Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Battle of Shanghai

Battle of Shanghai edit

Hello all, I've been working on this article for a long time since last summer and I'm looking for feedback, particularly on prose, and ways to make it less "dense" as it's 60KB now. I am in the process of compiling the sources and making some maps, which might take a while. But otherwise I think all the pertinent informations are there and I'm looking for ways to improve the article. Thank you. BlueShirts 20:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kirill Lokshin edit

Well, as you mention, the big issue is sources; at the moment, the article is well below the expected level of citation, so that would be the main thing to focus on.

Aside from that, general suggestions:

The stub "Order of battle" section needs to be disposed of, somehow. I'm not sure what the best way of linking to it is; perhaps something could be added to the infobox?
The size isn't that bad; this is obviously a very major battle, and deserves the coverage.
The one-paragraph sections should really be merged, where possible, to make the structure less choppy.
Images should be staggered along both margins, to prevent stacking problems.

Keep up the great work! Kirill Lokshin 02:20, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kyriakos edit

Nice job so far and I just want say that you have done a good job on such a important article. Here are my suggestions:

Per Kirill, the article needs to have more references.
The article only has 1 citations. More citations need to be added as they are a must if you want to get the article to GA or FA.
You also say in the info box: Japanese victory; Chinese heroic failure. I would remove heroic as people think that it is not a NPOV.

Anyway great job so far and the best for this article in the future. Kyriakos 04:06, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LordAmeth edit

Wow. This is some beautiful work, thorough, detailed, and largely NPOV balanced. Definitely something to be proud of.

Citations.
As for the POV/balance issue, I thank you profusely for your hard work and careful attention to avoiding the kind of nationalist or even racist tone which can all too often pervade discussions of these sorts of touchy subjects. This reads almost completely objectively, with no overt agenda to portray the Japanese as villains and the Chinese as heroes, or for that matter vice versa. Thank you thank you thank you. However, much of it deals with Chiang Kai-Shek's decisions, the position he and his forces were in and the kind of decisions they had to make; at one point you write "American entry into the international response brought new hope to the Chinese", and it's obvious from the sources you have listed that they are solely written from the point of view of a Chinese historian, not a scholar of Japanese studies.

Overall, this is an excellent, top-notch article. I have no problem with those types of phrases, and discussions of Chiang's views, his hopes, his decisions and strategic considerations, and I am not asking you to remove them. But, if it is possible to work in a bit more on Japanese goals in the battle, their strategic decisions, etc, it would be great. In reading through the article, I'm not sure if I even really got a sense of who the Japanese commanders present were.

LordAmeth 11:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]