Talk:Continuation War/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Gog the Mild (talk · contribs) 16:08, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Criteria

Good Article Status - Review Criteria

Further information: WP:WIAGA

A good article is—

1. Well-written:

(a) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and

(b) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

2. Verifiable with no original research:

(a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;

(b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose);

(c) it contains no original research; and

(d) it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.

3. Broad in its coverage:

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and

(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

(a) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and

(b) media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Review

1. Well-written:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (prose)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass
(b) (MoS)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass

2. Verifiable with no original research:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (references)	A formidably solid set of sources.	Pass
(b) (citations to reliable sources)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass
(c) (original research)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass
(d) (copyvio and plagiarism)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass

3. Broad in its coverage:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (major aspects)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass
(b) (focused)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

Notes	Result
The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass

5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Notes	Result
The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass

6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass
(b) (appropriate use with suitable captions)	Good use of images. Very good use of maps.	Pass

Result

Result	Notes
Pass	A solid, exquisitely referenced, well written article covering a broad sweep of recent history in a thorough and readable way. A good job well done. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:24, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

• Good job guys! :) Double Plus Ungood (talk) 00:42, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

References.

• A lot of references do not have a publisher location. For information only at B class.
  • During FA source review of Winter War, I got the following comment: "General: There is inconsistency in showing publisher locations in the book sources. Either show all, or none." So based on that I could remove all of them, but since it's still "only" a GAN, I didn't do anything about them.
• For references 17 and 84 do you have page numbers?
  • For 17, nope. But it's quite an uncontroversial claim only about the name of the war in Russian (which a Russian user also confirmed and sounds very plausible). 84 is already a short chapter in the book, so kinda like a page range (and a link to the chapter).
• Ref 73 should be pp., not p..
  • Fixed.
• In the section "Finnish advance in Karelia" two paragraphs do not end in a reference. Referencing is very dense in this section, but if you could cite them directly it would let me give them an easy tick.
  • Ah, apparently just mistakes in para breaks. I united the paragraphs appropriately again.

Captions.

• Whilst better editors than I may disagree, in the reindeer image, is it relevant that he is at an armoury? More pertinently "along the snow" is odd; how about "in snow conditions" or similar?
  • Agree, fixed.

Gog the Mild (talk) 17:29, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Prose.

• "or cut the Kirov (Murmansk) Railway, a way point for lend-lease equipment to the USSR." A railway cannot be a "way point", by definition it has to be a point; ie a place. Possibly replace way point with "transit route"?
  • Very true, amended.
• "The Baltic governments acquiesced to these demands and signed respective agreements in September and October." Whilst grammatically correct, this reads oddly. Do you have objections to deleting the "respective"?
  • No objections at all. :-) Deleted.
• "numbered around 450,000 soldiers in 18 divisions and 40 separate battalions in the Finnish region." Instead of "separate", it should be "independent".
  • Amended.
• "During the Interim Peace, Soviet military had relaid operational plans to conquer Finland". Should be "...the Soviet Military..."
  • Amended.
• "Although it outnumbered the Kriegsmarine, the fleet lost all but one of its naval bases and was mostly inactive for the remainder of the war." This doesn't really work as a sentence. Probably because rather than stick to the OoB you include operational details. I would suggest moving the latter to a later section.
  • Hmm, I just amended the section headings from OoB only to 'OoB and planning'. See if it works now!
• After the Finnish OoB you write a bit about Finnish plans and intelligence, mixed in with the German OoB. It may be better to pull those out as a separate short section.
  • See above.
• "Initial operations" seems to go into undue detail, eg down to the name of the ship observing the exact timing of a raid by seven aircraft, whilst elsewhere corps size offensive operations receive half a sentence or less.
  • Hmmm, the exact de facto start of war is the only thing given a bit more weight (similarly to the exact timing of the end). I would personally keep it since questions like 'when did the war start' are sometimes pondered—if its not a failing issue?
• "23 Soviet bombers were lost in this strike while the Finnish forces lost none." I am not sure what the Finnish forces (the Finnish airforce?) lost none of: bombers? Fighters? Aircraft?
  • Amended a bit and added 'aircraft'.
• "By 16 July, VI Corps had reached the northern shore of Lake Ladoga, dividing the Soviet 7th Army which had been tasked with defending it." What does the "it" at the end of this sentence refer to?
  • Amended 'it' to 'the area'.

