Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review

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The peer review department of the Military history WikiProject conducts peer review of articles on request. The primary objective is to encourage better articles by having contributors who may not have worked on articles to examine them and provide ideas for further improvement.

The peer review process is highly flexible and can deal with articles of any quality; however, requesting reviews on very short articles may not be productive, as there is little for readers to comment on. Particularly high-quality articles can also be submitted to the A-Class review process, which serves as a more formal complement to this one.

All reviews are conducted by fellow editors—usually members of the Military history WikiProject. While there is a general intent to expand this process to allow for review by subject experts, the preparations for this are not yet complete.

Contents 1 Instructions 1.1 Requesting a review 1.2 Responding to a request 1.3 Archiving 2 Requests 2.1 Leapfrogging (infantry) 2.1.1 Kirill Lokshin 2.2 Battle of Ghazni 2.2.1 Kirill Lokshin 2.2.2 Alphageekpa 2.3 Angevin Empire 2.3.1 Kirill Lokshin 2.3.2 Raymond 2.4 Red Army 2.4.1 Kirill Lokshin 2.4.2 M3tal H3ad 2.4.3 Nick Dowling 2.4.4 Planemo 2.5 Joint Security Area 2.5.1 Visviva 2.5.2 Kirill Lokshin 2.6 HMS Dreadnought (1906) 2.6.1 Buckshot06 2.6.2 Kirill Lokshin 2.6.3 Harlsbottom 2.6.4 John Moore 309 2.7 Military operations of the Invasion of Cyprus (1974) 2.7.1 Kyriakos 2.7.2 Kirill Lokshin 2.7.3 Balloonman 2.7.4 Yannismarou 2.8 List of United States Marine Corps aircraft squadrons 2.8.1 NeoFreak 2.8.2 Kirill Lokshin 2.8.3 Leathernecks 2.9 Battle of Gythium 2.9.1 Kirill Lokshin 2.9.2 Balloonman 2.10 U.S. 8th Armored Division 2.10.1 TomStar81 2.10.2 Kirill Lokshin 2.10.3 cla68 2.10.4 Balloonman 2.11 Military of ancient Rome 2.11.1 Kirill Lokshin 2.11.2 Hal Jespersen 2.11.3 Yannismarou 2.12 Caesar's invasions of Britain 2.12.1 Kirill Lokshin 2.13 Union Army Balloon Corps 2.13.1 Kirill Lokshin 2.13.2 Hal Jespersen 2.13.3 oldwindybear 3 Archives

[edit] Instructions

[edit] Requesting a review

1. Add peer-review=yes to the {{WPMILHIST}} project banner at the top of the article's talk page (see the project banner instructions for more details on the exact syntax).
2. From there, click on the "request has been made" link that appears in the template. This will open a page to discuss the review of your article.
3. Place === [[Name of nominated article]] === at the top.
4. Below it, write your reason for nominating the article and sign by using four tildes (~~~~).
5. Add {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Name of nominated article}} at the top of the list of requests on this page.

If an article is listed for a second (or third, and so forth) peer review:

1. Move the existing peer review subpage (Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Name of nominated article) to an archive (Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Name of nominated article/Archive 1).
2. Follow the instructions for making a request above (editing the primary page, which will be a redirect to the archive, into a new request page).
3. Be sure to provide a prominent link to the last archive at the top of the request (e.g. "Prior peer review here.").

[edit] Responding to a request

Everyone is encouraged to comment on any request listed here. To comment on an article, please add a new section (using ==== [[User:Your name|Your name]] ====) for your comments, in order to keep multiple responses legible.

[edit] Archiving

Reviews should be archived after they have been inactive for some time, or when the article is nominated as a featured article candidate. To archive a review:

1. Replace peer-review=yes with old-peer-review=yes in the {{WPMILHIST}} project banner template at the top of the article's talk page
2. Move {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Name of nominated article}} from this page to the current archive page.

[edit] Requests

[edit] Leapfrogging (infantry)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sam ware (talk • contribs).

• Is this the same as the British technique of 'pepperpotting'? Buckshot06 05:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR _t 23:16, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

Well, this obviously still needs massive work. Some major areas to focus on:

• References and inline citations need to be provided.
• More on the history and context. When and how was this tactic developed? How is it taught? How does it relate to other infantry tactics? How does it relate to the idea of suppressive fire in general? Where has it been used? What is its effectiveness in combat? And so forth.
• Generally, any additional detail that can be added would be helpful, at this point. Kirill Lokshin 06:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Needs proper wikification as well. And the normal headers, 'see also', 'references', 'further reading', 'external links'. — Wackymacs 11:36, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Ghazni

I wrote this article from scratch. Fixed and edited it and have it cited and referenced. Just want to know what else can be done to improve this article?

Thanks Mercenary2k 07:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR _t 23:16, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

A good start, but still lots of improvement that can be done, I think; some general suggestions:

• More citations are needed, and (more importantly) to more reputable sources. BritishBattles.com really isn't an appropriate reference in the long run; the article needs to be sourced to published historical works (see WP:MILHIST#References).
• The lead section should be a two/three-paragraph summary of the entire article.
• The OOB would probably work better as a table; any additional information for it (commanders & strength of each unit, mainly) would be very helpful.
• Any chance of getting some maps, both of the campaign and of the assault on the city itself?
• Some more images might be possible; I would assume that there would be contemporary prints and such that would be {{PD-Art}}.

More generally, any additional detail would be helpful; the article is still fairly brief, as such things go. Keep up the good work! Kirill Lokshin 07:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alphageekpa

I'm going to agree with Kirill. Probably the single biggest area for improvement is increasing the number of citations, and using more traditional and reputable sources. Websites are fine for general and background information, but the key to taking this article to the next level is going to be incorporating published (print) resources. Great start, and keepin up the good work! Alphageekpa 11:35, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Angevin Empire

I would like this article to be improved as much as it could, it has been suggested that with improvements it could be a candidate to be a featured article, since I'll have more time this week I can work on improvement with suggestion. As my first article it is unlikely that it goes that way though. Matthieu 12:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

This is quite nice, but it still needs quite a bit of work to be ready for a smooth FAC:

• The lead section should be a summary of the entire article, not an introduction to the topic (with information that appears nowhere else); the actual content should be moved to the body.
• More detail on the historiography of the name would be appropriate, I think.
• The headings should be formatted per the MoS; and should be kept as grammatically sensible as possible (e.g. "John's reign and the collapse" rather than "John's reign, the collapse"). "Angevin Empire" should be omitted as well.
• More citations! Large portions of the article are entirely uncited; see the project guidelines for some ideas on this.
• I'd replace {{cquote}} with regular blockquote formatting.
• Thorough copyediting will be needed, as there are errors in grammar and word choice (e.g. "accessed the throne" for "ascended the throne", etc.) sprinkled throughout the article.
• Most of the uses of {{seealso}} and {{main}} should really be {{details}}.
• Bulleted lists should be converted to prose where possible.
• The "See also" section should be eliminated by working the links into the body of the article.
• A bibliography-style "References" section separate from the footnotes might be helpful.

