Talk:Black Hills National Cemetery/GA1

GA Review

Latest comment: 1 hour ago7 comments2 people in discussion

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Nominator: TCMemoire (talk · contribs) 10:12, 16 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Reviewer: Viriditas (talk · contribs) 02:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Status

Probably won't finish this up for a few days.

Placed on hold based on outstanding issues, but still in process of adding more.

Still finding outstanding issues. Fixing minor ones as I go.

Infobox

Looks good so far.

Lead

Prominent features of the cemetery include its committal shelter, where memorial services and events are held; and the Avenue of Flags leading up to it

That's an unusual transition using a semicolon, as it's intended for use with an independent clause without a coordinating conjunction. Both sides of the semicolon should be complete sentences. Think about rewriting this or just using a comma instead. For example, "Prominent features of the cemetery include its committal shelter, where memorial services and events are held, and the Avenue of Flags leading up to it."

Changed to comma.

History

Establishment

The cemetery was established from land that once formed part of Fort Meade...

Reference spot check on entire first paragraph confirmed.

Although Fort Meade had its own cemetery dating back to the 19th century, a number of factors prevented the VA from repurposing it...

Reference spot check on entire second paragraph confirmed.

The search for a new plot thusly continued.

No strong objections, but I'm fairly certain "thusly" is not needed here, and is considered somewhat controversial in writing guides. I'm fairly liberal when it comes to writing styles, but I think some people might otherwise object to it. When you remove the word, it appears that it was never needed in the first place. One way to deal with this is to merge it with the following sentence. "The search for a new plot continued until 1948, when a 105.9-acre (42.9 ha) area of land was identified south of Sturgis for the new burial ground."
One way that I tend to look at this kind of thing is to ask myself, "would the reader be surprised by this word in this way"? I think a modern reader might find it unexpected.

I went ahead and changed this.

Reference spot check on entire third paragraph failed. I was unable to verify some of the information in this paragraph. Please look at your notes and sources. For example, I did not see "105.9-acre (42.9 ha)" in the cited source, nor "Interstate 90".

Ok, I think I solved the I-90 issue. Apparently the sources only say "US 14", which is why I was confused. As it turns out, Wikipedia confirms that "I-90 enters South Dakota in Lawrence County as a four-lane divided highway. It enters concurrently with US Highway 14 (US 14)." We should link to Interstate 90 to solve this problem. As for the "105.9-acre (42.9 ha)", I'm still looking for this.

I've added a link to the first instance to clear up the confusion I felt and removed the link to the second.

Note, I'm continuing my concern with the "105.9-acre" figure below, in the section titled "National Register of Historic Places"

The first seven burials took place in private ceremonies held in September 1948...

Reference spot check on entire fourth paragraph confirmed.

Naming

For an unknown reason, paperwork filed in June 1948 named the new cemetery as the Fort Meade National Cemetery.

I don't think that particularly source says the reason is unknown, although there does appear to be some controversy that occurred. The cited source explains part of the reason on p. 8: "The Army dedicated the cemetery as the Fort Meade National Cemetery on October 3, 1948, due to its location on the former Fort Meade military reservation." More to your point about the unknown, the source goes on to say "At some point between Horkan/s 1947 visit [where he suggested it be named Black Hills National Cemetery] and the dedication [your sources about the dedication still show it being named Fort Meade National Cemetery] the new facility was named Fort Meade National Cemetery per Department of the Army". So perhaps it wasn't unknown? I think you could shed some light on this by getting a hold of Horkan's "Report of Visit to Fort Meade South Dakota" and citing his recommendation, although that's not necessary. But I do think asserting "unknown" might not be accurate unless the sources themselves say "unknown", which the cited source in question does not. However, there is additional support for your assertion that the change was unknown, because later the source says "The army reasoned that the name change was instituted to avoid confusion with the post cemetery that still existed on the Fort Meade reservation", which implies that Horkan's recommendation was either ignored or not acted upon. It would be great to have something more definitive. Viriditas (talk) 22:54, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Aside from the confusion and ambiguity over the use of the word "unknown", which I didn't find in the cited source, reference spot checks are confirmed for this section.

Dedication

Reference spot check confirmed.

Later history and expansions

By 1974, 5,000 burials had taken place

I've changed this to "approximately 5,000 burials" per the cited source.

Several expansions and developments have taken place in almost every decade since the cemetery's establishment, with improvements beginning almost immediately after its opening. The Omaha district of the Corps of Engineers oversaw most of the early developments.

This statement is supported by sources other than the one used, which is from 1951 and only discusses the first phase of a beautification program.

