Talk:Battle of Mosul (2016–2017)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Iraqi Special Forces retaking Mosul 2.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 07:06, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Page size

This page is 637,308 bytes long, which is far too big. What's the best way to subdivide it? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:28, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Does not need forking, it just needs trimming.Slatersteven (talk) 14:53, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Before talking about splitting, how about having a couple of editors go through it from top to bottom and 'trim away some of the fat'? Even the article for World War II is only 226kB, so surely this one battle does not need 637kB of content? Surely there is a couple hundred kB of needless blather that can be done away with? Then if we break it down to 3 pages; "Background", "Timeline of events" and "Aftermath", keeping them to say 150kB each, (or aggregate), that's 450kB, which is still huge and twice the size of the WWII page. Really, a sane average of 50-75kB each for a total of 150-225kB combined would be a more appropriate outer limit. (jmho) - wolf 14:55, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I mean how many other battles of a day by day breakdown of events (not matter how minor)?Slatersteven (talk) 14:57, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The first, most obvious solution would be to split off the day by day breakdown to a separate Timeline of the Battle of Mosul. There are also redundant sections, like Humanitarian issues and Battle_of_Mosul_(2016–2017)#Violation_of_the_laws_of_war, that ought to be condensed and probably trimmed. Parsecboy (talk) 17:09, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Endorse Parsecboy's position, with the retention in full of Humanitarian issues. Buckshot06 (talk) 06:05, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

The problem with those sections is that it's written as a sort of list - if it was rewritten thematically, a lot of repetition could be avoided. The facts should be kept, but there are better ways to present them. Parsecboy (talk) 15:50, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

We don't seem to be getting anywhere. I don't see that "trimming" the content (the undoubted need for which is a separate issue) will make a sufficiently large reduction in the page size. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:37, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

page splits

A chunk of the article was split off into a new article; "Timeline of the Battle of Mosul". That article has been split into three "phases". Haven't read through them, so not sure where phase one ends and phase two begins, and again with phase three, but I also don't know if this is a solution as much as it is a quick fix. Phase one is a chunky 131kB, phase two is 73kB and still-ridiculously huge 279kB. The main article is still a hefty 170kB. I don't think the answer is more "phases", spreading all this content around even more, giving the appearance of thinning it out. The answer is to actually thin it out. The total of these four pages is 653kB, actually up 16kB since my last post above. This just a silly amount of content, all for a single battle and these pages seem to be continually growing. - wolf 07:21, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Lots of propaganda

The article is full of nonsense not backed at all by the credible, given sources:

“because of the largely Sunni population's deep distrust of the primarily Shia Iraqi government, and its corrupt armed forces.” - neither of the two given sources mentions that Iraqi government is “primarily Shia”.

“The Ba'ath loyalists group, known to be led by Saddam Hussein's former vice president Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, issued a statement before the start of operations calling for the people of the city to start an uprising against ISIL and announced that they will fight the "terrorist organization." - It is a complete nonsense considering the fact that al-Douri himself is responsible for the raise of ISIS and the terrorist organisation had hundreds, if not thousands, of members in ISIS. The two given Arabic sources are niche and can’t be trusted at all as a reliable sources of content. In the same Wikipedia article we read later on that al-Douri blames for all the ills Iraqi government and USA, and accuses them of “destroying” various majority Sunni cities. It’s all a sectarian mouthpiece to stir furteher violence in Iraq.

“On 11 November, the multiple news outlets including Al Arabiya,[182] Daily Mirror[183] and Middle East Monitor reported about a leaked video of the Iraqi Special Forces allegedly murdering an Iraqi Sunni child by running him over with an M1 Abrams tank. The boy, identified as Muhammad Ali Al-Hadidi, was dragged through the desert and shot before the tank was run over him. The men in the video were identified as Shia militiamen and yelled sectarian slurs at the child as well asking the cameraman to film them doing it. The video caused outrage on social media, with Arab users of social media using the hashtag #CrushedByATank (Arabic: #السحق_بالدبابة‎). The soldiers were wearing the insignia of the Iraqi Special Forces.[184]” - All the sources given state that most likely it’s a propaganda video by ISIS, as the terrorists released similar videos shortly after. Saudi Al Arabiya (the given source) says that the video can’t be verified at all, yet Wikipedia article alleges that certainly the crime was committed by the government or pro-government side.

The Middle East Monitor claimed Iraqi Shia Groups of targeting Sunni Arabs "in a possible genocide", and claimed that "Sunni Arabs are being targeted for ethnic cleansing by Iraqi Christians".[186][187] However, Middle East Monitor was the sole origin of the report.[188][189] - The Middle East Monitor, according to Wikipedia itself, is a Sunni Islamist website promoting pro Islamist causes and antisemitism. It is not a credible source as per Wikipedia standards.

The article also doesn’t mention anywhere at all the enormous sacrifice of Iraqi Army in liberating the city and the precautions that the Army took to save civilian life’s but not its own. The military medics took care of civilians, tens of soldiers were killed trying to rescue civilians [1], Iraqi Army in many places didn’t call for air or artilery support to minimise civilian casualties etc. it all should be mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2406:E006:ADB:1001:9810:822D:94F:51B (talk) 22:07, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedias NPOV policy is for eliminating bias whereas you seem to be attempting to interject your own. There is an issue with the first quote in calling the armed forces corrupt as an objective statement rather than a claim by a specific group. Another option is providing a source which shows the corruption in the Iraqi military and how it affects the views of locals. What you suggest though is a minor issue as multiple sources state the Iraqi government is shia led though I would agree that a source backing this should be included.

You haven't provided any sufficient reason to discount the Arabic sources. As individual Wikipedia editors are not considered reliable sources, you have to provide your own sources to support your claims which you have failed to do.

