLE to have a look at our discussion here. - Dank (push to talk) 05:29, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Continuing. "Hackfleisch/Rübezahl": See WP:SLASH.
  • Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. (Edits may take days to show up on that page.) - Dank (push to talk) 05:21, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments I probably won't post a full review, but I do have some comments about sourcing:

  • Are you sure that Amber Books is a reliable publisher? Unfortunately their website is down (it may have been hacked according to warnings at Google), but the books attributed to this firm at Amazon.com are largely low-quality titles written by little-known authors which I've only seen being sold cheaply in really bad mass market bookshops. Do the books published by this firm have a reputation for accuracy?
    • Amber Books appear to be a part of Zenith Press and MBI Publishing. Chris Bishop was certainly prolific, mostly with books like "German Infantry of WWII" and "German Panzers of WWII" which focus on orders of battle, unit and formation lists etc. As an aside, the article doesn't rely on Bishop much at all, and alternative references for that information are probably available. I'll start looking. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:44, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Similarly, does Schiffer Publishing have a reputation for accuracy? I have a degree of familiarity with this firm, and its books seem to be mainly written by enthusiasts rather than qualified specialists.
    • Is it your experience that they have a reputation for publishing military history books that are not accurate? They are obviously not a university press, and publish a wide range of books on a broad spread of topics, some scholarly, some not. Many of the military history books they publish are on obscure topics. The book itself has all the hallmarks of a scholarly text (heavily footnoted, good use of quality primary and secondary sources, detailed bibliography with all the texts you would expect, seven appendices with detailed lists from divisional order of battle, award recipients, rank conversion chart, glossary, even an index of names of unit members mentioned in the text). It mentions it received the Rutgers University Sydney Zebel History Prize, but I think that is an undergrad rather than post-grad award... The book is cited by various historians working in the field, including in several articles in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies by historians like Melson and Mario Jareb of the Croatian Institute of History. Jareb also cited it in "The Independent State of Croatia, 1941-45" (2007) edited by Sabrina Ramet of which I have a copy. I really don't see any serious questions about its reliability unless you have the impression Schiffer's have real issues with lack of accuracy in the military history books they publish. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:44, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • From memory, this firm's books are hit and miss - some are quite good, and others rubbish, so I don't think that they apply much quality control to the manuscripts they choose to publish (much like Stackpole Books and, to a lesser extent, Osprey). If you've checked this book out and it's cited in the journal of Slavic Studies it should be fine. Nick-D (talk) 05:22, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please remove 'The East Came West: Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist Volunteers in the German Armed Forces' from the 'further reading' section. Anything published by Axis Europa is not a reliable source. Nick-D (talk) 23:09, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments Support
    • "Partisans" is linked in the Origin section but already used in the Background section
    • Himmler put Artur Phleps, commander of the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen (7th SS), Consider removing "(7th SS)", which adds nothing.
    • Is Herbert von Oberwurzer notable? Red links are just fine if the subject is likely to be created.
    • SS-Standartenführer (Colonel) Karl von Krempler, a specialist in Islam who also spoke Serbo-Croatian as well as what? Considered deleting "also"
    • The SS ignored the demand and von Krempler continued recruiting, including both Muslim and Catholic deserters from the NDH armed forces. "including both" sounds awkward here. Can you re-phrase? (Especially as up to now you have been talkling only about recruiting Muslims.)
    • The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust states that "The Germans made a point of publicizing the fact that al-Husayni had flown from Berlin to Sarajevo for the sole purpose of giving his blessing to the Muslim army and inspecting its arms and training exercises". According to Aleksa Đilas in The Nation That Wasn't, al-Husayni: "accepted, visited Bosnia and convinced some important Muslim leaders that a Muslim SS division would be in the interest of Islam." Instead of quoting and attributing, could this be paraphrased?
    • The Mufti insisted, "The most important task of this division must be to protect the homeland and families (of the Bosnian volunteers); the division must not be permitted to leave Bosnia" Did he say "of the Bosnian volunteers"? If not, use square brackets instead of parentheses.
    • Despite the support of al-Husayni, recruitment of Muslims for the division fell well short of the numbers needed, This is contradicted by the next section, which gives it a good strength for a division.
      • The issue is with the reduction in prescribed strength, I have clarified a little. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:07, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Consider merging the "Composition" section into the previous section, so it comes before "Croat Catholic recruitment"
      • I've left it as a section, but moved the sentence about Catholic recruitment up. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:07, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Caption: Security zone corresponding to local district subdivisions highlighted in green"". Could this be rephrased to something like the "13th Division's area of responsibility (in green)"?
    • in which the 7th SS was also involved. Does not tell us anything we want to know; consider dropping.
    • Under the command of V SS Mountain Corps, the primary tasks I think you mean to say the the 13th SS Division was under the command of V SS Corps?
    • Would prefer if you used "7th SS Division" instead of "7th SS" etc
    • At the conclusion of Operation Vollmond, the commander of the 27th Regiment, Desiderius Hampel, was appointed division commander rank?
