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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/S-mine

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S-mine

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Self Nomination. This article has been under peer review for a while. It has been expanded into a detailed description of one of the most influential landmines in history, featuring historical information, research from period field manuals, and extensive images and a complete overview of the information available. Great images and diagrams as well (one has been nominated as a featured picture).--Primalchaos 05:34, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support—Interesting and well written. Well done! (I'm running through it to tweak the language.) Tony 06:11, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • It would add interest to the pictures if you could state when and where the they were taken in the captions.
    • As well as metric equivalents, please spell out numbers that are less than 10 (unless both categories are paired). Since the subject of the article was a German invention, it would be more logical to give the metric measurement first, with the US equivalent in parentheses.
    • Subsequent comment. Now that I've run through it thoroughly, I'm struck by one aspect of the article—the absence of the human element. It's a cold, technical description of a device that did horrible things to people. Without flinching, as it were, you've pointed out the ways in which it achieved this, as though describing the inside of a photocopy machine. I wonder whether it would be possible to include just a few sentences giving the human, social, and political contexts. For example, you could inform the reader that (1) this device was an early example of a class of weapons that are still killing and maiming people in places such as Cambodia and Afghanistan, (2) later generations of the device are still being produced in the UK and the US, among other countries, as a highly profitable export, and (3) there have been international moves—promoted by the Diana, Princess of Wales, among others—to ban mines, and that these moves have been resisted by powerful interests. Then I'd feel that the article had a heart and soul, and not only explained the S-mine, but put it in a useful context beyond its technical description. Do you think that mentioning all or some of these facts would fatally compromise your objectives in writing the article? Tony 14:18, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Comments:
    • Metric equivalents absent
    • Use the non breaking space &nbsp; between the number and its unit. 5&nbsp;inches, 22&nbsp;mm etc.
    • Are they still in use around the world, or have newer types of mines replaced them?
    • ...used the term Bouncing Betty... ---> Bouncing Betty in italics