Keep up the good work! Kirill Lokshin 18:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I moved the introduction to a new section about the name and the way it is applied. As well contemporary views on the structure, it is therefore expanded, I frankly don't see what can be added on this specific topic now. There is a new (very brief) introduction too.

I may add a "further reading" section to complement the footnotes. I have also added some citations and notes, I'll do more as time goes on.

Sorry for the grammatical mistakes, well as I said English is not my first language. If there is an English language buff that wants to help he is welcome.

Matthieu 15:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

About the citations, if you could indicate me which points seem contestable or will attract controveries I will dig quotes, but I think there are a lot in the notes already. I tried to give more weight to the areas which would be contested (these relatives to the nature of power of the Angevin Empire, its structure and the political weight, as well as the hommages and things that would attract debates have been given notes). Matthieu 14:15, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not so much anything in particular (or, more precisely, I don't know enough about the topic to be able to give a good analysis of which points are controversial), but rather a general sense that a reader ought to be able to go to any point in the article and find a (reasonably close-by) citation for the statements there. There's no specific requirement for a certain density (see the project guideline); but having at least a citation for every paragraph is often a good rule of thumb. Kirill Lokshin 16:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Raymond

Just some additional things (apart from the grammar) that will need attention:

• Misuse of the hyphen eg: But by October the new Count of Toulouse -Raymond VI- left the Capetian side. . .

Commas are fine, eg But by October the new Count of Toulouse, Raymond VI, left the Capetian side . . .

• All citations must come ‘’after’’ the punctuation

• Hasn’t, wasn’t etc, should be written – Has not, was not etc.

• The map has misspelled the word Plantagenet

Not too bad, but as Kirill said, it will need a bit of close attention to the prose. Raymond Palmer 01:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, the map is not of my fact :P but yeah it's annoying. Matthieu 22:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Red Army

Having copied the text to Military of the Soviet Union to concentrate on the land forces of the USSR, I've started improving this article, with refs, changing the structure more toward the U.S. Marine Corps military branch template, and filling out the new sections. There is more on all that to do, but I would appreciate thoughts on anything I've missed. Buckshot06 01:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

It's clearly moving forward now. Some suggestions on the content:

• There seems to be a pretty bizarre choice of focus in some sections; for example, the single episode of Khalkhin Gol gets more coverage than the entire Civil War. I would avoid detailed discussion of battles in this article in any case, and limit the history section to talking about wars, with individual battles mentioned in context, but not getting detailed narratives in their own right; otherwise, this is likely to become unreadably long.
• The discussion of the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War (both of which should be discussed more) should probably be in the first section (with the context of Trotsky, etc.), with the next section covering things from the end of those to the start of WWII and the Winter War.
• More detail on the Winter War would be appropriate, I think.
• More coverage of doctrine is needed; the bulk of it should probably be left for Military doctrine of the Soviet Union, though, as it's a very complex topic in its own right.
• More citations throughout are needed; the entire "The end of the Soviet Union" section is uncited, for example.

Aside from that, some more minor formatting issues:

• {{Infobox Military Unit}}, maybe?
• A separate bibliography-style "References" section would be helpful.
• More staggering of the images along both margins might improve the layout.
• I'd replace {{main}} with {{details}} throughout.
• The headings should be fixed to follow the MoS.

Keep up the great work! Kirill Lokshin 02:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] M3tal H3ad

Looking good, but a few things,

• Years alone should not be wikilinked, i removed some.
• References go after full-stops or commas not in the middle of a sentence. (only saw this once or twice)
• Try to avoid weasel words like 'some critics' just put critics.
• When using references to the web, please use the WP:CITE template. So links are organized better.
• The image will require a source and fair use rationale Wikipedia:Image_description_page#Fair_use_rationale
• Years with dates should be wikilinked example, December 25, 1991.

Otherwise it looks good to me, Goodwork M3tal H3ad 02:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nick Dowling

As noted by Kiril, this article is definitely heading in the right direction. My suggestions are:

• I'm not sure about the value of the 'Weapons and equipment' section. As the Red Army must have fields hundreds of different items of weaponry over its history it's not feasible to cover even the most important bits of hardware in any detail. If this section is retained I'd suggest that it be limited to discussing the underlying philosophies behind the Red Army's weaponry (eg, the preference for mass producing of indifferent tanks rather than building smaller numbers of high quality tanks, etc)
• Coverage of the Red Army's combat potential during the Cold War would be useful and interesting. Given the poor military performance of the USSR's sattelite states, coverage of how the Red Army would have performed using the same weapons and tactics would be really valuable.
• Much of the material in the history section isn't really relevant to the Red Army. For example, the background to the German invasion in 1941 would fit better in an article on the military history of the Eastern Front. A discussion of the Red Army's capabilities over time would be more useful than the current material of the USSR's military history.
• I'm not sure if this is possible, but some graphs showing the size of the Red Army could be a really powerful way of illustrating its sheer size
• More citations are needed. I've added citation flags to some assertions which, while doubtlessly correct, require a source. --Nick Dowling 05:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Planemo

The article looks very unbalanced and lacks any structure.

• Needs more words about ranks and uniforms.
• Needs more words about army branches (especially, tanks, aviation, communications).
• Needs more words about weapons used.
• Needs a section about decorations.
• Needs a short review of notable battle commanders.
• Afghanistan war does not belong here since there was no Red Army at that time (it was Soviet Army). If the coverage of the article extended to this period, then need info about missle forces, modern equipment etc. I suggest to make two articles:one for Red Army (Civil War, pre-WWII campangns and WWII) and one for Soviet Army (Cold War, Afghanistan and Warsaw pact).
• The USSR is generally considered to enter the WWII 22 June, 1941, so Polish campaign should be separated from the WWII section.

--Planemo 00:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how meaningful a split of the article at 1946 would be. While the term "Red Army" was, admittedly, abandoned (at least in official usage), it remained fundamentally the same force regardless of the exact name. Kirill Lokshin 01:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

And present-day Russian army is also fundamentally the same force. Anyway the article will be very long if to combine the both and there is little in common between Red Army in 1918 and Soviet Army in 1985. We also need a large section for WWII in this article I feel, so it will be only fair to split it in two. The aims, doctrine and strategy of the army also were different before the Cold War and after it srtarted. Otherwise the article should be renamed anyway.--Planemo 18:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Joint Security Area

I think the article now has a good start, with appropriate separation of data into proper categories. However, I know there is a lot more information out there that hopefully others can find or share. wbfergus 19:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• I think I've taken care of most of the points above. Thanks for the feedback guys! There are a couple more areas that need a bit more work though:

The section on buildings needs a lot more work.

Still need to improve the picture flow.

Any other ideas/suggestions?

wbfergus 15:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Visviva

Impressive work! Couple o' thoughts:

• A lead section should summarize the article in such a way that it could stand on its own (see WP:LEAD). As written, the lead section could stand on its own quite well, but it doesn't really summarize the article; the main body of the article currently expounds in great detail on the various operations and incidents in the JSA, but these are scarcely mentioned in the lead. This might best be addressed by adding sections to the body of the article which would expand on the topics raised in the lead (such the JSA's legal and diplomatic status).