      • Clarified, he stayed at Standartenfuhrer until Jan 45 when he was promoted to Brigadefuhrer. Weird really, because you'd think he should have been promoted when he took over the division, but he'd only made Standartenfuhrer in April 44, so maybe it was too quick for another payrise. They also stripped out some of his div troops, so maybe that was also a factor. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:07, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is Radivoj Kerovic notable?
      • Good point, probably not, I can always go back there if he appears in other articles - delinked. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:07, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Cooperation with local forces in the security zone" Suggest removing or reducing this header
    • SS-Standartenführer Desiderius Hampel confers with a Chetnik commander – summer of 1944 Suggest in the Summer
  • All in all, a really impressive article. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:30, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • According to Veit Scherzer, author of Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Miltaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2, all five presentations of the Knight's Cross to members of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar are disputed and connot be verified at the German National Archive. I think this should be mentioned. MisterBee1966 (talk) 16:08, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Well done :) Regards, Kebeta (talk) 14:18, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much! Peacemaker67 (send... over) 07:16, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I only looked at the lead ... the division ... the division ... the division ... the division. Please try to vary the prose. There are six uses of "however"; an overused word and not needed in most instances here; the overuse of however at FAC is as pervasive as copyvio at DYK. [3] That's all I looked at. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:16, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I have addressed the issue with division in the lead and have checked the rest of the article. I've also removed all the "however"s. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 22:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's comment - I would like to see an independent review from someone not involved in the MilHist Project before closing. Graham Colm (talk) 13:46, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am currently doing a review. ceranthor 17:02, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Prose is pretty good. A very detailed and long article. Nice work!
Lead
  • Composed of Bosnian Muslims with some Catholic Croat soldiers and mostly German and Yugoslav Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) officers and non-commissioned officers, - double use of officers is redundant
    • There is no redundancy here: "officers" and "non-commissioned officers" are two quite distinct groups. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:46, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Background
  • The Muslims received little protection from the Croatian Home Guard, the regular army of the NDH, whom the Germans described as "of minimal combat value". - citation for this quote?
Origin
  • I know you're trying to limit citations, but the two orphan quotes in this section really require some citation. The current reference only has one mention; it shouldn't be a big deal.
Operation Herbstlaub
  • Again, quotations at the end of the "unreliable" sentence.
Sources
Are you sure that Amber Books published all of those sources with a different original publisher? For example, in the secound source, SS: Hell on the Western Front, it looks like they were only responsible for the editorial and design according to this page.
General
A niggling concern, but per the MOS ten should be digits, not spelled out. If you have time to fix this, feel free. ceranthor 17:23, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review Ceranthor, pretty sure they are all done. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 06:52, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
To continue a little bit on a theme someone raised earlier - the opening paragraph uses both the term "formation" and "division" to describe this - surely this could be streamlined to lose the extra more generic term?
Also, soon afterwards, it says that the division was "named" Handschar, italicized and linked, but not bolded. I'm not a native speaker, but it seems odd to me that we first implicitly name something and then say it's named something else. The verb name may imply that this was its proper name, whereas it might have been just an additional name or even a popular nickname - this needs to be clarified with a subtle change in wording.
The opening paragraph also says: It was one of thirty-eight divisions, and the first to be formed using non-Germanic peoples, fielded by the Waffen-SS [...] - this is also an example of less than brilliant prose, I'm afraid - it looks like the order of notability of those factoids is off - if you want to say that it was the first non-Germanic Waffen-SS division, presumably because that is its primary source of general notability, then just go ahead and say that without as many clauses and commas, which make the statement needlessly convoluted. Also, do we care that there were exactly 38 Waffen-SS divisions, is that number significant enough in the intro? Particularly if that number was still growing at the time of the founding of this division.
The Lepre source visibly stands out in the References section. I see some concerns have been raised about its reliability - I think it would be best to explain this in the article text, referenced to another secondary source that confirms its value. Certainly the first mention of George Lepre in the text could easily get tagged with {{who?}} right now, and it wouldn't really be unwarranted when we're talking about a featured article.
I see a single full copyedit tag on the article talk page. Another copyedit specifically oriented toward reduction of excess verbiage would be best.
--Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:06, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed "formation" from the lead and reduced the use of division further. I have also partially implemented your suggestion and have split up the non-Germanic and Waffen-SS description in the lead. Lepre is the core source on this division, is cited by people like Charles L. Melson in a scholarly journal specialising in Slavic military history and by Mario Jareb in a wide-ranging scholarly text on the subject of the Independent State of Croatia edited by Sabrina Ramet, and I believe that addresses the reliability issue adequately, per Nick-D's conclusion. I respectfully disagree with the need for a further c/e. This article has had a full GOCE c/e, and Dank (among others) has supported it on prose after his own c/e. There will always be editors that don't like something about the prose in an article of this length. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 11:13, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I don't see the opening paragraph change... yet?
I still think you should make a legacy section or something of the sort to explain why Lepre is the main source exactly in those words. Heck, if the division song has its own section, such a basic note on relevant historiography should, too.