=Nichalp «Talk»= 06:26, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

  • Support with reservations. Since this is indeed the first widely used example of a landmine (am I right in that?), some reference to the contrversy should be made -- if only in a paragraph pointing people to other articles. More formally, I am sure the S-mine would have been mentioned in various pacifist or generally anti-war documents written after the war; these should be included. Sdedeo 23:00, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • In general, the S-mine didn't enter the national or international consciousness until after the war. And landmines were in use for over a hundred years before the introduction of the S-mine, and were widely used during World War 1.--Primalchaos 01:52, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hi PC -- sorry, I was mistaken in that! I fully support the article as it stands now, with or without a mention of later controversy. I did a brief check to see if the S-mine is mentioned explicitly in treaties and came up blank. I think it is very well written and excellently diagrammed. Congrats. Sdedeo 02:17, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral Object. 1) Appears to lack the depth of research expected from FA's. Two references is just not enough, and there are no inline citations I could see. If some of the external links are high quality and were used as references, they can be formatted as such according to the guidelines at Wikipedia:Cite sources. But even then that is pretty minimal if it really is one of the most influential mines in history. 2) The lead is too short, Wikipedia:Lead section calls for 2-3 paragraphs. The lead doesn't clearly ease us into the subject and summarize all of the most important points of the topic. It could use a summary of how important the mine was and how widespread its use, and what it's influence was. 3) Many short paragraphs break up the prose and cause poor flow. They should be either merged with related material or expanded. I've made some copyedits trying to fix things I saw, so please make sure I haven't made anything worse. - Taxman Talk 14:40, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • 1) A single landmine is a limited area of study. Research included two period field manuals (German and America), 3 mine history sites and the reference work on the subject of landmines. 2) The lead section was edited down from several paragraphs by a supporter of the FA. Someone needs to make up their mind. 3) Will edit in regards to the short paragraphs (mainly added to appease supporters).
      • Like I mentioned, if those were used and are high quality, format them as references also. 2) Well Tony was wrong there, he should check the Lead section guidelines and look at the FA criteria again and the established FA's. A great lead section summarizes all of the most important facets of a topic, the who, what, when, importance, etc. Now what was there before he started editing was clearly too long too. Again, 2-3 full paragraphs. I don't mean to be harsh, it's just FA's have an established standard, and if anyone told you it would be easy to pass, they misled you. :) - Taxman Talk 21:24, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • 1) In-line references added and expanded. 2) I've written an additional 'flow in' paragraph for the lead-in, to give a better overview of the mine and flow better into the rest of the article. 3) Removed/merged/rearranged short paragraphs.--Primalchaos 01:17, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Impressive improvements. And I must state, I was wrong, it wasn't Tony that chopped the lead down too much. In any case the lead is much better formed as is the rest of the article. I'd still like another good mine reference text, but since you have used some primary source documents, that does go a long way. And based on your statments it seems the research for the article included the three mine history sites, so I'm not sure if you're reluctant to place them in the reference section or just haven't gotten to it. There's also a bit too much editorial voice for NPOV sake in "There is no information as to the exact fate of what happened to remaining stockpiles of the mine, but it can be assumed a majority were destroyed...". Do you really know there is no information, or do you assume because you've looked everywhere you know and didn't find it? Try to state more factually with what leads you to believe no information is available, not what your beliefs are. Let the reader decide. Finally it's just too short, leading me to believe it must not be comprehensive, but I certainly don't know anything that is missing, so I could be wrong. But since what is there is very good and I may not be able to respond further, I'll go neutral, which won't keep it from being promoted. - Taxman Talk 19:27, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It's nice to see the under-represented field of Nazi Germany and its awesome military arsenal represented on Wikipedia. This particular example has wider relevance, however, because the basic design was highly influential; I believe there are grenades and mortar shells which also use the bounding principle. There's an example here, [[1] produced by one of the other countries which Tony1 mentions obliquely above. Perhaps he holds the UK and the USA to a higher standard than other countries, or perhaps he doesn't like to imagine other countries in a negative context.
As for the article itself, rather than the subject, I vote for a weak support. A lot of it is directly unsourced, particularly the section about French soldiers in 1939, which I presume is taken from the external references. As I have mentioned elsewhere, in the FAC on BBC television drama, if the editorial voice is strong and trustworthy I am prepared to go along with the writer, but in this case the writing and grammar is sometimes sloppy, and so it needs reinforcement. I don't picture Max Hastings or Martin Gilbert or Richard Holmes when I read this article, I picture the kind of people who write for websites.
Why Bouncing Betty? Was it a reference to somebody called Betty? A cartoon character, an actress. "The S-mine was no longer produced after the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945" is clearly the work of an expert on this mine. I would like the person who wrote that line to answer the following questions; did the post-war German armed forces discontinue the mine? Did they actually purge surviving examples from their inventory? Does the German army use these mines today? Clearly the basic design continued. Whoever wrote that sentence presumably is an authority on these mines. Otherwise he or she... he would not have written it. Wikipedia seems to be blessed with hundreds of people who are top experts on weapons, guns and munitions.
On a tangent, and this is probably more for the bounding mines article, but wasn't there a Yugoslavian film from a few years ago about some people trapped in a shell crater by something similar to an S-mine? They couldn't get away because it would detonate and kill them all, and so they had to patch up their differences and hug etc. Oh, ah, Google's result for 'film trapped bouncing mine' reveals it was No Man's Land by Danis Tanovic, [2] which won an Academy Award in 2002. -Ashley Pomeroy 00:12, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • As for Bouncing Betty, I did search high and low for some source of this particular, and strangely morbid, piece of slang - both for the article and because I'm an amateur etymologist. There seems to be none to be found, and is simply an example of the vaguely sexual slang found amongst military forces throughout the world. Who the original 'Betty' was could not be said conclusively. As for the remaining stockpiles of S-mines, the military reserves of Germany were gathered and destroyed as part of the terms of surrender. No data explicitly points out the destruction of the S-mine, but one can assume whatever examples were left over were destroyed along with the hundreds of other shells, mines and other ammunition. Those that were not taken back home to be analyzed, of course. And the German army, being a signer to the landmine ban, does not produce or use the S-mine today.

--Primalchaos 00:53, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support - mostly because I feel the article is definitly FA-worthy, but also because I like reading about weapons =) WegianWarrior 07:05, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support Reads like a text book, which is entirely to its credit --PopUpPirate 12:00, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

object - no mention of the level of civilian casualties caused by the device; no mention of expected / maximum lifetime if left in field / level of mine clearance in Germany after the war. Will go to neutral if convinced that this information can't be recovered. Mozzerati 22:05, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Civilian casualties of any sort during World War 2 have long been more a matter of speculation than actual fact, due to poor records kept during the war and records being destroyed. Also, civilian casualties would not have been reported by landmine model. Allied casualties are similarly missing because the Allies did not report a death by type of weapon used, but only by whether the death occured in the course of battle or not. Added section on postwar mine-clearing operations in Europe and expected lifetime.--Primalchaos 00:29, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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