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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/School of Advanced Military Studies/archive1

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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.

School of Advanced Military Studies

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Nominator(s): Airborne84 (talk)

This article has gone through a Featured Article review and a Good Article review. I believe I have addressed the problems that require fixing. An editor during the Featured Article process recommended an assessment here. Thanks! --Airborne84 (talk) 16:30, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: G'day and welcome to Milhist ACR. Before I start a review, can you please clarify the status of the article's GA review? It appears to still be active, based on the listing at WP:GAN. Have you addressed the issues listed by the GAN reviewer? If so, it is probably best for you to comment on the GAN review page and let them know. That way they can finalise their review and either pass it or fail it. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll ask the reviewer to close it out. It was his first GA review. At the bottom he said it was a fail at the time. However, I did address his comments after the review. I'll leave a note here when it's closed out. Thanks! --Airborne84 (talk) 03:27, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The GA review is closed out. The article is ready for review here. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 09:38, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: I have only taken a quick look at the article, but these are the things that stand out to me at first glance:
    • in the lead, "SAMS planners have supported every major military campaign" --> "every major military campaign that the US has undertaken"?
    Clarified "U.S." military campaigns. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • is there a citation for this: "a second year away from the force to attend a school that had not yet proved its value in combat"?
    No, but I think this is relatively uncontroversial. It's identified that the school takes another year, and the next paragraph identifies that the first test in combat was yet to come. Unfortunately, the original source stated that, "This early in the development of SAMS, attending the School was still regarded as 'a slightly chancy thing to sign up for.' " with no elaboration. I saw the wording in the article as a transition passage as oppposed to abruptly ending the sentence with no explanation. If you think this is an issue, the wording can be deleted. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    A-class is meant to be just below FA, thus everything in the article should be referenced. As such, I'd suggest removing this if it can't be referenced. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I removed the unreferenced words. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • is there a citation for this: "This applies to both the AMSP and AOASF programs. In support of this mission, SAMS's leaders view AMSP as a three-phase program: (1) military intermediate level education at the United States Army Command and General Staff School (CGSS) or equivalent, (2) AMSP, and (3) a tour as an operational planner in the force."?
    No. I adjusted the wording to remove the attribution to SAMS' leaders. The new wording is a vanilla summary of what the last sections of the article describe. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    My suggestion then is to simply add the sources used in the last sections as references for this. You could use WP:NAMEDREFS if you want to avoid extra citations. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I removed the sentence. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • is there a citation for this: "Students from the United States Department of State can also be found at the school."?
    I added one. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • is there a citation for this: "and the focus of the course shifted toward the strategic level of war"?
    Probably not a published one. But I thought it was a reasonable way of stating what actually happened in light of following material such as: one of the goals of AOASF is to create "Creative leaders who can solve complex-adaptive problems at the strategic and theater-strategic levels of conflict." But if this passage is not reasonable without a citation, it can be removed. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Per my point above about A-class being just below FA. I'd suggest removing this if it can't be referenced. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I provided a reference. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • why is note # 52 different to the others?
    Changed. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • title: "The Course" --> "Course";
    Fixed. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • capitalisation: "Notable Graduates" --> "Notable graduates" per WP:Section caps;
    Fixed. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "File:School of Advanced Military Studies (crest).png": I think the source on this should be more specific if possible. For instance, was the image obtained from a website, or a book or magazine? If so, the url should be added, or the book title and page, etc. Currently, the source is just generically identified as "United States government";
    Clarified source. I checked WP:IMAGE and think the new source listed aligns with the guidance there. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I think that is ok. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "File:Eisenhower Hall - October 2012.jpg": as above. Is there a url source, or a book etc? Currently just generically listed as "United States Army";
    Clarified source. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "File:Classroom Activities, School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, 2 November 2010.jpg": as above.
    Clarified source. It is possible for me to list the Flickr page where this and the Eisenhower Hall photo are online, but I think that will just raise unnecessary questions. The Flickr page lists the images as copyrighted. However, the photographer assured me that the photos are in the public domain. Since he is a USG employee who took the photos in the normal course of his duties, the images are not subject to copyright. In any case, WP:IMAGE states that enough information should be listed for someone to verify the copyright information (in this case the fact that they are public domain). Anyone contacting the Fort Leavenworth PAO office can do that easily, so I think that satisfies the source requirement. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Seems fair, I'm not an image expert, though. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for your time! --Airborne84 (talk) 17:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • the duplicate link checker tool identifies a couple of potentially overlinked terms: Command and General Staff School, United States Army War College;
    I removed the redundant Wikilinks. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The United States Central Command requested planners from SAMS". When was this?
    I identified the timeframe. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • what is a "reachback planner"? This should probably be clarified as it seems like jargon;