• There are some NPOV concerns... in particular, the assertion that all incidents in the JSA have been due to KPA provocations really needs an authoritative source. More generally, at present (thanks to your wonderful efforts) this article describes American actions in the JSA in great detail; more information about the North Korean side of things is needed. Although, of course, that information won't be easy to come by...  :-)

• A couple of small things:
  • the relationship between the JSA and Panmunjeom is not clear. I had always been under the impression that the JSA was in/near Panmunjeom, not identical with it. A detailed map would perhaps help to clarify this, if one can be found.
  • People like me who have seen JSA (film) are going to want to know if there are really Swiss and Swedish soldiers there. And if not, were there some in the past? What about Chinese or Soviet soldiers?

Thanks for getting this article off to a great start! -- Visviva 02:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

A good start. Some general comments:

• The lead section should be a summary of the article, not material in its own right. The description should be moved into the body of the article.
• The division into "Major events" and "Incidents" seems artificial and unnecessary, guided more by the availability of operational codenames for one set. I'd combine the two into a single narrative flow, from start to end, broken up into a few sub-sections by period or theme.
• Operational codenames should not be rendered in all caps. That quirk of military typography is deprecated on Wikipedia.
• Section headings ought to be kept short; the dates are almost certainly not needed in them.
• The gallery should be broken apart, with the images—with appropriate captions!—spaced throughout the article.
• Thorough citation is necessary for all the material here.
• The "See also" section should be trimmed by providing the links in appropriate places in the text.
• A map of the JSA would be really nice to have here.

Kirill Lokshin 01:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HMS Dreadnought (1906)

Looking for general suggestions for improvement, specifically for A-class, as I plan to make this my first real improvement project. Carom 16:38, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Buckshot06

I'd review the Featured Article criteria to get an idea of what's most required, but for a start, there's masses of good information that needs in-line citations added. Good luck..! Buckshot06 02:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

The main point to work on, at this juncture, would be the lack of inline citations; they should be liberally applied throughout the article. Aside from that:

• Some images of the actual ship would be very nice.
• The lead should be lengthened.
• There are a number of very short sub-sections in the "Genesis" section that could stand to be lengthened, if there's more material available.

Kirill Lokshin 01:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Harlsbottom

I echo all that Kirill Lokshin has said, however I have two major complaints;

Quite apart from being uncited, the Technology section is not very good, while the entire latter third is useless. Someone with a sadly deficient knowledge of fire control has confused the essentials. If I had the time I would rectify it, but all I can do is point people in the direction of Dreadnought Gunnery at the Battle of Jutland by John Brooks.

I think that for this to be FA all the American (W.S. Sims' ideas) content would have to be cast out - on a subject of (arguably) such magnitude an article on the development of the dreadnought would be a good plan, instead of trying to squeeze everything hodge-podge into this one.

My very short views on the subject. --Harlsbottom 22:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Moore 309

There is much that is good here, but also much that strikes me as subjective in tone, with overuse of terms such as “useless”, “ironically” and “obsolete”. In particular, why is the section on the ship’s war service entitled Decline? The Genesis and Technology sections are verbose and repetitive, as well as being unsourced, while the section on Significance is a stub.

The article also includes an alarming number of factual inaccuracies and unfounded judgements. The following list is not exhaustive.

• ’’Another major innovation was the elimination of longitudinal passageways.’’ This was not an innovation in Dreadnought, having already been introduced in the Lord Nelson class.

• ”A collision during fleet exercises had earlier resulted in the sinking of a battle cruiser”. This unreferenced statement presumably alludes to the loss of HMS Victoria in 1893. Definitely not a battlecruiser.

• ”Then-new American and German dreadnoughts, … mounted all of their guns on centerline”. The German contemporaries of Neptune were the Helgoland class, which used wing turrets, as did the subsequent Kaiser class

• ”Withdrawn from the fleet because her low speed made it impossible to keep station”. Dreadnought was good for 21 knots, the standard speed of the Grand Fleet’s battleships.

• ”Smaller 12 pounder (76 mm) guns were added”. They were fitted from the start.

• ”by 1910 she was obsolete”. Hyperbole. She was considered obsolescent, which is not the same thing, from about 1915.

Obviously this is a key article for the Wikiproject. I haven’t spent a lot of time for Wikipedia lately, but I will try to look at some of these issues in the New Year.

Regards,

John Moore 309 18:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Military operations of the Invasion of Cyprus (1974)

Respectfully, I would like to nominate this article for peer review in order to recieve criticism about how to improve it. The article is currently graded as Start.

(User383739 16:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC))

Thank you all for the input. I have made a number of changes based on these recommendations:

1. The orbat has been placed in context.

2. Pictures and maps have been added.

3. Add introductory context.

User383739

[edit] Kyriakos

Nice start to the article here are some suggestions.

• You might want to put in inline citations.
• There are quite a few short sections.
• The article would benefit from photos or maps.
• There too many lists in my opinion.
• Also the article is quite short. I'm certain that you can find more books or sources on the internet to help you find infomation to improve this article.

I hope you can improve this article in the future. Kyriakos 20:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

I'll mostly second the comments that Kyriakos has already made. Somewhat more generally, the article doesn't seem to have a clear logical structure; it's half order of battle and half narrative, but the two aren't tied together in any way. It needs to be expanded with more detail, obviously, but it also should be restructured into a narrative of the military operations, with the details of the units involved being given in context with the broader picture. Kirill Lokshin 18:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Balloonman

No introduction? First section is simply a list of combatants... with the exception of the fact that somebody invaded cyprus, I had no idea of what this was. Who invaded cyprus? Why? Give me some reason to read the article. I STILL have no idea as to why the Turks invaded, what they hoped to accomplish, or anything. I have no context for this article, which made reading the details of the battle unmeaningful.Balloonman 07:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yannismarou

Many problems here:

• There is no lead.
• I see too many sections, most of which are stubby.
• No inline citations.
• Many listy secions which should turn into prose.

I recommend:

• First check WP:MoS, WP:HOW, WP:LEAD and other helpful links within Wikipedia.
• Then, start rewriting and restructuring your article.
• Finally, ask for a new review.--Yannismarou 11:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of United States Marine Corps aircraft squadrons

I am nominating this list just to make sure that I am on the right track with the direction I am heading with its layout, detail, etc.... I realize that a comprehensive introduction needs to be added and that some units still need descriptions but I wanted to get feedback on the overall look of the list. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks--Looper5920 11:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NeoFreak

Wow. I find you attention to detail amazing and your work tireless. Simply put, you rock. Being a member of the Marine Corps avaiation community if you need help with anything please ask. Also, I believe that VMFA-332 (AW) or VMFA-533 (AW) (or both) are disbanding. I'll try to find out for sure and get some details. NeoFreak 11:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

Very nice. A few suggestions:

• The images should all be the same size; having them contract and expand as one moves down the page is somewhat jarring.
• The default "INSERT IMAGE HERE" image should be replaced with a properly sized transparent one.
• The nicknames should be italicized throughout; they're set in normal type in some sections.
• The headings should be fixed to nest properly; using level 1 headings isn't permitted in articles.
• I'd add comissioning/decommissioning dates to the tables. (The latter, in particular, are a very interesting data point for the inactive units.)
• Rather than having "N/A" for some nicknames, I'd just leave those fields blank.

