Talk:Battle of Byczyna/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Canadian Paul (talk · contribs) 00:17, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Just my kind of article to review. I'll get to this one hopefully tomorrow. There are no obvious reasons for quickfail and no issues with disambiguation or external links, so I should be good to go! Canadian Paul 00:17, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Comments:

1. Per WP:LEAD, the lead needs to adequately summarize the body of the article, which usually means touching upon each of the major sections. Currently there's nothing in the lead from the "Opposing forces" section, which would certainly be useful contextual information. Also, the lead should not introduce facts that are not present in the body of the article: currently I feel that the overarching theme (that it "was the deciding battle of the 1587–1588 War of the Polish Succession") is not wholly represented in the article itself.

1. Added ref for deciding in text. Expanded lead. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:29, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

1. Under "Background", first paragraph, "Bad blood between Zamoyski and the Zborowski family dated years past; tensions during the elections run high." The phrase "bad blood" seems a little colloquial in my opinion, so perhaps it could replaced with different phrasing?

1. Any suggestions? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:29, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

1. Under "Opposing forces", "Another of notable Polish supporters of Maximilan in this battle were Adam Czahrowski." You refer to him as notable, but he has no Wikipedia article in English, so there's no way for anyone to know who he was without looking him up independently. Even if there were a wikilink, however, I would still recommend adding a brief explanation as to who he is.

1. Added the word poet (pl:Adam Czahrowski). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:29, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

1. Same section, "Overall Maximilan's forces held the advantage in infantry, while Zamoyski's was in cavalry." This should be clarified - ie. was it a strictly numerical advantage? An advantage in experience? etc. - otherwise it sounds somewhat POV.

1. I added a little clarification. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:29, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

1. Under "Aftermath", first paragraph, "Soldiers of both sides were buried in mass graves and contemporary reports spoke of "many thousands" buried." Since this contains a direct quote, it requires a direction citation at the end of the sentence, even if it is a source used later in the paragraph.

1. "Soldiers of both sides were buried in mass graves and contemporary reports spoke of "many thousands" buried. " - unreferenced, I cannot trace it anywhere but pl wiki. Removed for now. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:29, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

1. Same paragraph, "Żółkiewski captured an enemy standard," "standard" should be wikilinked to the term that you are referring to because the average reader may not be familiar with this use of the word (in this case I didn't just do it myself because I wasn't 100% certain about the term you were referring to)

1. Linked to War flag. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:29, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

1. Same section, second paragraph, "Nonetheless, there would be no serious military tensions between the Commonwealth and the Hapsburgs, as each quickly became concerned with other issues." This requires a citation, because the rationale behind the lack of military tensions could be challenged. Also, this sentence is a bit vague overall - what other kind of issues concerned them? What is a "serious" military tension?

1. I will try to address this soon, but I may have limited wiki access for few days. I've removed this claim, it is true, as far as I know it, but I cannot find any good refs, and anyway, this is something that would be better discussed at War of the Polish Succession (1587–1588) than here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:29, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I went through and did a copyedit, but I'll go over it again to fix up some of the less obvious tricky spots once these concerns have been addressed. To allow for these issues to be addressed I am placing the article on hold for a period of up to a week. I'm always open to discussion so if you think I'm wrong on something leave your thoughts here and we'll discuss. I'll be checking this page at least daily, unless something comes up, so you can be sure I'll notice any comments left here. Once these concerns have been dealt with, I will review the article and point out additional changes needed to comply with Wikipedia's Good Article criteria. Canadian Paul 19:44, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Please let me know what else needs to be done, but I may not be able to reply till Friday. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:45, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the "bad blood", I can't make a definitive change without being able to read Polish, but perhaps something like "Zamoyski and the Zborowski family had been rivals for many years (possibly insert a brief explanation as to why here, but not necessary) and tensions...". Anyways, more comments:

1. Under "Background," second paragraph, "Zborowski called for the rokosz (legitimate right to rebel) and the election ended in chaos, with several killed and many wounded." Up until this point you've been referring to the Zborowski family, but here it looks like you are referring to one member of the family in particular. If a specific member of the family made the call, then it should be noted which one here. If it was just the family as a unit, then this should be rephrased "The Zborowski family..." Same thing later, "For both Zamoyski and Zborowski, losing was not an option," it reads as if you are referring to particular members of the Zborowski clan rather than the family as a whole.
2. You capitalize "Hetman" in the first paragraph of "Background", but not in the second paragraph of "The Battle", even though they are used in the same grammatical context. This should be standardized.

After this, it should be about ready to go. I'll give it another quick re-read once these points have been addressed, but overall it should be fine. Canadian Paul 18:26, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

All should be fixed now. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:34, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I now believe that this article meets the Good Article criteria and I will therefore be listing it as such. Congratulations and thank you for all your work! Canadian Paul 18:39, 7 July 2012 (UTC)