Focus

• All three "Background" sections seem overlong to me. For example, in what way are the Rapid Settlement Act or the "divisive White Guard tradition" relevant to the Continuation War? Does the long Trotter quote add anything to the excellent prose summary? (If it doesn't, why say it again?) Gog the Mild (talk) 19:13, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Yeah true, I took out the Rapid Settlement Act sentence, but I kept the "divisive White Guard tradition" although I repositioned it a bit. I think it's somewhat useful knowledge that some form of planning for the "revenge war" started so early and traditions were broken to prepare the population for it. But can be deleted if it's too out-of-touch in your opinion! Otherwise, they are pretty long since in my Winter War FA reviewers wanted more depth to the background. But I cut the Trotter quote by half and inserted it back to prose. I think his analysis is pretty well done, represents a somewhat neutral opinion and he is a respected source on the issue. Since the whole issue of when and why did the planning start is somewhat contested. I also divided the last subsection into two if that makes it easier to read instead of huge blocks of text.

Duplication.

• WW2 is duplicated within the lead.
  • Removed link.
• Petsamo is dup-linked. Ditto: Murmansk and Porkkala Peninsula.
  • Are you sure? Or can you point out where? The highlight duplicate tool isn't pointing them out for me.
• There is no need to keep linking Russian. Ditto for Finnish.
  • Comes with the lang-template by default. But I added a links no-parameter to dups.

Infobox.

• Really good infobox, but I struggle to understand what "(e.g. partisan attacks)" means. Does this relate to the "Not including civilian casualties" immediately above? If so does it mean casualties among the partisans, they being counted as partisans, or civilian deaths caused by partisans, in which case why single these out?
  • True, might not be needed. Removed.
• Personally I would delete "(e.g. Seige of Leningrad)" as I think that would improve clarity. But feel free to leave it in, it is not a fail issue. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:39, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Whether or not civilian casualties from the Siege of Leningrad should be counted in the infobox and article is a constant debate. So this is a consensus from some former discussion (see talk) that it is mentioned as a disclaimer but not pointed out straightforwardly.

Coverage.

• I would have expected a little more detail on how important the Kirov Railway was under "Operation Silver Fox in Lapland". There is information you could use under Lend-Lease. Eg, relating to US aid: "Some 3,964,000 tons of goods were shipped by the Arctic route; 7% was lost, while 93% arrived safely. This constituted some 23% of the total aid to the USSR during the war." There is separate information on British lend lease. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:55, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Very true, never actually realized how huge it was. Added a paragraph from the best sources from the Lend-Lease article to display some size.

More on prose.

• I have done some minor copy editing. Revert it if you don't like it.
  • Seem ok!
• "By the autumn of 1941 it was clear that Barbarossa would not accomplish its goals, and Finnish military leadership started to doubt Germany's capability to finish the war quickly. The Finnish Defence Forces suffered relatively severe losses during their advance, and, overall, German victory became uncertain as German troops were halted near Moscow." This says the same thing twice in two sentences. ("Barbarossa would not accomplish its goals" and "Barbarossa would not accomplish its goals".) Can I suggest deleting "it was clear that Barbarossa would not accomplish its goals, and".
  • Yes, amended!
• "Finland sent out missives suing for peace to the USSR." seems a little contrived. Perhaps "Finland attempted to start peace negotiations" or similar?
  • Amended.
• "The Commonwealth nations of Canada, Australia, British Raj and New Zealand soon followed suit." Personally I think that all of these links are MOS:OVERLINK, but it is not a fail issue at GA.
  • Hmmh, yes, especially since they are only trivial mentions. Delinked.
• "The 1st Partisan Brigade was able to infiltrate beyond Finnish patrol lines, but was intercepted, and rendered ineffective, in August 1942 at Lake Segozero. Irregular partisans distributed propaganda newspapers, such as Finnish translations of the official Communist Party paper Pravda (Russian: Правда). Notable Soviet politician, Yuri Andropov, took part in these partisan guerrilla actions. Finnish sources state that, although Soviet partisan activity in East Karelia disrupted Finnish military supply and communication assets, almost two thirds of the attacks targeted civilians, killing 200 and injuring 50, including children and elderly." Personally I consider all of this to be too trivial to be included in an article of this scope. (But again it is not a fail issue at GA.)
  • Borderline too trivial, I agree. But if it's not fail, I'll let future editors decide on its length for a possible A or FA review. :-)

