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Talk:Lord Kitchener Wants You/GA1

< Talk:Lord Kitchener Wants You
Latest comment: 9 years ago by Hchc2009 in topic GA Review

GA Review edit

Latest comment: 9 years ago53 comments2 people in discussion
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Reviewer: Hchc2009 (talk · contribs) 16:43, 6 December 2014 (UTC)Reply


I'll read through properly tomorrow and start the review then. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:43, 6 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the work on the changes etc. I've made one final non-GA recommendation below which would enable the sfn template links to work correctly, and one final GA recommendation on the captions - be interested in your thoughts. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:55, 20 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
I made the changes requested. Sometimes I'm not a fan of MOS. Thanks for pointing out the sfn/harv issues. This is actually something I've just been picking up in the past two weeks; I've been doing this citation style wrong up till now. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:18, 20 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
And passed! I've fixed one last bit of the cite journal format. Many thanks for all your efforts on this, Hchc2009 (talk) 08:35, 22 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Well-written:

(a) the prose is clear and concise, respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct;

  • "Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, recruiting posters had not been used on a regular basis since the Napoleonic Wars and UK government advertisements for contract work were handled by His Majesty's Stationery Office. Rather than pay the government rate to newspaper publishers, the Stationery Office contracted this work to R. F. White & Sons publishers." - the two halves of the first sentence didn't flow well for me as the two bits felt quite distinct. Would it be smoother as "Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, recruiting posters had not been used in Britain on a regular basis since the Napoleonic Wars. UK government advertisements for contract work were handled by His Majesty's Stationery Office, who passed this task onto the publishers of R. F. White & Sons in order to avoid paying the government rate to newspaper publishers."?
  • "J. E. B. Seely, then the Secretary of State for War, awarded Sir Hedley Le Bas, Eric Field, and their Caxton Advertising Agency a contract to advertise for recruits in the major UK newspapers." - was this a change from the arrangement with R. F. White and sons mentioned in the previous sentence? If so, it probably needs some sort of clarification, e.g. "This changed in XXXX, when J. E. B. Seely...", otherwise it isn't clear when it's happening.
    •   Done I tweaked the text based on the source material. Contracts had been expanded to include other firms, too. It wasn't an exclusive arrangement. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • " Coat of Arms of King George V" - worth linking Coat of Arms and George V.
  • "the prototype full-page advertisement" - should this be "a prototype...", as its the first mention of it?
  • "German Empire " - worth linking
  • "in newspapers owned by Lord Northcliffe" might just be me, but I'd have gone for "in those newspapers owned by Lord Northcliffe"
  • "According to one author," - if it's important that we specify it's one author's opinion, I'd strongly recommend saying whose it is.
    •   Done He's just an author from the look of it. I used the phrase "one author" because it's an interesting point about how the poster came to be, but the story could be apocryphal. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • "In time, Le Bas formed an advisory committee " - what sort of time span are we talking about here? I couldn't work out if this was in the subsequent weeks, or was something that happened over the course of the war.
    • The source isn't clear. It says "as time passed..." It was probably over a couple months but it's hard to say. I could remove "in time" if that's causing confusion. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • "Alfred Leete designed the image as a cover illustration" - we're half way through the section here and it hasn't been mentioned yet, so I'd advise spelling out which image "the image" is, e.g. "designed the famous image of Lord Kitchener as a cover illustration" or something like that
  • " taking cues from earlier recruiting advertisements" - are these earlier advertisements in general, or it referring to ones already mentioned in the article? (if the former, which ones?; if the latter, I'd clarify it, e.g. "taking cues from the earlier recruiting advertisements by Field")
  • "designed" - personally I wouldn't have linked this, as it is a fairly common verb
  • "Recruitment posters in general have often been seen as a driving force helping to bring millions of men into the Army." - it was unclear from this if this was the Army, as a generic Army, or specifically the British Army. If its the British Army, "millions of men" might paint a slightly misleading picture; I think only two million had voluntarily enlisted by the end of 1916, with conscription beginning very shortly afterwards.
    • I'm speaking generally of recruitment posters across all human civilization. The source is only talking about the use of posters in recruiting, not about how many. Shall I remove "millions of"? Chris Troutman (talk) 16:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • "The great base of Nelson's Column is covered with them." - I think the MOS is against wikilining inside direct quotes like this
    • It is but I think this is an important exception. Nelson's Column isn't so well-known that the general reader will know what it is. Without knowing what it is the sentence doesn't have much value. I can reword the sentence but I thought including a link inside a quote (especially when it doesn't twist the meaning of the quote) would be harmless. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • "The placement of the Kitchener poster designed by Alfred Leete has been examined and questioned following an Imperial War Museum publication in 1997 suggesting that the poster itself was a 'non event' and was made popular by postwar advertising by the war museum." - this felt like quite a long sentence. "non event" should be in double speech marks under the MOS guidance, btw.
  • "The placement of the Kitchener poster designed by Alfred Leete..." I thought the wording in this paragraph could lead the reader to miss the point that Taylor was talking about one specific version of the poster? The cited Telegraph article seems to be talking about the poster with the wording "Your Country Needs You" and the pointing finger - "...Mr Taylor’s book shows how the Kitchener image did inspire similar posters, which were used, including one, which was produced by LO, with the word BRITONS, above the same picture of the Field Marshal pointing, with the words “wants YOU – Join Your Country’s Army!”, beneath, and the words ‘God Save The King’ printed along the bottom..." Given that the "BRITONS" version is used as the lead image of the article and duplicated below, it would be easy to assume that this paragraph was talking about all the versions of the Leete poster, rather than just the version with the "YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU" text on it. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:04, 11 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
    •   Done I tweaked the wording. I hope that fixes the problem. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