    I removed the word. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Baker: added; Banach: added; Brown: has only Library of Congress Cataloging and a Center for Military History publication number; Benson: none available; Goble: none available because it is a monograph/thesis; High: added; Kretchik: added; Naylor: added; Romjue: has only Library of Congress Cataloging information; Scales: added; Stewart: same as Brown; Wass de Czege: two of three added. The report does not have an ISBN; West: added. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:47, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose My comments from the FAC don't appear to have been actioned: this article is still sourced to publications associated with this facility, and it isn't neutral. The article is also rather heavy on military jargon. Nick-D (talk) 04:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It would help me to make improvements if you could be more specific. I'm sure you don't mean that the use of a Command and General Staff College source by itself is POV. I suspect you are concerned with specific passages that may appear to promote the school from those sources. I crossreferenced the Command and General Staff College sources with passages in the article and found that most of the information from these sources appears in the "The course" and the "Curricula" section. But, after reviewing those sections, I see what seems to be mostly plain vanilla information. Could you provide a few examples of passages that you feel promote a POV? A couple of examples of military jargon that could be modified would be helpful as well. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 15:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I do think that the very heavy reliance on sources published by this school or directly related to it raises neutrality issues alone, especially as the main source is a "commemorative history" published by the school - such works tend to celebrate the successes of the institution they're commemorating, and are not neutral. Please see my comments in the FAC for more detail - the flat statement that graduates from this school were responsible for planning the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq really stands out given what a disaster this was: surely the school would have taken some criticism if its graduates were responsible for what happened in Iraq. Almost all the sources in the very positive 'Contributions' section were published by the school or are closely related to it. The article also still doesn't provide any real detail on what it is that this school teaches and how it goes about doing so. Nick-D (talk) 09:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. (1) I think I can address the last one about detail on what the school teaches, and that's a very reasonable point. I did read your comments on the FAC page again, and (2) regarding the sourcing, that puts the article in a challenging situation. Much of this information is not available in other published sources. To simply remove it will gut the article and almost certainly cause it to fall short of meeting A-class criterion A2 and FA criterion 1b. As an alternative, is it possible to retain the plain facts from these sources while addressing specific passages that might contribute to POV? (3) Perhaps you can give me some advice on how to proceed on the criticism section. I believe I did a fairly thorough literature review, enlisting the help of Fort Leavenworth's Combined Arms Research Library in ensuring it was comprehensive. I can check through the sources again, but I do not remember encountering any published criticism of the school other than some concerns in the school's early days about affecting officers' timelines (which I included in the article). I also did not find any published criticism of SAMS or its students regarding Iraq planning or planning of other mentioned campaigns. I am happy to include criticism of the school or its students since I understand that all notable points of view must be included in an article to avoid POV. But what options do we have if there is no published criticism? I suppose it's possible that I missed some, so if you are aware of some published criticism and can point me to it, I'll be more than happy to include it in the article. For my part, I will look carefully through the dissertation written by Benson on SAMS for anything on this, since I did not read it in its entirety in my lit review.
Again, I'm happy to make changes to the article to improve it, and I'm sure, given your history here, your comments are reasonable. I'm just generally at a loss as to how to proceed on 2 and 3 above and could use some advice. Thanks again for your time. --Airborne84 (talk) 11:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sources aligned to the school can be used to support for statements of fact, but not not opinion as is the case at present (note that according to this, Bensen was the director of SAMS, so his writing on the topic contains an obvious conflict of interest). If independent sources on the successes and failures of this institution don't exist, I'm afraid that it limits the scope for this to be able to reach A class status. I'd suggest trolling through works analyzing the planning of the recent wars the US has fought (for instance, quite a few books and journal articles on the Iraq War discuss how the failings of the US military's professional education program contributed to bad planning and bad tactics in the early years of the war, and how the lessons of the war have - quite impressively - been institutionalized since then). Nick-D (talk) 05:48, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As some starters, Tom Rick's blog The Best Defence is a RS which has a focus on the professional standards and education of the US military. The following New York Times stories also look useful: [1], [2] (which I think is an excerpt from a book), [3], [4]. This influential article doesn't single out SAMS, but is quite critical of the US Army's entire professional education system. This article also appears to have some material on SAMS. Nick-D (talk) 06:05, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It would be a shame if an article had a glass ceiling on Wikipedia due to a paucity of sources not related to the subject itself. I'll look at what you recommended, and take another look at the literature. If the works you mention talk about SAMS directly, I'll be happy to use them. If they only discuss general campaign planning failures or challenges in the US military's PME, it would violate WP:SYNTH for me to list them in the article and imply that they bear on SAMS. In any case, thanks for your advice. Best, --Airborne84 (talk) 09:19, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nick-D, I looked through the sources you listed. SAMS is mentioned briefly in them, but there is no link between SAMS and planning failures. There is also no link identified in any of the sources I turned up in my literature review. Can you provide a more in-depth explanation about how we can address shortfalls in military campaign planning or professional military education in relation to SAMS when there appear to be no published sources that provide that link? I don't see any way to avoid WP:SYNTH here and am unsure about how to address this particular concern. --Airborne84 (talk) 20:08, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am also ready to address the concern about the article not providing detail about what the school teaches and how it accomplishes that. But the sources available to do that are those you have pointed to as POV since they are published by the Command and General Staff College. I am hesitant to add the material if it only adds to your concern about the article's POV. Please advise. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 20:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't look like the article has had a CE and the whole article reads like a press release for the school. I support NickD here - its weird so many citations were attributed to a single source (book? article?) which doesn't have an identifier (no ISBN/OCLC#...I can't find it in Worldcat), and was written by one of the school's directors. 1/3 of the citations are from that source. Probably time to pull this review and rewrite. Kirk (talk) 18:26, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Material from the school is an OK source for what it teaches and how teaching is delivered. I guess that if no sources directly link SAMS to problems with the US Army's recent campaigns we can't draw that link, but I remain concerned about the overall positive tone of the article. Nick-D (talk) 01:21, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the concern about the citations from the 25-year history of the school. If those passages were replaced with similar (but probably not exactly the same) passages sourced from Kevin Benson's dissertation (the same author, but oversight by a dissertation committee from the University of Kansas), would that be acceptable as a source? --Airborne84 (talk) 07:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, as there's no getting around the problems with the former director of this institution writing a history of it (I'm surprised that the University of Kansas permitted him to write a PhD thesis on this topic). Nick-D (talk) 08:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. 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.
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