Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of the Gebora

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 04:32, 7 December 2007.

[edit] Battle of the Gebora

Self-nom. OK, let's go for it. A shortish article on a short battle during the Peninsular War. [Insert your favourite FAC spiel here.] Carre (talk) 14:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

• Support - excellent article on a small and oft overlooked action of the Peninsula War. I am happy to support it but I do have a couple of points for its improvement.

1. Maybe its just my computer, but the picture of Soult overlaps the text. This may well be my issue not yours, but take a look and make sure there isn't some formatting problem.
2. The dash on Anglo-Portuguese in the final paragraph looks too big, check you have the right one in there (again I may be wrong, it just looks a little odd to me).
3. Finally, and although this is not technically a part of the article, it might be worth providing some more context via short (at least initially) articles on the first two sieges of Badajoz and also on Mendizabal. It might also be worth doing the same for Latour-Maubourg and Briche if you can get hold of the information. The same might be true to a lesser extent of De Espana if he is important enough.

Thats all, good job and well done, a very nice little article.--Jackyd101 (talk) 21:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Jackyd101. The Soult image doesn't cause a problem for me (1024 x 768, Firefox), but I haven't checked with other browsers or resolutions. The dash on Anglo–Portuguese is an endash, which is what's required by MOS I think, since the two are independent (so shouldn't be a hyphen). The 1st and 2nd Badajoz sieges are actually next on my list of articles to write, so in the coming months you should see fully-fledged articles springing into life for those two; that's why I haven't written stubs on them. Latour-Maubourg is probably the most significant of the missing bio articles (his brother has one, and Marie-Charles so far just has a single sentence at the end of that article). De España is probably more important than Briche, I think; I might be able to come up with something for them, but it would only be stubby/start class. Mendizabal is really frustrating - I've searched google and both the Spanish and French wikis for info on him, and can't find much. Even my Peninsular War almanac (Haythornthwaite) doesn't mention him :( Any thoughts/opinions on Digby Smith's The Napoleonic Wars Data Book as a source for these biographical details? I see him referenced every now and again, but haven't seen his work - he might have information not included in the sources I have to hand. Carre (talk) 21:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[Edit] Now checked the Soult image with IE 6 (shudder... I need to go into therapy now), and still no problems. Unfortunately, even Bill Gates doesn't have enough money to make me try IE 7 again! Carre (talk) 22:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

No worries about the image, I was on Firefox, I guess it was just my computer being dopey. Your right about the emdash, I think the guideline might be wrong there because it doesn't look right, but thats not your problem. I have Digby Smith's book, but it isn't very good for biographical details at all. It is essentially a collection of statistics on every land engagement of any size during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. A brilliant resource and fascinating read, but not much use for writing biographies. Don't worry too much, create the articles if and when you can and congratulations on a very nice article, one of a series of excellent articles on this subject you have created.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:02, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Minor thing, is it De España or de España? I've seen it written both ways but its best to be consistant.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:31, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

My sources use "de España", as does the Spanish wikipedia here. I think the only place I used "De" in this article was at the start of a sentence, which is also correct. These sorts of names are always spelled differently in different places in English sources though - you wouldn't believe how many spellings of "la Peña" I found doing the Barrosa one! Carre (talk) 07:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Believe me I know what you mean! Thanks for clarifying that.--Jackyd101 (talk) 08:10, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Pretty good, but you need to fix the first two characters in "Background", which are |}. Sumoeagle179 (talk) 20:10, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

• Urgh, yes - thank's for pointing that out...it was me attempting to 'fix' the image problem Jackyd mentions above. Someone else has commented on it (in the copyedit request), and pointed me at WP:BUNCH for possible solutions. As said above though, I can't see the problem, so was in the dark a bit. Seems that what I did wasn't correct, and I didn't notice the appearance of the "|}"; those come from incorrect usage of {{FixBunching}}. If anyone watching this who sees problems with the Soult image, could you please let me know what screen resolution it's at? I know it's not a Firefox problem, since that's the browser I use, so can only presume it's screen resolution. Thanks for pointing it out to me, anyway - consider those nasty characters gone :) Carre (talk) 15:33, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

*Comment on the Soult image: I found the screen resolution that caused the problem with the image (1280x1024), but the solutions listed at WP:BUNCH just made everything look worse, IMO. Therefore, I've shifted the image to the right. At my lower resolution, it looks OK. At the higher resolution, Soult and La Romana are a touch close together, but it's better than having text obscured. Carre (talk) 16:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC) Think it's fixed properly now. Carre (talk) 17:22, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

• Queries - pretty good article.
  (a)Why are the citations blue-linked? To what do they link?
  (b)Could the Background section be renamed "Context"?
  --Keerllston 21:37, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks and responses: (a) that's to do with the combination of {{harv}} reference templates and the {{citation}} template. Clicking on the blue link in the reference will take you to the full details for the book/web page/journal/whatever the reference cites. (b) Background is the normal section header with MilHist articles. Carre (talk) 11:43, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

• Objection [organization] It needs more efficient organization than the basic.
  I came out of the article not knowing the importance, context, and significance of this specific battle, how do you feel about creating a section called "importance" or "significance" or "context" or all three.
  how do you feel about creating a secton on "armed forces" or "combatants" perhaps including the specific generals/lieutenants/leaders of the sides?
  --Keerllston 15:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

So, let me see, you want a more efficient organisation, but you want more sections?

Probably the only one of your suggestions that strikes a chord is part of context/significance - the Background section explains why Soult was there and what he was aiming to achieve, but I'd agree that a couple of sentences, or possibly a paragraph, is needed to explain why the allies didn't want to let the French take and hold Badajoz. A whole section on that would be a Bad Thing^TM though, since it would only be a para at most. This would address significance too - the only significance beyond what's already in Consequences (the loss of the last body of troops the Spanish army had) is the loss of Badajoz, and although it's explained that the town was lost, it doesn't explain why that wasn't good. Some summary style of why Badajoz was so important would be a Good Thing^TM.

Your suggestion of a section on the "combatants" is called an "Order of battle". For more significant, larger scale, or longer lasting battles I'd agree with you (and have indeed included such details on other articles); in this case, though, I don't agree. The battle was little more than a skirmish, really, and the article already covers who was in command of what. A stubby section specifically for this purpose wouldn't help. Carre 16:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you might be confusing the word "efficient" with "having less" - it doesn't mean that.
I like "Bad Thing^TM" -clever
I'm glad you agree, if only in regards to specific parts, that more summary style would be nice.
--Keerllston 14:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I think "Background" already seems a title that would treat the same thing as the name "Context" - what happens however is that rather than treating the background it instead treats the prelude. Background/Context are different from Prelude.--Keerllston 00:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Support. It's a good article, and about everything is cited. The images are great and information is too. Basketball110 21:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Sumoeagle179 (talk) 02:28, 7 December 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.