Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/George B. McClellan

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 16:41, 26 March 2007.

[edit] George B. McClellan

I believe that this passes all criteria. It's extremely well-written, the only problem might be references. I personally think there's enough (at least 1 in every paragraph), but it that's a huge problem I'll add some.--Wizardman 03:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Combine the "Controversial legacy" and "In memoriam" sections into a single "Legacy" section, perhaps? The latter of those two should really be turned into a sentence or two of prose, rather than a bulleted list, as well. Kirill Lokshin 03:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Done.--Wizardman 04:15, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Ok, support. Kirill Lokshin 03:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support- Appears to be well written, indeed. There aren't areas where a citations is absolutely lacking. Dåvid Fuchs ^{(talk / frog blast the vent core!)} 20:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support. It looks very well-written to me.--Yannismarou 15:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose The article is far too long (64kb). I see two major problems:

1. The article overuses quotations. This is an encyclopedia article, and not a full biography. Much of what is said in the quotations can be summarized in the text of the article.
2. Much of the text goes into too much detail. Specifically, much of what is said in the "Peninsula Campaign" section is (or can be) covered at Peninsula Campaign. Likewise with "Maryland Campaign and the Battle of Antietam"/Battle of Antietam.

That being said, I think the article fails to meet Featured article criteria #4, and I cannot support its promotion. Caknuck 16:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Just a remark I regard as necessary: 64 kb is not long! Many currently promoted FAs are way over 80 and sometimes 90 kbs. Some of them exceeded even 100 kbs without this being a problem. After all, what matters is mainly how long is the prose, and not the whole article. Article with less than 50 kbs prose are usually OK. And I think that this article is OK on this issue. So, there is no reason to shorten the article IMO, since its length is fine. If it was really big, I would suggest WP:SS, but in this case I don't see such a necessity.--Yannismarou 18:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'm well aware that WP:SIZE is a guideline that is often disregarded w/ respect to FA's. Some topics can't be squeezed into 32kb, even with forking. My point is that the article is unnecessarily long to the point of affecting its readability. What sense is there in needlessly duplicating a description of an entire military campaign when a link to the main article (suprisingly not included in the relevant sections until several paragraphs in) would do the job more elegantly? Caknuck 20:38, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

No, WP:LENGTH is not "often disregarded" on FAs, nor should it be. I'm aware of about five FAs that pass the recommended guidelines for readable prose, and those were all hotly debated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:29, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• The link may, indeed, be better placed nearer the top; but there's a limit to how much the material may be further condensed. Keep in mind that this is not aiming to present the entire campaings in question, but only McClellan's (significant) role in them; the articles on the campaigns themselves, meanwhile, are necessarily broader in scope, and would thus be poor replacements for the relevant sections here.
• (The prose size is only about 52 kb, incidentally, which isn't that long for a major figure.) Kirill Lokshin 03:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment 50KB of readable prose is long, but within WP:LENGTH guidelines, so I won't oppose, but hope the article doesn't grow. Please complete the final reference, by including (at least) a publisher and last access date. (McClellan Society website) Samples can be found at WP:CITE/ES. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

  Done.--Wizardman 00:43, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Support. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.