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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/American Civil War/archive1

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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 not promoted 16:20, 5 November 2007.

American Civil War

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I think that American Civil War should be used to redirect to this page, but the actual official Congressional name for this war is "The War Between The States". This is due to the fact that a civil war implies that a body wishes to overthrow the established government; whereas, in this war, established governments wished to leave and form a new separate goverment with the old still intact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.152.180.160 (talk) 07:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm nominating this article for featured article status because it has improved quite a bit over the past year or two. This is a self-nomination, since I contributed to the article. Now the American Civil War article is stable, thorough and well-referenced.Jimmuldrow 23:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment work on the items in the PR script on the talk page. What jumped out at me is the long, detailed lead with several footnotes. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment overall this is an excellent article about a very important subject, but it still needs work. I'm not sure that the listing of novels in the references (and poems and songs in a footnote) works. I suspect these works were not in fact used as sources, and it might be better to put them in a subsidiary article. The footnotes to poems and songs (currently #170) and "Massachusetts in the Civil War" (#98) are in a particularly poor format.--Grahamec 02:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object As pointed out, the lead is really excessive, and so is much else in the article. "Causes of the War" is pretty much an article in of itself (37k) and the "See also"-section is massive. A stricter application of summary style would be a great benefit to readers. Also, why is "Aftermath" a section separate from "Analysis of the outcome"? These are really just two terms for the same thing. Peter Isotalo 05:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Thanks for the feedback. So far I trimmed the lede a bit by moving most of the last paragraph further down, and trimmed the Causes section a bit, although remember that this was a big war. I also deleted the novels and songs and poems thing. Dates were de-linked, and words like "some" were taken out where not needed. I believe the Aftermath section is more about the results of the war after it ended.Jimmuldrow 11:45, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm aware of the importance of the war, but I don't believe any topic justifies such excessive coverage in a main article and some sections are just simply overdoing the whole thing. "Causes of the war" gives too many examples of the same basic aspects. Subsections like "States' rights and slavery in the territories" are hardly necessary for an overview of the war. "Abolitionism" should be handled under "Slavery" as the former is merely a reaction to the latter. And the "Arguments for and against slavery" seems to have been included merely for good measure.
The justification of "Aftermath" does not seem particularly intuitive. I suggest joining it with "Analysis of the outcome" and simply calling the whole section "Aftermath". Implying that we're presenting an analysis has a slight twang of original research about it.
Peter Isotalo 10:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
 Done For the Aftermath section.Jimmuldrow 00:04, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
 Done For the scotching the States' Rights section.Jimmuldrow 00:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
 Done For merging Abolitionism with the Slavery section.Jimmuldrow 00:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
 Done For eliminating Slavery in the Territories.Jimmuldrow 00:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
 Done For moving Arguments for and Against Slavery.Jimmuldrow 01:41, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The lead - which I did not really manage to break through - is weak, perhaps because it's difficult to see the wood for the trees. I wouldn't have thought it was impossible to have four concise paragraphs laying out: the causes and background; the nature of the war and its battles; how the war was won/lost; and what happened next, or similar. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 13:24, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Tightened the lede a bit. Maybe it's better now.Jimmuldrow 17:23, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fraid not. It needs a radical rewrite, from first principles. It needs to explain what it's all about to someone who hasn't heard of it before. It's just too dense and too complicated at the moment. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 17:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Any specifics? I thought the lede only mentioned the highlights.Jimmuldrow 18:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly right. It needs to tell us the basics. ie the war was between the XX states of the Union and the XX states of the confederacy, what issues precisely they fell out over, why this was important enough to go to war over etc. Then how long the war waged, how it was won, what the butchers' bills were etc. A technique I sometimes use to clarify things is to list bullet points, then link the bullet points together into sentences. In other words, I treat first the draft as if it's a Powerpoint presentation of the key stuff. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 18:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The lede mentions eleven Southern states. The number of Union states changed, and the details of that would make things more dense and complicated. As for how long, the lede says the war was from 1861-1865. As for how won, Grant's battles of attrition led to Appomattox, and this was mentioned. I could add that about 620,000 soldier deaths resulted from the war.Jimmuldrow 19:54, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There isn't, in my view, a quick fix for this. I really think you should get someone else to go through it and ruthlessly cut it to the essentials. You won't improve it by tweaking it, that'll make it even more dense. I'd like to help you but I can't give you a blow by blow list of edits. It's got over-written and impenetrable. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 20:03, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I made one last try here anyway. I don't see how you could cut the lede more without taking out information that's very basic to understanding the war.Jimmuldrow 23:18, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who hasn't worked on the article, I've taken up Roger's suggestion and trimmed a good bit of excessive detail from the lead. This is of course a complex topic difficult to briefly summarize, but I think the lead is fairly decent right now. Agree? —Kevin Myers 03:11, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Big improvement, Kevin. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 06:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The lede looks good now. Thanks, Kevin.Jimmuldrow 03:37, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(Outishdent) The same problem also afflicts the next section, Causes of War; lengthy and repetitive. If someone will cut it, I'll help tweak and polish. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 07:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, I just read that section. It's repetitive, redundant, and somewhat repetitive. Twice. And the excessive detail! Pruning is clearly needed when trivia like "a gold-knobbed gutta-percha cane" is included. Or the listing all of John Brown's Secret Six supporters. (A reader who needs the six names can link to the article in question.) I'm afraid there's more copyediting needed than I have time to do, but I hope someone does it, because the article is fixable. The important information seems to be in there; it just needs tidied up. —Kevin Myers 14:03, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is a known problem that has been pointed out on multiple occasions. There is an entire article about the causes of the war, which means that this section should be a brief summary, not an exhaustive rewrite. Perhaps a dozen paragraphs? It is really telling that the Overview section of this article occurs about two thirds of the way through the text. I also agree with the comments regarding the bloated nature of the end matter. There is a complete article on American Civil War bibliography, so there is no need for a lengthy list in this article. My preference for such things is to clearly list the source materials that are directly cited in the article as the References and to put all other nice to read materials into Further reading. In this case, the separate bibliography article should replace the further reading category. Perhaps now that Richard Jensen has moved his hat over to Citizendium, this could be accomplished in a noncontroversial way. Hal Jespersen 14:46, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have the time to do the basic surgery on this but agree with Kevin that it can be rescued. If someone else will swing the ax, I'll do the follow up. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 15:36, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I made a start at reducing the repetition and sub-sections for Causes.Jimmuldrow 22:00, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's about 3300 words: it needs to get down to about 1000. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 22:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's better now, or at least much more concise.Jimmuldrow 03:32, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment only on the title. There are no references to the war being called the "American Civil War". There is a link at the top to the naming of the war. "Civil War" is stated as the most common. Since "American Civil War" is, at best, a rare usage, the name should be changed. Maybe "Civil War (USA)"? Mrs.EasterBunny 16:36, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Amazingly, there's an entire article on this, Naming the American Civil War :)) My preference is to leave it as it is. At least that way it's symmetrical with English Civil War(s), Irish Civil War, Greek Civil War, Lebanese Civil War and the dozens of others mentioned in the List of civil wars. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 17:36, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The idea that the article be called "Civil War (USA)" is extremely US-centric. Of course the most common name of the war is the current title... The rest is just hairsplitting among Civil War aficionados. To a non-American like myself the link above the lead borders on the annoying. I would prefer that it be made into a footnote right after the title.
Peter Isotalo 06:35, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not US-centric. If other countries simply say "Civil War" then we could use that for their article, such as "Civil War (England)" if that were true. Mrs.EasterBunny 01:22, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They all do. Putting the country name first makes it instant which one we're talking about, so I suppose it's rename one, rename the lot. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 12:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"American Civil War" is the title used by Encyclopedia Britannica and the Oxford Companion to Military History, to cite the first two examples I just checked at my local library. Clearly, the article is correctly titled.
I agree that the hatnote at the top of the article should go. I'm not sure what chain of events led to it being put there, but it doesn't really add anything and seems to go against the spirit of WP:HAT. —Kevin Myers 13:34, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
 DoneJimmuldrow 04:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose This article, while quite detailed, does not yet represent the "best wikipedia can offer". It is that very detail that hinders it, I believe. I was once a Civil War buff myself and have read scores of books on the topic. However, this page does not adequately summarize the event, in my opinion.

