Talk:Kaunas Fortress

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Good article Kaunas Fortress has been listed as one of the Arts good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
An entry from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on February 6, 2007.
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Contents

[edit] Gamma-Gerät

Sorry, I just has to add Big Bertha in parentheses for non-experts in WW I artillery. I would like to see a photograph of the 32 metre memorial in the article. Pustelnik 01:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Failed GA

Hi, I failed this article GA status, but it isn't really all that far off. The three things I believe it needs are a photo or photos of the restored ninth fort (this seems essential for this article), better citation from published works rather than webpages, and a good copyedit by someone whose first language is English. After this I think this article will be easily GA quality. I have raised some specific points below that need addressing in my opinino in addition to the above:

  • "Originally built as a Russian Empire first-class fortress". Empire -> Imperial. Also what does "first-class fortress" mean? Is this an official classification of some kind (if so explain it) or else a casual description of it as being "top notch" in some way. If the latter this needs explaining and/or citing. "First-class" is also archaic language in this use unless official terminology for Russian fortresses.
  • Your introductory paragraph is too short at a single paragraph. It should summarise the entire article including its WWI and WWII action as listed later int he article
  • Your citations are all from (a very few) online sources, and no published works. I don't think this is acceptable in a Good Article - there must be published works on such a historically important fortress I'm sure
  • You mention relatively late in the article that the complex covered 65 square kilometres and was manned by 90,000 soldiers - this gives a staggering sense of its scale and I would include this information in your intrductory paragraph
  • "a Russian crew withstood attempts to breach the defensive perimeter several times" - the word crew is odd here, being used for tanks and ships but not as far as I know for fortresses.

Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 10:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

  • "The other forts await their preservation" - I think that you probably mean "restoration" here
  • If the Ninth Fort is restored it seems essential to have a photo of it in the article surely?
    • Hello, I tweaked this article, made infobox anded some other material. Now I will answer your concerns more specifically:
    • First class is the official classification, if it sounds better it can be wrote and as "I class". There were 5 I class fortresses in Empire, this one the biggest one.
    • Introductory paragraph expanded.
    • 65 square kilometres added in the lead
    • "crew" changed into garrison
    • "preservation/conservation" and "restoration" is the different categories.
    • added new photos
    • regarding published materials vs websites, of course if I had enough comprehensive published materials I would use them more, but there is limited amount of them (not even talking about English), however now included more published material. In other hand quite many GA articled used only web pages, such as these Architecture of Houston; Chana School; Mark Twain House etc.
    • I hope these adjustments solves your expressed problems. If you have more suggestion please, list them. M.K. 12:30, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi
  • Several of the changes you have made are great and have really improved the article. however there are still a couple of relatively minor things i would like to see changed:
  • If "first class" is an official classification, it isn't clear in the article - I would change "Originally built as a Russian Empire first-class fortress, its" to "It was originally built as a Russian imperial fortress, ranking as a 'first-class' fortress under the official classiciations. Its" and wikilink "first class" if possible to an article on Russian fortress classifications if possible, otherwise there is no reference to exactly what is meant by first class.
  • The only other problem still is the quality of writing is a little patchy, which is understandable since English may nt be your first language - I will go through and do some copyediting myself to try and improve some of this - if you could fsort out the "first class" explanation as above then the article should be good to go for GA status.
Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:08, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I see you resolved remaining problems and made copy edit, thank you very much! M.K. 14:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
No problem, good luck with your renomination, I am confident you will pass GA status on your renomination review. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Renomination

Hello, I'm reviewing this article for renomination as a GA article. I'll leave comments as I read the article so you'll know what I was thinking as I read this. Here goes...

  • Ok, first thing, just about right off the bat, there's no conversion from square kilometres. I'll add that in since it's kinda minor, just keep that in mind.
  • Introduction is good.
  • "Due to its strategic location near the confluence of two rivers" - which rivers? I'm left wondering that. They may not have articles of their own, but since they play an important role in the strategic value of the area, I do suggest you add in the names.
  • Background section good otherwise.
  • Quick note before I forget: Due to the subject, this should be written in European spelling (i.e., metre instead of meter, which I did fix earlier). I did read the comments above, so it sounds as though the person who nominated this both times is European (sorry if mistaken), so it probably won't be an issue right now. I'll keep an eye out for it, though.
  • Adding a link for "concentric". I know what it means, but it's kind of an odd word and could use a linky.
  • This is very well referenced, good work on that.
  • "their 42-cm Gamma-Gerät howitzer" - make sure to spell out units in the text. I know it looks a little odd, but the MOS does have an example showing that they want it done here too. I'm linking it as well, in accordance with the same section of the MOS. Also adding conversions to the same section.
  • While we're here, why do we have the bit on the shell's weight and range of the howitzer? I don't see that as critical to the article.
  • I changed "about 50-75 percent" to "from 50 to 75 percent". It reads better for me, and it's what WP:MOSNUM says to do anyway.
  • "its" shouldn't really be included in the link in the "Post-World War I to present", but I don't care enough to change it.
  • Is it possible to include some more English sources? These look good, and, as I've said, cover the text very well, but I can't read half of them!

General comments: This article clearly had a lot of work put into it, is very well researched, and covers a sufficiently broad area of information. If you were to try for FA status, I would recommend that you expand some on the WWII aspect, and possibly open a section dedicated to that entirely. Do some similar research into tourism at the site today. Get more sources, English particularly. Keep in mind the Manual of Style and try to weed out any unnecessary information. You've got plenty of pictures, all of which are public domain, so no problems at all there. Congrats on a job well done. I hereby certify this as a Good Article. Hersfold (talk/work) 14:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for comments and adjustments. I added rivers' names as per request. Regarding shell's weight and range, I thought it my be interesting to readers, as well as it illustrates that kind of weapon made such big damage to forts. Regarding English sources I will do my best to investigate matter further, but it will be difficult. Thanks again for your input. Cheers, M.K. 10:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Sweeps Review: Pass

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the requirements of the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Conflicts, battles and military exercises" articles. I made several corrections throughout the article as well. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 07:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)