Wikipedia:Featured article review/Colditz Castle/archive1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Colditz Castle

[edit] Review commentary

Additional notifications to Germany, Architecture, and Geography. Sandy (Talk) 17:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
FAC nominator User:Alkivar notified [1], as well as two projects: WikiProject Military history/German military history task force and WikiProject Military history/World War II task force

Not exactly sure what to do with this one. It was recently split in two, with parts of it going to Colditz and most of it going to Oflag IV-C. Besides that, both articles have numerous issues:

  • References—one inline citation in the Oflag article, and none in the Colditz article.
  • Formatting—listy, unorganized image overload, and other more minor issues (failure to use  , unusual use of bold, etc.)
  • Prose—could be worse, but not brilliant either—lots of passive voice and a few clumsy constructions:
Officers also studied languages, learning from each other, and told stories. Most popular of these stories were the embellished retelling of BBC broadcasts by Jim Rogers. Since mail was regularly screened by censors, and the German newspapers received by prisoners contained much Nazi propaganda, the only reliable information prisoners could obtain on the progress of the war in Europe was through BBC broadcasts received via one of two radios which were secreted in the castle. These radios were smuggled in by French prisoner Frédérick Guigues and named "Arthur 1" and "Arthur 2". The first radio was quickly discovered due to a mole, but the second would remain secreted away until Guigues returned and removed it during a tour of the castle in 1965. The radio hide would not be permanently exposed until 1992 during repairs to the roof.

So we're looking at 1a, 1c, and 2. --Spangineerws (háblame) 16:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Spangineer, because of the split in the article, I'm not able to find an article talk page notification of the FAR ??? Sandy (Talk) 17:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Another issue: neither of the split articles is currently displaying the featured star ?? Sandy (Talk) 17:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
This is quite a mess: it's still listed at WP:FA as Colditz Castle, although that is now a disambiguation. Sandy (Talk) 17:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
The notification of the FAR is at Talk:Colditz Castle, which AFAICT didn't get affected by the split and is now technically the talk page of a disambig page. Neither of the new articles should display the featured star because neither of them has undergone the FA process. I'd say Colditz Castle should be immediately defeatured since the article that was featured no longer exists. Once the issues Spngineer brought up have been addressed, either or both of the new articles can be relisted as an FAC and go through the FA process afresh. —Angr 17:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Confusing, indeed: does anyone think we should also place the FAR notification on the two (disambiguation) articles? Have never encountered this situation ... Sandy (Talk) 19:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

At first glance, I don't really think the split was a good idea, because it disrupts the GFDL history of edits. Even though each edit is still at the disambig article, I think for something that was an FA at a point the history needs to be documented well so as to credit the contributors. Maybe if two articles is the right idea, some kind of article move / history merge needs to happen. As for the shape of the article just before the split, it could use inline cites. DVD+ R/W 17:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

  • COMMENT FROM ORIGINAL FA WRITER this article is now a pathetic mess. I move for it to be unsplit back into 1 primary article at Colditz Castle. This is the second time one of my FA's got butchered in a split. Graffiti my other FA lost its FA status due to being split and essentially hacked to shreds. Colditz Castle which I put a crapload of effort into does not deserve that fate. All in favor of unsplitting the article please post either a yay or nay below.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 20:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Regardless of how much effort you put into any article, they're still not your articles. I'd think an administrator would know better. Also, I'm not sure what you're talking about with grafitti. The prose is a bit weaker in some places than old versions like [2], but those wouldn't have been featured today either. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Um, first, Alkivar is an administrator, and second, even if he weren't, administrators have more powers and more responsibilities, but do not have more authority than non-admins. —Angr 08:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
No, that was my point. He's an administrator; he should know better than to say things like that. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 13:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment we had this discussed in the military history task force and we agreed not to split it under any circumstances. Wandalstouring 20:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Asking the MilHist guys was going to be my next question, as the split appeared to be based on a two-person consensus, here. If the MilHist guys agreed it should not be split, I agree it should go back to its original, but the question of a lack of citations remains on review. Sandy (Talk) 20:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Note I have reverted the article to its former state. This is not the proper way to split.

The split should be to move info relevant to Oflag IV-C to the article by that name but keep a section in the Colditz Castle article with a

Main article: Oflag IV-C
. Joelito (talk) 21:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • It looks like everything is in the right place now: I'm wondering if Spangineer wants to re-summarize the issues with the current article? Sandy (Talk) 21:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment It still uses subarticle formate, which is something I raised an issue with months ago. Colditz Castle/List of Colditz Castle staff and Colditz Castle/List of Colditz Castle escape attempts needs to be taken up to a main level article and have a decent context-adding intro written. Colditz Castle/Suggested reading needs to be moved to a non-pov title, like List of books about Colditz Castle. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • The last of these should just be merged back into a "Further reading" section in the article; as far as I know, the article length guidelines are interpreted as not including such appendices, so the original reason for splitting it out isn't really applicable at this point. Kirill Lokshin 22:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Also Image:PicOf 4C Colditz.jpg needs a verifiable source, it says it was taken by a GI but it doesn't say how it got from him to wikipedia, so we can't trace it back. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comments. I come up with a prose size of 45KB, which isn't too long compared to some other FAs. I do see a lot of red links to articles that are not likely to ever be written, a serious lack of inline citations, what looks like an External link farm, and very listy article. There's a lot of repetition of "Colditz Castle" in the TOC, which goes against WP:MOS, but I'm not sure how to correct that given its other uses. The TOC can use some fine tuning per WP:MOS, there's alot of "the" in the TOC. Suggested reading is out of place per WP:LAYOUT, and should probably be a See also. Sandy (Talk) 03:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are references (1c), formatting (2), and prose (1a). Marskell 10:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove, issues raised during FAR, and lacking inline citations. Sandy (Talk) 23:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove, no inline citations, some stubby sections etc.--Yannismarou 14:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove per all three concerns I raise above. --Spangineerws (háblame) 02:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove, per Yannismarou.--Aldux 17:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 18:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove, per above. Titoxd(?!?) 19:06, 25 November 2006 (UTC)