  • My first big question is about the research; I see a lot of books listed under the "References", but James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom seems to be the main source for the article. Did the editors read all of the other sources and just use McPherson's book for the page numbers or something? Because right now, it looks like we are getting primarily McPherson's view of things. As anyone who has read both McPherson's one-volume treatment and Foote's three-volume treatment will know, there are differing interpretations of the Civil War - and that is only among popular treatments for the public. If the editors have read the other books and they coincide with McPherson, it would be great if they could add references to that effect. It would bolster the page's credibility enormously.
  • At first glance, the lead seems to have been written by those interested primarily in military history. :) The lead should summarize the entire article, from the causes of the war, through the battles, to the possible international intervention, and mention Reconstruction. It should also, ahem, mention slavery as there is a large section on that in the article itself. (WP:BETTER#Lead section has some helpful tips on writing leads - they are quite difficult. I struggle with them myself all of the time.)
  • I feel like the "Causes" section dives right in and assumes a great deal of knowledge. If this is the first page that people are going to come to on the American Civil War in wikipedia, it needs to be much broader. Who is Lincoln? What was the "Houses Divided" speech? What era are we in? To give one small example, the article introduces the word "free-soil" in the first paragraph of the "Causes" section, but does not define it or wiki-link it. That is a very uncommon term. Perhaps it will help you to know that I once surveyed a group of freshmen composition students I was teaching and they placed the American Civil War in the eighteenth century and could name no causes of it.
  • The details in the "Causes" section weigh it down. Delete many of the details and keep only the broad outline; it needs much more summary writing (one of the hardest kinds of writing there is). You should not need a "Clarification of causes" section if the "Causes" section is written well.
  • I would suggest that the editors come up with an outline of the five to ten most important ideas they want readers to come away with from this page (five would be ideal) and work outward from there, always keeping in mind those five to ten ideas. What is the narrative of the Civil War that this page is trying to tell? Try to articulate that narrative in a few paragraphs (that is the lead). (The entire page suffers from the same problems that I outlined for the "Causes" section.)
  • I would also suggest that the editors provide readers with "signposts" along the way - alert them to where the article is going. Provide little two- to three-sentence summaries of each section: this is where we have been, this is where we are going. That way readers are reminded of what they have read and can keep track of all of the information.
  • Listing movies, etc. about the Civil War is unnecessary. I assume some sort of "American Civil War in popular culture" page exists? Best they go there. This is not a comprehensive list and the criteria for their selection are bound to be personal.
  • I find the pictures in the infobox busy - I think one picture would do fine.
  • On my screen, you can't see the TOC when you first view the page - is there any way to fix that?

I understand how dispiriting such suggestions can be and I really am sorry to have to make them. I do not make them lightly. I know that the editors share my fascination with the American Civil War and want its pages to be of truly stellar quality. I would expect that it would take several weeks to revise this page, that is why I have opposed it rather than "comment". The editors need to ruminate a bit on what to include and then engage in a massive revision of the page (what we writing teachers call "global revision"). Using someone's sandbox to try out various new versions is one way to do this; I have found it works well. Awadewit | talk 05:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pass & support

  • On the basis that it's acceptable according to low-standards. Leranedo 09:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
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