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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Wau/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Nikkimaria 01:04, 13 April 2011 [1].

Battle of Wau edit

Battle of Wau (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:45, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A minor but important battle in the South West Pacific in New Guinea during the Second World War. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:45, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

NB: One disambig link is in the "For other uses" at the top. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

  • Do we really need that long two-paragraph quote from White?
  • Spell out or link acronyms like NAA
  • Missing bibliographic information for Watson 1958, Kenney 1949, Byrd 1997
  • Need publishers for web citations
  • Bibliographic information for Yoshihara is repeated
  • Notes 24, 29: formatting
  • Be consistent in how multiple editors are formatted
  • Publisher for Yoshihara?

In general, reference formatting needs a bit of work for consistency. Haven't done spotchecks, will do later if no one else beats me to it. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:18, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Very limited spotchecking found no close paraphrasing; however, I don't have access to many of the sources. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:21, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Comments:
    • in the Prelude section, the emdashes should be unspaced per WP:DASH;
    • there is some overlinking of terms, for instance in the Strategy section, "Rabaul" is linked a number of times;
    • in the Prelude, I suggest wikilinking the word "ace" to Flying ace as it might be a term that some readers won't understand;
    • I suggest wikiliking "platoon". AustralianRupert (talk) 02:45, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • All corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:25, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • All my concerns have been addressed. I made a couple of tweaks just now - please check that you are happy with them. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:33, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment:
    • I know it looks like a spelling error, but Ernest Mustard changed his name to Mustar later in life. See: Diane, Langmore (2002). "Mustar, Ernest Andrew (1893 - 1971)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. p. 655. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 29 March 2011. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
      • Arghh, He was still Mustar in 1927. (Where is Ian when I need him?) Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:30, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:
    • the New Guinea campaign box should auto collapse to remove whitespace in the article.
    • the pictures could be tweaked to remove other whitespace in the article.
    • FYI - I have linked and created some stub articles that relate to this article to help out. Newm30 (talk) 23:28, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Doesn't the campaign box collapse? It does for me when I click "hide". Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:16, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Another editor has set the default to collapsed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:19, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Captions could use editing for clarity.
  • The lead caption is copied almost verbatim from this source
  • File:Salamaua-Lae.jpg - any further information on this image's source?
    • Yes, it is from The Reports of General MacArthur Volume I, p. 106. Updated the page on commons. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Wau_Map.jpg - "However, not all materials in our holdings are in the public domain. Some materials found in our holdings may be copyrighted. Please note that it is your responsibility to identify the copyright owner and to obtain permission before making use of this material in any way." Have you ascertained that this specific image was created by a US Army employee?
    • Yes, it too is part of the Reports of General MacArthur. It was prepared by his staff in the late 1940s from a captured Japanese map. The reports were handed over to DOD in 1953 and published in 1966. The reports are in the public domain, as, for that matter, is the original Japanese map. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Wirraway_at_Wau_AWM128154.jpeg - caption for this image is copied almost verbatim from this source. This type of pl*giarism is quite concerning, given that as mentioned above I don't have access to many of the sources used for the article text. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:29, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hawkeye has a PhD in military history. These days, reviews in academia often involve gsearches to see if the candidate has ever been accused of anything nasty, and if they know he's called "Hawkeye" and they search for "pl*giarism", this will show up ... or it would have if I hadn't just edited your comment, Nikki. Please be careful with incendiary words; these days, nothing on the internet ever goes away. The word pl*giarism means, to anyone other than a few Wikipedia editors, deliberately attempting to pass off someone else's work as your own. No one who links to the exact caption that they're citing, and then submits the article for a careful image review, is attempting to pass off someone else's work as their own. Now, to the substance: the caption in the article is: "A Wirraway of No. 4 Squadron RAAF in flames after being set on fire by a near miss in the Japanese raid on Wau." Linked caption is: "WAU, NEW GUINEA. 1943-02-06. A WIRRAWAY FROM NO. 4 SQUADRON IN FLAMES AFTER BEING BLASTED AND SET ON FIRE BY A NEAR MISS IN THE JAPANESE RAID AT WAU. THE CREW, FLIGHT SERGEANT A. RODBURN AND SERGEANT A. E. COLE, SCRAMBLED FROM THE AIRCRAFT ONLY A FEW SECONDS EARLIER AND THREW THEMSELVES FLAT ON THE GROUND. COLE RECEIVED A MINOR SHARPNEL WOUND IN THE SHOULDER. (PHOTOGRAPH REPRODUCED IN OFFICIAL HISTORY VOLUME: RAAF 1939-42, PAGE 611). (RAAF - WAU5/6)." The only part that's problematic is: "set on fire by a near miss in the Japanese raid". Agreed, my sense of WP's copyright policy is that that's too much; it needs to be reworded. And I have no objection to using the word "copyright" here, that's very unlikely to turn up in a gsearch of Hawkeye's edits 10 years from now. - Dank (push to talk) 17:10, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Point taken about the wording; however, given that the other caption mentioned above is also a near-verbatim copy, I think this is an issue that needs to be addressed (although not one that should have real-world repercussions). Nikkimaria (talk) 19:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thanks for being gracious about it; I regretted coming at you with both barrels, but this issue just doesn't die on Wikipedia and it's very frustrating. It affects morale. Agreed that Hawkeye needs to address this, and thanks for bringing it up. I'm not personally concerned that this is a pattern of his, based on his extensive work; I think this is a rare thing. - Dank (push to talk) 19:22, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Thank you. Much appreciated. The War Memorial puts the photographs up with the original captions. So both photograph and caption are in the public domain. Changed the caption. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
            • My mistake, I thought there was a WP:Copyright problem. - Dank (push to talk) 23:05, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
              • Thankfully not - if there was a copyvio issue, we'd have to do some serious revdeleting, including your copy of the source above. This is a paraphrasing problem, which isn't as big a deal, but is still best avoided. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. A-class review is here. - Dank (push to talk) 03:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • It's possible reviewers will object to the length of the block quote; if so, I'd paraphase the first paragraph of the block quote and keep the second paragraph.
    • I'd like to keep White's vivid prose if I can. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:53, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't add dashes to sentences with no commas per WP:EMDASH.
    • Except that there are still two instances in the next paragraph, where I would have used commas. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:53, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Right; when there's more than one thing to fix in a sentence, and at least one of them needs input, I generally just leave it until the questions are answered. - Dank (push to talk)
  • The one instance of this that I left alone was the sentence containing "a maximum effort at the time"; I think I'd like something more specific than that. Was it all the planes available, all the crews available, or something else?
    • All the aircraft that could be made flyable.
  • Is "low clouds" or "low cloud cover" acceptable? I didn't like "low cloud", though I might not know what it means.
    • That is fine. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:53, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've changed two of your changes:
        1. I did not want to say "Walker's plane" because I did not want to give the impression that he was piloting it, or co-piloting it, (which he could have done) or that it was the plane he usually flew.
        1. I did not want the wording to give the impression that Blamey was committing the 17th Brigade recklessly, but on his own appreciation of the situation. We need to agree on a wording. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:53, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I really like your current wording, and I now see your point. - Dank (push to talk) 14:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on prose per standard disclaimer. - Dank (push to talk) 04:12, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator has withdrawn this nomination. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:03, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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