Other than that, this seems to be a very nice list; are you planning to take it to WP:FLC once you get an introduction written? Kirill Lokshin 18:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

That is the ultimate goal but there is still a ton of work that I want to do on it. Thanks for the input.--Looper5920 19:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Leathernecks

Have you thought of possibly adding lists of members? I realize that will take a lot of time and I am willing to help, just I think it would be best for history to remember the men that sacrificed their time and/or their live in defense of America. Just contact me if there is anything that I can do to help you with this project. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Leathernecks (talk • contribs).

Wikipedia is not a memorial, for what it's worth; such lists will doubtlessly be deleted in short order. Kirill Lokshin 00:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Gythium

I have raised this article from a sttub to a B in a week and I want to see want can be done to improve it. Kyriakos 08:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

Some suggestions, in no particular order:

• We ought to get at least a stub on the Roman-Spartan War, so that we can link to it.
• The second map should be placed on the left margin, to avoid forcing a gap after the infobox.
• The citations really need page numbers (or chapter numbers, perhaps, when no page numbers are available); as it is, giving an entire book doesn't really help a reader find this stuff in it.

More generally, any additional information would help; but I don't know how much is actually available.

(On a more minor point: is this actually known as the "Battle of Gythium"? From the description of the events, it would seem that Siege of Gythium would be a better title for this.) Kirill Lokshin 18:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks Kirill. Kyriakos 20:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

It is known as the BAttle of GYthium. Kyriakos 20:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, ok; if that's the term historical works use, we should follow their lead. :-) Kirill Lokshin 20:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Balloonman

Just a few comments, overall a good article:

• Watch your dates... 195 AD or BC? I know the correct answer, but if the BC isn't there somebody may assume AD.
• Battle section is choppy and citations in this area can be condensed.
• "Aftermath" section could use some word smithing to make a little smoother. Particularly the sentence, "Nabis attack Gythium two or three later only to retreat after being unable to capture the city but in 192 he was assassainated by the Aetolians before he had a chance to attempt another attack on the city." I felt like I had whiplash on that sentence becnause the change was so great---but again, watch the date... Balloonman 08:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] U.S. 8th Armored Division

I've made some fairly substantial edits to this article. I'd love some feedback on what else would help improve this.--Lepeu1999 21:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to both below - exactly the kind of help I was looking for! Starting work on the improvements.--Lepeu1999 15:22, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I've made some substantial additions to this based on the suggestions received. I know there is some clean-up still needed and am working on it, but I would love for this to be reviewed again as I believe it can 'graduate' from 'Start' class.--Lepeu1999 20:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TomStar81

Its a good start, but the article does need work. My sugestions for improvement are:

• Expand the History section. This can be accomplished by:
  • Discussing the events sorrounding the divisions creation and the events surrounding its dissolution.
  • See if you can find anything about the battles that they were engaged in and briefly sum up the 8ths role in them.
  • Lastly, see if any additional information regarding the liberation of Halberstadt-Zwieberge, as that sounds like a major hilight of the 8ths campaign.
• Increase the inline citations.
• Consider adding the smaller number version of the inline citations rather than having external links for them.
• Find more references. Admittedly, this can be hard, but it will be worth it in the long run.
• See if any information on the type of armour they were using is avaliable; while I assume they would use Sherman Tanks, other vehicals could be in there that would be worth mentioning.

Those are my suggestions. I otherwise enjoyed reading the article. Keep up the good work. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

TomStar81 got most of the major points, so here are a few more minor ones:

• The listing of commanders and honors could be better done in the infobox (unless there's a potential for significant material beyond just the lists).
• The lead section should be lengthened (as the article itself grows).
• One very obvious piece of missing information (which could be nicely worked into a table together with the contents of the "Composiion" section: what was the strength (men, tanks, etc.) of the division?
• I would suggest converting all the inline citations to footnotes here, as working with website citations in Harvard-style is rather a pain (in my opinion, anyways).

Kirill Lokshin 02:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cla68

• Just to emphasize a couple of points made by TomStar81, the article needs to connect the division to the "big picture", i.e. why the divsion was formed, how it was planned that they should be involved in WWII in Europe, their role in the overall Alled strategy for prosecuting the war, and their impact on the overall victory in the war. Cla68 10:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you mean more then I've already added to the Stateside section?--Lepeu1999 22:12, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Throughout its history, what operations or organizations was the unit specifically assigned to and why? For example: "In January, 1945 the division was assigned to Bradley's Third Army to support the Allied drive on the Rhine Valley" or "Having decided that additional armor was needed to stop the German offensive in the Battle of the Bulge, Eisenhower assigned the 8th to assault the German positions at..." I know that I'm taking license with history, I'm just using these as hypothetical examples to sho how to relate the unit's history to the larger situation that existed at any given point. Cla68 06:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Balloonman

Here are some thoughts:

• The Honors section at the botton is surpurfulous. You mention the awards in the infobox and don't add anything of meaning here, get rid of it.
• The table of contents is HUGE and frightening.
• Expand intro... why should I read the rest of the article?
• I'm not a big fan on all the bullet points... seems like there are too many. This might be a place to shorten the Table of Contents.

I'll be honest with you, this article really didn't do much for me. It's not that the article is bad, but rather I'm not big into lists and even the prose sections seemed like lists. "German losses were 8 tanks, 1 anti-aircraft gun, 1 anti-tank gun and 1 halftrack. Division losses were an additional 6 tanks destroyed and an 4 disabled as well as heavy personnel casualties. The week's action resulted in the loss of 50% of the personnel the 110th and 111th Panzer-Grenadier Divisions had brought into the Saar-Moselle triangle." It might simply be a matter that I might not be your target audience. The TOC was absolutely frightening. Again, take these comments for what its worth... just one man's opinion and he's probably wrong. Balloonman 08:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• • Another thought I had last night, would there be any way to add tables to the article? Rather than have numerous bullet points use a table and grid to have side by side comparisons of the units? I would encourage this primarily in the sections dealing where you are describing the compliment of the companies.Balloonman 16:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Military of ancient Rome

This is a relatively new article worked on almost exclusively to date by user wansdalstouring and myself. We've taken it a fair way in a short time but could definitely do with input, comments, suggestions for improvements from more editors. - PocklingtonDan 09:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

There may be some dispute on the use of bulleted lists in general. In this article prose has been avoided in order to create a bulleted "organized link list" in the second half of the article. In contrast to the usual non-structured See also section (which in all FAs is neither structured nor prose). While you surely can turn anything into prose, the effect of a fast and easy to understand structure is likely lost and this leads to differing opinions on the topic, so we would apprciate if other editors threw in their two cents whether or not such an approach does help the reader. Wandalstouring 08:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

It's definitely off to a good start. Some broad things to look at:

• Much of the article—particularly the second half—is composed of lists that can fairly reasonably be converted into genuine prose (with {{details}} applied as necessary to break out into sub-articles).
• The is a lot of crowding of diagrams in some sections; this is, perhaps, due to those sections simply needing to be expanded, but gallery-like layouts should probably be avoided in any case.
• More generally, expansion would be useful throughout the article.

