Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/130th Engineer Brigade (United States)

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.

130th Engineer Brigade (United States)

Failed --Eurocopter (talk) 13:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator(s): Ed!^(talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because is is a thorough GA and I have spent a lot of time improving it as much as possible. I think it is ready to be promoted. -Ed!^(talk) 22:32, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Object the more recent events in the article are mostly sourced to a magazine affiliated with the subject of the article. Also, tha articles were written by officers in ccommand of this current brigade, and are therefore non-neutral primary sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 03:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The magazine is an Army publication. It happened to feature the 130th brigade in that issue, but it has no more affiliation with the brigade itself than any other DoD news outlet. As for the officers, they are just as reliable as the brigade homepage which is written by the same people and still considered a reliable source. -Ed!^(talk) 12:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The officers are primary sources as this is equivalent to them doing a blog post about themselves or writing their own diary. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 03:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfully, I couldn't disagree more. I don't find the articles to be columns or otherwise outright statements of opinion; I rather find them to be relatively streightforward reports on what the units did during their time in Iraq, standard magazine articles which are subject to the same copy editing and fact checking before publication. Moreover, I don't find the information sourced to the articles to be a part of any significant controversy and don't expect any of them to be contested; they merely are sourced because they give specific numbers and minor details which demand citations. Though I would agree that the commander of a unit is inherently biased as to what he will say, I also find that a commander will know better than anyone else the intricate details of a unit's mission. Since the information provided was so recent that it has yet to be published in any kind of history book, I find that mission reports from unit commanders are the only verifiable or valid sources available on the topic at this time. -Ed!^(talk) 07:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I disagree with the above point, but I sort of have a vested interest in the notion that an officer is meant to be a man (or woman) of their word. Besides, such publications have to be vetted before going to print so one would assume that they are verified the same way that any civilian publication is. Regardless, I believe the article to be well referenced, comprehensive, structured, concise and illustrated, which are the five A class criteria. Well done. — AustralianRupert (talk) 07:21, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I agree that an article by the brigade's commanding officer isn't a great source as its obviously non-neutral (he's not about to critise the men and women under his command in print if he thinks that some things could have been done better and isn't an independent observer of the brigade's activities). I'd suggest that other sources be found for this material - are the US Army's two 'On Point' volumes on the war in Iraq of any use? - they were published by the Army, but were a relatively neutral (and very detailed) assessment of the Army's activities. Nick-D (talk) 00:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the On Point articles do not help with the unit's second deployment. They were very helpful when addressing the first deployment, but the second one is what is at issue here since it is only sourced by unit commander reports, which I find to be the only available resource given how recently the events occured. -Ed!^(talk) 07:31, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Overall a good article, but I would like some images to be moved to the left for balance and for the above issue relating to sourcing be resolved before I support. – Joe N 00:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mmm, I don't understand when you say you've resolved my concerns: looking at the article, the images are all still on the right and the sourcing issue does not appear to be fully resolved, Nick and YellowMonkey still seem to have concerns. While I am personally not too concerned, I do have some problems with having the primary source being written by a possibly biased author, and want to make sure all possible other options have been tried. – Joe N 18:22, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have responded to the concerns of the above users; they just haven't come back to discuss them. I have been looking for other possible reliable sources on the issue of the second Iraq deployment, and find none that are non-US government concerning this brigade (if anyone else can find such a source I would be happy to integrate it into the article) I left messages on each of their talk pages seeking further input but they have not responded yet. As for the images, I have reordered them and moved two to the left, per your request. -Ed!^(talk) 18:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - I'm not going to support this article because I too worry about the usage of those sources; I don't think that anything negative would be printed in those, so you may be missing something. On to normal comments though: I see many repeated citations, i.e. Erijid oafoeungrfa danfeo.^[4] Gjeio eoafin4g oan oigf.^[4] Fiq toiyjo wjgtoir ewnof.^[4] The last citation is able to cover the preceding ones. Otherwise, references look to be formatted correctly. Also, questions on images: can you add links to this and this image so that the license can be confirmed? Cheers, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 06:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

About the sources, I would direct you to the above discussion; Because the deployment was so recent and this brigade is not a combat unit, I have found no piblications or websites discussing it. About the references, which paragraphs do you see this as a problem? I have tried to provide a source after every sentence that seems to contain contestable information. And about the images, the caption on the image page already contains the links to their source, both of which come from the US Army home page. -Ed!^(talk) 18:51, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I read the discussion and still have worries; there might be not enough sources to warrant rating this article as A-class then. :-/

Second para of "Organization", first para of "Origins", etc.

Oh, I see; the link is in the description. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 19:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I still disagree that the sources are unreliable but I leave it up to the reviewers. -Ed!^(talk) 11:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tentative Support I am not terribly concerned with the journal references, as I had to resort to similar means to cite a fairly sizable portion of the battleship Iowas history since here recommissioning in the 1980s I am fairly certain that while nothing negative would be said about your unit in such publications the actual facts presented are accurate and reliable. I would recommend that before moving any further up the assessment chain you go back and try to back up the journal/magazine sources with other sources confirming the information. Also, a check of the dab link tool reveals that you have 5 disambiguous links in the article, these need to be found and if at all possible fixed before promotion to A-class. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I found the five disambig links and corrected them. -Ed!^(talk) 16:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Oppose - This is a good article, and I'm willing to change my mind, but I'm not sure the reliance on a few biased sources (press release, article by the commander of the unit) for so many citations is a good idea. I'll monitor the discussion, but I think YellowMonkey is right. Also, Reference 5 and 7 have a lot of citations for a press release and a short article. Would you consider using Harvard Notation - that way the journal can be in the references section, and you can use a two column footnote section? Kirk (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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.