Pump house was also spelled pumphouse. I've fixed it for consistency to the Mehls (2016) preference for "pump house"
Works to find a reliable underground water source to support more vegetation were given priority

I just bought a new brand of coffee and it doesn't seem to be kicking in, so I apologize if I'm wrong here, but the use of "works" here just seems off to me. It's probably ok, but it sounds a bit too informal. I'm going to change it to "The search for a reliable underground water source..." if you don't object.

National Register of Historic Places

The entire cemetery[b] was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 17, 2016, under criterion A for historical importance

Footnote [b] says: "At the time of listing, the cemetery had not yet been expanded to its present size and measured only 105.9 acres (42.9 ha)." But the source cited here and elsewhere (Mehls 2016), says "The cemetery includes approximately 105.4 acres". I'm aware that other sources say 105.9, but we need to cite the current figure if the old one is wrong. FWIW, I ran into this same problem when I wrote the article on Pillar Point Bluff. What I found was that 95% of the sources had the wrong size of the park. This was because the park was acquired in small parcels over a very long period of time, and when it was finally complete, only a few sources had the final size listed. It was an odd situation. Viriditas (talk) 23:30, 2 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Notable interments

I think the sourcing should be made more explicit here. The initial source you cite for "Other notable graves include", only directly supports Windolph, Case, Ellsworth, King, and Wolf Guts. As for the additional four internments, I found mention of Abourezk and Janklow in the database system (which is a different link), but no indication of notability (not saying they are not notable, just not seeing the explicit source). I couldn't directly find anything about Dave Bald Eagle and John Charles Waldron. Perhaps the sourcing should be looked at and tightened up a bit here?

I think this needs to be addressed. One way forward is to start moving the sources inline rather than at the end of the paragraph. I just attempted to find a source for Dave Bald Eagle, and it looks like there are some out there, but they still aren't in this article (nor are they in his bio).

References

When you refer to multiple pages, use pp.

Fixed.

Criteria

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it well written?
A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:
Minor grammar issues.

B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
MOS:EMBED may or may not work here, but the sources need to be tightened up in either case. See concerns with sourcing in notable internment section.

See also could be merged into body.
Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?
A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:
"If one page number is being referred to, use the abbreviation p. for page. If there are multiple pages use pp. to represent pages". Fixed.

B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):
Failed spot check in history section. See above.

Failed spot check in notable internment section. See above.

C. It contains no original research:
No OR.

D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
No copyvio detected using Earwig

Spot checks reveal no issues.
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:
General scope.

B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
Focused.
Is it neutral?
It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
No neutrality issues identififed
Is it stable?
It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:
Stable
Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:
Free content rationales

B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
Captions have inconsistent formatting in "Later history and expansions". One way to do this is to use the date and the text in the same way
Overall:
Pass or Fail:
Placing on hold due to minor concerns detailed above. More issues to be added.

@Viriditas: Thank you for the review. Apologies for the delay, I had a chronic illness flareup and haven't been well enough to edit (the one I made on the 3rd sat in a browser tab for 4 days). I will get to work addressing these issues over the next couple of days. – T C Memoire 15:25, 5 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

There’s no hurry at all, so please take your time. I will extend the time limit to however long is needed, and I will try to help address the points above. I will be adding a few more things in a bit. As you can see, the concerns are minor and should be easily addressed. Viriditas (talk) 19:34, 5 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for understanding. I implemented some fixes and changed some wording for clarity, including:

Replaced For an unknown reason with However, in the second sentence of the Naming subsection. I'll be on the lookout for anything I can find to clarify the name confusion.
Added source for the Several expansions... wording but removed in almost every decade...
I also noticed the 105.9 vs. 105.4 discrepancy. I found two sources for the 105.9 acre figure, the 1974 booklet from the VA and the 2019 expansion press release from the VA. To be honest, I'm inclined to rely on the VA number over the NRHP number, as I find the nomination forms to generally be less reliable... although it seems this form was completed by a VA staff member. (Sure would be nice if they'd included a measured map of the district...) What do you recommend?
Added sources for each notable burial.
RE: See also: I'd prefer to keep the NRHP one, as listing it there is the standard for NRHP articles; I think the cemeteries link is fine where it is too, as I can't make it comfortably fit in the body. Wikilinking national cemetery in South Dakota to a list of *all* cemeteries would be misleading, and I wouldn't want to split the adjective-noun "national cemetery", per MOSLINK.

I'll do more in the next couple of days, bed time for me. – T C Memoire 23:02, 6 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

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