I would suggest asking oldwindybear to comment on this review as well, as he knows a lot more about this particular topic than I do. Kirill Lokshin 21:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill for the first peer review. Wandalstouring I have had a lot of toing and froing on exactly how much prose to insert in the "branches" section you refer to that is composed mainly of lists. This stems from our wish for the article to be a hybrid article/extended disambiguation page - since the topic is so huge there are separate articles covering a lot of the terms and areas covered more closely we didn't want to duplicate too much here. However, your comments are taken on board, and if this is the consensus, then we shall certainly expand that section to full prose. Thanks again for your input - PocklingtonDan 22:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely oppose converting these lists in the second half into prose. In this case it would be just like writing shopping lists in prose. Give some arguments why these short list are better off in prose. Wandalstouring 01:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

These sections shouldn't really be lists at all, but brief (one or two paragraphs, or so) summaries of the linked daughter articles. Someone reading this ought to be able to get a halfway decent overview of the material, not just a list of terms; as it is, this is a pretty decent attempt at a glossary, but it doesn't really indicate how all the items come together.

(Indeed, the short length of the lists makes is easier to change them to prose; you basically already have clusters of two or three decent sentences in each section, just broken up by bullets. There's no real gain in leaving them in list form here, as the lists aren't so long or so full of numbers/statistics/terms that they would flow poorly in prose form.) Kirill Lokshin 02:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Consider, for example, one of the sections in the article:

Ship types used

• Trireme
• Quinquereme
• Liburna

This could just as easily be presented as

The Roman navy included several types of ships, such as the trireme, the quinquereme, and the liburna.

What benefit of the first version has been lost in the second? Kirill Lokshin 02:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

(The fundamental point here is that prose is generally easier to read than seemingly unrelated lists of terms. There's no flow from section to section and from item to item in such a list-heavy article; it's quite difficult, when reading through, to understand what the underlying logical structure of the piece is.) Kirill Lokshin 02:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there needs to be a logical structure, but you have also taken the worst example for your point and this clearly needs workout. For example this section makes good use of the bullet form (and from the basic conception the article should follow such a style, while providing limited information to help the reader):

• Roman legion - almost entirely heavy infantry drawn exclusively from Roman citizens of any class

• Cohorts - sub-unit of a Roman legion

• Centuriae - tactical sub-unit of a Cohort

• Equites legionis - Roman legionary cavalry

• Roman auxilia - a formalisation of the earlier arrangement of using allied troops from the Socii and Latini who had received Roman citizenship after the Social War

The advantage of the bullet form like this is giving fast and easy to access links (and descriptions have not yet been added to all of them). This has clear advantages in this aspects to pure prose as all the disambiguation pages show. Wandalstouring 02:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's one way of doing it, but it's still basically a glossary. You could accomplish the same thing with easier-to-follow context, I think; for example, something like:

The Roman legion was almost entirely heavy infantry drawn exclusively from Roman citizens of any class. It was made up of Cohorts, which were further divided into Centuriae. Each legion had an associated Equites legionis, a body of Roman legionary cavalry.
The Roman auxilia was a formalisation of the earlier arrangement of using allied troops from the Socii and Latini who had received Roman citizenship after the Social War.

You have so much material that it folds into sentences pretty naturally; I don't really see the benefit of keeping it in bulleted form, given that you're not presenting some complicated hierarchy that needs graphical cues to be understood. Kirill Lokshin 02:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy to see what the consensus is on this but I do agree with wandalstouring that some of the ease of understanding of the overarching structure may be lost by turning this all into prose. Prose has te disadvantage that you have to read all of it to understand the structure, whereas a branched structure is much more easy to understand at a swift glance. However, I take on board your points and I'm hapy to go along with the majority consensus either way. - PocklingtonDan 07:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

As Dan pointed out there are some flaws to prose which would corrupt essential parts here. Take for example Military of the United States or British Armed Forces both articles present a similar topic with the use of bulleted lists. Notably the See also sections are not structured within and if they get any longer their practical use is quite in question. As for this see it as an organized link list that would normally be in the See also section. Wandalstouring 08:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's basically up to you how you structure the article. Personally, I (and many other editors) prefer prose to lists, so that's what I'll generally advise; but you're obviously free to do something else if you don't think that my suggestion is sensible here. :-) Kirill Lokshin 16:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The use of blockquotes or bulleted lists can be discussed. This is not a structural, but rather an aesthetical question. In presentations bulleted lists seem to me by far more widespread than non-bulleted lists (such as the blockquote given as example below, thx to Kirill Lokshin).

Roman legions These units were almost entirely heavy infantry drawn exclusively from Roman citizens of any class. It was made up of Cohorts, which were further divided into Centuriae. Each legion had an associated Equites legionis, a body of Roman legionary cavalry.
Roman auxilias These units were a formalisation of the earlier arrangement of using allied troops from the Socii and Latini who had received Roman citizenship after the Social War.

So we could discuss this issue, although bullets are nice markings in my opinion. Wandalstouring 20:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, if it's a list, yes; but I was suggesting having the terms actually inside normal text, not given before it as if in a list (i.e. the difference between "Roman legions were..." and "Roman legions These units were...", the latter of which isn't actually a gramatticaly correct sentence). Kirill Lokshin 17:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wandalstouring, all 3 separate peer reviews have all mentioned how they find the bullet points disrupt the flow and reduce readability - that's sufficient consensus for me to think that we need to change it to prose and so I have started to do so. I think the problem is that if you already understand the structure of the Roman military, the bullet points are a handy summation, but if you don't know the topic the bullet points are just a bewildering list of concepts - I now favour rpose for all these sections, making clear how each term is related to every other. We had our viewpoint, but I think it has to be shown not to stand up under scrutiny from readers perhaps unfamiliar with the tpoic. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 17:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

PocklingtonDan I think you hit the nail on the head. A reader familiar with the material would surely prefer the bulleted format or lists of any sort; someone unfamiliar with the topic would want a prose explanation. old windy bear 21:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hal Jespersen

(I am providing some comments because Dan requested that I do so. I actually know virtually nothing about Roman military history, besides what I learned in ninth grade Latin class, so will limit myself entirely to presentation issues, not military content.)

Thanks very much for your time on this Hal, I saw you had done some great in-depth peer reviews on other subjects and I thought your help would be invaluable on this article - I don't think its necessary always for every peerr eview to have in-depth knowledge of the article content. Thanks again - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• If this article is intended to become a Featured Article, it needs to comply with the FA guidelines, which say that you should have three or four paragraphs in the introductory section (the text before the table of contents) that summarize the content of the article.