I'm certainly not an expert on military formation articles, but featured articles need to be accessible to all, not just experts on military formation articles. Again, following up on an earlier complaint, some of those details don't really seem necessary. For example, in the description of Operation Hackfleisch, there's a bulleted list of tasks that includes three items for the 13th and three items for the 7th. Why not omit (or make more concise) the detailed tasks of the other off-topic units, leaving them for a separate article (Operation Hackfleisch)? It's more important to help readability than to be perfectly precise given that the whole thing is on the order of 10K words. Furthermore, it's hard even for myself, who has some knowledge of Bosnian toponymy, to make sense of all this without a map and with some of those looking like typos - Klandanj (Kladanj?), Bratunaci (Bratunac?). Do you see my point? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:19, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Another quick example of a problem with the level of detail is a twofold problem in the Villefranche-de-Rouergue Mutiny section:
  • Cohen's claim of 150 murders is significantly larger and curiously non-specific compared to the two others (a number divisible by ten in the context of dead people simply sounds off-the-cuff to my ear), and the article doesn't explain why it lists it or indeed it doesn't elaborate the discrepancy - what were the primary sources used by each of those secondary sources that in turn caused the confusion?
  • The article mentions that "Five soldiers, including Ejub Jašarević and Adem Okanadžić, were also decorated". Why are those two singled out of the list of five?
I hope that illustrates the kind of thinking that leads me to believe there's still work to be done on the prose. And I didn't even read the entire article yet. *shrug* --Joy [shallot] (talk)
Sorry about the lead, I've done it now (something about late night editing across two screens I think...). I'm not against the idea of a Legacy section (or something similar), but haven't seen one before. Can you point me to an article that has such a thing? There is probably some scope to spin off a few content forks from this article, the mutiny has been suggested, and a couple of the major operations might also be candidates. The query about the numbers executed seems to have the potential to stray into OR, if the secondary sources don't agree, are we in a position to say why unless they address it themselves? The point about picking out two non-notable soldiers is well made, I will delete them. As I say, I think there will almost always be "work to do" on the prose of any article. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 05:10, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what exactly you're asking about the legacy section - I can't name a great example off the top of my head, but there's probably many articles that make an explicit mention of the secondary sources used to also compose them. WP:FURTHER says that editors may include brief annotations, so that's a possible avenue to address this. WP:MILMOS#SOURCES doesn't account for this possibility explicitly, but it does make a point of encouraging editors to survey any available historiographic commentary, so it stands to reason that there's no harm in actually noting some of that in the article.
Assuming the glaring number discrepancy didn't arise very recently, it's likely that another secondary source addressed it, so that should in turn be referenced there.
In any case, after reading some more of it, it seems to me that the real readability problem in the 1944 sections about Bosnia is the lack of geographical illustrations. The map File:Handzar.PNG is overly detailed because it shows not only the relevant area but all those other counties in NDH, and the color coding and captioning on that picture is fairly confusing for this article. I would recommend adding some illustrations, even very simple ones, such as those on 1992 European Community Monitor Mission helicopter downing or Bleiburg repatriations. You can superimpose the dots of the various mentioned locations on a map of Bosnia. Even if an anachronistic (modern-day) border is shown, it'll still be more informative than the present lack of illustration.
BTW, you should go through the article linking the toponyms - I just noticed that the first instance of Brčko wasn't linked, and there could be more. It'll also be a kind of a guard against typos. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:22, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to put something together today along the lines of a Historiography section, let me know whether you think it addresses your concerns? I agree that more graphics would enhance the article, especially around the major operations, and will also ask the map guy to tweak the context map that shows the area of operations. And I'll check for duplicate links and non-linked items too. Will note when I think I've addressed all of your points immediately above. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 01:24, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've checked each section for wikilinking and did some minor sp and grammar c/e. I'm hesitant to use an anachronistic map due to the significant differences in the NDH-Serbia border, and the fact that all blank location maps available have the Dayton Agreement entity boundaries on them. I have asked the author of the map already in the article if they could help, but I'm largely in their hands as to timeframe. The last thing is the "Historiography" section, which I will hopefully add sometime today. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 01:41, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've annotated Lepre and Redzic in the Books and Further Reading sections to indicate they are the principal texts in English and Serbo-Croatian respectively and have also annotated that Lepre is cited by Jareb and Melson. What do you think? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 08:07, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's better. A few notes:
  • Bosanska Rača does actually seem to exist, it's across the river from Sremska Rača. Since the point of the sentence is river crossing, you may want to stay close to the source, also possibly linking Rača Bridge.
  • Rajići is pipe-linked to Milići, which is a modern-day municipality; Rajići is a standalone village (listed also at bs:Demografija Vlasenice) so it would make more sense to link that, disambiguated to Rajići, Bosnia and Herzegovina (there's another eponymous village in Croatia), and then optionally redirect that with {{R with possibilities}} to its municipality of Milići.

--Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:23, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • OK done, but you'd better check I've got it right, I haven't done the "redirect with possibilities" before. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 11:58, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegates closing comment - I have decided this article is ready for promotion. Any remaining issues can be addressed on the article's talk page. I thank the nominator and all the reviewers for these intelligent, constructive discussions and observations. Graham Colm (talk) 18:48, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_(1st_Croatian)/archive1&oldid=1086354109"