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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Operation Winter '94/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 GrahamColm 00:43, 23 July 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Operation Winter '94

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Operation Winter '94 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Tomobe03 (talk) 20:09, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it recently completed MILHIST A-class review and benefited from subsequent improvements. The Operation Winter '94 was a battle fought in late 1994 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it is considered to be very significant to resolution of the Croatian War of Independence. Tomobe03 (talk) 20:09, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Be consistent in whether flag icons link
  • No flags in the "Belligerents" bit contain links, all flags in the "Commanders and leaders" bit do. {{flag}} and {{flagicon}} parameters prevent more consistent solutions than this.
  • File:Bihac_Pocket_1994-1995.svg: what base map was used to create this image?
  • Sourcing info added.
  • An unfortunate result of conflation of data pertaining to 2002 and 2003 editions of the book. Since I'm looking at the 2002 edition here, the ref in the article is adjusted accordingly. [2]--Tomobe03 (talk) 22:26, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the review. I tried to address all three issues.--Tomobe03 (talk) 23:02, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Crisco 1492

Addressed comments moved to talk page

Oppose - Dank (push to talk)

  • I'm sorry, you're doing a big pile of excellent work and I will support your efforts in any way I can, but unless I can get more help with the prose, I don't see this passing FAC.
  • "The wars were caused by ethnic tensions": See WP:Checklist#because. If ethnic tensions alone caused wars, the whole world would be at war all the time.
    • Looking at that once again (of course you have a point there), I'm wondering if that particular sentence actually contributes anything to comprehension of the lead and if the lead would be better off without it entirely.
  • "The operation was under the nominal command of HVO Major General Tihomir Blaškić; however, because the bulk of the attacking force consisted of HV forces the operation was in practice commanded by HV Major General Ante Gotovina.": Problems here with "however", "in practice" and "because". To fix it, I need to know if Blaškić commanded the HVO troops.
  • "a salient": a salient (a "bulge") [IMO, this clue isn't necessary when "salient" doesn't appear in the lead, the link is sufficient.]
    • I'm not clear which clue are you referring to. At first I thought you mean that the prose contains the word "bulge" to explain term "salient", but I found none. Could you please clarify this.
  • "HV/HVO": WP:MOS and Garner's agree that slashes are generally a bad idea. Come up with some phrase that represents the joint forces, and use that throughout.
    • Since the HV stands for "Croatian Army" and the HVO stands for "Croatian Defence Council" (Bosnian Croat Military) would "joint Croatian forces" or "combined Croatian forces" be an acceptable term?--Tomobe03 (talk) 16:04, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Since it's repeated so often, my vote would be "Croatian forces", unless reliable sources have settled on some other term. - Dank (push to talk) 16:21, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Agree. In Croatia those were normally referred to as "hrvatske snage" which literally means "Croatian forces". I found a couple of instances of "združene hrvatske snage" (here) and literally translated "joint Croatian forces" (here), but simple "Croatian forces" has the virtue of brevity.--Tomobe03 (talk) 16:27, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "drove back the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) frontline": pushed back the front line of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS)
    • Reworded as suggested, except using the acronym only because the full name is used ahead of this sentence now.
  • IMO, the lead fails at its primary job, which is to concisely and efficiently tell the reader what Operation Winter '94 was supposed to do and what it did. The reader can eventually figure it out, but they have to digest 4 paragraphs to find out that the operation was part of a series of operations that succeeded in gaining strategic high ground and cutting off an important supply line.
    • Rewritten and condensed now. Could you have another look at the lead please? I'm thinking of removing the sentence starting with "Major General..." and the one following it - i.e. the final two sentences in the lead. That is because don't see them contributing much to comprehension of the lead, or contributing to the "primary job" of the lead (as you nicely expressed it). Would that be too much or just right?--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:27, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "was followed by the HV-launched Operation Leap 1 ..., which improved the HV/HVO positions": "HV-launched" is ambiguous.
    • Reworded per HV/HVO issue above.
  • I'll stop there. - Dank (push to talk) 14:03, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for taking time to review the article. I'll try to improve the prose as much as I can. I'll start off with the concerns raised above and the lead as a whole. Could you please provide clarification to the point I commented on above?--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Continuing. "which took place in": fought in
  • "respectively": The word is misused here; delete it.
  • "It was one in a series": Operation Winter '94 was the first in a series