Never mind FA guidelines, we can always vote and change them. So what argument do you have for more paragraphs in the introductory section? Any suggestions to help the reader to understand something better? More information? How do you want to summarize lists (the main aspect of this article)? Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

We weren't shooting for FA status from this review as such, just hoping to tighten up the article and get some more eyeballs onit - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Chicken and egg problem there as far as the lists are concerned. ;-)

More generally, the lead section should be a concise summary of the entire article; in theory, a reader should be able to read only the introduction and still walk away with the major points that would be covered in more detail in the body of the article. The current version doesn't really get into any of the material, but is more like a newspaper-style lead that tries to draw the reader in; that's not really the best approach in an encyclopedia, I think. Kirill Lokshin 02:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll take a look at trying to summarise article in 3 or 4 paras - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• The headings in section 7.1.1 are much longer than typical Wikipedia headings and make the TOC unwieldy.

Will try to reduce the headers for readability. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• You should find a way of taking the microscopic text that is included in the images and turning it into real text to accompany the strictly visual portions.
• Headings such as "Funding and Expenditures" should follow style guidelines about overuse of capital letters.

No problem, will reduce them. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• In the second table/image, presenting information that consists almost entirely of "unknown" is almost worthless.

There is no such info in wikipedia about things that existed, so there are two possibilities:

a)we do not mention anything as existant as long as there is no wikipedia article (or chapter in a wikipedia article) on it

b)We leave it red and hope for the proper article/chapter in an article to appear one day. I hope it makes little difference to understandability whether something is writen in red or black. I know FA articles should have no red parts, but whoever suggest this rule has not my vote. The usual solution to this problem is delinking red names and soon an article looks perfectly integrated. At least we try to find links that do somehow fill in for the missing articles. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm with wandalstouring here - I don't see any harm in having links to articles that haven't been written yet - they are valid topics/articles that really should have content and users are going to know by their red text that they aren't active yet. If consensus is to remove them, though, then again I'm happy to go along with that - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• The section "Command Structure" should have textual descriptions, rather than relying entirely on the microscopic images for information. Use the images, but make the text the normative information of the article.

Can be improved, but textual description will likely be much longer and to a lesser degree understandable. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• In "Readiness" and elsewhere, use proper punctuation (EM-dashes rather than hyphens).

OK. Will work through it. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• In "Engineering" and elsewhere, eliminate the use of bulleted lists. FAs generally don't allow them.

Nope, I don't mind FA criteria as long as an article is better to read. So are they a pro or a contra to getting information from this article and the way it helps you to find links? Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

They're quite good at finding links (which is why they're used for disambiguation pages), but not so good at actually presenting information. Someone reading this article is not necessarily going to navigate around through all the links just to get an overview of the material; if the links were given within a summary section, they would have rather more context to them, and a reader would be able to get a decent idea of the material without necessarily needing to follow them all. Kirill Lokshin 02:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be a compromise here of annotating the lists to give an idea of the content of the linked articles?? - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• You have some duplications in Notes. By using the name= field in the < ref > tag, you can specify multiple notes that have the same contents, without duplication. If you would like to see an example, a recent article I wrote has a few such instances: Battle of Kelly's Ford.

There are different opinions on this formatting issue and not everybody approves of the suggested style. Both are possible in FA articles. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• You should find some illustrations of soldiers, ships, battles, etc. Featured articles almost always have a number of images (beyond your graphs).

I disagree about the use of images for images sake. For once I want to give an informative article without cozy legionaries. As Dan tried to point out this article has its roots in a disambiguation page and the aim was to maintain such a structure, but give a more informed disambiguation/link list page. Wandalstouring 02:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with wandalstouring that a lot of images I see in articles are attractive filler that don't really provide an awful lot of information. Especially if we just threw in a photo of a modern recreation of a legionary soldier from the early empire, it just perpetuates myths of uniformity across time and unit types etc and isn't very helpful. If we did insert images of soldiers or ships, for instance, then to my mind it would only be worth doing so in both cases if it showed the historical changes and variations over time in a series of images, for example.

Good luck, Hal Jespersen 23:00, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the review, you've given us a lot to think (and argue!) about here. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 08:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I had no idea my simple formatting suggestions would prove to be so controversial. I was making the assumption that you would eventually seek featured article status, because that is what most of the peer reviews I have seen are attempting to set up. If you are not seeking such approval, some of my comments are irrelevant. Certainly, if your goal is primarily to provide a series of bulleted pointers to other articles with little other added value, you will not have to worry about featured article status. Removing from my watchlist now... Hal Jespersen 16:10, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

We will work on FA, but the rules are not set in stone. So if we do get a good article by violating some of them it might be worth it. Wandalstouring 20:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yannismarou

Although I'm not a specialist in the Roman history, I give this article a review because I was asked to and because it is really an important article, and I see that its editors (an interesting British-German co-operation!) are really determined to improve it. I'm sorry if I repeat things other reviewers said, but I did not read their reviews in detail. These are my remarks:

• I see somebody expanded the lead. Well done! Because it was too short. You can expand it even more if you wish to (by adding one more paragraph).
• "(for the military of the East Roman Empire after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, see Byzantine military)". I don't like where this parenthesis is placed. Wouldn't be better to place it befor the lead in italics, like that:

For the military of the East Roman Empire after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, see Byzantine military

• "In the late Imperial period, while equipment quality decreased, the military's numbers were significantly increased to cover the borders and suppress unrest. The circumstances of the Empire had changed; the Western Roman Empire now relied heavily on foederati units of mostly Germanic tribes living within the borders, who fought in the name of Rome during the Migration Period." I want to understand the syllogism of the editor. Do you mean that "the military's numbers were significantly increased", because the "The circumstances of the Empire had changed" and "the Western Roman Empire now relied heavily on foederati units of mostly Germanic tribes living within the borders, who fought in the name of Rome during the Migration Period". If yes OK. If not, I'd suggest rephrasing of the last period, in order to be clear that this is another independent topic, another idea not necessarily related to the previous period.
• Don't over-wikilink the article. For instance, Roman army or Roman Republic are linked more than once.
• "It is not thought that they constituted a significant proportion of troops even amongst the federated troops of the late empire." Citation? "It is not thought" without citation is a bit weasel.
• "See also: Crisis of the Third Century" I think the seealsos is better to go straight after the heading; not in the middle of a section.

*"Several additional factors bloated the military expenditure of the Roman Empire:

   * Substantial rewards were paid for the demeanor of "barbarian" chieftains in the form of negotiated subsidies and for the provision of allied troops[11]
   * The military boosted its numbers, possibly by one third in a single century[12]
   * The military increasingly relied on a higher ratio of cavalry units in the late Empire, which were many times more expensive to maintain than infantry units.[13]"

One of the many listy parts of this article. Why don't you make a nice paragraph here without bullets?

Easier to read, than a paragraph in this case. But we have been discussing possibly differnt structures, although your example is best suited for a bulleted list to make a limited number of points. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• "Raubwirtschaft". I think the German term is redundant in an English article. Link to article Raubwirtschaft with just the English term.
• The images in "Funding and expenditures" and the next section are bigger than the text margin. I don't think this is nice layout and I believe that it needs fixing.

