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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Siege of Kimberley

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The following discussion is preserved as an archive. 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. EyeSerenetalk 08:48, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Siege of Kimberley edit

Nominator(s): Socrates2008 (Talk)
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I am nominating this article for A-Class review because there are no GA, A or FA articles about the Second Boer War. The siege is well documented, and interesting from both a political and a military standpoint. I am confident the article will meet the requirements for the review. Thank you Socrates2008 (Talk) 12:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
    • No problems reported with diambig links. One external link is reported as suspicious, please check and advise. Alt text tool reports that none of the images in the article have alt text, this needs to be added to the images before I can support.
  • Owing to the real-time nature of the net the tool sometimes catches pages when their undergoing maintenance and such; that is why I add check and advise to my comments here, if you can;t find the error then its probably been fixed.
    • Can the introduction be expanded? One paragraph is too thin for an article of this nature, IMO. Try to get at least one more paragraph into the lead.
  • Expanded - please review.
  • Its a good start, but your expansion needs a good spit and polish before its up to A-class level.
 Done Have been polishing - if you have any specific points that you are still concerned about, please let me know. Thanks.
    • In the forth paragraph of the section "Relief" you have the following line "He wheeled his right and center brigades towards their enemy, thereby allowing the brigade on the left to hold course for Klip Drift." I recommend replacing "he" with a proper name to avoid confusion.
  •  Done Fixed
  • Thanks for the feedback
  • Comment Firstly the lead needs to be expanded. For instance it only identifies one side of the combat (UK) and doesn't give a proper introduction. Secondly, the first paragraph doesn't give the reader any background about who/what the Boers were or what the political situation and competing ideologies were. I think there should be more background there. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Intro expanded; background info to follow too. Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:52, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: There are a few issues that I feel need to be addressed, these are:
    • the first paragraph in the Background section is uncited;
 Done (you caught me in the middle of expanding per the request above)
    • last sentence in second paragraph of Preparation section (beginning with "Nearly 90%) needs a citation;
 Done Couldn't find the source, so copyedited.
    • last part of the last paragraph in Relief section needs a citation as it has the appearance of being uncited;
 Done
    • although probably obvious given the title, it would be good to have a citation for the last sentence in the Aftermath section (beginning with "The town of Wesselsbron...";
 Done No reliable reference - removed.
    • according to the Featured article tool, the photo of the memorial is missing alt text
 Done
    • also the image in the infobox is missing alt text
 Done
    • some of the images that have alt text, possibly need tweaking. For example the alt text for the Long Cecil gun, just says "Long Cecil gun". I think it needs to be a bit more descriptive, as someone relying on alt text would not necessarily know what a Long Cecil gun actually looks like
  • I feel that this issue still needs to be addressed. Please look at WP:ALT. This might help with tweaking the alt text for the images. As they stand I feel they are not quite descriptive enough to convey what they are to someone who cannot look at the image (alt text is for sight impaired readers, I believe). — AustralianRupert (talk) 01:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 Done
    • the inclusion of the co-ordinates for locations in text takes the eye off the prose, I'd suggest not using it there as I don't believe it is needed (although I might be wrong)
  • Would like to include this information - can you suggest a better way to do it?
    • Not sure, to be honest. Could it maybe be included in a footnote? Before you change it, though, I'd recommend getting other opinions as this is really just a matter of personal preference and I don't want to make you change something that I might be the only one who doesn't like it. — AustralianRupert (talk) 01:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is a precedent in a number of Featured Articles - does that help? Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:27, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe superscript them as per this discussion on the Ridge Route article. It is probably still not the best solution, but it is less distracting. --NJR_ZA (talk) 12:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 Done
    • some of the external links are missing accessdates.
 Done (NB: Not required for books)
    • Extreme nitpick: some of the instances where you have multiple citations don't appear in numerical order. There is one in the 4th paragraph, sentence beginning with "He had used his position..." (citation # 22, 12, 23) and another in the Siege section, paragraph 5, second last sentence begining with "Labram was the most notable civilian casualty..." (citations # 35, 33).
  • This comes about when identical sources are consolidated (a MOS requirement) - so I can't see an obvious way around this problem...
    • Just re-order them, by moving the mark up code so that the citation that has the smallest number appears first. It is just a cut and paste job really, but having said all of that, I don't believe it is a requirement. It is just a personal preference as it flows better (numbers left to right, that sort of thing, maybe I've been institutionalised by my military training, but I like things ordered). Example: <ref name=cite2/><ref name=cite1/> becomes <ref name=cite1/><ref name=cite2/>. — AustralianRupert (talk) 22:59, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 Done
    • The capitalisation of the titles in the References section seem a little irregular. Should they be like that, or should they be mainly capitalised?
  • These are all cut&paste from the source (typically archive.org or books.google.com)
    • I believe that they need to conform to WP:MOSCAPS, with specific reference to the section on Composition titles. — AustralianRupert (talk) 01:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 Done
    • Should the Further reading section go above the Notes and References section? I couldn't find anything in the WP:MOS, but I think it makes more sense for it to be after sources that have been cited.
 Done

I will read the article over a couple more times and see what else I can come up with. So far, not looking too bad and most of what I've said above I think you can fix pretty easily. — AustralianRupert (talk) 06:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you
  • Comments: My first participation in an assessments; please ignore any comments that are not relevant. --NJR_ZA (talk) 07:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The lead section needs citations.
      • To clarify this point, the lead does not necessarily need citations if all the points in the lead are cited in the body below. A number of A class articles do not have cited leads. Having said this WP:LEADCITE also states that citations can be added to the lead. — AustralianRupert (talk) 09:09, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Rather then the images of the guns under the Siege it would be good to have more descriptive images of what life was like for the people during the siege. The diamond mines of South Africa from page 605 has some good images. Besieged by the Boers has good images of the Shrapnel Hotel and civilian life.
  • Thanks - unfortunately space is limited and I had to make a call...
  • Comment minor thing, pick a consistent citation style when using "chapter" in a reference. Currently, refs 15, 32, 44, and 64 all have different ways of saying "chapter". Mm40 (talk) 18:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Sorted, thank you.
  • Support, couldn't find any major grammatical or stylistic errors, good job. – Joe N 00:53, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Although, I believe that the alt text might still need to be improved a little in line with WP:ALT, I believe that this article meets the requirements for A class. Good work. AustralianRupert (talk) 01:31, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support much better now. Well Done! TomStar81 (Talk) 05:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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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