Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Arras (1917)

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 15:54, 26 July 2007.

[edit] Battle of Arras (1917)

Been working on this article for some time, it has been listed as Good Article, has passed a WP:MILHIST A-Class review and I think it is now ready for the big time. Any and all comments welcome, I'll do my best to address them speedily. Carom 16:42, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• Two (very) minor issues:
  • For the more myopic among us, could you add a brief thumbnail description to Image:Battle of Arras (1917).jpg where it appears in the "preliminary phase" section?
  • Since Image:Battle of Arras 1917.jpg isn't used to illustrate the publication itself, it'll need a brief Fair Use Rationale on the image description page to remain in the article. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 16:57, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Caption added (by User:Roger Davies). On your second point, I'm no expert on fair use (on Wikipedia or elsewhere), and I'm not sure what would be an appropriate rationale here. The image was in the article when I began work on it - it's not mine, I don't know anything about the provenance, and I'm not wedded to it, so if it has to go, it has to go. Carom 18:25, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

FU rationales are fairly quick to write once you get the hang of them. If you tell me what point in the article the image is supposed to be illustrating, I can probably bodge one up in short order. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 19:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, I think it may be better to ditch the image. It's not free, and I'm not sure that it illustrates anything particularly important. I may be able to dig up some free ones that work just as well, as there seems to be at least one possible image source suggested below... Carom 04:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Switched it for Image:Aftermath Arras.jpg, which has the double benefit of being both public domain and more illustrative of the "Aftermath" section (though not by much) GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 14:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! And thanks for the higher resolution versions of the other images. Much appreciated! Also, shouldn't the old image (the unfree one) now be deleted as an orphaned fair use image? Carom 16:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

• Object — The article still has the same problem mentioned during the PR, namely the lead is not "capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article..." per Wikipedia:Lead_section. It discusses the Western Front strategy, the planning and the aftermath, but not the battle itself. Sections 2, 3 and 4 are skipped completely. The second paragraph of the lead is also not really discussed in the Prelude section. Specifically, the lead discusses the opening moves of the war and the situation as of 1915. To me this means it should be in the article body rather than a stand-alone paragraph in the lead. So I apologize but I just can't support this article for FA. — RJH (talk) 17:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to refactor the lead to address this comment. Hopefully you will let me know whether I succeeded. Carom 21:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Much better, thanks. I've removed my objection. — RJH (talk) 16:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks for the comment, much appreciated. Carom 17:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I was ready to support the article, but I became puzzled by the italicized sentence in the "Battle in the air" section. Is that intended to be a comment? If so, some attribution is probably appropriate. Thanks. The article seems a bit comma-happy in places, but I'm sure that'll get spruced up. Also the use of italics (later in the text) to designate quotations seems a tad peculiar to me, as normally those would be used for internal thoughts. — RJH (talk) 16:00, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I've changed italics, where appropriate, to roman plus quotation marks. --ROGER ^TALK 17:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support — RJH (talk) 14:37, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

• Object. Insufficient density of citations, many sentences and even entire paragraphs have no citations. That said, this applies only to lesser parts of the article, so I hope to change my vote in a few days, after more citations are added.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

About 20 refs have now been added. Our policy has been to reference material that might be challenged, quotes etc. I've probably missed things so please let me know if you see any specific gaps. Thanks, --ROGER ^TALK 19:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I have added a few citation requests, we are getting close :) -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:50, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. --ROGER ^TALK 22:38, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, good job.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  10:37, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment — Some additional pictures might be useful, particularly in the "Prelude" and "First Phase" sections. It's only my personal preference that pictures should be used to break up long stretches of text where possible, so I can understand the article remaining as is. I further understand the difficulty of finding open-use images, but since the event is pre-1923, I'd think it wouldn't be too hard, but I may be wrong. JKBrooks85 13:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I think we've pretty much exhausted the Great War Primary Documents archive with regard to Arras, and I'm not aware of another large-scale online image repository for World War I. Obviously, the National Archives, etc. would (and do) have material, but most of these collections seem to require that you obtain permission to use even the public domain material that the possess, and as I'm not really all that familiar with how copyright law, etc. operate, I've avoided getting involved in trying to secure such permissions (if they're even really necessary). I'd love to have a few more images - I just don't know where to find them. Carom 16:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

You could try the photographic archives at the Imperial War Museum site. Anything labelled as an "Official photograph" will by now be usable under {{PD-BritishGov}}. Just be careful though, as the IWM does stock a number of images from non-governmental sources, which, not having been published in the U.S., won't be usable til the standard Berne Convention dates. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 20:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look at that one. Carom 04:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

And bingo. Some good stuff there - I'll try and upload a few over the weekend. Thanks! Carom 04:20, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I've uploaded a couple of images that I thought appropriate (gleaned from the IWM site, thanks GeeJo), but that's about the extent of my image abilities. If anyone thinks the uploads are too small, or need cleanup, or what have you, I'm not really the person to ask (but I of course welcome any and all assistance of this nature). Carom 04:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support — The additional pictures definitely break up the grey of the text and make it look visually appealing. JKBrooks85 23:22, 23 July 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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.