Smaller images would be of little valuze. Currently this section is mainly focused on the late Empire, so a text expansion is possible. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• "Command Structure" is uncited.
• "Culture" is obviously stubby.
• "On the other hand, this also could mean the payment of immense subsidies to foreign powers[22] and opened the possibility of extortion in case military means were insufficient." Try to have the citations at the end of the sentence. Place it in the middle only if you regard it as absolutely necessary. See the paradox in this sentence: it gives the impression that only half of it has a verifiable citation, while the rest of it is uncited!
• The first paragraph of "Sustainability" needs referencing.
• "Forces were routinely supplied via fixed supply chains, although Roman armies in enemy territory would often supplement or replace this with foraging for food and the forging and repair of their own weaponry and tools." Another uncited sentence, which includes historical assessments presented as facts.
• "Engineering" is stubby and poorly written. Just a reference to Heather and three bullets are not enough to justify the existence of a section.

Sure, it has not yet been expanded, needs input. Greetings to oldwindybear. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• I see again many Wikilinks of the same article, e.g. Roman Navy.
• "What is generally agreed on is that there was a site of habitation at Rome, if not during the Bronze Age Terramare culture then certainly during the Iron Age Villanovan culture that succeeded it." "Certainly" is a strong word and needs at least a citation to support it.
• "Archeology from the site argues against the traditional apocryphal tale of seven Roman kings during this period." Archeology "argues" via whom? Again verifiable sources should be provided.
• In many parts the article is poorly written and there are many typos. The over-wikifation is just an example. See also this sentence: "As with most of the villages in the region, the [[Romans] warred". Somebody wanted to wikilink "Romans" (again?!!!), but did a typo. But nobody saw this typo to correct it! This typo is now fixed along with another wrong red link. But be careful with these minor things! They give the wrong impression about the level of your effort!
• "By the 7th century BC, Etruscan civilization was dominant in the region. As with most of the villages in the region, the Romans warred against the Etruscans and by the close of the 7th century the Etruscans conquered Rome and established a military dictatorship or kingdom." Look again what I mean. In this shord paragraph "Etruscan" are wikilinked 2 times and 1 more in the lead→2+1=3!!! By the way, Etruscan leads to a disambiguation page. This is not a proper link.
• "Later Roman historians tell us that he reformed the army as a result of his transplanting onto the army the structure derived for civil life from his conducting the first Roman census." Which historians? You don't cite anyone. Weasel words!
• I don't understand these bullets at the end of "Military establishment of the Roman kingdom". Why isn't there any coherence with the previous part of the sentence or any introductory sentence before the bullets?

There was a very strong and negative echo on all the use of bullets. Someone is half through a rewrite. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• The same and bigger problem with "Military establishment of the Roman Republic". It is difficult for me to follow the article in these sections. These bullets harm the article. Why isn't there a proper prose. In these sections the article has a really bad flow. It reads really bad! Obviously, I disagree that these bullets are better for the understanding of these sections. They are not! It is your choice, but, as far as I'm concerned, I've a great problem to understand these parts of the article and, therefore, I'm discouraged to continue reading it. "The ease of understanding of the overarching structure" will not be lost, because (for me as a reader) there is no ease right now!
• The same with the next sections until "Roman navy". I strongly recommend prose in these sections and bullets only where it is absolutely necessary. And when you use bullets, the flow of the prose must not be interrupted as it is now.
• The three sub-sections of the "Roman navy" are all listy. I don't know with GAC, but in FAC, if you go with these listy sections, I'm afraid you'll be sent back for another peer-review.

While information is very poor in wikipedia this was the least possible. Naturally it gets expanded. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• "For the military of the East Roman Empire after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, see Byzantine military" So you treat the military of the East Roman Empire before the Fall of the Western Roman Empire? Then why I did not see this topic developed and analysed? How were the Western and the Eastern army organized after the division of the Empire? Similarities? Differences? Reprocussions of the military division for both sides?
• I think that your primary sources mentioned in Notes deserve also mentioning in "Bibliography" ("References" is a better title for me). Why only Livy is there? Tacitus? Polybius? What about them. And in my article I prefer to divide my references in primary and secondary sources, but it is up to you.
• And something else: The diagrams and the maps are really nice and congratulations to you for this work, but such a long and important article should have more pictures and not only diagrams and maps. Maybe a statue of a Roman soldier or a painting depicting an ancient Roman battle. Things like that. It is not just "picture for the picture". No! Pictures make an article look better! And encourage the reader to go and read it. A picture catches the eye of the reader and makes the whole layout of the article more pleasant, interesting and nice. This is my philosophy and I think that this is the philosophy of most encyclopedias!

Not mine. We will possibly put a balanced view of pictures to avoid encouraging prejudices. I have been negotiating for months to release several accurate pictures of different periods. But we do it right or not at all. There shouldn't be another Hollywood-Roman look-alike contest or cozy 18th/19th century paintings that happened to be on commons. Wandalstouring 17:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree strongly with this - that we either put in worthwhile pictures that add content or not at all - PocklingtonDan 18:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

As a principle, I also agree. The pictures must serve the article and not vice versa.--Yannismarou 19:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

In general, the article is informative and with good maps and diagrams. But it needs better prose and more coherent article flow, more pictures serving the article, some clean-up in some sections, expansion or/and citing in other sections. I have also some reservations about the coherency of the whole structure of the article, but we could see that after the prose is improved and the article reads better. Continue with the good job!--Yannismarou 14:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that's one heck of a review - thanks enormously for all your effort on this. It will take some time but I will start to look at each of the issues you raised. Thanks again, very much appreciated - PocklingtonDan 15:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've run through the article and made several changes based on your recommendations. I shall work going forwads on improving the readability of the article, adding more pictures (although only where I feel they add something) and trying to expand some of the stub sections. - PocklingtonDan 17:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

While you used the critized bullets here to make your different points of arguments clearer, would it be possible to give short headers to different names in this style (List of ethnic slurs)?