This is to the end of the Siege of Leningrad section. Note that I am leaving discussion of some of the breadth, focus and over-detail issues until we have worked through all of the 'nuts and bolts' points. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:11, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Yet more prose.

• "The main objective of the offensive was to force Finland out of the war." Would this not fit better as the second sentence of the paragraph?
  • I would agree. But then again, I'm not fully sure which of the three references made the statement. But then again, it seems very uncontested so I moved up as second.
• "which has been described as the largest battle in Nordic military history." It would be appropriate to put a citation immediately after this.
  • Added exact ref.
• "peace terms from Moscow arrived on 29 August." Immediately followed by "On 29 August 1944, Finland received the terms of peace from the USSR." I would suggest completely deleting the second sentence.
  • Yes, deleted.
• "The war was considered a Soviet victory." Is there a reason why "is" is not used? (The war is considered...)
  • Nope! Amended to 'is'.

And done! Gog the Mild (talk) 19:24, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Additional notes

Gog the Mild (talk) 16:16, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: Thx a lot for the review! I'll start fixing the article on Tuesday when I get back from travels. Manelolo (talk) 09:46, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Manelolo. Longer articles can sometimes sit in the GAN queue for a while. Especially if they are on off-beat topics and have a fair bit of work needed. And I thought that I would find it rewarding assessing this topic.

In case you are getting your hopes up, the comments above just my first, more or less random, observations. I am sure that there will me many more - sorry - as I work through the article. That said, of the 12 ticks needed the article already has 6. Picking up 2b should be easy - see my notes on referencing above; and I will tick stable as soon as I am sure that the fuss from Winter War being on the main page has died away. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:25, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I have now done a fairly detailed review down to the end of Initial operations. I think that this gives you a fair bit to come back at me over, so I will pause there for now. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:57, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

That was fast work, thanks. I am busy for a while, but will get back to you with a review of more of the article and responses to your comments shortly. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:40, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Manelolo. I hope that you are taking my comments and suggestions in the spirit in which they are intended. I think that this is a great, and very high quality, article. Virtually all of my comments are open to debate, and I am sure that all both of us want to do is make the article as good as we can. I realise that you have put hours and hours of effort into it and are far more of a topic expert, so stop me if I veer towards "drive by editorialising". Gog the Mild (talk) 17:10, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: Not at all, a pleasure to see a detailed review! :-) I think I have addressed all of your comments so far. Manelolo (talk) 22:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I will put any new discussion or suggestions down here.

• Infobox looks much better IMO, and I liked it before. Never seen one with the duration given. I don't care as an assessor, but were there any German civilian casualties?
  • I'm not sure. Some civilian support staff or trade sailors could have been?
• To my eye there is still too much detail on some items on which border on the trivial (actually, IMO, well past the border), and not enough on some of the decisive fighting. (I would have liked to have seen at least a bit of detail about "the largest battle in Nordic military history" and even a bit more about the Battle of Ilomantsi which arguably won Finland its independence.) But that's not my call as a GA assessor and you have been consistent. A really polished article. I hope that you are proud of it - you should be. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:22, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • @Gog the Mild: Thx again! I agree that it goes to too much minutiae at points and not enough at other points, but I'll leave it to future editors to expand/streamline it. Way too exhausted after the build-up. :-) My objective was a good-level overview which can be easily improved in the future for additional detail and quality. Manelolo (talk) 06:12, 23 March 2018 (UTC)