Again, you attempt to discredit three sources with your word alone, what you think is "likely ISIS propaganda" is not ISIS propaganda until you can provide something that says so.

The Middle East Monitor is not described as a islamist and antisemitic by Wikipedia, the article is stating accusations that other sources have made. This also doesn't prove that the information is false, for a source to be unusable it has to provide false information repeatedly which you have failed to show.

The article gives the casualty figures of the battle, of course it doesn't glorify the soldiers fighting the battle as that is not the purpose of Wikipedia since Wikipedia isn't for propaganda but to provide objective information regarding the subject being discussed. None of what you mentioned is relevant to the historical significance of the battle, I'm sure the Iraqi army did brave and noble things during the battle but that doesn't explain why the battle is important. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a news source, it is meant to give facts that are relevant to the significance of an event not describe every single thing that occurred. 2605:6001:E39D:C900:6054:3330:45BD:C5EC (talk) 04:28, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Page move...?

On 21 April 2020, this article title was moved from Battle of Mosul (2016–2017) to Battle of Mosul (2016–17). It seems this was done boldly as there doesn't appear to be any related discussion, proposal or move request on this talk page or it's archives. The user that moved the page, Operation 0 (talk · contribs · logs), noted in their edit summary;

• "Consecutive years can use the two-year date range without problems according to MOS:DATERANGE and to this RFC"

  MOS:DATERANGE states:

• "Although non-abbreviated years are generally preferred, two-digit ending years (1881–82, but never 1881–882 or 1881–2) may be used in any of the following cases:

  (1) two consecutive years;

  (2) infoboxes and tables where space is limited (using a single format consistently in any given table column); and

  (3) in certain topic areas if there is a very good reason, such as matching the established convention of reliable sources. For consistency, avoid abbreviated year ranges when they would be used alongside non-abbreviated ranges within an article (or related pages, if in titles)."

note a

In the RfC, noted in both the edit summary and in MOS:DATERANGE, the summary in the close begins with;

• "The community has decided that four year date ranges (i.e. XXXX–XXXX) should be the default style used in Wikipedia."

As of this posting, there are two templates attached to the bottom of this article;

• Template:International military intervention against ISIL -and-
• Template:Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Between the two, they list at least two dozen related articles with year-year date ranges in the titles, all of which are in the xxxx-xxxx format, (conversely , there doesn't appear to be any with abbreviated dates), which makes this page title markedly inconsistent and in direct contravention of point #3 in MOS:DATERANGE.

It would appear that this page move was ill-advised and the page title should be moved back to the non-abbreviated format. - wolf 21:14, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree, we should follow wikipedia’s guides before making any moves and the user should’ve made a move request instead. You should make a move request for this article Ridax2020 (talk) 09:11, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Proseline

I was looking at this from the good article nomination list, and while I don't think it's an automatic fail, I'd argue that the text broadly needs to be restructured throughout the article before it's ready for GA. The article has a significant WP:PROSELINE issue where it essentially serves the purpose of a timeline article, only collapsed into paragraphs. To pass a review, these might be best reworked as concise summaries of each phase and other aspect, letting the timeline articles give the dates for each individual event. Pinging the nominator, Kaliforniyka. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:19, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

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

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:Battle of Mosul (2016–2017)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Kaliforniyka (talk · contribs) 23:29, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Hawkeye7 (talk · contribs) 19:56, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Placeholder. Review to follow. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:56, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Lead

• Say when the battle was in the first sentence. Otherwise "years prior" makes no sense.

• "It was the largest conventional land battle since the capture of Baghdad in 2003.[70] It was also the world's single largest military operation overall since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was considered the toughest urban battle since World War II." Although this is sourced in the lead, but it is not in the body of the article. Add it to the body or remove it from the lead.
• "was considered" By whom? Later in the lead some other contenders are listed.

• "The operation, which was called Operation "We Are Coming, Nineveh" " Similarly, this is not in the body. Add it to the body or remove it from the lead.

• " At dawn on 1 November 2016" same here. The lead should be a summary of the body. Add it to the body or remove it from the lead.
• " the Iraqi Prime Minister" al-Abadi. Otherwise the reader is wondering if it was still the same person

• " heavy clashes" Not sure what makes clashes "heavy". Suggest deleting this word.

• "It was estimated that removing the explosives from Mosul and repairing the city over the next five years would require $50 billion (2017 USD),[87] while Mosul's Old City alone would cost about US$1 billion to repair.[11]" Again, not in the body. Add it to the body or remove it from the lead.

• " Stephen J. Townsend' -> Lieutenant General Stephen J. Townsend

Infobox

• Not all of the commanders listed are mentioned in the article. Add to the body or remove from the infobox.
• Leave out the ranks here

• I see no reason to list all the journalists killed etc - move to the body

• If there is controversy about the numbers, that should be in the body, not the infobox. The infobox is not the place for controversies.

Background

• Link "caliphate"

• "laid Improvised explosive devices" De-capitalise the "I"

The Battle

• I don't see why the Paladin image needs to be larger

• "Maj. Gen.", "Lt. Gen.", "Gen." Expand all these abbreviations. These differ from country to country, and many readers will not understand them in any case. We're not that short of bits.

• Delete the "non-primary source needed" tags. They're not needed. Primary sources are okay.

• "9th armored division" should be "9th Armored Division"

• "9th Division" should be "9th Armored Division"

• The article should make it clear that "Daesh" and ISIL are the same thing.

International reactions

• Don't think this section adds much. Consider deletion.

Media coverage

• Media casualties should be here.

Violation of the laws of war

• This section should be with the humanitarian issues section.
• Link Amnesty International

Article is very good and only needs a few changes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:29, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

• Link "Gary J. Voelsky"

No responses in three weeks, so closing. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:20, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.