Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Defence of Sihang Warehouse

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[edit] Defense of Sihang Warehouse

OK first of all I've been working my butt off today to do this one. 300PM - 1230AM with dinner, supper and a haircut in between. (There goes my flowy locks!) Anyway, I've been meaning to do this one for a long time, and finally I've summoned up the resolve to completely overhaul it. Several potential problems I'm aware of:

1. Chronological narrative style (day-by-day sections) might not be suitable for Wikipedia. Thoughts?
2. Lacks references. I'm working on this, but to be honest finding published sources for these kinds of articles is not easy.
3. Too long? The individual days sections are pretty long. I can comprehend everything of course, but I'm not sure others can.
4. Lack of internal links. I wasn't paying much attention to this while writing, and I'm not keen on adding these at 1230AM... Still have to go to church tomorrow morning.
5. Possible POV? I am (understandably, I'm sure you'd all agree) quite proud of this, so I might have let a few POVs slip through. I try my best though. Of course, I don't think there actually is a Japanese POV on this, perhaps except that it "never happened" and is "communist propaganda"... *rolleyes*

-- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 07:38, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

Some comments:

• Chronological narrative style is not inappropriate per se, but you may want to look at a different sectioning if (in the final article) the sections are of significantly different size. Single-paragraph sections, in particular, should probably be avoided.
• Once you can get some citeable print references, a decent number of footnotes would be a nice thing to have.
• The lack of internal links can easily be fixed. It's a particular problem, though, when this causes ambiguous naming. For example, "At 9PM Yang concluded that there would be no more Japanese attacks" is somewhat confusing, initially, since the closest such name is Yang Huimin (rather than Yang Ruifu).
• POV: not really a problem here, except for a few points where an implicit Chinese viewpoint is assumed (e.g "The location of the warehouse turned out to be a fortunate one").

Overall, it reads as a very nice article. The main things missing are the references and some copyediting to eliminate the occasional problems with sentence structure. Kirill Lokshin 02:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill for your prompt feedback.

• I'll either stuff more stuff about the negotiations into the 31 Oct heading, or I'll merge it with 30 Oct, thanks for the heads-up.
• I'll get some inline references once I polish up the article.
• I'm aware of this problem, it's one that plagues China-related articles. Perhaps I should add "Major Yang" for all mentions of Yang Ruifu, and then Yang Huimin's full name whenever she is mentioned.
• Noted. I'll read through the article once I'm done with the final bits of the article to spot POV like this. But because of the way my brain is rigged to think (or is it the way I rigged my brain to think) it might not be easy... ;/

Thanks again for the comments. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 06:02, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I cleaned up the article, disambiguated several terms, added some new content, removed some misc. nn information and added inline citations. How does it look like now? -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 23:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Very nice! A few more suggestions you might want to consider:

• The "Media Embellishment" section is very short. Maybe merging it with the "Aftermath" or "Legacy" sections would be beneficial?
• The same for the "Equipment" section, but I'm not sure if there's a good place to merge that to.
• The "Order of battle" and "Equipment" sections should include the Japanese forces as well.
• Possibly lengthen the introduction to two or three paragraphs?
• The "1937" in the section titles is implicit; is there any particular reason for including it?
• Everything in the "See also" section seems to be linked in the main text, so it can probably be removed.

Seems to be an excellent article otherwise, but this isn't really my area of specialty, so I can't really comment on whether there are any more interesting details that should be included. Kirill Lokshin 00:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I *think* this version should be FAC-worthy...[1]

• Merged "Media Embellishment" into "Aftermath" and "Legacy"
• Merged orbat and "Equipment" sections, subsections NRA and IJA.
• Added some barebone IJA material, but I'm mainly getting my published sources from the Chinese participants, so *might* be a bit lacking...
• Expanded lead section. I'm not especially good with introductions and conclusions, but I think it'll do.
• My bad here. I assumed that for auto-date formatting it must be in the format [[1937-10-26]], but I forgot that 26 October is also auto-formatted. Changed. Should I be having internal links in section headers? WP:MOS says no, but there is no way to retain the auto-formatting without using links.
• Removed as suggested.

Does anyone else have suggestions to make? I'd like to get a few more opinions before I *hopefully* submit it for FAC... -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 02:35, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BlueShirts

I think using American spelling here is more appropriate, for no reason other than consistency with other sino-japanese war articles. BlueShirts 23:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I did some copy-edit and I find the article well-written in terms of presenting what happened and the progression of combat. However, I find some parts a bit "anecdotal," like Xie Jinyuan picking off the enemy from the rooftop and the ladder part. The article also does not delve much into Chiang's insistence that the heroes be left there a bit more since the Nine Powers Treaty was in session in Brussels. But I think that stuff can go into the greater conflcit of Shanghai 1937. Just on its own, the Sihang Warehouse article is really good and is FA material. BlueShirts 00:52, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the copyedits.

• RE American spelling - I don't really care, but please have some consideration for me as I am in an American high skool and need a place to write proper English :D
• RE anecdotal events - I believe that since this article already goes into a depth that is not typical for battle articles (day-by-day chronology, battalion-sized operation), we can include such anecdotal pieces. I think we can afford to, this lasting just 4-5 days, involving a small area. Besides it is sufficiently sourced and the relevant events have sources that document them.
• RE Nine-Power Treaty - That was signed in 1922... The Brussels Conference did not involve the same participants. Japan (signatory to Nine-Power Treaty) was invited but declined to participate. Germany (not signatory) was invited but declined. Soviet Union (not signatory) was invited and participated.

-- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 03:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll check this weekend, but I remember that it was the Nine Powers Treaty that was in session, not the League of Nations. BlueShirts 20:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, yes it was the Nine-Powers Treaty conference. Zhang Boting's (張柏亭, chief of staff of the 88th Division) memoir has this error. The League of Nations conference adjourned on October 6th, before the 524th Regiment was assigned to make the death-stand. The Nine POwers Treaty conference started on November 3rd. The 524th's mission was to take the Shanghai battle "right into the conference room." BlueShirts 06:40, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, I guess the other works on the battle of Shanghai carried over his error, then. Hmm. Got a source? Would be very reassuring. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 22:55, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

It's from this book, originally a doctoral thesis, printed by the National Taiwan University. I don't have it with me now so I can't come up with the exact page number. BlueShirts 23:19, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, that's alright. If you get the chance please note down the page number and cite it, then we can change the relevant parts in the article. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 23:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)