Wikipedia:Featured article review/Operation Downfall/archive2

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by Dana boomer 16:48, 4 October 2012 [1].

Operation Downfall

Review commentary

Featured article candidates/Operation Downfall

Notified: User talk:Raul654, WP:MILHIST, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan

I am nominating this featured article for review because I posted about concerns on the article talk on 29 Aug. A few minor edits were made 29-31 Aug, but nowhere near addressing the concerns. Two users posted agreeing substantial work is needed: several page needed and citation needed tags, unsourced paragraphs, weak prose, heavy reliance on mostly just two sources, dead link on Silkett, could mention more the "intimidate-Soviets" aspect, isn't at all comprehensive, and doesn't reflect modern scholarship on this topic (especially Giangreco's book Hell to Pay, which is probably the best available book on this subject).PumpkinSky talk 15:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(stuff shifted to talk page; review belongs here. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 16:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Comments: Unfortunately this article now falls well short of FA standards. Some issues include:

As noted by PumpkinSky, the article's citation and prose standards are deficient
The article does not cover its topic fully. There have been a number of good books on this topic in recent years (most notably Hell to Pay, but also Richard B. Frank's excellent book Downfall and Stephen Zagola's short but very useful Defense of Japan 1945 ) which would allow the article to go into considerably more detail. The article should be at least a third longer than it currently is, and could justifiably be longer still.
The coverage of Operation Coronet is clearly much too short
The article needs to discuss the way the Allied and Japanese plans evolved over time, especially given that the Allies were only beginning to realise the scale of the Japanese forces in Kyushu in the last weeks of the war
The section on 'estimated casualties' is confusing, as it presents a series of different opinions. The focus should be on the way in which these estimates evolved over time. This section also doesn't cover the expected Japanese casualties, which is a major shortfall (Hell to Pay is particularly valuable on these topics).
The article doesn't note that the Allied build-up for Operation Olympic was well underway at the end of the war; for instance, the Eighth Air Force was within days of becoming operational on Okinawa at the time of the surrender, and large numbers of Army units were either travelling to the Pacific from Europe and North America or preparing to do so. Again, Hell to Pay provides good coverage of this. Nick-D (talk) 11:22, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

Originally this article met the FA standards of the day; I doubt it would pass today though without some work. In addition to the above, two further issues I'd note:

It makes considerable use of Sutherland's 1945 planning document. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but Sutherland is a primary source, and as such needs to be used with care. There aren't supporting secondary sources deployed to back up the interpretation of Sutherland that's given, or to support the prominence of the use of the source in the first place. Fixable, but essential.
I'm not an expert in this area, but I'm surprised not to see more about the Soviet context and its effect on planning assumptions here. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:27, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Move to FARC this is way more than enough to move to FARC. PumpkinSky talk 22:26, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FARC. As above, especially Nick-D. This is not FA-Grade and never was. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 05:56, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

Featured article criteria mentioned in the review section include coverage, references and prose. Dana boomer (talk) 13:54, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delist Per the above. PumpkinSky talk 16:25, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. - Dank (push to talk) 16:42, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:24, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delist, agree with PumpkinSky (talk · contribs), Dank (talk · contribs) and Hchc2009 (talk · contribs). JJ98 (Talk / Contribs) 18:34, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delist per my comments above Nick-D (talk) 06:37, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
delist — Br'er Rabbit (talk) 09:06, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.