Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tet Offensive

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

[edit] Tet Offensive

A complete re-write and expansion of the original article. Quite long in length, but necessary for explication of the topic (at least for the time being). This one is a touchy subject, and am interested in assuring that POV is not sticking out like a sore thumb somewhere. RM Gillespie 15:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC) Comments:

• I'm not sure that footnoting the "Crack the Sky, Shake the Earth" heading follows style. The sheer size of the footnote makes it rather distracting. To avoid that problem, I'd suggest inserting the quote into the section with an explanation and footnoting it there.
• Keep an eye out for gender-specific words like "newsmen." The preferred terms are gender-neutral things like "reporters."
• The last sentence is somewhat awkward. I'd suggest removing it altogether.

JKBrooks85 22:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment Support:

• Echo comment above about footnotes in section titles.
• I'm also not a fan of footnotes in lead sections and infoboxes, both of which should, as far as I'm concerned, contain info that is detailed, and therefore referenced, in the body of the article (there is no policy or guideline to support my opinion on this though).
• I find the serial section titles, as occurs in the Background section, a little awkward, and generally prefer to see some overview type narrative of what is following between headers (as occurs in the Aftermath/United States section).
• I find the section title "Northern Decisions" a little confusing when it refers to the North Vietnamese, especially as it seems there were factions within the North Vietnamese government that are referred to as southern and northern.
• There is at least one paragraph, the 2nd in the Northern Decisions section, without a reference. This is not a FAC I know, but there you go.
• The last sentence in the Hue section reads like speculatoin or OR - is there a source?
• Same for 1st sentence in the Aftermath section.
• The word "Tragedy" appears in the Aftermath/South Vietnam section - Never sure about this word (I thought it appeared in WP:WTA, and there is a related section but not completely applicable in this case). Undoubtedly it is applicable to the people who experienced the war, but this would surely be so regardless of which side they were on. What do you think?
• The lead talks about US public reaction, and my limited knowledge of the history leads me to believe that this was a key issue leading to US withdrawal, yet the subject is not covered in the aftermath at all - or am I way off beam here?
• Notwithstanding the excellent prose, which kept me engaged in a long article that I would normally have given up on, it could do with a brief copyedit - a few typos, no spaces between refs and start of next sentence being the most obvious. I made a few changes and I'll go back and clean up a bit more now.

Very impressive piece of work indeed. --FactotEm 07:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

• OK - let's get busy. 1) Took care of "newsmen", 2) deleted "Southern/Northern-firsters" and stuck with other faction titles, 3) footnoted the first line of "Aftermath", and 4) deleted the last line of the article. Footnoting casualty figures in infoboxes comes from long experience dealing with editors who become rather indignant when their particular "side" seemes maligned. The last line of the "Hue" section just sums up the info listed above it and I don't believe that it is speculative. As to the U.S. public reaction, during most of the deliberations over deescalation, the majority of the public still supported Johnson's policy. Finally, I guess I just consider the deaths 14,000 civilians a "tragedy", North or South. RM Gillespie 15:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

• Comments
  • The layout of the headings is confusing; it took me a while to realise that the first headers (like "aftermath") were using a single set of equal signs instead of the double set I usually see; to me, this created the illusion that their had been some kind of omision between the section headers and sub headers (in this example, it looks liuke you forgat to write something for the aftermath section and instead skipped straight to "North Vietnam", which of course was you intention, but the line under "North Vietnam" seems to suggest an oversight on your part")

Otherwise it looks good. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

• To reduce the number of headings (in the "Background" section for instance) has the effect of removing divisions between contexts. The American political section would then merge into the North Vietnamese section. To physically reduce the type of the headings (in the "Aftermath" section for instance) has the effect of reducing the sub-headers to the size of plain text, which I find annoying. Every other article I have written has utilized the same format and hasn't been a problem so far. Any suggestions? RM Gillespie 05:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I think whatever problem TomStar81 was seeing should be fixed now that the level-1 headings are set at level-2. Kirill 05:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Kirill - once again you demonstrate that you are "the Man". RM Gillespie 05:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Support That's much better, and so much kinder on the eyes. Well Done! TomStar81 (Talk) 10:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

• I got the unreferenced para in "Norther decisions" annotated. I had not noticed that before, thanks! RM Gillespie 14:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support After the corrections which have been made, the article should be easily promoted to A-class. --Eurocopter tigre 12:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: Especially given the long list of footnotes, the duplicates should be combined using the <ref name=xxx> tag. I've made a start. The naming convention I use is surname of author, combined with page number. For example, I used <ref name=DouganWeiss8> for Dougan & Weiss, p. 8. — ERcheck (talk) 13:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • No problem. Just a case of being too "old school". I have to admit that the first time I read an article with such tags (without clicking on the footnote), I had no idea what they were for and just assumed that the author had gotten his footnotes out of order. RM Gillespie 15:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.