Talk:December 14, 1998, Albanian–Yugoslav border ambush

Milhist assessment

Just assessed this article, definitely B-Class. I have a couple of observations for progressing it to GA:

• the one-sided casualties indicates an ambush, but the description of a contact followed by a pursuit and an ambush doesn't make sense unless the JA used vehicles or aircraft to get ahead of the KLA.
• it needs some further background explaining that "Yugoslavia" was only Serbia and Montenegro at this time, and some history of the KLA insurgency, as well as the longer-term aftermath in Kosovo.

Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 21:24, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll get to these shortly. Regards, 23 editor (talk) 11:22, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

All done, I guess. Cheers, 23 editor (talk) 17:23, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:December 14, 1998 Albanian–Yugoslav border ambush/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: ErrantX (talk · contribs) 15:15, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll take this on. Reviewing now. --Errant ^(chat!) 15:15, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Lead

• Well-written lead, however it does not summarise the background section. A couple sentences of context on the Kosovo war would be beneficial

Background

• and ethnic tensions worsened; nothing has established, so far in the article, that there were any ethnic tensions (corollary; how could they have worsened?). I'm wary of recommending expanding this para but should it cover the ethnic tension a little?
• Albanian-language newspapers, television and radio stations were shut down, as were Albanian-language schools and colleges. All of the Albanian professors at the University of Pristina lost their jobs, as did hundreds of thousands of other Albanians working in state-owned companies.; this long sentence doesn't appear entirely relevant to the article topic, it could perhaps be summed up in a short sentence that indicates that Albanian culture was repressed.
• rump federation ; I'm not certain what that means?

Timeline

• As the militants turned back, they were ambushed; the crux of the article, but it is unclear to me if this is a planned ambush or not. Where the VJ laying in wait for the KLA or was it an ambush set up after the initial clash?
• Can the clash section be expanded any more? It's very short, and forms pretty much the core of the article...
• in three nearby villages; do you have the names of the villages?
• A member of the Kosovo Verification Mission ; does it need to be explained what this is?
• later took a team; allowed instead of took?
• and Holbrooke condemned it as an act of terrorism following a five-hour meeting with Milošević the following day; two followings, and the two parts of this fragment don't fully match up. My suggested change: The shooting appalled foreign emissaries. Following a five-hour meeting with Milošević, on the day after the shooting Holbrooke condemned it as an act of terrorism and described the situation in Kosovo as "very grave".
• The last paragraph of "Aftermath" seems hurried
  • I think it could be fleshed out a bit
  • The soldiers were freed in a U.S.-negotiated prisoner exchange five days later.; different KLA prisoners to the ones in this incident?

General comments

• I'd expect to see some sort of "this is what happened next" content, in the context of the wider Kosovo war (as a jumping off point to get into the next article).
• The article has quite a lot of comm-heavy and long sentences (as discussed in this guide). It might be worth revisiting some.
• References: sourcing spot check done and it all looks okay, external links look okay etc. My only comment is that there are a lot of in-sentence citations which makes the article very difficult to read (& edit). I appreciate the somewhat controversial nature of the subject but in-sentence citation for e.g. the date seems overkill (this is a mention only, not part of the GA criteria)

@23 editor:, that's my initial review. Overall a pretty good article & an interesting topic, written in an engaging style. I made some minor copyedits, please review them --Errant ^(chat!) 16:01, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Errant. I've addressed your comments to the best of my understanding and ability. As for the ambush itself, the KVM observer's statement makes it sound like the ambush was set up as the militants turned back to flee in the darkness. This is the most detailed account of the event that I have come across, and I concede it isn't perfect given it was delivered right on the scene. Since the event is only given a brief mention in a few academic sources I had to rely mostly on contemporary news reports (with all their shortcomings) and sift through vague, contradictory and even outright false assertions in those articles as I was researching the topic. I really don't know why no academics have chosen to write about this incident in detail. Until one does, this is probably the most comprehensive account of the event on the internet. What's there is there. 23 editor (talk) 19:32, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks that looks great. Just doing a source review now & pretty much that's it. --Errant ^(chat!) 10:09, 2 November 2015 (UTC)