Furthermore there is the suggested blockquote style (above by Kirill and modification by me). Would any of these solution be acceptable by FA standards? This way it is possible to keep the core idea for the use of bulleted lists uncorrupted: quick information access

For the more casual reader there is also a longer and detailed textual explenation offered. I hope to serve this way green as well as grey readers on the topic. Wandalstouring 20:37, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wandalstouring, I'm not sure why you're still pushing this - the consensus clearly seems to be that prose is far easier to follow for a reader unfamiliar with the subject - the bullet structure of that article originated with myself (see edit history) and was only used to present a hierarchy of levels when we were deciding the superstructure of the various sections. A list is only useful if someone is already familiar with one of the terms and looking up what the term means (such as in the article you gave as an example). For the purposes of an encyclopedic article on a topic such as the Roman military, the majority of readers have been shown to prefer prose. I don't understand your resistance to this - I appreciate that it doesn't look as neatly hierarchical to you and me, but an article's clarity should focus on its readers, not its editors. Can we drop this issue as resolved? PocklingtonDan 20:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Layout is not writing style. I argue about the layout, not the use of ellipsis or prose. Wandalstouring 21:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, one minor point that seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the line (probably due to me not being clear enough about what I was suggesting): the blockquote formatting is something I used in the peer review to indicate quotes from the article. If you have the same material in the article, you can take off the blockquote tags; they're meant for quotes, and don't really do anything useful here except for adding an extra level of indentation. Kirill Lokshin 21:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Got it. Restructured to List of ethnic slurs style. Wandalstouring 21:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Caesar's invasions of Britain

As part of its A / GA nomination, someone suggested it needed a peer review, so here it is. User|Neddyseagoon 22:27, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

It's not a bad article, per se, but it has some major issues:

• The use of exclusively primary sources for a topic of this magnitude is somewhat worrying, particularly given that Caesar was not exactly the most impartial of narrators. Are there no secondary works on this?

Somewhere, trying to find them! Frere's Britannia, Salway's Roman Britain, that kind of thing. User|Neddyseagoon 23:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• The evaluations of the invasions' success or failure are most certainly something that needs to be sourced to the historians making them; making such judgements based only on primary sources is basically original research.

See previous comment on secondary sources.

• There are a number of very short sections and paragraphs that could be better integrated into the surrounding prose. The "Discoveries about Britain" section, in particular, is little more than a series of extended quotes strung together with very little additional explanation or commentary.
• The popular culture section does not seem to contain anything particularly notable, and might be better off being eliminated entirely, or worked into a footnote.

Probably something could be dug out about British reactions to Caesar's invasion, in the say, Renaissance period onwards, how it integrates into Geoffrey of Monmouth etc., to bolster / save this section. User|Neddyseagoon 23:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Nicknack 009 is doing some good work on this issue. User|Neddyseagoon 13:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• The infobox should give (possibly vague) numbers for the strength of the opposing sides, or simply put "Unknown"; a list of types of troops with no indication of number isn't particularly useful.

Looking for - again, the only source for numbers is Caesar - I've multiplied the number of legions by the numbers in a legion, then added 'unknown numbers of cavalry forces'. User|Neddyseagoon 23:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd actually move the Briton numbers up from the footnote into the box itself. Kirill Lokshin 13:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

More generally, I would suggest abandoning the "Discoveries about Britain" section unless significant secondary material on this topic per se can be located, and instead working some of the points into a broader "Historiography" section. The question of how Caesar presented these invasions in his accounts, and how other contemporaries and later historians did the same, is probably something that can be discussed at some length. Kirill Lokshin 22:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Stuff could be added from the archaeology of Iron Age Britain, seeing how it reflects on Caesar's observations. And then keep it under the 'Discoveries' title, and add a level 2 section on Historiography, on Caesar's self-presentation etc. (though might repeat stuff in de Bello Gallico), including a level 3 section 'the invasion in other sources' (eg Dio, Tacitus)User|Neddyseagoon 23:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

That would probably work, so long as sources are available to support everything. Kirill Lokshin 13:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Mais oui! User|Neddyseagoon 14:26, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Way too many primary sources, especially given Caesar's tendency to self promote.old windy bear 21:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd eliminate the popular culture section,

What, even though it's been boosted up into a bigger section? Neddyseagoon - talk 14:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

and OldWindyBear is right - not enough balance of ancient sources with modern views.

Yes, that does need some compensation - needs a full rewrite of the main sections in that respect. Neddyseagoon - talk 14:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Any British sources?

Buckshot06 01:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

As in ancient British? Prehistoric Britain was an oral-history society, rather than a written-history/literate one. For secondary ones by British authors, see higher up in the discussion. Neddyseagoon - talk 14:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Union Army Balloon Corps

I'm very fond of this article but have not been much involved in development. Page creator Magi Media has put some good thought and a heap of time into this important and intriguing subject. With his support, I've asked for this peer review, so we can get some eyes to help this along to the next phase (A-Class or GA status). For my part, I think the article could use a References section at the end, to collect important reading and better support the inline references recently added. I think the layout could use a tiny bit of tweaking. BusterD 23:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

Quite nice, overall. Some suggestions:

• {{Infobox Military Unit}} could be used on this.

Sorry, but that box is useless. Nothing works!--Magi Media 06:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there some particular problem with using it that you've run into? Kirill Lokshin 09:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• The article seems to begin in media res; the first section deals with the selection of the "Chief Aeronaut" without an explanation of what this position was and whence it had originated being provided. A section of background would probably be useful here.
• Headings need to be cleaned up, per the MoS; in particular, the use of a leading "the" should be avoided, as should linked terms (which should instead be given below the heading via {{details}}).
• Dates should be linked to allow date formatting preferences to work correctly.
• The rump "See also" section should be eliminated; the link isn't a difficult one to work into the text at some point.
• I would recommend not using "Ibid." in the notes; if the order is later changed, it can become extremely difficult to catch any resulting incorrect back-references.
• Footnote numbers should be placed after punctuation.

More generally, a few rounds of copyediting to weed out any remaining formatting and wording issues are probably a good idea. Kirill Lokshin 02:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hal Jespersen

Here are some procedural comments on an article that is otherwise very good. I will expand upon Kirill's comments.

• You should avoid links to external URLs that do not have a label; in other words, a link surrounded by [ ] single brackets that winds up being displayed as a number. There are two reasons for this: it is a moderate disservice to the reader to not know a brief description of what he is clicking on; in an article with numeric footnotes, these numeric external links are confusing, even though they appear in a slightly different type treatment.
• You should take care to get the correct ranks for generals, using titles such as Major General where appropriate. Although it is common practice in verbal references to abbreviate their titles simply as "General", we attempt to use a more formal style of writing in Wikipedia.
• I recently came upon a new template, {{reflist}}, which produces a superior display of Notes when you have a long list such as you do here. See an example in Battle of Antietam.
• Naval ships are usually listed with their names in italics. I would recommend you use that same convention for airships throughout.
• In your third paragraph, you list a number of battle names. You should link those to the Wikipedia articles on those battles and I would recommend that you use the Wikipedia names for the battles (for instance, Antietam instead of Sharpsburg), particularly since this article takes a Union viewpoint. (I sometimes do not quarrel with people who use the traditional Southern names in, say, a biography of a Confederate general.)
• After the section "The troubled Balloon Corps," it would be nice to have a paragraph about the future of this type of aviation, rather than implying that it ceased to exist. For instance, I believe the U.S. Army Signal Corps had responsibility for observation balloons for a time; I could be wrong. In any event, this will give you an opportunity to point to other articles in Wikipedia regarding military ballooning.

Hal Jespersen 19:50, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] oldwindybear

I think more citation is called for, but the biggest issue for me is something Hal brought up - what happened to Observation Ballons in the military after 1863? If you believe this article, the US Military never again had anything to do with signal (or any other type) ballons. This article strongly requires at least a paragraph telling us what the future held after the end of the Ballon Corps during the Civil War. old windy bear 15:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

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