Wikipedia:Peer review/Death of Osama bin Laden/archive1

Death of Osama bin Laden

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I wish to push this piece of important information in recent history to FAC.

Thanks, Forbidden User (talk) 15:23, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment. At FAC, the first question you'll probably get is "Have you notified the major contributors?" ... so it might be best to go ahead and notify them now that this is at peer review. Best of luck. - Dank (push to talk) 16:13, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Done. Thanks!Forbidden User (talk) 16:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• More comments. "the founder": Our al-Qaeda article says there were several founders, so either that article should be changed, or this article should say "one of the founders". I don't personally know what reliable sources say about this.
• "The operation ... was carried out in a ... operation": repetition
• "The United States had direct evidence that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, knew of bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, Pakistan.": I was looking at this because it didn't seem to fit in the first paragraph, but I found that the source (a NYT article) doesn't support this sentence at all: "a Pakistani official told me that the United States had direct evidence that the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, knew of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. The information came from a senior United States official, and I guessed that the Americans had intercepted a phone call ...": So, a NYT reporter says that an unnamed Pakistani official says that an unnamed US official had nonspecific information, which might or might not have come from a phone call. If you want to use this source, that's the statement this source supports. It's not solid enough to go in the first paragraph, or to stand alone. - Dank (push to talk) 09:38, 9 September 2014 (UTC) Tweaked 13:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I see. Looking at it.Forbidden User (talk) 11:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

General comments from Nikkimaria

• Given the length of the article, the lead should be longer
• Dead links should be fixed
• Try to avoid having a one-sentence subsection
• A number of repeated links throughout, some in very close proximity
• Mix of US and UK spelling - for example, you have both "criticized" and "criticised"
• Before going to FAC, make sure the references are consistently formatted, so similar sources look similar. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:57, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks!Forbidden User (talk) 17:55, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments I'll focus on the section on the military operation:

• There's WAY too many quotes from news stories, especially of people speculating about the operation anonymously. The books on this topic, some of which are pretty good, are largely free of this kind of rambling speculation and are greatly under-used as sources here: media reports from the days after the raid aren't terribly useful as sources given that the events of the operation have subsequently been set out much more clearly in books and magazine articles.
• The background section of the article is rather short in comparison to the coverage the hunt for bin Laden usually receives in works on this topic, and I don't understand the logic behind having a separate 'Previous attempts to capture or kill bin Laden' section, especially located at the end of the article
• The 'Objective' section is badly structured: it's a she says-he says type grab bag of news stories rather than a concise attempt to explain the situation. From what I've read in the books on the subject, the consensus is that the SEALs were ordered to capture bin Laden if feasible, but no-one at all expected that he'd surrender. Also bear in mind that it would have been illegal to have ordered the SEALs to have not accepted bin Laden's surrender had he offered it, so it's very unlikely that such a direction was given.
• There's a fair bit of repeated and over-linking in the 'Approach and entry' section
• The coverage of the raid itself is pretty sketchy and not very coherent. I'd suggest structuring this as a clear narrative.
• "An unnamed U.S. senior defense official stated that only one of the five people killed was armed" - not sure if this is true and the implication is questionable: other accounts say that several of the people killed were armed, or could reasonably have been assumed to have been armed based on their behaviour
• How and why did Chuck Pfarrer reach a different version of the events of the raid? What were his sources? (the level of coverage here seems to be WP:UNDUE given that his version of events differs so much from that in other sources)
• The author also asserted that one SEAL sat on bin Laden's chest in a cramped helicopter as his body was flown back to Afghanistan.[51][218][219][220][221][222][223] - why does this simple statement need seven references? From memory, it's in the book so just cite that
• Also, in No Easy Day Bissonnette makes the interesting observation that his unit had conducted large numbers of more difficult attacks on housing compounds in Afghanistan, and that the only particularly challenging or unusual part of the raid was penetrating into Pakistan.
• Do we really need two paras on the operation's Code name? The first para could easily be integrated into the body of the article and the second is storm in a teacup stuff.
• I'd suggest developing this article through good article and A-class assessments before going to FAC. It needs a lot of work to reach such a standard. Nick-D (talk) 05:39, 14 September 2014 (UTC)