(b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

  • The article uses the abbreviation "ad"; I'd normally expect this to appear as "advertisement" in an an encyclopedia article, excepting where it's in a quote, of course. Happy to be contradicted if the literature prefers "ad" though.
    •   Done I did this because it was easy (leaving one instance where it's a quote) but I don't think use of the word "ad" violates WP:CONTRACTIONS. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • "11 vertical inches two columns wide" - any chance of a metric equivalent? (NB: I'd have put a comma between inches and two, but that might just be me). Hchc2009 (talk) 08:21, 9 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Factually accurate and verifiable:

(a) it provides references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout;

(b) it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines;

  • I'm assuming that the rule for the bibliography is that volumes that are cited more than once, with different page numbers, go into the bibliography; other books and articles don't? Hchc2009 (talk) 08:21, 9 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
    • I'd point to WP:CITESHORT. As a matter of brevity I use {{sfn}} for books from which I use multiple different pages, putting the long source information into the "references" section. Since all the in-line citations output to the same section, the single-use or single-reference information gets dumped there as well. I've never seen complaints against this as the only issue is between using in-line or parenthetical referencing. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • It wasn't a complaint; MOS:CITE doesn't specify any particular style, just checking that I'd understood what the pattern was in this case. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:39, 10 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • It's not a GA requirement, but the "automatic link" bit of the sfn template used in the article is slightly off in places because of the formatting. {{sfn|Welch & Fox|2012|pp=48-49}}, for example, won't link properly; it's easy to fix, it just needs to be {{sfn|Welch|Fox|2012|pp=48-49}} The cite book details are slightly off as well; if you want the sfn template to link to the joint editors, it needs to be formatted as *{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=lF7nAR9IpCUC|title=Justifying War: Propaganda, Politics and the Modern Age |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]|editor-first1=David |editor-last1=Welch|editor-first2=Jo|editor-last2=Fox|year=2012|accessdate=2014-03-04|isbn=9780230246270|ref=harv}} Surridge is missing the year from his citation, which is why the sfn links aren't linking to him successfully. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:55, 20 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  Done Chris Troutman (talk) 17:18, 20 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

(c) it contains no original research.

Broad in its coverage:

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic;

  • While this isn't a biography of Kitchener, I think it would be worthwhile explaining briefly for the casual reader who he was, and why he was a suitable face to put on the poster, in terms of his public war record in the Sudan and his uber-masculine image. Justifying War: Propaganda, Politics and the Modern Age edited by David Welch and Jo Fox, has a chapter on "Justifying 'New Imperialism'" which covers a lot of this, as does chapter two of British Army Uniform and the First World War: Men in Khaki by Jane Tynan (both available on Google Books if you need them online).
    • I protest. I'm looking into more source material, including the excellent suggestions you've made. I'd like to point out that what "would be worthwhile" is not a criterion for GA. While it would improve the article what you're asking for is standards-creep. A-class and FA grade the "comprehensiveness" of articles. While I doubt you're going to give me much choice in the matter I request you reconsider how you look at GA criteria. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:52, 12 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • In Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion, by Randal Marlin, he cites the Imperial war museum review II article by Hiley cited in the Wikiarticle, saying that Hiley states that this advertisement copied a previous BCV one (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Zp38Ot2g7LEC&pg=PA39&dq=Propaganda+and+the+Ethics+of+Persuasion+kitchener&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GASIVO72GsSwUa-cgfgL&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=kitchener&f=false). I don't know if this is worth putting in or not? (I don't have access to the Hiley original).
    •   Done I was able to find a 1915 magazine that made that claim. I couldn't find the actual BCV ad to compare them. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:38, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • Might also be worth mentioning that Kitchener died during the war (again, doesn't need much, but some readers will want to know "what happened to the man in the poster"). Hchc2009 (talk) 08:39, 10 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
  • Is it worth explaining somewhere in the first paragraph that Britain didn't exercise conscription at the start of the war? I suspect this might not be known by some readers. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:04, 11 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Illustrated, if possible, by images:

(a) images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content;

  • A bit of work required on the image tags:
  • File:King and Country Need You.JPG needs a valid UK copyright tag.
  • File:Denikin poster.jpg needs a valid Russian tag (plus an author's date of death if depending on the life + 70 rule) and a valid US tag (if depending on the pre-1923 rule, you'll also need the date when the Russian poster was published/circulated in the US).
  • File:Dmitry Moor 1920 Did you volunteer.jpg. No publication date given for the US pre-1923 rule to apply to.
  • File:Cartaz Revolucionário.jpg needs a US tag.
  • File:IntegralismoCartaz1937.jpg needs a US tag, and the author/death details for the life + 70 to apply to.
  • File:Dmitry Moor 1941 What have you done to help the front.jpg needs an explanation for why the US tag applies to it (it was clearly not published before 1923, if it is a 1941 poster)
  • File:Are You doing all you can 1942.jpg should be justified under the "work of a US federal employee tag"
  • File:Buy Your Victory Bonds. Color poster. Issued by Victory Bond Committee, Ottawa, Canada., ca. 1917 - NARA - 516338.jpg needs a valid Canadian and US tag (it is currently listed as the work of the US government, which is clearly incorrect). Hchc2009 (talk) 12:51, 7 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
I don't see where WP:IUP specifies having multiple tags. Each image has a tag indicating permission for use so I don't understand why you think more is necessary. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:22, 7 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
An image hosted purely on the Wikipedia only needs to be tagged for the US, but for those images hosted on the Wikicommons, tags are needed for both the image's country of origin and the US (assuming these are different). File:King and Country Need You.JPG, for example, was authored in the UK, but its only tag asserts that it is in the public domain in the United States; for the file to be properly tagged, it also needs something to explain why it is copyright free in the UK (e.g. a Crown Copyright tag). Hchc2009 (talk) 18:16, 7 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
Again, can you point me to the relevant guidance? Chris Troutman (talk) 18:21, 7 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
[1] gives a good background to the Commons tagging system. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:10, 7 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
I was unaware of that policy. I'm disappointed it's come to this. I fixed the tag on "king and country" and removed the others since the authors are either unknown, haven't died long enough ago, etc. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:51, 8 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

It can be frustrating, and it is one of the problems with the low quality control on the Commons - a lot of copyrighted images have ended up there, albeit often unintentionally, having been uploaded in good faith. Where authors have died reasonably recently and an image is still copyrighted, we're usually a bit stuck - someone owns the rights to the image, and its not free. It's possible to deal with unknown/anonymous authors, but each country does have its own specific requirements on how that's done, which can take time to work through. In some cases, like the UK, the process is fair, but fiddly and involving a fair bit of research; in some other countries the national laws look a bit arbitrary to me, but potentially can at least be pretty simple to implement. I'd always recommend asking the Commons help pages if there is a specific image you need help with, or Nikkimaria on this wiki (she does a lot of the FA image reviews, and is extremely knowledgeable). In some cases it can be worth considering moving an image onto the English Wikipedia (although I'd never advise someone to break their own national copyright laws in the process). Hchc2009 (talk) 15:22, 8 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Dmitri Moor will have been dead 70 years come 2016, so at least some of them can get re-added then. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:14, 9 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

(b) images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

  • I believe there a slight issue with the new caption "This image, an official product of the Parliamentary Recruitment Committee, was the most popular recruitment poster at the time having been printed ten times the volume of Leete's image..." I'm not convinced this complies with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions, which encourages succinct captions; succinct doesn't equal short, but I think the long paragraph here is misplaced, and should be in the main text (or potentially in an explanatory note). What do you think? Hchc2009 (talk)
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