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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Magersfontein

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Promoted -- Ian Rose (talk) 06:16, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Magersfontein

edit
Nominator(s): Farawayman (talk) 08:42, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Socrates2008 and I have been doing a lot of work on this article and we believe it now meets A-Class criteria. Review and opinions would be most appreciated. Farawayman (talk) 08:32, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • The prose is 50kB, so the lead probably needs a little more to adequately summarize this article, per WP:LEAD. - Dank (push to talk)
  • Thank you
  • "decimated": this literally means originally meant the loss of a tenth, but many readers these days think it means "annihilated", and I see from the text that you're going for the latter sense. Best not to use the word at all, since people aren't sure what it means any more. - Dank (push to talk)
Good point, and I should have been clear that this one was a personal judgment call, because I can't find a recent style guide that dislikes the word. The "deci-" in the word and the original meaning tend, IMO, to confuse the issue enough so that people aren't positive what it means. Even without that problem, the meaning varies in practice from "more than half" to "all but a tenth" to "almost all". In this case, if I understand correctly, all but seven were casualties. - Dank (push to talk) 13:44, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Nevertheless, his army drove the Boers out of their defensive positions at Belmont, Graspan and the Modder River, and advanced to within 16 miles (26 km) of Kimberley. The Battle of Modder River temporarily exhausted both sides, with the British having lost a thousand men, killed and wounded in these three battles.": don't jump around. That is, you mention 3 engagements, then the result of the advance, then you mention the last engagement, then the consequences of all 3 engagements. It's easier to digest if you keep it linear, something like: "Nevertheless, his army drove the Boers out of their defensive positions at Belmont, Graspan and the Modder River, at the cost of a thousand casualties. Both sides were exhausted, and the British stopped their advance within 16 miles (26 km) of Kimberley." - Dank (push to talk)
  • "Methuen was forced to delay at the river crossing for several days while supplies and reinforcements were brought forward and the railway bridge (which the Boers had previously blown up) was repaired. In addition, the need for troops to protect his extended supply line from Boer sabotage was essential.": I think this is what you mean, but I'm not sure: "Methuen was forced to delay at the river crossing for several days while supplies and reinforcements were brought forward, a railway bridge destroyed by the Boers was repaired, and fresh troops were brought in to protect his extended supply line from Boer sabotage." - Dank (push to talk)
  • "The Boers in turn, were badly shaken ...": I can't be sure since this is British English; "in turn" usually has a sense of sequential actions in AmEng. "The Boers were also badly shaken ..." - Dank (push to talk)
  • "Their total force numbered 8,500 fighters, with camp-followers ...": not sure if you're including the camp followers in the total. (No hyphen in "camp followers" in AmEng, not sure about BritEng.) - Dank (push to talk)
  • "crescent shaped": crescent-shaped
  • "straddling both the road and the railway line, to which Methuen's advance was bound": "both" is a tough word to get right. Roughly speaking, if the reader expects that the advance would be able to come either way and wants to know that both are blocked, "both" is good. If the reader doesn't have that mental picture, then "both" is probably redundant here. "Bound" doesn't sound like a good choice to me, but it might be the BritEng language barrier again. And I wouldn't say my destination was a road if I was walking along the road. - Dank (push to talk)
  • "was 2-mile (3.2 km) long": was 2 miles (3.2 km) long - Dank (push to talk)
Done - requested a further independent ce from the Guild. Farawayman (talk) 12:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll check back later. - Dank (push to talk) 21:33, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I will be starting copy edits tonight and will try to be done some time tomorrow. --Diannaa (Talk) 02:06, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Diannaa - thanks for the Copy Edit! Farawayman (talk) 05:21, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are welcome. I did another pass today, and also tidied up the references. Don't be surprised though if Dank finds some more stuff to do; he is wise. --Diannaa (Talk) 17:43, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Truth. Here's an actual photo. - Dank (push to talk) 17:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I thought you looked more like this. I must have a bad internet connection. -Diannaa (Talk) 01:01, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
People seem to have different opinions on this - personally I don't mind it, but others seem to dislike it. There are many FA articles that use this format, but if it troubles you, a note might make this more acceptable (e.g. Siege of Kimberley) Socrates2008 (Talk) 12:46, 22 November 2010 (UTC) [reply]
Yes, please move it to a note. See MOS:ICON: "Do not use icons in general article prose." Chicago doesn't approve either, although I can't find a good quote at the moment. - Dank (push to talk) 14:13, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Coordinates moved from text to notes section as recommended. Concur with the logic and the need for the move. Farawayman (talk) 18:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've done another copyedit of the introduction, the first section and the subsection after that; new problems were introduced in recent editing. I can now:
  • support just those sections. I haven't looked at the rest, except for the collapse-box that's still there and shouldn't be per WP:SCROLL. - Dank (push to talk) 20:11, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Removed the "Orders" section which used to be in a collapsible text box. The gist of the orders are already contained in the text in the "British Plan" section. Farawayman (talk) 04:24, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comments: Looks quite good to me. I have the following comments, which are mainly just style and presentation nitpicks:
    • is there are way to split the lead into maybe three paragraphs? Currently the first paragraph is quite long;
    • in the Reinforcements arrive section, this sentence needs a citation: "The gap created by the hurried withdrawal of the Highland Brigade was filled by the Gordons and the Scots Guards";
    • in the Strategic consequences section, "politicians in England" - should this be "politicians in Britain?";
    • in the Footnotes subsection, some of the notes end with full stops and some don't - should be consistent (I suggest that they should all have them);
    • in the Footnotes subsection, I suggest replacing <references group="Note"/> with {{Reflist|group=Note}} as this will mean the Footnotes appear the same size as the Citations;
    • in the Citations sometimes you have "Conan-Doyle" and then other times "Conan Doyle" (hyphen or no hyphen) - should be consistent;
    • in the Citations some have years while others don't, is there a reason for this (some editors only use years to differentiate mulitple works by the same author);
    • Citation # 26 "Gale & Polden, p. 61" - the full bibliographic details don't appear in the References section;
    • in the Citations you have "Gale & Polden" and then "Gale and Polden" - should be consistent
    • Citation #27 "Pakenham, p. 203" has no date, but Citation # 11 "Pakenham (1979), p. 199" has a date - should be consistent if the same work;
    • Citation # 50 "De Villiers", but in the References "de Villiers" - needs consistent capitalisation;
      • This is a quirk in Afrikaans/Dutch where the "De" is capitalised when then first name is not mentioned, but is lowercase when preceeded by a first name. Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:57, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • in the References, I suggest differentiating the two Maurice works (both of which have the same year of publication) by using "(1998a)" and "(1998b)" in both the short citations and the full bibliographic details;
    • in the References Tufnell appears out of alphabetical order;
    • in the References section, the Kruger work's title should be capitalised per WP:MOSCAPS#Composition titles, e.g. "Good-bye Dolly Grey: The story of the Boer War" should be "Good-bye Dolly Grey: The Story of the Boer War"
    • in the References section, the Knight et al work should have an endash in the title for the year range, i.e "1876–1902";
    • in the References section, the two websites (Pipetunes and BritishBattles) shouldn't be listed, they should simply be linked through the Citations where they are reffed with inline citations;
    • at the end of the References section there is a large amount of whitespace on my screen, this is because of the commented out list of works not specifically cited. I sugest just simply removing these works, or adding them so they appear in the Further reading section;
    • in the Further reading section, Cowan appears out of alphabetical order. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:04, 14 November 2010 (UTC
  • Support: all my concerns have been addressed. AustralianRupert (talk) 22:11, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Commments:

Enjoyed the article! A few minor comments:

Advance to attack:

  • "A drizzle started..." "In preparation for the attack, the soldiers bivouacked in heavy rain..." It would be clearly possible to have both drizzle in one place and heavy rain 3 miles away, but it read slightly oddly, particularly as later in the section "the rain increased to a downpour".
  • "the lyddite explosions" - this is the only mention of lyddite in the article; worth either explaining what lyddite was, or linking the term.
  • Warning, a really petty quibble coming(!): "The thunderstorm and the high iron ore content of the surrounding hills played havoc with compasses of the officers appointed to navigate" - I think it played havoc with all of the compasses, not just those belonging to the navigators! :)
  • " the British had no time to reform from their compact quarter columns into fighting formation" > "a fighting formation"?

Battle:

Scandinavian volunteers:

Losses:

  • "the Highland Brigade amassed a killed, wounded, and missing loss of 747 men." This read oddly to me. Could you say "suffered total casualties of 747 men"?
    • Re-stated to make it read more clearly, but retained reference to killed, wounded and missing - because "total casualty" figures do not necessarily always include all three of these categories. Farawayman (talk) 20:13, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The poem probably needs a comment in the main text. e.g. "Criticism was published in the national papers, for example..."
  • I particularly liked the picture of the observation balloon, by the way - fascinating photo!

Hchc2009 (talk) 18:26, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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