  • "a substantial force as well as planning and officers to command the offensives": Would "a substantial force, including commanding officers" be insufficient?
    • I suppose so.
  • "The series of attacks were": "series" is singular. One fix would be: "The attacks were"
  • "The attack pushed back": Operation Winter '94 pushed back
  • "Operation Winter '94 was followed": The first operation was followed
  • "It put the them"; ", allowing them"
  • "in positions from where it could directly threaten": to directly threaten
  • "and secured": and to secure
  • "Major General Ante Gotovina ... remarked that the offensive and Operations Leap 1 and Leap 2 formed a unified military action.": Generally, this kind of quote suggests that this was one opinion. In reply to your question above, yes, I'd delete this sentence from the lead unless there was some significant controversy on this point, but keep the last sentence. - Dank (push to talk) 18:01, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Frankly, I found no specific mention of a controversy or differing opinions on that. I only found statements which appear to echo this one. How about I reword the beginning of the first sentence in the Aftermath section from "Gotovina noted that..." to "Gotovina expressed his opinion that..." and remove the sentence in the lead?
  • Okay, I see you didn't like (or missed) one of my suggestions. The text now says: "The operation formed part of the Croatian War of Independence and the Bosnian War fought between Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and two unrecognized para-states proclaimed by Croatian Serbs and Bosnian Serbs. Both para-states were supported by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serbia. The JNA pulled out in 1992, but transferred much of its equipment to the Bosnian Serb and Croatian Serb forces as it withdrew. [new paragraph] It was the first in a series of successful advances ...". How will the reader know that "It" means "the operation"? - Dank (push to talk) 12:50, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Missed it completely. Sorry. Implemented now.
  • "allowing to directly threaten": allowing them to directly threaten
  • "to secure": and to secure
  • I got down to the end of the lead. - Dank (push to talk) 12:57, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Query Does the nominator intend to continue working on this article? I'd like to leave feedback but it looks like progress has stalled and much of Dank's feedback hasn't been addressed. --Laser brain (talk) 12:59, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi Andy, thanks for having a look. I only looked at the lead, and I'm satisfied with those results. - Dank (push to talk) 13:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, I'd prefer to keep the oppose, based on how much work went into fixing the lead. In the first section, I see:
    • "parts of the Lika, Kordun": all of Kordun or parts of Kordun?
    • "asked the federal Presidency declare"
    • "came under control of": add "the"
    • "preferring a campaign to expand Serbia rather than preservation of Yugoslavia". - Dank (push to talk) 16:15, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, 1a. This is very difficult to read. There are a lot of grammatical niggles. On a larger scale, however, the narrative is extremely confusing. I've read the Background section three times now and I still can't discern why some things are tossed into paragraphs. On the surface you've presented a chronological background, but the paragraph organization is not discernible. Some random things in addition to examples already mentioned above:
  • "Following the 1990 electoral defeat of the government of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, ethnic tensions worsened" This is a comparative statement that provides nothing to compare.
  • "This was followed by two unsuccessful attempts by Serbia" Avoid use of the vague "this" in reference to something previously mentioned. This what?
  • "the JNA remained on Croatian territory"
  • "However, Serbia continued to support the RSK." The narrative is so dense that I can't determine what contrast the "however" is supposed to be making.
This looks to suffer from too little attention from fresh editors. Please get someone new to fix the micro and macro problems. A surface copyedit will not be enough—some major revisions to the narrative and paragraph structure are needed. --Laser brain (talk) 16:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's completely true. I tried to draw few editors to pitch in, but that is no simple affair (but I must thank Peacemaker who was very kind to provide help). At this point, it seems the nomination might as well be withdrawn. I'd like to apologize if any of the reviewers, who volunteered their time and efforts here, got the impression that the article was prepared carelessly. I'm not a native speaker of English, and there's so much I can do to the prose quality. GOCE requests take months to process (GOCE copyedited the article) and the results there may not necessarily be adequate. Copyeditors who volunteer at the GOCE do not normally accept direct requests for assistance (quite understandably) and I can't make that much difference on my own. The objections to the article are quite justified, but they're not practically actionable for me right now - therefore the only reasonable thing to do is withdraw the nomination. Cheers.--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:13, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comment -- Tks Tomobe, and reviewers -- I'll archive the nom and hope you can get some input from other editors prior to returning to FAC after the usual minimum two-week break. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk)

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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